Blogelstein!

Montreal, je t’aime!

3:57 pm | May 26 2012 | View comments

It’s been so long since I have used the tube with any regularity that I forgot the phenomenon of American Tourists On the Tube, which is a phenomenon I suppose that I notice, because they are loud and because, of course, we are one, in a sort of a way.

These particular American tourists were a family of four, on their way to the Tower of London, and even though it was quite early in the morning it was clear that things were really not going well: the couple were sitting on obvious sides of the train, the wife angrily reading a tabloid, wearing a backpack with a fat-legged baby stuffed into it, who she was ignoring.

The husband sat diagonally across from her, even though the seat next to her was available, and their older child, a four-year-old girl, dotted between them with the fretful look of a kid who knows something’s wrong with her grown-ups and wants to fix it but can’t. It looked like a terrible family moment, like in years to come they would say, ‘remember that time we went to the Tower of London?’ and then they would all feel a bit grim.

The train juddered and the little girl knocked into my laptop bag and her mother gave her a warning look and her father made her sit down next to him. She was tiny in the chair and splaying her legs about and it really made her father angry. He grabbed her by the shoulder and shouted at her: ‘sit like a lady! Sit like a lady!’ and her mother continued to angrily read the tabloid, and I tried to figure out what sitting like a lady even means when you are four years old, or even when you are thirty years old. I wanted to say, ‘act like not a jerk!’ to the dad, as if that would stop him from spending the next few decades making his daughter feel bad for failing to meet his expectations of how a woman should behave.

But I didn’t.

And that was three hours ago, and I still feel sad.

12:54 pm | May 25 2012 | 14 notes | View comments

brianwhelan.net: Setting the record straight

bwhelan:

You may recall my tweet from a number of weeks back in which I announced that my tenancy was being terminated at the height of the unfolding Olympic missiles story. The timing seemed rotten and the letting agent had claimed to my partner that the landlord was unhappy with our media appearances and…

This is so dispiriting.

10:03 am | May 24 2012 | 3 notes | View comments

“I am these legs and arms and back and bum and spleen, and I remain determined not to feel bad about any bit of it, even in spite of the plenty of things about my body that people have now and then pointed out to me as things that are wrong, because that’s just something that people feel they can do to women.”

— On not feeling bad about my body, for DailyLife.com.au.

8:23 am | May 22 2012 | 6 notes | View comments

On three more nice weekend things

1. Maybe I will write about three nice weekend things every Monday!

How to carry out the perfect snub

Because it’s a life skill.

6:09 pm | May 17 2012 | View comments

somethingchanged:

Australian Labor Finance Minister Penny Wong, who has a daughter with her same sex partner, delivers a dignified and emotionally powerful response to (conservative) Liberals’ Joe Hockey after a question about same-sex parenting on the live ABC TV show Q&A. (video via tasmarshall)

Penny Wong forever.

“I know what my family is worth.”

12:51 pm | May 15 2012 | 23 notes | View comments

On three nice weekend things

1. Another ceilidh, another fingerprinted arm, another representation of my own personal culture clash: a penchant for the war-like dancing of my mother’s people; a mild blood disorder inherited from my father’s side that makes me bruise like a peach.

2. Playing basketball for the first time since I finished high school, or to be more precise, since the last time I was made to play basketball, which I presume was in high school. When Serious Players came on the court, the three of us agreed to have a best-of-three competition and then carry on with our day. It took us 21 tries before one got sunk.

3. Sunshine. Sunshine. Sunshine. SUNSHIIIIIIIIIIIINE. Noting how it illuminates dust in dormant corners of my flat. Finding even that delightful.

9:46 pm | May 14 2012 | 2 notes | View comments

pinkindiaink:

jeanhannah replied to your post: the shirt comes full circle

oh the memories! i lost the DARE essay contest even though i was the best writer because my essay was about DARE being stupid.

Ha! If it makes you feel any better, I won the D.A.R.E. essay contest with a heartfelt condemnation of all things Drug and have been deeply ashamed ever since at how willingly I drank the kool-aid.

DEVASTATING. However, I made up for it in my junior year of high school, when I was selected to be a ‘D.A.R.E. role model’ and we were taken to an elementary school to talk about our exemplary drug-free lifestyles and then one of the kids asked ‘have you ever used drugs or alcohol?’. Out of the four or five of us who were there, neatly dressed in our best role model outfits (pretty sure I had on nude hose), I was the only one to say ‘no’.

3:23 pm | May 14 2012 | 3 notes | View comments

RUN HOUNDS RUN! (via)

5:32 pm | May 11 2012 | 2 notes | View comments

On conservatism, and narratives of change

When I was in high school, in the mid-to-late 90s, I was not in favour of marriage equality. I wasn’t out manning ramparts against marriage equality, but if someone had asked me what I thought of it, I know I would have said, ‘um, I think that’s a bit weird’.

In the town in which I grew up, people’s attitudes towards homosexuality tended to run along a spectrum from ‘neutral’ to ‘extreme bigotry’. Pretty standard. There was an LGBT club at school, but it was regularly and viciously attacked by right-wing parents who believed it had an agenda beyond supporting young people who were growing up different in a society that challenged their right to exist.

“I feel so relieved to be at the stage I’m at in my life right now. Because you know if I want to wear my glasses I’m wearing my glasses. If I want to wear my hair back I’m pulling my hair back. You know at some point it’s just not something that deserves a lot of time and attention.”

—

Hilary Clinton addresses ‘au naturale’ moment | CNN <3 (via somethingchanged)

So true, and I think also worth noting that the point doesn’t even have to be when you are the Secretary of State; it can be long before that.

(via somethingchanged)

11:16 am | May 10 2012 | 69 notes | View comments

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more. … What I dread is the isolation. … There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready.”