"Democracy in America," by Alexis de Tocqueville

This is a fairly famous book, but I only just discovered it while looking in the American History section for Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" which I did find, and was subsequently disappointed by. (I can just listen to Democracy Now! if I want to dwell in the depth's of negativity about American History).

This was written by a French dude in the 1830's after he traveled around in America. I found the full text of the preface here.

The Author's intro to this book might very well be the best part, since I am well into the third chapter now and have been less frequently impressed:

In running over the pages of our history, we shall scarcely find a single great event of the last seven hundred years that has not promoted equality of condition.
The Crusades and the English wars decimated the nobles and divided their possessions: the municipal corporations introduced democratic liberty into the bosom of feudal monarchy; the invention of firearms equalized the vassel and the noble on the field of battle; the art of printing opened the same resources to the minds of all classes; the post brought knowledge a like to the door of the cottage and to the gate of the palace; and Protestantism proclaimed that all men are equally able to find Heaven. The discovery of America opened a thousand new paths to fortune and led obscure adventurers to wealth and power. (Page 6).

Naturally I was shocked by his take on the Crusades and firearms. Today this reads like some great Christian propaganda, but I think back then, this just shows how certain parts of history were explained to the curious Christian, which there were very few of. I suppose I don't have to point out that serfs could scarcely have land to grow food, much less obtain the latest in weapon technology to overthrow their lords.

Another interesting part of the preface, here he is sort of picturing an outcome of democracy, and it really reminds me of Partfit's 'z' population outcome in which everyone only has potatoes and muzak, but the overall utility is highest. I will include the preceding paragraph though, because it is probably one of the more famous parts of this book (or seems like it should be, hell if I know).

I can conceive of a society in which all men would feel an equal love and respect for the laws of which they consider themselves the authors; in which the authority of the government would be respected as necessary, and not divine; and in which the loyalty of the subject to the chief magistrate would not be a passion, but a quiet and rational persuasion. With every individual in the possession of rights which he is sure to retain, a kind of manly confidence and reciprocal courtesy would arise between all classes, removed alike from pride and servility. The people, well acquainted with their own true interests, would understand that, in order to profit from the advantages of the state, it is necessary to satisfy its requirements. The voluntary association of the citizens might then take the place of the individual authority of the nobles, and the community would be protected from tyranny and license.
I admit that, in a democratic state thus constituted, society would not be stationary. But the impulses of the social body might there be regulated and made progressive. If there were less splendor than in an aristocracy, misery would also be less prevalent; the pleasures of enjoyment might be less excessive, but those of comfort would be more general; the sciences might be less perfectly cultivated, but ignorance would be less common; the ardor of the feelings would be constrained, and the habits of the nation softened; there would be more vices and fewer crimes.
In the absence of enthusiasm and ardent faith, great sacrifices may be obtained from the members of a commonwealth by an appeal to their understanding and their experience; each individual will feel the same necessity of union with his fellows to protect his own weakness; and as he knows that he can obtain their help only on condition of helping them, he will readily perceive that his personal interest is identified with the interests of the whole community. The nation, taken as a whole, will be less brilliant, less glorious, and perhaps less strong; but the majority of the citizens will enjoy a greater degree of prosperity, and the people will remain peaceable, not because they despair of a change for the better, but because they are conscious that they are well off already
If all the consequences of this state of things were not good or useful, society would at least have appropriated all such as were useful and good; and having once and forever renounced the social advantages of aristocracy, mankind would enter into possession of all the benefits that democracy can offer.

So I think it is evident, the ideal he writes of is one of a great moderation. Through my travels to northern Europe I have seen this kind of moderation. There is class, there is some income inequality, but does not separate people from one another the way it might in the US.

Another one of my fav's from this part:

"The poor man retains the prejudices of his forefathers without their faith, and their ignorance without their virtues; he has adopted the doctrine of self-interest as the rule of his actions without understanding the science that puts it to use; and his selfishness is no less blind than was formerly his devotion to others."

I like this definition of "poor." It descibes to me the essence of what it might be to truly be poor, apart from one's income or relationship with material possessions.

Okay, and then there is my actual favorite part, especially that last paragraph.

