Dragon In HIding

1:57am: Quiz
Please add to this list and/or help us refine the things on it.
Pira and I had a lot of cathartic fun making it, but it is 2 am and it is far from perfect or complete.

Are You Racist?

If you answer yes to any of these questions you are racist.

1) Do you quote Dr. Martin Luther King to prove you aren’t racist?

2) Are you a white queer person who uses “on the back of the bus” as a metaphor for queer struggles?

3) Are you a white middle aged activist who proves your activist credentials to younger activists by saying “I marched with Dr. King in Washington” with the implication that this proves that you have given your whole life to nonviolent struggles?

4) Are you a white queer person who makes metaphors out of the civil rights movement that imply that racism is over and now it is “our turn” (with the implication that there are no queer people of color)?

5) Do you start sentences with “I’m not a racist, but…?”

6) Are you a white queer or gender variant person who uses the term Two-Spirit, especially if you don’t know the history and cultural meanings of Two-Spirit?

7) Are you a white queer person who says, “we’ve made a lot of progress in this country, but you know, in some places, like the Middle East, the women have to wear scarves and you can be killed just for being gay”?

8) Do you think that undocumented workers are necessary because they take jobs that no white person would take without ever asking whether any human being deserves to have a job that’s that dangerous, low paid, or shitty?

9) Do you think the U.S. government, descended from pilgrims and mass murderers, who stole parts of Mexico, has any right to tell people from Mexico (or from anywhere else, for that matter) where they’re allowed to go?

10) Do you think Columbus Day is a good holiday? What about Thanksgiving?

11) Are you a white queer person who expects groups run by people of color to always run anti-homophobic programs while your own group runs racist programs?

12) Are you a white person who schedules events without ever checking what other student unions have scheduled for that day and time, and then wonder why people of color never show up to your events?

13) Are you a white person who started a peace group, realized that everyone in it was white, and attempted to “fix” this by recruiting activists of color while never getting involved in the activism they were doing?

14) Are you a white person who believes that it’s other people’s responsibility to teach you about their cultures?

15) Are you a white person who makes flyers for events that are supposed to represent a whole community without ever putting people of color on the flyer?

16) Are you a white person who thinks people of color are “hot” and exotic?

17) Are you a white person trying to save people from their sexist or homophobic cultures?

18) Are you a white queer couple who wants an “ethnic” child?

19) Are you a white person who thinks that because you are in an interracial relationship, that proves you are not racist?

20) Are you a white person who thinks that multiracial people are “the best of both worlds” and will solve all the world’s problems and make racism not exist?

21) Are you person who uses religious or cultural icons for interior decorating?

22) Are you a white person who believes in reverse racism?

23) Are you a white queer person who believes that when people of color point out ongoing racism within the queer movement it is divisive and “hurting the cause”?

25) Are you a white person who thinks that because you answered “no” to all of the above questions that means you are not racist?

12:34am: Art Updates
My webcomic is back up and rolling. I have the next two months locked and loaded. It comes out every friday. I've also (with help) spiffed up the website and cleaned up the archives.
http://phoenixfeathers.comicgenesis.com/

Also I have art in the Eugene Salon de Refuses. It is five books (earth, air, fire, water, spirit). I'll post more about this soon. If you live in Eugene or are passing through you should drop by and see them and all the other cool art. The show goes for the rest of September and part of October. It is located a few storefronts down from DIVA (Broadway and Olive). I'll post more about them soon. You can see pictures of them and my other art on my website.
http://www.nodesignation.com/phoenixflame.htm

9:52pm: Gender

New thoughts, new realizations

( Read more... )

11:48am: Awesom Thing
By the way if you haven't had a chance to hear "Addicted to race" a "podcast about America’s obsession with race, with a specific emphasis on mixed race identity and interracial relationships" you are missing out. It is awesome. You can download episodes from their website www.addictedtorace.com

11:22am: The Cat in the Hat and a Rant
A little while ago I was lying down on the futon and I took off my hat that I usally wear and had it upside down next to me. The cat came to sit next to me. She actually sat in my hat. She had her tail wrapped around her feet and everything. The cat in the hat. My partner tried to get a picture, but as soon as she moved the cat got up to take her still warm space.

