The T Report

Can you help by linking to my site?

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:27:12 GMT

Hey all -

Long time no talk. I'm still hidden away in a cave on my extended writer's retreat. Good news is things are slogging along. Book is due to publisher at end of January.

This next year I intend to do some intensive social marketing for my novels, and therefore am moving much of my net presence to a different forum. When I finish my cave stint I'll revisit these LJ pages more often. In the meanwhile, please check out my writerly site and blog, or subscribe direct to the feed, if you'd like. Blog posts via email and subscriptions to a book-info/announcement only newsletter are in the works for later.

Because my site is relatively new it is barely indexed, and gets few hits and little traffic. I could really use your help to change that situation. So if you'd like to support the work of an artist reconstituting her writing career, I'd appreciate it if you'd link to my website, and post about it somewhere. Even several somewheres. And tell friends. :)

See the site for more info about my novels etc.

Thanks for your support.

To be continued...

Where you can find me

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:48:56 GMT

I'm not visiting these LJ pages very often these days, and probably will not be while I'm in writing boot camp (see previous post).

For those interested in keeping an eyeball on me or my work you can find me reliably on the web at www.deborahchristian.com.

Boot Camp

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:04:04 GMT

I have moved away from San Francisco, and not on a mere peregrination through local regions as in recent years past.
Never thought it would happen, but it's for a good cause. (Never say never.)
I have taken myself off for a long-term retreat in a rural location East of the Mississippi. (!!!)
With family. On a farm. In the sticks.
Quiet. Isolated. Sheep and goats outside my window, and horses grazing in the front yard. Cats on my bed.
New-mown hay across the way. Great thunderstorms overhead (and thankfully a great UPS).

Good For Writing.

Because, by Ghod, I need to get my shit sorted out about the writing, and other life path issues. Now or never.

I have 2 books to finish and others to start. And much artistic(and other) self-work to do. I am very conscious of being a work in progress right now. So, I have become an Army of One (har, says this Army vet), and have put myself in Take Care of Business boot camp (to borrow the Marine metaphor, but that's ok, my sister was a jarhead): personal biz, life biz, artistic biz.

We'll see where I end up when my tour of duty is over.

Hm, the metaphors one reaches to in times of transition...

To be continued...

-Teramis
~in the Hinterland~

Rita Hayworth!!!!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:49:05 GMT

Well, I may be 60 years late (!), but for the first time *ever* in my life I just saw Rita Hayworth in a movie ("The Lady from Shanghai", with Orson Wells), and all I can say is....

WOW.

Now I Get It about her.

What a *Babe*!

Where are the 1940s when I need them....

!!!

-Teramis the Retro-Child

Currants & Greece

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:27:40 GMT

I am exploring the world of German public television these days, courtesy of the net (and, probably, Your Tax Dollars at Work: I was trained as a German translator by the US Army, back in the day, and remain fluent enough in it to be working as a translator as we speak). Thanks to the net giving me access to European media at my desktop, I can now get my mandatory dose of German culture whenever I like. And that is increasing, since today streaming video conveys current shows on demand over the net. Doing the happy dance, here, about that.

So: cooking shows. I'm a foodie, and man, some of these cooking shows in Germany totally rock. If you think "sausages" = German cuisine, you really are in for a surprise if you really go a-dining. Excellent German cuisine holds its own *or is superior to* haute French or any other heavy hitter in the international gastronome market.

But that's a rant for later. Meanwhile: one of the totally incidental comments in a broadcast I watched really struck me from a cultural perspective:

We call them "currants". I love currant jam, got to know it in Europe while traveling in Ireland (never heard it called by its name by Germans, tho - a necessary note for my epiphany in this post). Itt' s not as popoular here as over there, but still, it's in the stores, and if you look in the right places you can find actual currant berries now and then as well. I almost always have this jam in my fridge.

BUT - on this cooking show, I suddenly hear a new-to-me German word, as they refer to using currants instead of raisins in cooking: they call them "Corinthians" (Korinthen, auf Deutsch).

Wow.

Suddenly I have this vision of these tart-sweet red berries growing native in the hills of Corinthe in Greece. Is it so? Language being what it is, I rather suspect this is a real pointer to the origins of the fruit or at least, a remembrance of where it first became really popularized in (European) cuisine. This is the kind of thing that is so remote from us with our American culture, but I think it's totally trippy to get this kind of historical cultural footprint from language alone.