There are virtuous and peaceful individuals whose pure morality, quiet habits, opulence, and talents fit them to be the leaders of their fellow men. Their love of country is sincere, and they are ready to make the greatest sacrifices for its welfare. But civilization often finds them among its opponents; they confound its abuses with its benefits, and the idea of evil is inseparable in their minds from that of novelty. . Near these I find others whose object is to materialize mankind, to hit upon what is expedient without heeding what is just, to acquire knowledge without faith, and prosperity apart from virtue; claiming to be the champions of modern civilization, they place themselves arrogantly at its head, usurping a place which is abandoned to them, and of which they are wholly unworthy.
Where are we, then?
The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate bondage, and the meanest and most servile preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, while men without patriotism and without principle put themselves forward as the apostles of civilization and intelligence.

This seems to be utterly true of our current America. So could one be a spiritual proponent of liberty that adopts the enlightened parts of all religions; agree with the compassion of socialism and the pragmatism of libertarianism; maintain that honesty is constantly reaccepting the fluidity of all things; and that there is a form of modest patriotism in which a country may be merely celebrating their own unity?

Love as opposed to Religion and Science for Tolstoy

One of my favorite authors wrote letters back and forth with Gandhi, eventually he published his "Letter To a Hindu" with a foreword from Gandhi as his blessing. This is part of that foreword, in which Gandhi is quoting Tolstoy:

“If we do not want the English in India we must pay the price. Tolstoy indicates it. 'Do not resist evil, but also do not yourselves participate in evil—in the violent deeds of the administration of the law courts, the collection of taxes and, what is more important, of the soldiers, and no one in the world will enslave you', passionately declares the sage of Yasnaya Polyana. Who can question the truth of what he says in the following: 'A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand people, not athletes, but rather weak and ordinary people, have enslaved two hundred millions of vigorous, clever, capable, freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that not the English, but the Indians, have enslaved themselves?”    

Excerpt From: Tolstoy, Leo. “A Letter to a Hindu.” 

Tolstoy was encouraging Indians to rise up and expel the Brits, and though his notions of Hinduism were somewhat elementary, the focus on refuting the justification for the perpetuation of the aristocracies is awesome and still applicable today. How do we end slavery now? When the human race has rid itself of this kind of brutal injustice, perhaps then we can say we've finally fully entered into an adulthood as a species. People don't like to talk about the human species these days, it seems exclusive and myopic, but what other species is changing the face of the planet so fast it's killing and altering that which has persisted for millions of years within a few decades? Which species is it that enslaves all other animals and its own for the wealth and comfort of a few? And which species can undo these injuries?

“When an individual passes from one period of life to another a time comes when he cannot go on in senseless activity and excitement as before, but has to understand that although he has outgrown what before used to direct him, this does not mean that he must live without any reasonable guidance, but rather that he must formulate for himself an understanding of life corresponding to his age, and having elucidated it must be guided by it. And in the same way a similar time must come in the growth and development of humanity. I believe that such a time has now arrived—not in the sense that it has come in the year 1908, but that the inherent contradiction of human life has now reached an extreme degree of tension: on the one side there is the consciousness of the beneficence of the law of love, and on the other the existing order of life which has for centuries occasioned an empty, anxious, restless, and troubled mode of life, conflicting as it does with the law of love and built on the use of violence.”

According to Tolstoy we have made our own rules and laws according to a very self-serving rationale. When he was alive people used science as justification for slavery and while the science behind racism has been dismantled now, slavery still persists through the avenues of business and consumerism, and restrictive gender roles, to list but two sources of oppression.
Tolstoy gives us a few reasons why we persist in this folly. The first is religion, the second is science--though I would argue his view of the sciences is limited to sophistry. The third reason is what he calls "the principle of coercion" which is present in almost all forms of government thus far.

"Larks"

The image is from here, artist unknown.

Post
All
that Posturing

the frame
only hangs
as aligned
as the stud
is stable     holds
up
relentlessly
the ultrasound
device
didn’t tell me
make or model

I was off
by some
Amount
Drilling
Away
into
that supple
 concrete
cave wall

I took the difficulty
An Indication
to keep going
isn’t an invitation

“That’s what
She said”

No.