Yesturday I was in the MCC eatting lunch and looking at the wall and I noticed the poster for the LGBTQA's pride week. I'd never seen it before (I not usually very good at noticing posters). On it is has the picture of what looks like a cis-gendered woman and a cis-gendered man. They both look like white supermodels and their heads are cut off in the picture, so you see the body of a white, young, thin, woman with wet long hair wearing a white bakini and a white, young, short haired, buff man wearing white swim trunks. They are white, they are college age, look middle or upper class, look genderstrait, and are supermodels. It looks like an add for MTV's springbreak.

This is for PRIDE WEEK. Pride Week is supposed to be about US being proud of ourselves. I don't see myself in this image. I don't see ANY of the queer people I know in this image. Where are the people of color? Where are the trannies, genderqueers, and gender variant folk? Where are the poor and working class queers? Where are the pieced and tatooed queers? Where are the queers of all other body sizes and types? Where are the highschool and middle school aged queers? Where are the middle aged and older queers? Where are the butches and dykes? Where are the fairies and fags? Where are the queer parents and their kids? Where are the leather and kinky folk? Where are the high femmes? Where are the poly people?

Recently I and another person had a talk with one of the LGBTQA staff members about what it means to be inclusive, focusing mostly on issues of race. The staff member was genuinely interested in learning. That is great, but if this poster is any sign, wanting and caring about being inclusive isn't enough. I don't know what the backgroung behind this poster is, and maybe there is some mittigating circumstance I don't know, but I still have to say this poster for me tippifies the unconscious exclusion that can happen in the queer community.

4:27pm: Crazy busy
I just like the word chipper for some reason.

It has been so long since I updated.

I'm still in gradschool and it is still super busy. The last couple weeks have been especially pushed since I have been putting tons of time in the lab trying to get past a hurdle in the project to the part where I can actually collect data. I haven't even had time for art, which is bad, but I think it is going to change a little now.

One thing is that I decided to "drop" my class and just audit it (which is still work since I need to make sure I'm an equal partner in group projects, and I want to get the most out of the class possible, so I'm still doing some homework, but the stress is gone).

Now is the scarry time where I get to figure out which lab I want into and try to get in. More fun, but once I'm in a lab and this part is over it will be smooth sailing for a while (the summer) before the next round of hurdles pops up.

11:42am: Art
I now have a webpage for my art. It isn't finished, but it is comming together. Check it out.
www.nodesignation.com/phoenixflame.htm

4:10pm: I'm doing better than the last time I posted, I'm still pretty stressed. I get a physical anxiety level that builds up. If I take a day off it totally resets my bofy back to nomal, which means not stressed or only a little stressed about specific things. If I don't get time off the anxiety slowly builds in my body with each thing I get anxious about. Even the the event I was stressed about is over, my tension level doesn't go back down that much.

I took last saturday off and that totally reset things, and I've been a lot calmer and more resilient all week. Today is friday, however, and all the tension from the week has built up, so today I have a small eyelid tick that shows up whenever I think of stressful things and goes away if I focus on relaxing and breathing deeply.

Obviously I need to take time off this weekend, but with all I have to do I'm not quite sure how that will happen.

I have some great art project ideas.

12:40pm: Depressed
I feel like something ran me over me, backed up, and did it again.

Before this last weekend my art projects were keeping me motivated. It was rocky, but it stabilized out more up then down. This last weekend I began to be very concerned about my rotation project (the most important of the 3 things I'm doing). I need to spend more time on it. On the weekend it wasn't going well. That chemistry is going better, but I have a lot more to get done in a rapidly dwindling amount of time. In addition I have two tests next week: a really hard one on monday, and another on wednesday. Then, that friday I get my grading and do it over the weekend. I feel squeezed in on all sides. The next 4 weeks look like nothing but a grinding cycle of work, with my unfinished rotation project and presentation eatting into some or all of my spring break.

I think the real problem is that there is no free time schedueled in this picture. If I wasn't a person with needs, it would be a tough do-able scheduel. However, I need time off to recover as well as do art and activism, and I don't see where it is going to come from. When I have nothing to look forward to for the next 2 or 3 weeks, I get depressed. Right now, I'm feeling very depressed.