I haven't the patience to study linguistics on purpose, but things like this make me sit up and say, "What?" as all my geekish curiosities engage.

"Korinthen."

Yes, I'd like some Corinthians on my toast, please. And now that you mention it, in that stew's not a bad idea, either.... [g]

Who knew?

'course, I could be way wrong here, but still. It's a nice notion, and resonant in the language. Huzzah for bi-linguality, says I. (Say that 3 times fast).

-T (jonesing for a proper kitchen!!!!)

THC and cancer

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 09:24:47 GMT

Maybe it's out there, but I haven't seen a peep in our mainstream media about this little headline from the cancer research front in Europe. From German news media, the following (though it is published in an American science journal).

Translation by moi (hey, I really am a translator, trained by Your Tax Dollars courtesy of the US Army. If you need German/English translations done I do it professionally as well. Drop me a note :)

(original here: http://de.news.yahoo.com/dpa2/20080205/tsc-inhaltsstoff-der-hanfpflanze-hemmt-a-16c81b5_1.html)

Ingredient of the Hemp Plant Limits Spread of Cancer

DPA - Tues Feb 5, 21:03, 2008

Rostock (dpa). According to a study from the University of Rostock, an ingredient of the cannabis plant limits the spread of cancer.

As the university reported on Tuesday, pharmacologists Robert Ramer and Burkhard Hinz demonstrated in cell cultures that the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol slows the migration of tumor cells into the surrounding tissue. In the body, this migration can lead to metastasization of a cancer. This movement is made possible by cancer cell-produced enzymes that degrade the tissues. The agent in cannabis allows cells to create an inhibitor against these enzymes.

Hinz, director of the Institute for Toxicology and Pharmacology, reports that the work towards an anti-cancer effect is still in an early, experimental phase. However, results to date leave hope that cannabinoids may represent an additional cancer therapy in the future - one with fewer side effects than those from the medicines used in conventional chemotherapy. The results are published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (Vol. 100, pg 59).

Cannabinoids have been investigated intensively since the beginning of the '90s for their medical effects. Among other things they are used for the treatment of nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy for cancer. The university reports that animal and cell culture experiments indicate that cannabinoids may also prevent cancer cells from dividing or even kill them, and may thus slow the growth of tumors.

Heath Ledger :/

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 09:37:22 GMT

SO bummed Heath Ledger died.
I really really *Really* liked him.
Tragic.

which superhero are you?

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:56:00 GMT

Read and collected the comics for years. First plastic model I ever built was of this one.
Still carry a keyfob of this character's logo, and have a poster of him as well. Can't say this result surprises me:

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman		80%
Spider-Man		80%
Green Lantern		75%
Supergirl		72%
Wonder Woman		72%
Iron Man		65%
The Flash		60%
Batman		55%
Catwoman		45%
Robin		42%
Hulk		40%

You are mild-mannered, good,
strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Now, if only I could get some silliness with my secret identity straightened out...

What are YOUR truisms from childhood?

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:21:46 GMT

Growing up, we are told many "truths" about the world by adults. When we're older we learn that these may not be so true after all, but in the meanwhile they become sayings and panaceas intended to halp a kid make sense of a nonsensical world.

For instance: a kid calls Johnny names on the playground. At home,Dad reassures him with the saying, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me."
Other kids mock Julie, who tells her parent of this in distress. Mom sooths her with, "Ignore them. They're just jealous of you."
And so on.

My question to the group mind: What kinds of "truths" and truisms were YOU told, growing up? Which of those (if any) ring true today, and which ones were harmful to you in some way?

Inquiring minds want to know. :)

Sandra OH!

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:44:40 GMT

Apropo of catching her on Jimmy Kimmel Live (in re-runs, how trite is that) at the moment:

I think Sandra Oh is the hottest thing since sliced bread.

I really do.

Date her in a hot minute, I would....

You within the 6 degrees of connection are welcome to share my email and contact info with her. Really.

quick-peel an egg???

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:59:02 GMT

You know how when you're a little kid, and all kinds of things are new to you?
and how, the older you get, less and less things are new to you?

and then you see/hear/learn about something like "quick peeling an egg" - which is, perforce, again, totally NEW to you?