At some point
all
Larks must land

and all the fantoms
thereof
will jump like water spiders
to slurp up her bones
in their ectoplasmic
feeding holes

as almost every
Third
Eye
Already Synchronized
motionlessly
blinks
 .here.

 for the ossein
which substantiates
the cacophonous echoes
of griping
through the generations
like the eggs and flour
in cake batter

One of my grandmothers
told me
just about every
One
son of a bitch
is better than two
Except for a few
and I like to think
 she meant
some of us
are just half
assed

So I keep my eyes
on the road
never blinking
gripping
a strong handshake

right back
around
the head is stripped
but I have fifty more
I’ll have thousands
by day break
and there’s more coming
after that
I’ll just keep drilling
this concrete
until I bore
a hole
For the few
unblinking
Larks to fly out


Of
The limitations
of Platonic Ideals
An anchoring
of metaphysical trappings
and those larks
who fly through the hole
go down like rabbits
into another cave
ever convinced of this new bright reality
my other grandmother says
look and
There’s Always A Silver
Lining.
and I says
I know
I Followed it Here.
.whole.
and it's going through this wall.

"!0 Reasons Why You Should Try Crossdressing, Hint: it's for personal growth" Published!

My dear dear non-existent readers,

I finally did it. I wrote this masterpiece for the masses.

30 Things I Learned in my Twenties

I’m turned thirty recently. I realize thirty is not very  “old,”and age is just a state of mind.  Birthdays in general are arbitrary and overplayed, but of course this doesn’t mean I’m beyond pausing to reflect on what I’ve learned. Thus I present: What I’ve learned in my 20’s, a list.
Some of these things are about shame, distrust, and “negative” things. I guess the truth is, I can’t trust everyone, and this is one of the biggest lessons of my 20’s, other lessons are more philosophical, or experiential.

1. Always find the lid to the tupperware first, then place leftovers in the container.

3. Beginner's mind, beginner’s mind, beginner’s mind. I can’t say enough about what a little modesty and curiosity can do.

4. Logic: Identities matter to people. Language is power. For so very long I did not understand that when people talk to one another, they construct realities which they actually believe in. After studying philosophy and growing up around engineers I was used to every conversation being a sort of socratic dialogue in which everyone learns something new and cool by openly questioning each other’s assumptions and opinions and ruling out the more illogical arguments. Now I realize this can be inappropriate and offensive. Many people form opinions that they imprint on a kind of stone slate that is hard to change, and the mere suggestion that they can change these beliefs is an insult because it translates to “you should change.” Some people form beliefs and act on them from pure emotion, and there’s nothing wrong with that, except it’s not my place to tell them all their reasons are fucked up and there are better (more logical) reasons to believe these same things. Even though I’m trying to be helpful, not everyone puts value in logic. .

5.  I will always be in the process of accepting my own death, the death of others, the death of relationships in general. No one stays exactly the same, we all grow, and sometimes we grow apart. I’ve had some major friendships and relationships with lovers end during my twenties, and every time it’s ordeal because these people give me the emotional support and love as a family would. So I’ve had to re-learn what I thought I already learned as kid: independence. Accepting that my friends and lovers now may be totally different people in just a few years makes me appreciate my time with the people I love all the more. A lot of women choose to marry and have babies and form families which offer them a kind of security, they will (most likely) always have people around or alive who know and love them, and would gladly offer them shelter from the storm. In taking a different path, while coming from a very small family and being an only child, I often find I am alone. I rarely call my family for emotional support (though I do call), or place very much value in “ventng” in general, because it’s too often a proliferation of hate. Growing up surrounded by very old relatives and adults, I’ve been preparing myself for this my entire life. I was taught to take care of my shit, and while it’s tempting to rely on lover and friends, I’ve learned it’s also imperative to remember how to revel in my solitude, and stand up for myself. I’ve learned very few want to hike in the dark in a blizzard with me, I certainly wouldn’t want to either.    

6. Projections are like horoscopes, we all find ways of making them fit a person or situation. Playing with these projections is like magic, if you know what your projections are (still figuring out how). It’s not like we can escape projecting all together, but when we recognize our projections we can at least understand ourselves a little better. For instance, I always project some kind of superior Goddess woman onto my lovers and then proceed to worship them as if they are Goddesses, but apparently not every woman is into this, not every woman is even in touch/wants to do this. I’ve probably only dated one woman who was truly in touch with being a woman spiritually and wanted/liked this.  Also projections are how we have come to make corporations people, and how we feel close to brands as if they were old friends. We have all been brainwashed into anthropomorphizing (a type of projecting) a great many things into having worth which have no worth, while at the same time using objectification (another projection) to diminish worth of actual people.