5:26pm: Grad school
I can do this. No I can't. I can do this. No I can't...
Up Down Up Down ...

This term is being very intense. I'm trying to stay balanced and to make descision to do things that enrich me and that are good for me. I can't live in the science department. I have to be an activist artist too. However, doing this puts more pressure on my remaining time.

In addition I'm taking classes that are harder that last term. One is really a class and a half. My expectations of myself are very high.

The one thing that is really surprising myself is that I have so much energy and drive (all considered). I think my art is actually helping with that. I'm surprised I'm not totally burnt by now. (The first 4 weeks of the term were jam-packed with all the other requirements they don't want to put at the end of the term with finals).

I am much more emotional lately. I'm less emotionally stable and happy than I want to be. I keep yo-yo-ing back and forth between thinking I can do this and I can't do it. I feel squeezed from all sides.

Oh, and I'm almost done with zine #2 (it has more art) if only I will sit down and finish it.
Also, check out my growing website at
www.nodesignation.com/phoenixflame.htm
This is the project that is keeping me going.

9:47pm: Chemistry
Chemistry, chemistry, oh chemistry!
Yes it has taken over my life and intensive summer courses are intense!

One class in 3 weeks. This is the final course of the program of 3 summer courses. This "throw you in lab and you learn by making mistakes teaching style" is not my favorite way of learning, but learning I am. In the last course we had ultra mellow TAs, this time they are kinda the opposite. It is definitely being hard on me, but it is forcing me to make my own descisions even if I don't have as much information on which to base them as I would like, I do learn for next time.
The funny thing is the way it is going right now. When I'm in lab time flys and I'm just doing it. I have some depressing moments, some anxious moments, and some great moments (like when I get a really clean NMR that clearly shows my product, or when I finally manage to start the reaction right before the end of lab so it can run overnight). At first I was behind, then I was ahead, now I'm behind again, but not terribly so. What is really wierd is that when I leave lab I'm feeling pretty reasonably good and tired. Then I go home and relax a little, after that it is so hard to get myself going again. I'm anxious and I really don't want to do it, but once I get going I'm fine again and it doesn't seem so insurmountable. I think doing it is the cure for the worries. I do it and while it goes slow, it does go.

7:10pm: Update
Chemistry has swallowed me whole. I am currently taking a lab class and it is draining because after working 9-5, I then go home and have to prepair for tommorow. I do need that recharge time to be fully effective, but it will only last for a while (then it will get worse, then it will get better). Three day weekends for now, though.

I've also read the new Harry Potter book. Another traumatic ending that I find deeply disturbing. It's funny how they do that to me. She's a good writer. Her books are both light and humourous and dark and serious at the same time. Also, the end of this book is a begining and it is frustrating to not see where that is going to go.

I dropped by Aqua Serene today. A lot of people were working, so I got to say Hi to a lot of people. It is cool to see what's going on for them and tell them how I'm doing and stuff. The place looked so different, but it was so much the same, I guess I have a different perspective on it.

Also, the eating thing is not quite what it could be. I'm not quite eating enough (a bit of nerves + not enough time to cook tasty and heathy meals + other things like homework and harry potter that are emotional or involving take my focus off eating and I forget to)

I should do another update soon I hope.

11:12pm: Updating
I've been sick. I think I'm getting better.
I've been very busy, and I've been reading a lot of books. I'm trying to catch up on some of the interesting "worthwhile" books like "That's Revolting," "This Bridge Called My Back," "Fat!So?," and "Power and Place," but I've also been reading a series of mystery books. Why oh Why oh Why can't the Harry Potter book come out this month when I have time to read instead of next month?!
Nodesignation and I are doing a committment ceremony right before school starts next september. Mark your calanders!
A lot of other stuff is happening in my life, but later...I'm going to go lie down now.

10:50pm: Quickly Updating
Quick update.
A lot is going on, yesturday was the last day of my job. Graduate school here I come. I'm glad I have a few weeks in between.
I'm at the Queering Femminity conference in Seattle now, I'm make some updates soon.

1:00am: My life in summary
The bullet point version of my life:

Working on my own privilege can be an uncomfortable thing. I’ve been especially working on my white privilege. I’m becoming aware of how much I should know and don’t about other people’s cultures and experiences (working on this), and I’ve also just been aware of how my white skin operates in the world.