(http://youtube.com/watch?v=bGWigngcIDo)

("voila. your egg is free and ready to eat".... well, now I'm all about those free and ready-to-eat eggs, ya know...)

???? Does that work? Really??

OMG.

The five-yr old in me is totally engaged and wants to go hardboil every egg in the fridge right now and get this down pat. DOES it work, at all? It is *real*? It seems so...magical. Just *blow* on an egg and make it pop out of its shell?? Gibt es denn die Possibilitaet?

Kinda like when I first saw someone pass their finger through a candleflame without getting burnt (took me months to screw up the courage to try it myself) (though I *still* haven't worked up the courage to lick my fingers and snuff out candle flames by pinching the wick with wet fingers... gah...that's just Too Freaky).

Life is strange.

Great that there's always something new lurking somewhere, though...

quick-peeling eggs. Hahaha... don't know why, I'm just delighted and weirded out by the concept. :)

Totentanz, and Dia de los Muertos

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:33:59 GMT

I have a happy little mariachi skeleton man atop my computer right now, flanked by 2 sugar skulls, typical symbols (if you want to talk symbols) of the Mexican "day of the dead". I went and acquired them on purpose because 10/31 and 11/1 - the night of the return of the dead, and the day of All Hallows - is a time when the Veil is Thin, and it is a time that I particularly honor. I say this from my personal experience, not mainly (or even solely) from my incidental orientation as a pagan who pays attention to National Holidays of this ilk.

On my personal Day of the Dead, I spend some time with my late beloved brother and mother (he passed before her - they were quite perturbed, no mother should have to bury her son like that) - but as soon as she passed over he was Johnny on the Spot to escort her further. I was present at portions of that event, and witnessed it first hand - let us just say, that "out of the body" does not necessarily mean "gone."

So on this Dia de los Muertos, I will be spending time with my loved ones. I expect to be having talks with them, and maybe a picnic we can share in (ok perhaps only I will eat it but we will all be chatting over it) at a particular idyllic refuge of mine. Mom always especially loved picnics, and Don tolerated them cuz Mom loved them. So I figure I can get us all conglomerated with merely the mental invitation.

At any rate: I picked a mariachi skeleton man because, you know, they celebrate marriages, and other festive events. and this little guy holds forth a golden horn, with his yellow sombrero perched atop his skeleton head....

quite charming. Like Gabriel blowing his horn, for some value of Gabriel.... And all of this (not coincidentally) puts me incredibly in mind of the Totentanz frescos I saw in Germany, in places where the plague deaths of the middle ages were so starkly commemorated that they were envisioned as a dance of the dead, like the Pied Piper luring all behind them, off into the dimness of the Beyond. A disjunct connection perhaps, but there in my noodle nonetheless. For whatever it's worth.

Happy Communions, one and all. And may we all make our peace with death, with the Beyond, and with Limbo (think great transformative Tarot symbol here) and all its other connotations. This especially apropo for me, as I embark upon another life transition phase as we speak...

Blessed Be.

-T.

Bionic Woman rave

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 03:27:32 GMT

dark sensitive quirky story PLUS:

Katie Sackhoff (of Battlestar Gallactica Starbuck fame) in a rockin role as beautiful, twisted anti-heroine

HOT HOT HOT!!!!!!

**Yowza**!

Kid Nation!!!

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:24:24 GMT

ROCKS.

Sophia, 14 yrs old, ~the kitchen diva~ :

"Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by a whole lotta dumb people."

"Mallory gave me a nickel to dance farther away from her bunkhouse."

!!!

I *adore* this girl.
She is a reincarnation of me. Though how she manages that, while I'm still alive, I'm still figuring out...
(ok not the anal retentive control freakishness, uh uh not me at all, but the other flashes of brilliance... ;)

Gahhh!

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 00:20:21 GMT

A deadline for one of my sf books is eating my brain and noise in my environment is preventing me from concentrating and being in the Zone like I need to be.

AARRRRRGGGHHH!!!

So I just ordered some serious noise reduction headphones online.

God I hate apartment living. :(

Just had to share that...

-Teramis the Cave Dweller.
Now just let me find a freakin cave....

Plural/Possessive Snark, or "Plurals are that simple"

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 08:03:51 GMT

Title of the Snark Target: An Ad, hight[1]: "Hiring Barista's at a Specialty Coffee Shop"

yes yes and here I go. I can't help myself. I don't even wanna freakin apologize.

IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PLURAL AND A POSSESSIVE YOU ARE NO FRIEND OF MINE (and a couple of you are on borrowed time, and you know who you are, I presume)!!!!!

The Ad, which title is given in my first sentence above, is for hiring at Peet's Coffee. Now, let's state the Obvious: that's Peet's, as in " Peet owns the Coffee House". Can we say "possessive"? Sure we can. We sure as hell can't say, Peet's as in "there are many of them." But oh let basic grammar not halt us from the trainwreck that progressess therefrom for the ill-educated and ill-advised. (Charles Dickens would have you all in an allegorical poorhouse by now, and I would too if only I could compress it into 25 words or less. Trust me, I'm working on that...).

My snark, which I'm sure left no dent in the apostrophe-friendly and possessive challenged author of the ad:

**
Call it my personal bugaboo, but I do want to point out that Peet's is a professional, real-world, corporate organization. One would assume they use common standard English in their business communications. One rather expects it, in fact, from a Real Business in the world.

With this in mind, then:

Plurals just slap an "s" on the end. No apostrophe. Like "books", "toys", or (dare we say) "baristas"
For a national/international company like Peet's to have ads out (in whatever venue) with the misused apostrophe is irritating, off-putting, and scarey (because of what it says about the educational level of Peet's employees in management positions writing and placing ads). Making the word "barista" look like a possessive is just doofus. The plural is 'baristas', by the way: just add 's' to the end - plurals are that simple. Adding an apostrophe before it turns it into a possessive, meaning "the barista's...thing that she owns...." Which is probably not what you intended to communicate, but what comes across to anyone who has survived jr high/middle school English with a grade of C or higher.

So please: I hope you are not hiring barista's [fill in the blank here, for whatever object that might be], but rather are looking for *baristas* who can fulfill your corporate mission.
One would hope, anyway.

**

Well, now, isn't that a damn polite snark.

But my point remains: JUST SLAP AN 'S' ON THE END, AND ***THAT*** IS A PLURAL!!! GO FUCKING FIGURE!!!!

Notice: ** there is no apostrophe involved **!! [2]

How HARD is that for ppl to get????

Incredibly, apparently.

GAH.

I not only lament, I RAGE at the Dumbing Down of America.

AAARRRRGGHHH!!

I'm moving to Europe somewhen. Where ppl are still fucking literate. Even in *our* language, which isn't even (usually ) theirs.

GAH, again.

-Teramis the disgruntled, and approaching the New Moon, even worse Weird Science than usual....

My motto for 2008: "Plurals are that simple."

______________
1. hight = archaic for "is called". Sometimes anglicized as yclept: all derivations of Old and Middle English, with Germanic roots. Pardon my etymologystic moments but I'd rather say more than less to language in this particular excursionary post. So there for my $2 words...

2. Using no apostrophes for plurals is the grammatical norm, with the very *rare* exception of things like, distinguishing units of measure and acronyms. I lay the current apostrophe/plural confusion at the door of the popularization of the acronym "CD" (compact disc) and its plural "CD's" in about, oh, circa 1985: a Chicago Style manual acceptable style, in the 1980s, in which the apostrophe is added to avoid confusion between "CDS" ('what's that acronym mean?') and the plural of "CD"s. That's when the apostrophe/plural association started to appear in public in mass media, just in time to rot the brain of the earliest MTV and Gen X generation, and the Mentos Publicum has not recovered since.
Gag Me.
Y'all go read a grammar book.
Feh.
Did I mention disgruntled?

Dead Like Me....

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 07:25:50 GMT

I can't begin to say in how many ways this show rocks.

Only comment for now:

Rube (Mandy Patinkin) shouts to his minions/screw-offs/death-reapers, "Simmer down" and do that test he gave them...'

My brain disconnected right about there.

"Simmer down, in there!" my (now long-deceased) Dad would shout at me and my sister when we were horsing around too much at night...

Wow. Can we say 'cognitive disconnect...'

sure we can.

Dead Like Me. Warps your brain, man.

It's a Good Thing...

-T.

ONAG tech support lament

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 05:08:45 GMT

Ebay. love 'em hate em.