7. The eight stages of grief are not linear nor are they in order. It possible to feel intense guilt one day and anger the next. Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember what it’s like to not be grieving over my grandmother. I’ve learned to track my progress through the stages by remembering my dreams. The first couple years my grandmother was a corpse or a nearly dead, mostly unconscious person in my dreams, as she was the last year she was alive. I would shake her, ask her questions and beg her to acknowledge my presence, then wake up in tears. Eventually she became the younger grandmother I knew as a child who cared for me. Now she laughs and says things in my dreams. Occasionally I hear her the sound of her voice again ring through my mind as though she were with me and reacting to my environment. I still wake up crying weekly at the point in the dream when I realize she is not alive and I start trying to hug and cry on her.  Regarding grief, time seems to be the only healer, since five years later I still am not quite capable of accepting her death.

8.  I’ve learned I’m a first-hand experience type of gal, if I don’t experience it, I can’t believe in it, or at least I have nothing to say on the subject. Whether it’s “Paula is a bad person” or ghosts, deities, or whatever, I generally don’t believe in anything unless it agrees with my experience, my reason, and my intuition--and yes those three things may be overlapping. Further, just because I choose to believe in something doesn’t mean I think it’s actually true or real. For instance, chakras: it’s helpful to think of these energetic places in my body, they describe felt experiences for sure, but do they exist? Probably not. Just because people have been practicing or believing certain things for thousands of years does not mean they are true.

8. How to shapeshift/properly crossdress in the way that suites me, outside of gender constraints. I don’t need to don a fake beard and bind my breasts to pass. I don’t need to change my pronouns. I can pass any day as either gender, but the balance of androgenous is more satisfying on a day to day basis. There may be as many genders as there are people. To me, it’s not about what you identify as but how you use your gender expression and sexuality as a tool for personal growth. It isn’t a rejection but a grounded expression of what is really possible. Identities, pronouns, sexual orientations, all these are some level merely social and linguistic constructions that are culturally and temporally bound. They are our reaching towards the external trying to identify our “selves” with the world, but this is still an attachment to something we ultimately can’t control. The ability to shapeshift, as the Greek Goddess, Iris, often did, is wonderfully useful. Through LGBT literature I’ve learned that being “butch” or more masculine is just one way of expressing queerness. “Stone Butch Blues” had major impact on me when I was about 25.  Had I been born in the wrong era...I would be toast, (or making it). But unlike my boi-thers, my sisters of that era, I have the freedom (because of a more emotionally safe environment and less trauma) to occasionally indulge in the vulnerable act of crossdressing and being as fluid as I care to be. I don’t have to be clearly one or the other gender, I don’t have to involve myself in that binary, unless I want to--and this is a great privilege. I have much gratitude that I was not socialized the way most girls or children were, I was raised a person before “girl” or “boy” and given most of the toys and opportunities boys enjoyed.  My gender doesn’t change and flow out a rejection of being woman, but out of a curiosity and flexibility to different situations. I can deploy the embodiment of any gender I choose, like Iris did in the Illiad, the act is self-validating. I am privileged with small breasts and an amicable frame to androgenry, which I will not be shamed for.

9. Relationships are hard work, there are no quick fixes, and they will only become as good as you let them be; there doesn’t have to be upper limits on how good things can be for a certain period of time. If things are going really well, the rule of ebb and flow dictates there will be an energetic dip. This doesn’t mean there suddenly has to be a fight about whether to have kids or not in five years..!  it can just be taking space for an afternoon. Thanks Julie Colwell. Also, polyamory allows for never really “breaking-up” unless it’s really an authentic ending. Shifting from close lovers to friends is a leap, but shifting from close to lovers to friends with benefits (even if just emotional), or some other situation is also an option. Of course, some things just need to end.

10. It’s okay to fail, and I’m going to keep failing. I’m still learning this. During my twenties I lost two jobs due to depression and was rejected by fourteen law schools. I tried to go back to school for a while to get my GPA up but it was Political Science and I became too intellectually depressed by new knowledge of neoliberalism and the badly argued political theories to continue and ended up hurting my GPA further (there was also scabies and a break up somewhere in there as well). For a while the sting of rejection was so sharp I was paralyzed from taking any action for fear of another failure. Now I do things with less expectations. I love writing beyond most things, and everyone fails at writing so at least I have company.

