On Privilege, Sexism, and Anger

I tried several times to write a post about the reaction on the atheist blogosphere to Rebecca Watson's accusations of pervasive sexism in the atheist community. You had better look at her account of it here, but I can summarize briefly. Watson was at a skeptics conference in a Dublin hotel. At 4:00 am she announced that she was tired and wanted to go to bed. As she got on the elevator to go to her room, a man followed her in. During the ride up he invited her to his room. She declined and in a subsequent event recounted this event in order to discuss sexism in the atheist community; the context of that discussion was a talk on sexism in the religious right.

I feel like I have a lot more to say about the words privilege, oversensitive, and overreaction, but in all honesty I can't do it. I'm tired of the whole conversation. I know lots of people who say they are sick of feminism. I'm sick of it, too, but for a different reason: I'm so so so bloody sick of the need for the same basic discussions over and over again. I'm sick of people--mainly men, sometimes women--refusing to listen. I'm sick of people claiming that a discussion about sexism is off-topic (especially when the topic you wish you were discussing was about how it's bad that the religious right is sexist). I'm sick of people taking a conversation about semantics and the history of words--a conversation I think is very helpful and important--to use it as a way of fudging out of the real problems (note: that is a non-atheist example, but the comments are an excellent example of the sort of blindess I'm seeing). I'm sick of people who seem to be trying to give perfect examples of speaking from privilege. I'm sick of people claiming they don't have privilege when what they only seem to lack is superpowers. I'm sick of it all. I want to give it all up.

But more than that, I am furious. First of all, I'm flabbergasted that people don't see how it's a problem to corner a woman in an elevator in the middle of the night and proposition her. If you don't bother to think through how this would look to the woman, there's something really wrong with your methods. This makes you blame-worthy. Not because she felt creeped out, but because you did not do anything to mitigate the possibly creepiness. I'm flabbergasted that this doesn't seem more obvious to people. But as an extention of this I'm furious. Absolutely blood-boilingly angry. All I can see right now is that those who are saying this is not an issue of sexism or is not worth talking about (and, worst of all, that it is an issue of sexism and it's still not worth talking about) are being deliberately obtuse, are outright refusing to listen. Which is why I can't write those posts I wanted to write. Which is why I need to write this post instead.

It's strange. I'm familiar with the discourse around angry feminism. That is, of course feminists are angry; they have an awful lot to be angry about. Asking them to be calm and considered is too much to expect (and not because they're crazy hormonal women but because they have too many legitimate grievances to not be angry). In fact, accusing them of not being "reasonable" continues, albiet unintentionally, a historical line of sexism. But I've never been angry before. Then again, I've never been as interested in gender issues as I am right now. There's a personal history behind that, but nonetheless I am realizing how horribly frustrating this absolute refusal to understand really is. And yet it's clear that anger is not going to help right now. For the first time I think I begin to see the real importance of finding a place for emotion in discourse about such issues, including the academic discourse I am most used to. [Note: most of the feminists in this particular discussion have been very calm, collected, and reasonable. I'm just saying that I'd understand if they were otherwise.]

Part of what infuriates me, of course, is that while all of this is going on in the atheist blogosphere I know that folks in that quarter will still criticize religion for being sexist. I don't know what bothers me more, that people will claim that there isn't a huge sexist issue in atheism and from that position of supposed security critique religion, or that people who know perfectly well that this problem exists still level those critiques against religion. I do know that religious institutions are sexist and have been sexist in ways the atheist community isn't, but I still think that community had better do some serious housecleaning before pointing fingers. Glass houses, eh?

But this is not what makes me most angry. No, what makes me most angry is accusations of overreacting, is the utter failure to listen. That more than anything makes me angry these days, the failure to listen, the utter arrogance required for people to shut out others' experiences in order to hold their own not-very-considered armchair philosophizing. This is a rampant problem, one that promises to make me angry (or forlorn, depending on my mood) again and again and again.

I'm at a loss. I don't know what to do with this anger. One thing I did is go through this post and cut out all of the cusswords. And another thing I'm doing is reflecting on how my education in a liberal English literature department has helped me see past my own privilege, and how other people who have not been as educated to consider things from other people's perspectives may not find it so easy to do so. Another thing I'm doing, hopefully, is letting women who are hurt by this whole issue know that I'm angry on their behalf. But otherwise I don't know how to move forward, how to make all of this OK. I probably can't, and that's what's scaring me the most.

[Edit: I should also point out that I realize I might be unwarranted in my some of my anger. That's what makes it difficult.]

7 Quick Takes (76)

I'm doing a 7 Quick Takes for the last month or so. Wow. This should be fun.

1. I returned to Fort McMurray for a brief time to visit friends and family. I'm still here as I write this but I won't be here for much longer. As usual, I'm staying with the folks.

2. Twice now we have gone to Elk Island National Park. This is a lesser known park near Edmonton. We did not see a single elk in the park, but we did see numerous bison. The first time we stayed in Edmonton; the second time we camped in the park itself. It was sometimes difficult to sleep because the ducks and geese and frogs and coyotes did not observe the 11 o'clock quiet hours. So the frogs chorused and the geese honked and the coyotes howled and yipped. The second time we also visited the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. This Village is one of those where everyone acts like a historical person, refusing to acknowledge that it's 2011 rather than the 1920's. I suppose many people find this sort of thing annoying but I rather enjoyed it. Perhaps it is because I liked to hear them talk in their fake Ukrainian (or, in one case, British) accents. I learned things about Orthodox church architecture, too; did you know that Orthodox churches have their belltowers detached from the church as part of a separate structure because they do not allow instruments in the church and the bell counts as an instrument? I had not known this.
This was all quite exciting, but in trying to take supermacro photos of water insects, I managed to get water on my camera which eventually culminated in its permanent damage. Now the photos it produces are wonky. However, it was an excellent final shoot for my dear camera. I got clear macro shots of spiders, frogs, dragonflies, and water striders. I might put some of these up at some point.

3. My summer plans, as I think I indicated before, include lots of reading and writing. I am treating this sort of work like a full-time job. You can go over my reading to date here, though I should also add that I have been reading some blogs, particularly Experimental Theology, philosiology, Unequally Yoked, and the best in us. (That last is more of a personal project of a friend relating to people he knows, so it may hold less interest for random Internet people. Perhaps it holds some value for you as a project, though--writing nice things about people he knows--so you may want to look at the mission statement.) I have also been reading and editing a manuscript for a friend's writing project. Where writing is concerned, I wrote a draft of an academic article and am now working on Creative Writing, though I must shamefacedly admit that I spend more time writing journal entries and letters. My tendency to go on theoretical diversions means that I am, at least, thinking.