I just spent an hour with their tech support, resolving a no-access issue: account blocked because an unauthorized 3rd party is (attempting to) list things thru my account.
Immediate prob solved (access), bigger issue TBD (how'd they hack) - I suspect keylogger on pc about to check - but meanwhile.....

I am plagued with tech support that spews canned answers and doesn't even understand the meaning of the word "boilerplate" when that is how they are answering every pointed q I ask. I had to *explain the term* to my 20-something assistant across the etheric sea.

The expanded concept did not help her to better respond to my queries: pointed questions like, "Is there any way *other* than having my pw, that a person can attempt to list sales through my account?" To this specific question I receive (boilerplate) pointers and cautionary txt to links re spoof mails and phishing. D'oh. I had to finally back off on the pointed questions so as not to baffle frustrate and overwhelm the sprog. However, this does not make for a Successful Consumer Experience.

Ebay, yer dropping the ball here.

Free your 2nd tier support ppl's fingers from the macros that fill the blanks with *boilerplate* (and hey, explain the concept to your young-uns while you're at it, ok?). Empower them to actually READ a question in context and respond to the *point* of what is asked in a non-scripted manner. Yes, it's not as safe/manageable/QA-able from a mangement viewpoint, but for the consumer who knows to ask the right questions it is far more helpful than support that can merely broadly read, and broadly categorize, and hit the right b-plate macro key in response.

Man I'm glad I'm not an end user support geek, OR, in charge of support networks that deal with this kind of Scheisse all the time. I'd have to kill someone. And then myself.

-Teramis

ONAG
(Officially Not A Geek)

:::stamping foot::::

:::marching off, stage left:::

in a people cannon!!!!

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 07:52:07 GMT

ROFLMAO!

I have to say this just cracks me up and delights the child in me. :)

So, I'm in SL (the cyberspace world of Second Life, in case you haven't caught up w/my blogs yet) and was horse shopping, and came across this place where a pasture runs down to a cliff edge at a majestic height overlooking a river - and lo and behold, there at the cliff edge, for no apparent reason, is... a people cannon. !!!

you know: the thing they shoot ppl out of at circuses?

only there you have to be acrobatics-adept to survive the launch and land right. Here, in SL where anything is possible, its a certainty you're not going splat if you land wrong....so...what the hey....my elegent fetishwear notwitstanding, I said, WTF, and climbed into the people cannon.

And then I ignited it.

The fuse burned down. and then....

>>>>FWOOOOSH!!!!!

WOW MAN!!!!

I went FLYYYYYYIIIINGGG through the air, entirely too far, completely outta control, and was heading for the ground and the river canyon when I said, yowza, I'm like outta control here **and wasn't that just a spectacular shot outta that cannon!???!!??? W00T!!!!**

So in between just plain glee and just plain 'save your avatar' freakout, I kicked in the "Fly" function and elevated myself out of my (couldn't really be) death-like plunge, and finally came to a halt somewhere.

And man....

that was a GREAT ride, let me tell you. :)

now, I'm sneaking back there when I have a mo, and am doing it again, by ghu!

hee hee!

The Amazing Flying Teramis....

- or as some of my friends will appreciate, "Launch Saur!"
though I can't wait to do this in a rabbit avatar, then we'll *really* have a Hare in the Air, and not just one flying in a plane from point A to point B...! You hearin' this, Bun?? ;)

Nanny McPhee

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:55:40 GMT

the dark-side Mary Poppins...

"There is something I must tell you about the way I work.
If you need me, and don't want me, I shall stay. '
If you want me, and don't need me, I shall go.
Rather sad, really, but there it is..."

*rockin*

I made a date with a Fox!

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:23:52 GMT

No, really: with a Fox.
As in, long muzzle. Furry. Tail

Someone I met in Second Life*, which is the only place yet I've ever encountered that fine blend of alter-human reality with Victorian Charm and grace.

Really.

For some reason I feel I need to explain why me hooking up with a British Fox who is a military officer and a Victorian gentleman happened at all.

Then again, I don't feel it really needs any explanation at all. I'm not even sure any could suffice.
It is literally what I said; it really doesn't require explanation; it really is (from one paradigm, at least) quite extraordinary. From another, quite to-be-expected.

And we have a date on Thursday.
Go figure.

Maybe it's part of that Librarian thing. We did get down to date details in the Library, after all. (where the sign behind us delightfully yet ominously read, "The Caledon Library: We Know What to Do with People Like You..."