11. Tennessee is a shit hole. 

12. Some of the most homophobic people are gynecologists. They either think I have HIV and order tests without my consent, think there’s no possibility of STIs because of my sexuality and try to convince me not to waste money getting tested, rush through the process unconcerned that they may be causing me pain in their hurry, refuse to test me for STIs altogether, and/or treat me as if I’m disgusting and tainted when I insist I want the tests. If it weren’t for other (straight or cis) female friends going to these same gyns and having positive experiences I would think these people hate their jobs, as they clearly were when it came time for my examination. I’ve learned to be extremely clear about what I expect and what I will pay for, the tests I want and not taking “no” for an answer. I assume I deserve quality health care like everyone else, and that doctors and staff aren’t perfect.

16. What a proper diet consists of (still learning how to cook). Growing up in the South meant I was raised on butter, all kinds of processed foods, fast food, and tons of meat. I think every day of the fourth grade I had a butter biscuit from Hardies for breakfast. I tried to become vegetarian for a summer in the 11th grade, but there was little infrastructure for me to base my diet on. So at 17 I decided I would continue eating meat until I could move away and date a woman who could teach me to cook vegetarian. Success! When I was 22 I finally did just this and have been percitarian ever since. I have my have pitfalls, sugar obsessions, and small addictions to caffeine, but Boulder really has had a wonderful influence on my diet. Now I’m learning about how to eat more raw dishes and greens on a daily basis. I fully intend to become superhuman. :)

17. The moon will surely rise again. Cats will be cats, queens will be queens, and haters gonna hate. This isn’t to say people don’t change, just that they’re usually predictable. This is also why tarot cards work, they vaguely concern the unique combinations of  creativity, logic, emotions, and the physical world. Almost everyone has experienced the situations in any one card in the deck during their lifetime and surely will again. Prediction is not about if but when, and how--which takes more than superstitions, spells, and rituals! After scoffing for long time at religions of any kind, I finally learned the borders of my spirituality can include selfmade ritual (life hack!), that I find it rather pleasing, and that which is pleasing cannot be so awful if I do not give it power over me. Easier said than done.

18. I can control my depression (or lack of it), my health, and my life through the combination of rigorous yoga practice and intense intellectual endeavors. Also smoking pot fucks me over by preventing me from doing these things. Hedonistic massage orgies are also beneficial.

19. I am my own guru. I partially got a degree in philosophy so I could protect myself from bullshit...! Of course, no one is completely free of it, but one can be lean. I don’t buy into much, and what I do is conscious a choice. I used to think a little guidance would be nice, but guidance doesn’t come from mistresses in the sky, it comes friends and lovers and animals and housemates and the Earth. When the hierarchies fall away so too does that grievance with power.

20. No one is going to initiate me into the club. Doesn’t matter what club, there’s no one waiting for me to show me around or welcome me, and indeed I may be very unwelcome. My curiosity must be great enough to teach me all I need to know.

21. Along the same vein: An ordeal is faced alone. It helps to have people that love you around; but just like in death, it’s all you anyway. Coming out of it with chip on your shoulder is just going to render you a victim when you could be celebrating that you survived. When there is no witness, no one to exclaim at your misfortune (or good fortune) then you alone are the witness and what you tell yourself about what happened and the humor or lack of it is a measure of both your honesty and resilience.

22. Don’t date people my own age. They’re just as delusional and confused as me and that’s not helpful.  I had the good fortune of dating a woman 25 years my senior for 5+ years in my twenties and I don’t know who I would be had I not done this. My body would be a wreck because I would still be smoking, and my emotional intelligence would be just as bad. Basically, older people know more stuff (usually), and it’s smart to hang around them.