4. Fort McMurray has been dreadfully smoky. There are forest fires all around us. The one in Slave Lake got news attention, but there is also an enormous one north of us. The wind often carried think clouds in to the city, preventing me from running outdoors. It's worrying and inconvenient, but at least our community hasn't been destroyed.

5. My birthday occured. The most noteworthy things concerning this event are going to see Thor, having a picnic in the park, and getting The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. If you are a fan of Calvin and Hobbes, I encourage you to see this series Dr. Beck produced giving a theological reading of it. (If I'm not careful I will start recommending it as often as Leah does a certain Harry Potter fanfiction.) If you are not a fan of Calvin and Hobbes, I encourage you to become one. Otherwise my birthday was very quiet. I will have a joint (half-)birthday party with a friend in Vancouver when I return.

6. A little while back I saw the next installment of Pirates of the Caribbean. I realize that not many people liked it. It certainly was not as good as the first. Notwithstanding that, I enjoyed it, mainly for the mermaid-missionary sideplot. It was good that they excised the Elizabeth-Will story from the series; it had reached its logical conclusion and any further story there would be of incredibly shoddy value. They needed to have a morally steady character, though, and the missionary filled this admirably, I think. He is certainly less annoying than Will was. I also find mermaid myth and lore fascinating (but I mean the old stuff, where they're fay, wild, ammoral creatures as much as amorous ones, where they can get human legs without having to make a deal with a witch, where they can't quite decide whether to drown you or love you). While the Pirates of the Caribbean version wasn't exactly like that, I was still pleased. In fact, I was rather OK with the depature made at the end. (For excellent mermaid-related storytelling, please visit Hark! A Vagrant's mermaid story. In fact, visit anyway. World history, canonical literature, and Canadiana have never been more awesome.)
In related news, I'm coming to understand that my tastes in what makes a movie good vary significantly from almost everyone else's. I tend to gravitate towards elements I like without seeing the chaff that is the rest of the movie. If I like that element strongly, I like the movie. If there is nothing outstanding, I tend to dislike the movie. If there is something else that is not simply unartful but outright repulsive, not much can make me like it.

7. I have watched a few TED talks which I want to recommend. In no particular order:
Mustafa Akyol's Faith versus tradition in Islam
Kathryn Schulz's On being wrong (this is crucial for anyone who has an overwhelming confidence in their own rightness, aka most people on the Internet)
Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation
Dan Meyer's Math class needs a makeover (on making mathematics a good sell)
Nate Silver's Does race affect votes?

Please visit Jen at Conversion Diary, host of this fine carnival.

Approaching Mockery from Atheists

The tiny part of the atheist blogosphere that I read has in the last few months been abuzz on the topic of mockery: (when/how) should atheists mock religious people's beliefs? I refer specifically to Leah's posts (here and here to get started) at Daylight Atheism, but Leah has taken a look at in on her own blog and it seems to be a topic that recurs in other forums. In light of this, I thought I'd share some thoughts on the matter as a Christian who responds to such mockery. Namely, how might a Christian respond to offensive atheist comments constructively?

My immediate response to comments designed to mock my religious beliefs is to feel hurt and exposed. This undergoes a rapid transformation into defensiveness; at least in my head, I try to demonstrate why this mockery is misplaced and misleading, why it is not a valid threat to my beliefs. Often it's easy to do, since most mockery is not especially well informed or actually threatens a specific view that I, in my very mere Christianity, do not hold. Sometimes it's more difficult, but it has always been possible. Sometimes, but not often, I get quite angry. This is usually in response to the worst kinds of attack, like desecration or threats.

For my part, at least, this mockery does not "shock" me from my complacency, get me to think, or make me realize that I can question religious authority. I am not complacent, I am already thinking, and I've known for some time that you can get away with questioning religious authority. The net effect of these comments has usually been to make me sad or to make me despair of peace in this world. (I tend to melodrama.)

As a result I tend to think of these commenters as angry, irrational, arrogant, disrespectful, and destructive. Angry because I can only imagine that such a wilful desire to hurt is born from some anger, either an open flash or a deep grudge. Irrational because the obvious emotion behind the comment undermines any claims to reasoned argument. The frequently obvious fallacies in the mockery support this assumption. (Some comments are not obviously off the mark, and this is important to acknowledge). Arrogant because the commenters often don't see that they are committing exactly the sorts of intellectual or relational snobbery that they mock in Christians. Disrespectful because the hurt they inflict seems obvious to me and they therefore seem to want to do nothing but hurt others. (I realize, upon reading the comments on Leah's guest posts at Daylight Atheism, that they have a list of reasons to mock; I am not quite sold that these are anything but rationalizations of a strictly emotional response, but let's take these as valid reasons for the moment. I'm not claiming these are disrespectful of Christian people but rather I'm claiming that I feel they are so when I first respond to them.) And destructive because the commenters are obviously not contributing to cooperation between Christians and atheists but rather creating rifts, a destructive act.

I think this is a fairly standard litany of Christian (or otherwise religious) responses to atheist mockery of religion. The next step, usually, is to respond in kind: ordinarily when we react to mockery we are at least one of angry, irrational, arrogant, disrespectful, and destrutcive, and visibly so. Sadly, this not only prevents us from actually addressing the mockery at hand, but also leads us to fail as Christians. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount was not, after all, a lesson in polemics (though Jesus did have some fairly strong invectives for unforgiving religious leaders). The move from our own hurt and our own ad hominem assessment of the commenter to a counter-attack is, I think, misguided. Rather, I think we need to spend some time getting past the adjectives I just laid out.

In my experience (limited, I admit, to twenty and some years as just one person, mainly in Canadian academia), this kind of mockery does not merely produce hurt but comes from hurt. That is, people act angrily and irrationally when they feel under attack somehow. I'm not saying that all atheist criticism of religion is emotionally driven; to do so would be to undermine some very fair critiques. I do, however, suggest that a lot of mockery is to some extent a result of real or perceived greivances that the commenters hold. As a result, I think that when we experience mockery of our practices, beliefs, and selves, we ought to consider what wounds this anger might come from. We should also consider whether we helped inflict those wounds. I have (after far too long) come to realize that in some parts of the world it is very unpleasant to be an atheist; seclusion in Canadian universities, where atheism seems to be the norm and is sometimes openly supported by professors, has blinded me to the fact that atheists receive real discrimnation in much of the world, including those centres which seem to produce lots of contemporary media (the southern US, for instance). It was not until I came to recognize the wounds which fuel much of the mockery that I realized this.

Addressing the content of the mockery is trickier. Sometimes it is unrelated to those wounds, where the commenter is angry at all of religion and lashes out at whatever is closest to hand. (And even in these cases, the content of the mockery might still be accurate.) Sometimes, though, it is directly related to past greivances. (So, for instance, someone making jokes about the Rapture probably wasn't hurt by Rapture-related beliefs. Someone making getting angry about oppression of LGTB peoples might have been hurt by the related religious beliefs and practices.) Discerning this distinction is probably impossible, but it's something to think over. If you figure out what those wounds are, however, one of the best responses I can think of is how to prevent further unnecessary hurt.

