so what, I lied, I lie to me, too

Alright, I didn’t post this weekend despite my best intentions. I thought about looking at the Great Recession from the perspective of other pre-me terrible economic contractions than the Depression. I considered writing about the book I finished, Neuromancer. I rejected the idea of writing about regulatory reform. I toyed with a post on the new Harry Potter movie and why I once so loved Harry/Draco slash. Then I didn’t write anything at all. Lazy.

Will my small readership forgive me if I placate them with pictures of cute cats? Here’s Gemma and Caprica trying to share the awesomest toy of all: a cardboard box.

Anyhow, I am at work and should really not be posting, but I wanted to take a moment to reiterate my commitment to write once a week.

In that spirit, one quick thing that I can put out there is that I frequently do not agree with Dan Savage’s views on women, feminism, and lesbians, but I loved his response on yesterday’s podcast to the “STRAIGHT woman” who wanted to hook up with an authentic queer lady before getting married. “Leave the Lesbians Alone!!” Dan half-moaned over and over.

I wish I was made in the 70s so I coulda been a riot grrrl

Two weeks ago, I made impromptu plans with a friend to watch The Shining on Saturday night. Since neither of us had a copy I had to go to Blockbuster for the first time in ages. While there I noticed The Itty Bitty Titty Committee on the “Staff Recommendations” shelf and picked it up. When it had played at last year’s DC gay film fest I had heard that while it wasn’t a perfect lesbian movie, it was a big, fun step forward from the anxious 1990s coming out in San Fran films (see The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love, Better Than Chocolate, Mango Kiss, Kissing Jessica Stein [ok, that one's in NYC]). So I rented it on a whim and watched it with a bowl of popcorn on Sunday. My thoughts: I completely agree with the general critical consensus. The reason I loved this flawed movie, though, because it made me want to be a riot grrrl.

I warned in an earlier post that I was moving, and that the process of finding a place, packing, and settling in would take me a while. I hoped to be posting about twice a week once more in no time, but that hasn’t happened. The past 6 weeks have been an incredible upheaval, in the best possible way. I moved in with S, got a fantastic job, adopted a kitten, and have had three guests from out of town! I am fairly pooped today, but it’s sunny and beautiful outside, and my life is in a place that I can’t help but enjoy.

our delightful kitchen

a sad, sad end to a long, long day in the middle of a happy month

I was at my office for eleven hours today and then came home and wrapped up a bit more work that hadn’t gotten done at my desk. Perhaps, given the crankiness I was feeling as I waited for a bus toward home, I can be forgiven for reacting to news of a Metro accident with an eye roll and annoyance.

When N texted me to make sure I hadn’t been on a train, I told her that trains had minor accidents fairly frequently here, so even if I had been on a train I probably would have been alright. Shows what I know.

it's hard to imagine the physics of this train wreck

character is the second engine of the new Trek

Today, I decided to relieve the anxiety of waiting on an important phone call for 8 hours by spending a few hours in the cool, soothing megaplex. I saw Star Trek, which, yes, I’d already seen once. But it was worth spending another $9 on a ticket, not least because I was one of the poor suckers who got stuck in the first two rows. I literally could not capture the whole screen within my field of vision. Beyond that, I was overwhelmed by J.J. Abrams’ rather unsubtle directorial choices–not that this is a bad thing–and a second viewing allowed me to settle in and watch more of what was going on at the character level. Spock and Uhura (and Spock and Uhura), in particular, left me with questions that I thought a second viewing would help me to answer.

the new Star Trek knocked my socks off

GWC’s Trek wrap up cast raised the question that had been on my mind since opening night: How emotional is Spock in this new Trekverse? Watching Star Trek again this afternoon provided a few insights.

Double X Why

Since its 2007 launch, I’ve been a daily reader of the Slate blog XX Factor. I was excited to learn that Hanna Rosin, whose work I almost always enjoy, would be joining Emily Bazelon and Meghan O’Rourke in heading up a spin-off website, but from the beginning I was a bit worried that they didn’t really have the content capacity to continue writing and posting things as interesting as what I found on XX Factor. I also hoped that the Slate was not going the Gawker route, turning all its subsidiaries into a churned out mass of posts, some fantastic and some markedly less so. This is not because Gawker is unreadable, or that I’m among the Jezebel-haters, but because I like the senses of community and quality that I get from Slate and XX Factor, which I feel are absent in the stockpiles of blog posts and comment discussions generated on the Gawker sites. I value the niche that io9 fills in my need for sci-fi culture news (with lady writers, no less!) but Slate meets an altogether different need.

good thing it's in beta because it needs some tweaking

I wonder whether Hanna, Emily, and Meghan anticipated the conversations they have started within various feminist and progressive and media circles? I have to assume that they had the savvy to commission such controversial essays for the first week’s posts, but I think they made a major mistake in focusing so intently on feminism and women’s issues in their first days.

I just read and really enjoyed a Friday post from The New Gay called “What a Queer Woman Looks Like,” which was written by Katrina, who apparently hasn’t published there before. There were two things I especially enjoyed about the essay. First, it was a good encapsulation of what TNG is and attempts to bring to its readership: an “over the rainbow” perspective on being a homo who’s more of a hipster; writers who are either tired of identity politics or who came out in a time and place where they weren’t quite so necessary. Secondly, it was a woman’s perspective that represented how queer womanhood is part of an array of activism and values as well as a social life, and how there is both community and loneliness in being a gay lady.

What does a queer woman look like? There are three reasons that I think it’s important to ask. First, when we ask the question it reminds everyone how many different answers there are and how little can be presupposed. Second, asking begs response, which helps to increase our visibility within wider society. Finally, when we ask the question of ourselves individually, it helps us keep our perspective and be aware of how our identities as people and, specifically, as queer women have developed. After reading Katrina’s piece for TNG I’ve been thinking about what my personal queer woman looks like, what that means to me, and how it’s changed.

flowing golden tresses and pink lips, 2005