23.  I used to think because I had very bad childhood that everything would be smooth sailing for the rest of my life, nothing could be as bad as what I’ve already survived. More realistically, I will be shrugging off all the coping mechanisms and beliefs from that toxic childhood that don’t serve me anymore for a long time.  Some of the things are so embedded they may never change but that doesn’t me they are me. For instance I go numb pretty easily, my reaction is to keep moving, become hyper rational, and ignore my body/emotions until I'm out of danger. Angry yelling  and drama  render me running away or completely disengaging.  But this means I still have to process it all later. This worked well for me living in Tennessee where I could hide away in the woods with my cats and animals, but in Boulder it's actually safe enough to process in the present because people are less into blame and more into the love. I'm still learning the difference between when it is safe to be vunerbale and when it isn't at all.

24.  During my twenties I went to many workshops at Boulder Center for Conscious Community where learned very good basic emotional intelligence. Separating your intellectual thoughts from felt emotions is the the key to emotional intelligence. There is a difference between feeling anger in your body, the chest tightening, etc., and thinking angry in your mind “fuck youuuu, I can’t believe you did this to me”  even though the two are often perceived as simultaneous (they aren’t). Left unchecked, the mind will spin in every direction about felt emotions (past and present) and 99% of it is garbage. There are four or five core emotions that every human (and many animals) feel in their bodies, the rest of it is intellectual stories about feelings. The practice of separating the two during heated emotional experiences is difficult but must be done for personal growth to occur.

25.The self, the stories in your mind, all of it is an illusion! I learned this early on, but knowing it theoretically and knowing it in practice are different. I didn’t learn it in practice until I started doing yoga in my mid-late twenties. Tuning into the body forces a kind of concentration on what is that burns through whatever your telling yourself about what is, very effectively. No one else can do this for you, and carrying around stories about yourself expecting others to react appropriately is a waste of time. The body has its own thoughts and hearing them takes a special silence, specifically quieting the thoughts with intentionality towards the external. Yoga made the breath make sense, which takes a sense out what doesn’t need context.

26. No one is enlightened. I learned this after hanging out with buddhist monks, going to meditation retreats, yoga teacher trainings, relationship workshops, and a slew of other touchy feelie events. I’m sure lots of people disagree with me, but I don’t think there is a person alive who is enlightened in the Buddhist sense. My reasoning is that ultimately there is no difference between “nirvana” and now. There is no escaping the prison of the cycle of suffering because there is no prison. If you believe in reincarnation and that whole rigamarole cycle of life, suffering, death and rebirth, then you believe there is a prison and that you must get out of it. Believing in the prison doesn’t make it actually so, except for you, in your mind, and in that case you really must endeavor to change yourself somehow and escape. That thought-form may be very strong but it doesn’t mean I must buy into it. As Alan Watts says: “you realize you were there from the beginning and there’s nothing to realize.” But this doesn’t mean I should stop practicing yoga, meditation, or chanting, just that these activities are not a means to an end, but the ends in themselves (thanks Kant!).

27. This is an unfortunate one: Recognizing and having compassion for women with internalized homophobia (turns out, it’s a real thing).   I had to learn the difference between not connecting with someone because of various differences and not connecting because of their internalized homophobia. Where the former is often mutual, the latter can be hurtful if I don’t recognize it in time. When someone is disgusted by me or my perceived sexuality and gender expression they may not tell me, but it’s often written on their face and actions. It’s almost easier to deal with direct homophobia, people saying offensive things or asking me rude and intrusive questions, I learned to deal with this as a lesbian teenager growing up in Tennessee. But now I’ve had to learn how to deal with something much more subtle. I learned the disgust is not actually at me but towards the part of themselves they see in me which they have been rejecting and devaluing. Some women as girls were taught all kinds of strange things about the right and wrong ways to express their masculinity and sexuality. I could waste my time judging and spinning on about how so-and-so is maybe or maybe not homophobic or transphobic and why, or I can love them anyway but move on. The signs someone (almost always other women) have internalized homophobia include: ignoring me completely even when asked direct questions either in person or email, repeatedly not responding to my obvious gestures of friendship and/or interpreting them as sexual advances, if I am attracted to them, using this as an excuse to reject my friendship where they normally wouldn’t if I were a male admirer, being overly friendly in social settings and inviting me to do things (unprompted) but then repeatedly being busy when the time of the event comes (the behavior is particularly irritating), assuming things about me based on my perceived gender and sexuality (like that I “think I’m a man,” that I am somehow inherently untrustworthy, or that my butchy appearance is indicative of some psychological disorder/problem), and in general, refusing to put any effort into getting to know me/make any space despite a number similar interests, overlapping friend circles, and my encouragement. For a long time I spent a lot of energy on trying to be friendly with certain women in my work and daily life and I felt it was my fault they were ignoring me, that I am somehow too radical, too aggressive, or too shy, but I figured out it really has nothing to do with me. People are busy, people don’t know how to make space, but they don’t have to. Lastly, I learned that while it’s helpful to recognize when women have internalized homophobia, it also shouldn’t preclude me from loving them anyway from a far, if I love what they do and who they are regardless. I don’t need to add to the hatred of hating them back.