A few further thoughts:

1) Don't join mockery. This should be obvious, but if a group of people are mocking Mormons, don't jump on board. Recognize how you react when atheists (or whoever) mock you. Just because you think you're right doesn't give you license to act like a snob. All snobs, even the wrong ones, think that they're right. (Here's a good talk to listen to when you're sure you're right.) And full disclosure: I'm not always good at this. I might sometimes pick on the Raëlians. Some time I decided not to, and so far it's going well.

2) I imagine that some atheists reading this (if there are any) might take this as an encouragement to continue mocking as a means of calling attention to their own greivances. I want to be clear: I am not condoning mockery. I think it's entirely unhelpful and morally wrong. But I will observe that it took a lot of mockery before I realized that mockery can reveal legitimate greivances that I must address. This means that so long as we continue hurting others, mockery may have some utility. Let's, as Christians, listen well enough that in future atheists do not need to resort to mockery to be heard. Some of us are already starting to do that; as expected, Dr. Richard Beck is who I'll link to, specifically this article (you'll need to read through to near the end to see him discuss poor Christian PR).

3) There are contextual isses that I should address. Mockery from friends is often different from mockery on-line. You'll notice reading through that I assume mockery from on-line sources. The benefit to this is that it allows some access to more distant regions and demographics. The trouble, however, is the callousness that Internet anonymity allows. Mockery from friends (or family or coworkers or classmates) is personal: it has potentially more painful barbs, but knowledge of the person and their intentions allows you to understand their mockery and discuss it with them more knowledgably. I have trouble with both, but the personal form is more difficult for me to manage and I find it more personally damaging. (I'll link again to Dr. Beck.)

Pointing an Arrow

I'm going to direct your attention to a post by Ily of asexy beast, a blog about asexuality. This post discusses what romance is, and I think it's worth looking at. She contrasts romance with sensuality, drawing a parallel between them but also making a distinction: sensuality is about immediacy, romance about escape.

I want to call your attention to this blog generally, though, for a few interrelated reasons. First, Ily's voice is one little heard in our culture, and I think wholeheartedly that we should use the blogosphere for a way of sounding the depth (and breadth, but that metaphor doesn't work so well) of human experience and identity. This technology is unique in it's ability to publish and disseminate minority positions of all sorts. Second, Ily's insights into (a)sexuality and other relational stuff is helpful, I think, to anyone at all in understanding human experience. One of the biggest advantages of Ily's thinking is her ability to a phenomenon (say, romantic attraction) and pull it apart and show that it is actually composed of parts, and that these parts can occur on their own. (It's very helpful to realize that feeling strong affiliation and a level of physical comfort with someone of the opposite sex does not mean that you're romantically attracted to the person, for instance.)

Have you read xkcd this past week?

This makes me angry. When did dismissing charity become funny? The alt-text is even worse: "I usually respond to someone else doing something good by figuring out a reason that they're not really as good as they seem. But I've been realizing lately that there's an easier way to handle these situations, and it involves zero internet arguments."

It's been a while since I've found xckd very good, but this is a new low.

[Edit 16 March 2011: I think it is worth stating that today's xkcd was enjoyable (to me).]

7 Quick Takes (66)

1. After writing my 7 Quick Takes last week, I heard a knock on my door. I opened it to my housemate who wanted to go slack-lining. So out we went to the park, where he taught us (a friend of his and I) how to sword-fight and where we did some slack-lining. It was a deal of fun, and his friend apparently comes from near Fort McMurray. She grew up in Edmonton, but had family in Lac La Biche. It was a good night, but my feet ended up being pretty cold after the slack-lining. I am also better at sword-fighting after even one session. To the right is a photograph of me falling from the line that night. I did land on my feet, which tend to get pretty filthy when slack-lining.
It started snowing that night.


2. Snow and photography. An unseasonable amount for British Columbia. There is good news: winter photography is as excellent as spring, summer, and autumn photography. It can be especially interesting in British Columbia, with snow on lush ferns and palm trees. I am glad that I got some decent shots of totem poles with snow on them. As a result, I started worrying (again) of cultural appropriation and my own commission of it. This to an extent made it impossible for me to uncritically enjoy putting up photos of the totem poles. But I am still going to put some on here, I think. You can decide whether there is anything problematic with the practice of taking and distributing images of cultural artifacts in museum spaces. (It's also easy to read this as some sort of attempt at using these artifacts as Canadian national symbols, especially when snow-clad. I won't pretend that I don't think of snow in patriotic terms.)

3. On Saturday, after spending some time working, I went to a dance recital/ competition in which a friend was participating. Some other friends were going to accompany me, but one backed out for reasons I can't recall and the other, at the last minute, messaged that she was too sick. I went alone, therefore, to cheer for three. Given my general lack of physical coordination and my general ignorance of dance, it was a bit awkward. Most of the audience was composed of dancers. Nonetheless I enjoyed watching; skill is always fascinating to see.

3. On Wednesday I attended the last seminar of my Asian Canadian Studies course. In it we were to read a chapter of Judith Butler, this one on mourning and politics. Butler asks who we are able/allowed to mourn, and what it means to theorize mourning. It's really a good article. She problematizes the word "we" in her own ways (as well as problematizing "I"), but that got me thinking (and talking in class) about the inherent ambiguity of that pronoun. In speech, "we" can mean [I + you], [I + they], or [I + you + they]; regardless, a person who uses "we" in speech necessarily claims to be speaking on behalf (or at least to be speaking about the condition of) not just themselves but also another person. In writing there are other possiblities, including [I + I]. You'll see the [I + I] formulation when two or more co-author a text without indicating who wrote which portion. Then one imagines the voice of the text being their shared voice or something even more ambiguous. (If you watch the documentary on them, you'll learn that the Hensel twins use pronouns and third-person nouns in interesting ways when Instant Messaging.)
It seemed appropriate that in the last seminar of this course, in which we are often compelled to destabalize things we had previously been taking for granted, we ended the day with the destabalization of basic pronouns. We've broken so much down that we can't even describe "our" own action.

4. For the class for which I am a TA, we read Coetzee's The Life & Times of Michael K. I rather enjoyed that book, but I find it hard to access. Like lots of good books, it seems easy at first, perhaps because of the clean, clear prose. One of the most fascinating things about this book is that it is set in South Africa, and yet Coetzee never makes clear a) when it takes place (Apartheid? post-Apartheid? near future?) or b) what the protagonist's race is.