I’ve just realized that I haven’t been doing a very good job of promoting myself as an artist.

Only six more days of my job and then on to the queering femininity conference and then on to rest of my life and grad school.

I’ve finally have been jumping into activism and now I’m putting myself out there more, especially working with the College of Education stuff, and am feeling the discomfort of doing so. I’m also noticing how it takes up time, but it also feels good.

I’ve also realized that while I’ve been going to tons of meetings, I haven’t been getting enough social time in with people. It is especially true that I have had no one but nodesignation, my mom, and my dad to talk about all the issues going on in my life with, and that really isn’t enough. I need other people to talk about things with.

3:49pm: being femme, being visible
I'm feeling femme today. Wearing more masculine/gender neutral clothng for work 5 days a week really makes me want to be femme on my weekends. Today I am wearing a black corset, blue jeans, and a studded belt. I feel kinda queer, femme, more attractive, but also more visible, and thus more vulnerable. Although I don't feel as invisible and unattractive as before I also have to keep telling myself that I am sexy. I'm having some intersting semi gender/body dysphoric moments. I'm a little more obsessed with clothing and what I wear than technically maybe I "should" be, but who decides that anyway. I'm still figuring this stuff out. Also, I feel like I don't look genderqueer (whatever that means), and I not sure what to do with that feeling.
The other thing going on for me is that I'm trying to actively work on educating myself on race/ethnicity issues. I'm pretty good at spoting racism, but the other component of know about the cultures and experiences of people of color I'm not so great on. I'm working on that. Any book suggestions? (I've read Colonize This!, and am reading This Bridge Called My Back)

10:24pm: writing
I'm dragging my heals. I'm supposed to edit the big intense 5000 word thing I wrote on friday, but in someways the issues are too alive to touch, but to present to leave alone also.

9:18am: Comic
I am going back to working on my webcomic. Looking through my comics to find a few to put in my zine reminded me of all the cool plans I had for my webcomic, so it is back to the drawing board I go (literally).

I have so many art projects I am working on. I'm going to list all of them sometime soon just so I can be overwhelmed by what I want to do.

Also, If you don't live in Eugene, but want a copy of my zine, speak up. Copies can be sent to you.

9:25pm: Yay!
Yay, my zine is ready to print!!!!
Who wants one?
I was thinking of making about 20 issues for my first run and seeing how that goes, but it helps to know who wants one.

8:14pm: Where did my motivation go? I thought I had some earlier today, and now all I want to do is lie on the futon and watch sherlock holmes or read zines. It probably doesn't help that I haven't been eating enough. I start on art projects in the morning and skip eating and then important meetings and events make it hard to get food for the rest of the day. The wierd part is that I haven't really been getting that hungry, I just get cranky and light headed and then I realize that it is 10pm and I've had only one meal all day. Not good. Working on improving this situation. Unfortunatly that usually involves buying good food that other people have cooked, which can get expensive.

I'm so close to finishing my zine. I have 3 pages to finish edititing and then I can print glue and my origional will be done and then sometime this week I will go to the printers and print.

9:26pm: order vs. chaos
I want to have a bigger life than can be fully mangaged, ordered, and controlled.

I want to be social, hang out with people, go to events and plays.
I want to do art.
I want to work on activism to make the world a better place.
I want to spend time with my significant other and keep our relationship happy.
I want to do science. Soon instead of a full time job I will have this.
I also would like my finances to be balanced and ordered, the house to be clean, my car not to be messy, yummy home made food to be cooked, etc.

There just isn't enough time. When I don't get order in an area of life I give up on it for a while and let it slide into chaos. My art is the same way, either really detailed and though out or chaos, but at least there I'm learning to be in between those extremes, to mix them.

I learned today that I want things to all make sense, problems to be specifically and clearly defined, and to have answers, and clear plans. That can be helpful, but processes just unfold, too. Life can be too chaotic to clearly define. You have to balence both.