28. I’m not a victim and you aren’t either. If someone is constantly a victim of circumstances I start to become suspicious. One of the coolest things I learned in my twenties was how not to be victim, but I’m still working on it. Yes, this sounds weird. How can one avoid that which they have no control over? The answer is somewhat unpopular but most white people living in the first world actually do have some control over their circumstances.  No one choses to be sexually assaulted, I didn’t chose to be emotionally and physically abused as a child. However I can choose how I respond to things in the present and if there’s a way perceive myself as not a victim (any way at all!), I prefer this because the alternative is giving up my control to change my circumstances. The subjective truth of someone elses bad or good intentions doesn’t really matter if they are treating me well in the present. If I am not being treated well in present, I’ve learned to be more confrontational, and even though it gets me in a lot trouble sometimes, I’m learning how to do this to save myself the trouble of being their victim more than once. Over the years I’ve encountered many people with bad intentions, but I noticed I haven’t fallen prey because I acted as though they had good intentions, or I stayed far away either physically or emotionally. To some extent people rise or lower to your expectations of them. Recognizing and overcoming other’s low expectations of me (as the case with internalized homophobia) has become a priority. It’s not about judging them and placing blame, but weaseing my way into or out of these kinds of relationship dynamics by use of compassion.  

29. Scabies kill friendships. Also they suck. Somehow, after a visit to see my grandfather in Tennessee a couple years ago I contracted scabies. My housemates at the time became convinced they had it, I couldn’t hug anyone, and of course my lover at the time contracted them too because I didn’t know I had them in time. I had to keep it very secret, I think it’s the most tainted I’ve ever felt in life. I felt guilty if I touched someone, or sat down in a public place. I had to put on poison head to toe twice to get rid of them. It gave me all the more compassion for people who have them or any kind extremely stigmatized disease.

30. I've traveled to 13+ countries around northern Europe and elsewhere and it never fails that I will start crying after the 10th day. I NEVER plan trips beyond a place to stay when I first get off the plane, I've never been on a "tour," though I've been sheeple in those places too. So after a while the uncertainty of it all starts to set in, and pretty soon I don't know where I'm going, where I'm sleeping, or why, and I just have to cry. By this point I've already seen and done and met all I had hoped for and more. I've slept on a concrete back patio of a desserted vactaion condo in northern Italy, I once hid our huge golden retriever on a sleeper train from Germany to Basil, I staked a tent in the forrest outside of Olso and no one bothered it or my things when I left them there, I've been woken in my tent by booming cop voices more than once in northern CA, I pitched a tent in an Ikea parking lot in Switzerland and was promptly kicked out at 8am by confused security guards. I travel on the cheap. Couchsurfing and camping is the way to go if you don’t have any money for hotel and want to spend it all on art museums and food. No one picks up hitchhikers in Denmark, and if you want to catch the bus, you have to actually raise your hand as it drives up, otherwise the bus just keeps driving on by. It’s also possible to live and work for someone who knows almost no English; and the subway in Oslo runs on the honor system. There are Cuckoo birds in southern France which really go "cuc coo" and the Italians and New Yorkers are too hostile and rude for a girl raised in the south where politeness and hospitality are ingrained. The forests in Norway have moss  knee deep that are soft like a pillow (where the faeries live), Iceland has endless fields of moss covered rocks that look soft but aren't (where the elves live), the Mediterranean beach is covered in smooth pebbles in Nice, so is the Norwegian Sea, and I have confirmed the Artic is cold. The fish heavy Scandinavian diet suits me and I am able to  eat and enjoy cat food-esque like dried cod fish snacks and herring for breakfast. One never needs to dine out much if you have canned fish and yogurt and chocolate.