5. In the context of my research for my Asian-Canadian paper, I encountered the interesting idea of the American civil religion. Wikipedia has a brief and insufficeint description of it. The Wikipedia article (and perhaps the original coiner of the term) seems to imply that American civil religion is somehow an outgrowth of or intrisically related to Christianity, especially Protestantism. This is not always true. The article in which I discovered this idea (Jane Naomi Iwamura, "Critical Faith: Japanese Americans and the Birth of a New Civil Religion." Immigration and Religion in America. Ed. Richard Alba, Albert J. Raboteau, and Josh Dewind. New York: New York UP, 2009. Print.) has a good description:

"Civil religion," according to Bellah (1975: 3) is "that religious dimension found . . . in the life of every people, through which it interprets its historical experience in the light of transcendet reality." For many in United States, this "transcedent reality" is shaped by both the Christian tradition and Roman republicanism, which, in turn, lends meaning and justification to the principles of "democracy," "freedom," and "equality" before the law. Americans affirm their faith in these principles and to the nation through a shared set of "beliefs, symbols, and rituals" (e.g., the Bill of
Rights, the Lincoln Memorial, the inauguration of the president). Civil religious institutions are historical creations, yet they need no justification. For instance, the Constitution "does not call upon any source of sacredness higher than itself and its makers." Ultimately, civil religion has an integrative function and binds the individual citizen psychically and spiritually to her fellow Americans and to the nation-state (Albanese, 1992; Wuthnow, 1998b).

For some time I have struggled to understand the peculiar sort of patriotism and nationalism that certain American citizens hold; the idea of civil religion helped me come to some sort of terms with it. I have no problem with patriotism, but I do have a problem with American exceptionalism. The unquestioning appeal by many Americans to Constitutional documents, the founding fathers' intentions, and whether something is "American" or "unAmerican" (as if either is a remotely useful or definable adjective) has also baffled me for some time. Now I think I have a better grasp on the sort of sociological forces that undergird these phenomenon, but I still don't feel like I have a real grasp on the way this tendency is left unquestioned. Are there any American readers willing to explain the invocation of these ideas (Constitution, founding fathers, "American" v. "unAmerican") to me?
(Please note that I am aware that some Canadians are equally guilty of using strange adjectives, like "unCanadian," without a decent explanation of what they mean. It just seems more prevalent, and it seems to hold more rhetorical weight, in the United States than it does here.)

6. Among other wastes of my time, I have been laughing a lot this week over at Reasoning With Vampires. (Anyone else think blog titles should be italicized?) I don't always agree with her comma vendetta, as in fictional prose the use of commas is justified if you are creating rhythm. One needn't always be as minimalist as a newspaper in fiction. In general, though, I think what this woman is doing is fascinating. She takes fierce grammatical, stylistic, and content editing and turns it into visual art. Paradoxically, I now want to read at least one of the Twilight books. It's sort of a detective-work thing. If the books are as bad as people say they are, and if they are as bad as Reasoing With Vampires repeatedly demonstrates that they are, then what I wonder is why they have the popularity that they do. They must supply some need or desire that their readers are not getting elsewhere (as distinguished from "cannot get elsewhere"). What is that need or desire?
And how can I harness it?

7. Below is the Grooveshark playlist I listened to while writing this post and trawling Facebook. It is akin to what I've been listening to all week and is not akin to what I would normally listen to (with the exception of Bear McCreary).

"Jacob's Ladder," Rush
"The Trees," Rush
"The Spirit of Radio," Rush
"You Really Got Me," Van Halen
"Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love," Van Halen
"The Call," Regina Spektor
"Love Affair," same
"On the Radio," same
"Lady," same
"Oedipus," same (really like this one)
"Us," same
"Eet," same (stuck in my head)
"Samson," same
"Fidelity," same
"Evelyn Evelyn," Evelyn Evelyn (stuck in my head)
"You Only Want Me 'Cause You Want My Sister," Evelyn Evelyn
"Love Will Tear Us Apart," Evelyn Evelyn
"Hurt," Johnny Cash
"I Hung My Head," Johnny Cash
"O Verona," Craig Armstrong
"Gaeta's Lament," Bear McCreary
"The Shape of Things to Come," Bear McCreary
"All Along the Watchtower," Bear McCreary
"Kara Remembers," same
"A Good Lighter," same
"Kara's Coordinates," same
"Admiral and Commander," same
"Baltar Panics" same

THE SATURDAY EVENING BLOG POST, vol. 2 issue 10

Welcome to THE SATURDAY EVENING BLOG POST!

This is where bloggers gather on the first Saturday of each month to share their latest and greatest blog posts. This weekend we are sharing our favorite post from October 2010!

Well, actually, this isn't where all that happens. All that happens at Elizabeth Esther's blog. Go on over to participate.

This month I want to showcase this post about a man with schizophrenia I just happened to meet, and the non-lessons I drew from that encounter. However, if you're interested in church-related stuff (and, if you're here from Elizabeth's general direction, you probably are), then you may also be interested in the time my church played Disney songs for hymns.

It's been a busy month for me. I can't wait to see what it's produced for you.

(I look forward to this thing all month long. I am such a loser!)

Pointing Again

I enjoyed this post:

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2007/10/curing-religious-disease-part-3-god-is.html

I Ought To Be In The Fetish Porn Business?

I looked at my Webmaster Tools stats.

You know how they say that the sorts of search queries your blog answers to should reflect what your blog is about? And you know how some people say that you might want to change your blog to reflect what searches bring it up? As in, if you are blogging about the ethics of different brands of diapers but somehow Google has decided to offer your site to people looking for "puppies and windmills", then you should consider blogging about puppies and windmills instead?

If that's true, I'm writing about the wrong thing entirely. In the past, I have received visits from people interested in grammar, figures of speech, Renaissance sonneteers, cookies made with ham, and pachycephalasauruses. I've been getting weird searches every since this post and this post, but before now it hasn't been bad. These days, however, the search queries that find my blog are about a very select number of topics, namely the following:

1. Dracula's brides
2. Wynona Rider's breasts
3. Naked amputees (especially Aimee Mullins)
4. Sexy black albino women
5. Sexy black albino men
6. "Siamese" twins (particularly the Hensels)
7. Sexy disfigured people
8. Combinations of the above

OK. This is a bit disturbing. I thought they invented DeviantArt so people could commission fetish pics, but, hey, what do I know? Maybe Google's the go-to place for specialty porn now? If so, do I need to start posting pictures of a naked, armless, albino Blackula with his topless conjoined twin Wynona-Rider-lookalike brides?

Or I can rely on links from other blogs and a continued presence on Mr Linky Lists. Yeah. I think I'll take this last route.

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Note: I think it is clear that this particular post will make the situation much worse. Now there's a single page devoted to all of this nonsense.