ROFLMAO.

-T.

*Second Life: if you can imagine it, you can do it. This is (nearly) the cyber-space we've been reading/writing about in science fiction for years. How can I not be here? Tra la. Check it out, the basic account is FREE (as in, FREE). www.secondlife.com.
Use my name as your referring person, I'll get some benies from it later, maybe. My name in-world: Teramis Writer. (Yeah, it's a stretch, I know, but there you have it...)

Librarians - "a hipper crowd of shushers"

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 08:45:12 GMT

Well isn't this just a great article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/fashion/08librarian.html?em&ex=1184040000&en=9ae24dcd72a1b0ff&ei=5087%0A

I used to be a librarian. It is very weird reading about this characterization of the contemporary librarian as cyber-chic (so to speak), and that the profession is now attracting a lot of geeky tech types. This cracks me up. I was the first librarian in the world to automate a public library's circulation with a microcomputer (in 1979; you can read about it in the July 1980 issue of Library Journal, which is also the first article I ever sold for money, and there is a picture of 23 year old me in it as well). Of course, because of my geekly interests I hung with all the cool librarians even back then. So I thought (of course) that all librarians were secretly living these wild lives - and in fact, many were. They were certainly the first people I ever saw wearing Immoral Minority tee-shirts (in answer to the then-newly founded Moral Majority); the first ride I ever had - too fast, too far, too windblown - in an open-topped MG roadster was in one belonging to a film librarian from Seattle who wore his duster cap on backwards. The most stoned I've ever ever been in my life (and the first and last time I ever got that way around a professional conference event!) - was in the back of a van full of giggling guffawing marathon joke-telling librarians.

Trust me. It is the secret side of the Keepers of Information. In spite of this article, I don't think that's new news. Maybe the mainstream is just now figuring that out.

Librarians. Gotta love 'em. :)

Are you not a Dyke?

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 04:45:38 GMT

If you are a woman-oriented woman but feel the moniker "dyke" doesn't quite jibe with where you're at, please feel free to check out an email discussion list I just started. It's the (you guessed it) "Not a Dyke" List.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Not-a-Dyke-List/

(and even if you *are* a dyke, please read on.)

The point of this new discussion forum is to build friendships and connection, and RL social time in the Bay Area, among like-minded gay women most of whom do not feel especially embraced by today's politicized, ideologized overtones to the term dyke and therefore feel somewhat socially isolated. Please note, my dykely friends: this is Not About You. This is not about "What's Wrong With Being a Dyke", or "Distancing from Sisterhood," or any other trope you care to grope for.

It is about social connection among women who just don't use the word "dyke" to describe themselves. End of story.

That said, women from anywhere are welcome to join (even outside the U.S.; you're *especially* welcome! we need different perspectives in our conversations!), and any list member is always welcome to travel massive distances to join us for the occasional lunch or whatever. :)

The name is catchy (so catchy it has proven incendiary to those who feel the statement "I'm not a dyke" impugns their own identity. If you're on that wavelength: sorry. We're not communicating well. You're welcome to email me at teramis at aol dot com, and we could, like TALK about how you feel about this, but please don't just rant at me. That will instantaneously create a spam/delete filter that will leave you forever un-heard.)

For those of you who are in the dyke/lesbian/gay community, you probably get why I feel it necessary to say the preceding.

For you who are not: ok. You have your own drama, which I don't need to address. Yay, you. :) Ignore my digressions, above.

ANYway, as PeeWee used to say before he was busted for public masturbation at a porn theater:

It's a cool list, and has the Teramis Guarantee of sane discussion, safe environment, observed Boundaries, and no sarcasm/evisceration/infighting allowed.

Check it out. And please note: in spite of the name, dykes ARE welcome, as long as you are there to be a *dialog partner*, not a contender.

-Teramis

"Any non-dykes out there?"

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 08:17:32 GMT

It was a question on a list I'm on tonight. The author's point being (as I understood it) that she doesn't identify that way, but in today's great gay (lesbian/dyke/queer) wasteland, she was seeing only this one label overall, and it didn't fit her. (This of course in San Fran nearing Pride Weekend, where, as you can imagine, dykes are suddenly thicker on the ground than any other time of year. And that's saying something, here...)