5:06pm: U of O Graduate Program
This weekend is the University of Oregon Graduate Program visit weekend. It's been more convient for me since I live in Eugene, but still very busy. On thursday me and nodesignation drove up to Portland so that early friday morning I could participate in visits at a couple labs. (Friday evening Toby and I went to a couple cool places including Sparticus where I splurged on myself and got this awesome waist cincher, more about this later. We got to bed really late.) So, anyway, the lab visits were intense but cool. Then we picked someone up from the airport who's flight got messed up and drove down to Eugene, hitting bad traffic on the way and arriving very late. Since then it has been a whirl of meeting people and networking. Quite exhausting for an introvert. This morning I had quite a round of meeting professors.

I'm definitely going to the U of O and more than ever I think it will be a good environment for me. My main interest is environmental chemistry and I've been thinking a lot about what that means. Any branch of chemistry can be applied toward solving environmental problems, but is environmental chemisty just doing research that focuses on fixing an environmental problem, or is there more to it? I think that it would also be a mindset shift, thinking about doing reactions with less toxic reagents or catalysts and solvents when possible and reducing solvent useage. I'm thinking that there probably is an even more basic mindset shift possible, but I'm not really sure what that is. Just like knowing science has sexism and racism embedded in it, but it is hard to look at chemistry and pull out how that affects it directly and see what other mentalities are possible, I think non-environmental and environmental chemistry probably would have subtle but important differences.

4:04pm: My birthday is tommorow.
I've gone on a clothing buying binge (all used clothing)with birthday and getting into graduate school money. I've been wanting more hot/sexy every day clothing.
I'm sick of feeling unattractive, so I'm slowly working on that a bit at a time. Sometimes with clothing that expresses more of me, then I do art and other things for a while. I'm slowly changing more into the person that I want to be.
Sometimes just trying to express me to the world really helps.

11:22pm: Obsessions
I have a pocket watch!!!!
and it is oh, so sexy...

I'm glad I went for the more plain/easier to use/less fussy pocket watch. I think my enjoyment of it will hold up much more over time. I'm a wee bit obsessed with pocket watches. This one is a birthday present from my dad, but I got to choose it.

Yes my birthday is soon, and there will be a party, and you all are invited, but I think that it will be a bit delayed so I actually have time to plan it.

Also, I am obsessed with sherlock holmes, especially Jeremy Brett's sherlock holmes. He does the more quirky, too smart to be a normal human holmes. Fascinating. And of course I have a thing for intellegent/perceptive not especially masculine in the traditional sense men from literature and novels.

Also, my sweetie and I are in the process of exploring polyamory more thouroghly or actively than before, which is quite an experience, a good one indeed, but intense at times.

Oh, and BIG NEWS...my sweetie and I are thinking about finally doing a commitment ceremony. We'd do it pagan and budget syle of course, also assuming people will be around about september, maybe labor day weekend. This came up because we were thinking of getting legaly maried for tax reasons and because I am now supporting hir, and then we thought, you know it IS sbout time for a commitment ceremony, it has been 7 years (almost a full third of my sweetie's life).

I'm getting nervous about school and all the changes that are comming up so fast. I can't believe I am insane enough to go for a phD, and I choose the U of O for a variety of reasons, all good reasons, but feel like they weren't the reasons I should have used (I'm suppose to go somewhere prestigious with big name people who can write me that magic letter that will let me get any job I want in my field, or research all schools that do the type of science I'm interested in depth, etc. while I chose the U of O because I think its environment is a better one for me, because I think I have a better chance of balancing school with other parts of my life, because they do things like make you rotate through different labs for a year before you decide which one to do your phD research in, and because I'm too rooted in Eugene to move so soon, but am ready to go back to school)

I'll keep you posted on all the other things going on in my life later.

12:53am: In Loving Memory
I've been trying to decide whether or not to go to Jason's funeral. Part of it is that I'm worried of crowding the grief process of those who were much closer to him. I've been doing my best to process in responsible ways and not over burden those already grieving, while still being honest about my process. For those and other reasons I'm not going.

Tomorrow at 2pm I am going to sit down, light a candle, and pray. I'm going to pray for Jason's soul, that wherever he is, it is a good and loving place. I'm going to pray for those I love who are grieving, most of whom are at the funeral, that goddess/god/spirit give strength and comfort them. I'm going to pray that love wrap around every hurting heart. I'm going to pray for healing.

I will be with those at the funeral in spirit.