Love, Law, and Hate

or,
Concerning This Whole Prop 8 Thing

I must say from the outset that I always thought Prop 8 (for those who don't know, Proposition 8 was a California law that banned same-sex marriage that was somehow voted in with a majority) was a horrible thing. This is not just because it was yet another blow to the equality movement, but because it indicated that a majority of California voters did not have human rights in mind when they made their decisions that day. And this is California, too; it's not quite Washington, but it's certainly not Texas, either.

This means that I was enormously pleased when I heard that a judge has struck down the law. Of course the backlash was no surprise, and I don't give it too much weight. This is how a democracy should work: when the majority start being bigots, the strong arm of the law comes down and snatches their decision-making abilities away until they learn how to use it properly again. Who exactly governs this strong arm of the law is a trickier question, but it seems to be working now. What happens if it doesn't work will hopefully be a question we never have to answer.

Moving on... I was reading what Elizabeth Esther was saying about the issue, and simply had to voice agreement. If the comments were unanimously in her favour I would have just said, "Thank-you." The comments weren't all in her favour, though, and if you know me you'll know I had to contribute to the conversation. In my view, this is not an issue that concerns public safety or governmental structure (and it certainly doesn't threaten the sanctity of your own marriage), so it's not something that we have any place encoding in law. Further, fighting so viciously against same-sex marriage is driving people from the church, which seems to me to be something Christians should be more worried about than same-sex marriage itself. Finally, and most importantly, this issue is, at heart, about love.

That is to say, Prop 8 and the voters who support it are saying that we have some right to determine how other people go about loving those around them. How can we claim to love others if we do not recognize that they feel love for each other? Perhaps God does not acknowledge that their love should result in matrimony, but that is for God to decide and for them to figure out. We (as humans, not Californians, because I am not from California) cannot support legal structures which say who can love whom and how. Of course the issue is not that simple, but I think we ought to be very careful when dealing with any issue so complicated and important as love.

But I would have let my opinions on this issue rest in my comment to Elizabeth Esther's post if another comment had not caught my eye:

In case you can't click on this to make it bigger, I will type out what this comment says:

Brianna said...

You are smart to recognize that many of the arguements the religious use
against gays and lesbians will eventually be used against yourselves.

I will eagerly vote "yes" on any future ban on Christiany or religion should
one appear in my country/region. (Posted August 5, 2010 at 03:20 PM.)

Once again this is something I should not give headspace to, but I reeled for about five minutes when I read Brianna's comment. I was about to reply with something fierce and not pithy at all, but I restrained myself. A large part of me hoped that my fears about atheist fundamentalism were unfounded. The rational part of me was in on this hope, since it seemed reasonable that there were not any or many atheists who actively sought the oppression of religious peoples. In all of my Internet travels, I had not encountered anyone who would use political means to prevent membership in religion. Now I have. These people exist. Or, at least, one does.

I desperately wish that we could dig ourselves out of hate: Christians who hate homosexuals and non-Christians, atheists who hate Christians, anyone who hates anyone. Can all my (few) readers please do me a favour? Can you try to practice love as fervently as possible the next few days? We need it.

(Also, I intend to read more queer theology when I get to BC. I hope that in posting this here I will have greater incentive to go about locating the necessary books.)

7 Quick Takes (XLIX)

1. I spent hardly any time on Blogger for the last week, and my Blogroll exploded. I have so much catching up to do that I won't read every post.

Wait. I usually read every post on my blogroll? No wonder I never get anything done.

2. I just got back from seeing Despicable Me with coworkers. I loved it. I think I enjoyed it more than the kids in the theatres. But do you know what's awkward? When you laugh so hard that your eyes start streaming, and then a feel-good sort of part comes on. Then your eyes are all teared up and you want to yell out, "Seriously, I wasn't crying!"

Back to the movie: You can tell it was designed for 3D (it wasn't 3D in the theatre I saw it) because of scenes with huge and diverse depth-of-field, as well as complicated aerial sequences. As I predicted, movies will now shoe-horn flying in because they need to compete with How to Train Your Dragon and Avatar (which I still haven't seen), movies which set the bar high for how to incorporate three dimensions into the movie well.

3. I finished Sense and Sensibility and moved on to One River.

Sense was good, or at least I thought so, but only if you take it for what it is. It is a comedy of manners written and set in Regency England, written by Jane Austen. So it will have last-minute plot convolutions ("discovery" is the literary term) which resolve the action happily. It's a comedy (in the Northrop Frye sense) and comedies do that pretty much ever time. If you don't like it, you should stop reading comedies. Switch to romances (in the Northrop Frye sense) if you're in for a feel-good book, or tragedies and satires if you're not. So if we take it for granted, from the outset, that this is what will happen, then I think we can enjoy the book for what it is. At least, I could. And there are some hilarious parts and hilarious characters. My only complaint is that I found Elinor's story arc less interesting--and less relevant--than Marianne's, with the exception of the final scene before Edward...well, I won't go any further than that.

One River is a book my aunt lent me some time ago that I need to finish before I go to Vancouver so I can return it. It's another one by Wade Davis, this time concerning coca, the source of cocaine, deep within the Amazon rainforest. As usual, Davis himself, one part author, one part anthropologist, one part botanist, made the journey himself and we the reader benefit from his lucid descriptions, generous mind, and solid research skills. The downside is that it's a tome.

4. Yet again I broke my book-buying moratorium. I got the newest NorthWord--the northern Canadian literary magazine--and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I want to see what the hype is about, and the movie came out, and it sounds pretty good, too. I was burning time at the Peter Pond Mall, and this means I was in Coles with a gift card in my wallet. One thing led to another, and I owned more published goods. Lesson: I need to stop being in bookstores, since this always results in the acquisition of books.

5. My mother returned from here trip to Ontario this week, bringing back with her all of my CDs. This means I have most of my music back. I am happy about this.

6. I have been reading Godless Girl and Unequally Yoked lately, and have been having a few conversations at the latter. As you may or may not know, I had been reading Atheist Revolution for my dose of atheist web-media. This being part of my plan to read widely. Blogs allow all sorts of voices self-publication, and so you can find out about unique perspectives. The trouble was that Atheist Revolution seems to me to be dogmatic and unreasonable. I was looking for atheist bloggers who blogged about atheism but weren't obnoxious when doing so. In these two bloggers I may have found something approaching what I'm looking for. We shall see.

I've yet to find any interesting Buddhist, Mormon, Muslim, or Taoist bloggers. (Not to mention many many other religious traditions that I haven't even begun searching for yet.) Surely there are some and I just haven't found them.

7. I read an article in a Discovery magazine about light that is pretty cool. Light is both waves and a particle, right? If it is a particle (photons), then it is technically matter in a very low-density gas state. This means that if you could slow down the photons and get enough of them together in one place, then you could make light turn into a different state. In this case it would be condensation, and you would get a liquid.