To which I wrote the following off-list response. Off-list cuz it's not a discussion list we're on. But I responded because this woman's lone voice in the wilderness hit a chord with me. Which I share here. To wit:

**

I suspect you'll hear a roaring silence in response to your question - or maybe not, who knows, it is a surprisingly eclectic list at times, but the 'dyke' identity does seem to hold sway these days (like, these last 2 decades).

I call myself 'dyke' only when I want intentionally to make a rather blue-collar, in-your-face, economically politicized point about sexual identity. In fact, I think of myself as gay. I came out when the Gay Movement was the Gay Movement. They had hardly even yet adopted "Lesbians" under that umbrella. It is an evolution for me even that in all-women crowds, I call myself lesbian.

I came out in Berlin in 1976 when I was 20; American overlays of politicized meaning about the gay (or lesbian) thing simply HAD no meaning for me in the midst of that German culture. It was only when I came back here that I learned when and how to use the word 'lesbian", which was still a pretty radical term in 1978, and you were pretty avant garde then if you applied it to yourself as an act of gay consiousness. And that word (to me) does not carry the negative connotations put upon it by so many of the younger generation(s) of gay/lesbian/dyke/queer women (take your pick). Back then we were happy to identify ourselves at all. The word we used to identify with was apropo to the time, and carried its own charge from the unspoken years that preceded.

I'm a lipstick lesbian, when I'm putting on the dog, even, and I do not find that a pejorative. It's just a femme space I like, and hardly a reflexive one. I don't do it because I was raised femme. I'm kiki, and spent much of my younger years in a distinctively soft butch space. My outer expression, it turns out, is a mirror of my inner energy space. Go figure. So, enough of my gender history. I get into this, I think, to underscore that you are not the only one who does not leap up all huzzah when the 'dyke' concept floats by. There are too many other flavors of 'us' out there, and also in fact generational differences that today's urge towards "queerness" just rather...forgets.

**

So, yeah. It's very nice that those of you who are dykes have a righteous identity that works for you, and persons who play with queer energy embrace it and have fun pushing whatever boundaries you want to push.
For me: I'm just happy to be a lesbian, thankyouverymuch. And no, it doesn't usually mean to me what YOU impute it to mean through your own filters. And that's coming-out enough for me.

Happy imminent Pride Days to us all.

Quit hijacking my country.

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:38:03 GMT

It's no big news to anyone who has been reading news in at least a cursory manner the last many years since 9/11 that our govt has been pulling a fast one. But tonight I am watching a PBS Frontline report re Cheney's machinations in the run-up to "Let's eat Iraq for Lunch". (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/view/)

And all I can say is, that I am once again PISSED OFF at this stupidity we call our current government; at the ham-handed, ill-considered ways we've tossed our weight around on the global stage, at the isolationist/protectionist/oblivious attitudes that have informed our interactions with the world for not only decades but acutely for the last many years now, and our Resident-in-Chief's Sock-puppet imitation of being a leader. I can only assume his recent turn-around re global warming and other G8 issues was because Daddy (or someone of equal weight) finally gave him a long-overdue Lecture of Consequence (and hopefully a righteous kick in the ass), as in, "George, get your head out!"

And for that matter, am also P.O.d about the 'chilling effect' known govt monitoring of internet comms introduces into the commentary on such things!!

This from someone who used to work proudly for the National Security Agency (we who DID comms monitoring - in their pre-"snoop American civilians" days), among others in the intel community.

I am REALLY pissed that I feel now sometimes ashamed to be a representative of a country that has incredibly shamed itself and has been a living example of hypocrisy in regards to its proclaimed fundamental principles. In my personal world concepts like "honor" and "behavior with integrity" still hold value. In my younger days, I thought these were values my country cleaved to as strict metrics for America's interactions with the world. Haha silly me. The folly of youth.

If I were samurai, I would consider seppuku. That is how much face my country has lost in my eyes. Me, Vietnam Era veteran.

Since, instead, I am merely (these days) a middle-aged American woman of conscience, all I can say is it sucks that it is true: we get the government we vote for. (for some value of "vote").
I am FRABJOUS that the political pedulum is finally swinging the other way.

I hope the flood-gates of change wash every last one of these Cold War mentality, machinating, power-mongering old school mofos down the drain.

And I *really* hate it that half the world thinks all of us think like all of Them (in power).

AARRGGHH.

-Teramis,
Cranky.