Of course you can't slow light down, because its speed is a constant. Except, oh wait, you can. It's been done. Certain materials slow light. So, in theory, you could make liquid light. And a scientist somewhere intends to do so in the next year or two, possibly revolutionizing the fibre optics business. And making so really nifty stuff.

The 7 Quick Takes blog carnival is hosted by Jennifer Fulwiller. Please visit her for more.

7 Quick Takes (XXXIII)

1. I apologize for being a bad blogger. I was away last weekend, and haven't had much to write in the meantime. I need to produce at least one top-notch post by the end of the month, though, or else I won't have anything awesome to put on Elizabeth Esther's site. Which site, incidentally, has rapidly become one of my most-frequented. (Which begs the question, of course, of why I'm adding another Catholic mommy-blogger to the list. I thought I had that demographic covered.)

2. The reason I was away last weekend was that I went to Edmonton with the folks. It was my Mom's birthday. I bought way too many books, but then you knew I'd say that. We went to a GoodWill and a Value Village and a Chapter's. In total, I purchased 15 books (13 used, 2 new). It was atrocious. I wouldn't bother listing them all here.

In the morning, though, we went to the Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA). I like the idea of RAMs and ROMs and AGOs and AGAs. I wish there were more provincial cultural "chains" like that. Personally, I'd like to see a Museum of Religious Culture in every province, but I don't suppose that will happen.

So, at the AGA there was a Goya exhibit, a Degas exhibit (of his sculptures, not his painting), a Karsh exhibit, and some more avant-garde exhibits with whose creators I am unfamiliar. I would love some Karsh portraits to put up in my room: Jung, Einstein, Princess Elizabeth (now Queen the II--or I if you're Scottish), Castro, Hepburn, Luther King Jr. Karsh took such excellent portrait photography. Each of these photographs is so evocative. For the most part Karsh showed his subjects as icons, but with Castro's portrait he did something different. Castro appears far more personal, more human, more intimate, more vulnerable in Karsh' photograph. I generally think of Castro as an ambiguous villainous figure (for no real reason but cultural osmosis), and so it was amazing that this one picture managed to humanize him for me. Of course Castro believed in what he was doing. Somehow this concept never occured to me before now. I feel a little embarassed about that.

3. Obligatory weather-related take: for most of the past two weeks it has been mild. Temperatures have been around +13 degrees Celsius. This held true until Wednesday, during which it snowed. Now we have a layer of the sticky wet stuff on the ground again. For the first time in my life, at the sight of snowflakes I felt physical revulsion. Then again, we knew it would happen.

4. As I mentioned in a previous post, the virtual exhibit on which I have been working for some time is finally live. It is about the role that the Catholic mission played in Fort McMurray's development, including such fascinating things as health care, education, employment for single women, and housing for the homeless.

To prevent confusion, I did not code this site. The format is standard to the Community Memories program. I did the historical research, wrote the text, selected the pictures, and input all of the information into the template.

5. I seem to be sick again. Boo. My immune system seems to be even more lethargic than I am.

6. Oh, right. Almost forgot. So, I got accepted into some more grad schools, and made my final decision. I am attending a school on the Canadian west coast. On the one hand, this is terribly exciting. I have only been in the province of British Columbia once, and briefly at that.

On the other hand, this means being far from my peeps for two years. I will likely be unable to (afford to) visit Ontario during this time, so unless folks come over to visit me, I will not see any of them for quite some time. But this is a good program for me, and I will be happy to attend.

7. Last take. Right. Hmmm. What shall it be about?

Oh, I have been reading The Wayfinders. I'm almost done. It's a pretty solid book. I'll review it once I have finished.

You know what to do: Conversion Diary.

Over and out,

Christian H

aka English Clergyman

A Website I Made

Go here. This is the project I've spent so long at work making. It's finally live.

7 Quick Takes (XXXI)

1. It was Customer Appreciation Day at Coles. I think it is needless to say that I bought books. Too many. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Paradise Lost (scrupulously NOT the one prefaced by Philip Pulman), The Bone Handbook (dealing not with skeletons but with the [epic] graphic novels of Jeff Smith, which I insist you borrow immediately from your public library, esp. if you like things that are funny, that contain a pretty girl [Jon], that have adventure, or that are good), and The Odyssey. Bad Christian! Bad! (You'll notice in the photo a fifth book. We'll get to it later.)

2. I believe I got some writing done this weekend. I don't like how it is turning out, but I need to just hammer through, I think, until I do like what is coming out, and then I can go back and fix. On another note, I have become enamoured yet again with sonnets. Sonnet sonnets sonnets sonnets.

3. It has been preposterously mild here. This week saw temperatures above freezing. ABOVE FREEZING. I cannot emphasize this enough. Stuff (snow, mainly) is melting.

4. Due to certain on-line related events, I want to play Fallout 3 again. The only thing stopping me is that I have been putting off buying a new computer to replace this one.

5. I have come to realize that I am addicted to the Internet. Oops.

6. This evening, after work, I went to Coles to pick up my pre-ordered copy of The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey. The book is authored by Robert Morrison, who Jon and I have had as a professor. This professor's general excellence is mainly why I bought the book, though I did enjoy reading De Quincey's On Murder essays. That and that I am trying to read literary criticism to help me prepare stylistically for grad school.

At, Coles, the girl at cash reminds me somewhat of Penelope from Questionable Content, only not so skinny and shorter. (I use the present tense of "reminds" because this is on-going; I see her now pretty much whenever I go to Coles.)

7. Oh, right. This week I wrote a letter. But to whom? Presumably that person will find out.

(8.) Canada! Two points of particular happiness: Mens, Canada v. Russia; Womens, Canada v. USA, for Gold. Yay! Canada!

Well, this week's seven have been quick after all. Also, rather childish.

Go; read.

Ham Cookies and Sonnet 45

Do you know what's bizarre? The sorts of things that lead up to one's blog in Webmaster Tools. For instance, there are consistently a few people out there (mainly Britain, from what I can tell) who Google "mina makeout" and get my blog up on the search list. That was one post of mine, likely the only post I have which uses either word. (Now, of course, there are two.)

What's really bizarre is the sorts of things I get first place on Google for. Like "ham cookies" (2, now 3 posts) and Sidney Sonnet 45 (2, now 2 posts). Seriously, Thinking Grounds ranks highest for people researching Sir Philip Sidney's 45th sonnet. That's sad. Ham cookies I understand; it refers to an online ad I saw once and my attempts to track down its origin. But Sidney deserves better than me.

For a while there, I was getting high hits for "pachycephalasaurus," too, which I am ashamed to say isn't very representative of my blog. There are not nearly enough dinosaurs on here, and in future I might try to remedy that.

I get lots of Aboriginal spirituality, which does make some sort of sense. I mention spirituality and aboriginal things fairly frequently, sometimes in the same post.

The number one which actually induces people to visit my blog from Google, though (rather than the above, which only describes what sorts of searches my blog turns up in), is "spirituality pathway test." I feel bad about this, because that sucker's sort of plagairized. And that's my #1 from Google.

Of course I assume my traffic is largely not from Google but from the prodigious amount of links I leave on other people's blogs.

Dinosaur:

First Saturday Blog Carnival

Gist: you link your best/most defining/most favouritest blog posts of the month here, and then read other bloggers' submissions. It's a monthly, blog-personality carnival. Yippee!

Link here: http://www.elizabethesther.com/threes_a_crowd/2009/12/the-saturday-evening-blog-post-vol-1-issue-4.html.

A Really Tough Blog

I found a new blog: Delightfully Scattered Thoughts. It's very tough. The topics it deals with are not light reading. What this woman deals with is so entirely out of my realm of experience that I don't know how to react. Some of this stuff is haunting.

I am not encouraging you to read this, especially if you want the protective 'everything's okay' bubble around your life to stay as it is. If you want a challenge, though, perhaps you could read her blog.

7 Quick Takes (XIV)

1. My computer is infected. This was not equivalent to fun times.

I was researching something--I think it was Aristophanes--and went to a website. Apparently, going to unfamiliar websites can be a bad idea. Suddenly, antivirus software bubbles were popping up telling me that my computer was being attacked by a virus, a worm, by Trojan horses. It seemed as though the digital version of Isengard had opened and was descending upon my computer, which was still about a day's march from the Hornburg. (For those who don't understand Tolkein references, go out and watch the movies. I refuse to translate.) I could click here to try and remove it. I did a fair amount of clicking here. And then it occured to me that I had never installed this particual antivirus software, called SoftCop, onto my computer. Why was it trying to protect me? Well, it wanted me to pay $80 by credit card if I wanted to counteract these viruses, but I wasn't doing that. Why would it suddenly descend upon my computer, at the very moment I was in crisis, and say, "Hey, if you register this product and pay $80, we'll protect you from these nasties."? It was almost as though it was in collusion with the viruses...

So I Googled it. This took some time and navigation, as my Web browser was suspiciously hesitant to go anywhere but the SoftCop registration page. For a little while it tried to tell me that I shouldn't go to sites because I was unprotected. Then it re-directed me to the SoftCop page even when I had typed http://www.google.ca/ into the address bar. Meanwhile, new windows kept opening up to explain that some worm-ridden virus riding a Trojan horse was trampling through my hard drive or something like that. Eventually I managed to google the thing, and, lo and behold, it's what they call a "rogue antivirus program." That is to say, it's a package of viruses disguised as an antivirus. None of the viruses it told me about existed. At the very least, they were harmless programs made to look like viruses that SoftCop put there itself. While I was trying to get rid of these pseudo-viruses, SoftCop was installing Trojan horses and backdoors, hidden in all sorts of little corners and never-inspected subroutines in my computer. These were designed to send my private information to its nefarious maker while performing acts of sabotage on my machine. I'm glad I didn't register or pay for the thing, but neither of those were necessary. It did not need my permission to install itself and its party of bugs onto my hard drive.

I spent all of whatever evening that was trying to dig it out of my system. I read on-line tutorials on how to do it, and by the time I was done, there were no more warnings, no more windows, nothing. The tutorials did warn, though, that if I missed just one little piece of programing it had put on, that program could download all of SoftCop again the next time I booted up and connected to the Internet. And sure enough, the next day, SoftCop was back in action. So I did the last thing that binary twit expected. I unplugged the Internet. Just like that. Shut her down. All the backdoors in the world cannot be opened if my computer doesn't have an ethernet cable anymore. Let's see it try to send my information out now!

Of course, my computer doesn't have the Internet now and is still crawling with viruses. I'm afraid to connect my hdd to it, since I don't know if SoftCop is capable of putting viruses on there and spreading it to whatever other computers I use to read it. I read that this thing can destroy your hard drive if you let it run full course, so I don't know what to do. I want to get some files off of it, but in the meantime I'm not turning it on.

I'm writing on my folks' computer now, of course.

Figures. Just when I get a computer of my own...

2. Good news: I figured out how to access my old hard drive. I mentioned I had some trouble with it. Well, after a number of tutorials, a few frustrations, and at least one "duh!" moment, I got on. I can now read four years' worth of my creative and academic writing. Yay!

3. My OGS (Ontario Graduate Scholarship) stuff got to where it was supposed to go on time. It is now out of my hands and my worries.

4. I am applying for a Creative Writing program in BC. It requires that you select three genres, ranked. You will focus in the first with a significant courseload in the second and some courses in the third. I spoke to my Creative Writing prof from uni, and she told me that so many people apply to this program with a straight fiction + poetry preference that it is nigh on impossible to get in with this as your preference. Rather, you ought to have something like Screenplay or Script or Lyric and Libretto or Radio Drama as your first two choices, and then fiction or poetry as your seconds. I think I will go for Children's Literature (which includes Young Adult, which I've read a lot of this summer) and Creative Non-Fiction (in which I might take some of my better blog posts and spruce them up), with Fiction as a third. If you have suggestions on better blog posts, let me know. I think I will include my semi-colon rant, but that won't nearly fulfil my word count specs.
I have some writing to do.

5. At work, I have spent some of my time doing real work: that is, I've been hammering nails in boards. I am not the best at this, and I had to spend some time on scaffolding. This was less than fun for me. I am afraid of heights. There are no two ways about it. My hands shake, my feet crawl, and my sense of balance becomes hyperactive. I can do it. I did do it. But it is rough. Also, I am used to being able to swing my hammer somewhat straight. All my hammering was on an angle, above my head (think inside of a pitched roof).
I also have to be careful about how much time I do work that is not in my job description. I have sense of how long what is left will take so cannot say for certain that I am behind, but I do need to be working more on my actual project. I need to balance being helpful and friendly and pitching in where need truly be with getting my own responsibilities accounted for.
The take-home fact is that I now have a satisfactory number of cuts and scrapes on my hands. I can say that I did some actual work.

6. The dog is hyper and strange. The last one isn't news.

7. Obligatory book take. I have been giving some goes at Heart of Darkness. I have returned to The Cost of Discipleship. That one is a thinker. It's tough. (A non-Christian would not find it tough because they would not take it as something they might have to follow. A Christian must 1) determine whether or not they agree with Bonhoeffer and 2) try to figure out how they'll implement these difficult concepts.) I finished The Faerie Queene's Booke Three. I have scratched the surface of Book Four. I am playing with the idea of reading some Shakespeare. Maybe Timon of Athens or Midsummer's Nights Dream or The Tempest or A Winter's Tale. There are some books in my workplace's library that I wish I could take home. (Our check-out policy is that you can't.) One is a historical one about a little-known early surveyor who mapped out a lot of Canada. Another is a Kangiryuarmiutun-English dictionary. Inuit languages have such a fascinating linguistic structure. I should have taken linguistics courses. Anyway, while I see limitations to this particular language, it is very efficient within its scope. It is also beautiful.
I think that's all the books I'm reading. Tonight I will finish Psalms and so tomorrow night I will begin Proverbs.

Remember to visit the Quick Takes Queen.

Websites are like puppies...

INTERN says:

"A website is like a new puppy. Cute and fun, but, like your parents loved to say, "a big responsibility." If it's a blog, you need to feed it new content regularly or it will look abandoned. If it's a website written in some finnicky language, you'll need to know how to fix the code if something breaks (or call an expensive internet-veterinarian). And no matter what it is, you'll need to resist the urge to dress it up in those ridiculous sweaters."

7 Quick Takes (X)

1. I realized this morning how difficult to read the last two posts are. My apologies.

2. Today's Quick Takes will by necessity be unlike previous ones. If I were to try to encapsulate each of the past days in one take, each 'paragraph' would become a miniature novel in itself. So I must paint with broad strokes in one take, and then find interesting moments for the others. Which is to say, I spent this week on vacation, visiting friends in Ontario, as you may already know. I arrived in Oakville as described last Friday; I spent Saturday in Oakville with my brother; I traveled to Kingston on Sunday via the Via; I met up with assorted friends and went to a birthday party on Monday; I met up with a professor and friends, and attempted to go to a birthday party on Tuesday; I met up with even more friends and supposedly talked authorially on Wednesday; I took the Via to Windsor on Thursday, where I am now (Friday) visiting a friend from yore, who I met back in Grade 3 or so.

3. My brother and I tried to make putt-putt boats on Saturday. If you don't know what a putt-putt boat is, look here. Anyway, as is implied by "tried," it didn't happen. In this case, it was due to distractions + time constraints - adequate supplies. While Nick was watching the epoxy set (OK, maybe he wasn't actually doing that) I was looking through some of his books, including one of the art of Iian (sp?) MacCaig and one of animals; in the former there were lots of movie concept art and at least one picture of a centaurine, while in the latter there was a photograph of a hyaena eating a shark.

4. On Monday I got to play with Courtney S's rabbit, named Jazzy. This was after I met Courtney at the Tea Store; she eventually had to get ready for work, so I walked her home and got to meet her rabbit. I felt awful, though, when I realized I had been late. I had written Courtney - 2:30 - Tea Store in my makeshift agenda, but it turns out that we had agreed to meet at 2:00, and I had apparently gotten confused when I wrote it down. I could try and say that being around a pretty girl just melted my brain, but that's more Jon's forte, and, anyway, I wasn't around said pretty girl when I wrote it down. I really have no excuse.
(And I am kidding; Courtney doesn't have that effect on me, notwithstanding that she is a wonderful girl to have tea with.)

5. I met many, many people. Just in case you were unsure as to that point. Frequently, it was over coffee, though more likely tea. My week has been divided between waiting for people to get off class/work, and rushing from one appointment to another. Of course, no appointment is undesirable, but it can make me fret that I'm supposed to be somewhere else at the moment.
At the Brew Pub I was waiting to meet some people for a birthday party. I only knew the birthday girl, so was somewhat nervous--I do not like being the 'lost puppy' who follows the one person around, but it's also hard to be outgoing as the only white guy in a crowd of Asians. But I had an escape plan, which was that I could only be there for half an hour anyway: I had to be at a poker party at 9:30 and, given the length I needed to walk and the fact that I wanted to pick up a fruit platter on the way, I would have to leave at 9. But then the birthday crowd never did show up. I still don't know what happened to them.
And then, as I walked to said poker party (which turned out to just be sitting and chatting with two friends, Jamie and Jude), I somehow managed to work up a pain in my knee that has lasted until at least this morning. Remember how I hurt my knee before? I wonder if it's related somehow.

6. I should mention the conversations I've had about my future. I met with a professor--Prof. Dujardin, for those who know her--with whom I discussed my indecision about where to go from here. In our conversation she asked a number of questions, which I have yet to answer. We also came up with ways of finding the answer, which quite appropriately involve metaphrasis. I say this is appropriate because we discussed the concept and practice of metaphrasis during the classes I had with her. I have no idea if Wikipedia has a page on metaphrasis or not. I can see it being one of the things which slips through Wikipedia's cracks, like Dene dream walking. Actually, from what I can tell, that last one got through Google's cracks until I posted about it here. Anyway, she also asked whether I could even envision myself being anywhere but grad school, which is a valid point. I am feeling better about grad school now. I have to think about whether to do Creative Writing or English, though. Or Culture Studies, which I heard of quite recently.
And then immediately after that, I spoke to Dan and Brenda from Navs about how to deal with my upcoming year in Fort McMurray. More later, perhaps.

7. And the trip to Windsor was interesting. I took a Renaissance car from Kingston to Toronto, which I think I might have found less comfortable altogether than a regular car, though it is certainly classier-looking. On the train from Toronto to Windsor (which is a long haul, in case you didn't know), a woman went to sit next to another somewhere ahead of me, asking, "May I sit here?" "I snore," the other warned, to which the first answered, "I'm deaf." "Well, then," said the second, "this will work perfectly."
And then there was utter desperation getting to my friend's place, as I did not know the address. After several hasty phone calls at a payphone, I still couldn't get anyone to stalk Facebook to see what said friend had written on my profile, but in the end I convinced an at-first-reluctant computer-nerd in the station to get me Internet access. The whole escapade took half an hour, but in the end I had the address written down. (Blessings to all computer nerds. At the very least, the near future depends on them.) Then I caught a cab (which was made difficult by the fact that some vandal ripped the relevant page from the phonebook in the station)... but he didn't recognize the address. The girl at dispatch did, though. Then, as we drove, we talked about employment, and he caught wind of my time in Fort McMurray. Well, now I am to call his brother with the phone number for job hiring for the Divirsified bus company. I heard a rumour that they were willing to get you your bus license if you'll work for them, as they are desperately short-staffed. Since he (the brother) has his bus license already, they will hopefully pay to bring him out there and for a place to live. He has family back in Palestine? Arabia? to which he sends money, so he cannot afford to go to Fort McMurray unless he has a place to live already set up. the driver was uncomfortable earnest about how his family will be my friends forever if I help his brother by getting him phone numbers. I would have done it without such grand promises, and now I feel more like this is a sort of long-term family-to-family contract than a simple favour.
But, anyway, now I'm in Windsor with my friend, in the St. Clair residence. There is not much to say, except that perhaps you will be interested to know that Quinn is a metalhead and that we listened to some interesting female-fronted symphonic metal bands. Tomorrow morning I fly out with the lark and will be in the Mac sometime in the afternoon.

Make sure you visit the Quick Takes Queen.