I am a dangerous subversive threat

So, I've noticed something recently. Call me observant, say I'm attuned to subtle social interactions, but it has come to my attention that douchebags in utes like to shout at me when I'm cycling.

I cycle at least a few times a week. Usually I cycle from my home in Cannington into the main Perth CBD, or from the Perth train station to West Perth or Osborne Park, or similarly not-very-impressive cycling paths. I'm definitely not one of those cyclists who wears padded spandex shorts decorated with sponsorship logos who goes 27km an hour. I am frequently lucky to reach 17km an hour. I have a ridiculous looking helmet (of course, all bike helmets are ridiculous-looking), and usually cycle with my mouth open because it is damn hard work, especially as LITERALLY EVERYWHERE I GO in Perth seems to be into the wind. No matter what time of day, no matter where I'm going, it's always INTO THE WIND. Sky will probably agree with me on this one.

It's a good thing there aren't any cars at Burning Man, because I would be GETTING IN THEIR WAY.

But my cycling makes me happy and it's excellent cardiovascular exercise and I enjoy being self-propelled. What I don't enjoy is the demographic of jerks who feel like they need to shout at me.

I have not only been shouted at on my bicycle, mind you. Once I was walking from my house to the Cannington train station and some utebag (shortened from "douchebag in a ute") drove past and shouted "Freak!" out the window at me. I'm guessing because of my pink hair. Which is freakish indeed.

Freak.

But the utebags who shout at me on my bicycle all say similar things, which amount, in translation to: "Hey, you there, lady on a bicycle! Why are you delaying me for an additional five minutes in my journey? You should remove yourself from my path!" Only ruder.

The first few were some variation of the (always 20-to-30-year-old, always white, always male, always wearing a baseball cap, always driving a hotted up ute) utebag cry: "Get off the fucking road!" Usually when they shout this at me, I am cycling on the road because the footpath is full of pedestrians, and is furthermore not designated a bicycle path. Just so you know, if I ride on the footpath when it's not designated for bicycles, and a policeman sees me, and is feeling ungenerous, I will get a fine. Also, I ride to the far left of the road, closer than I should to the parked cars which could open a door and knock me off my bike at any moment.

It was the most recent utebag that pissed me off enough to write this post. While cycling through Victoria Park, heading home, he drove past me (so obviously I wasn't actually in his way), and helpfully pointed out "There's a footpath right there." He was slightly past me when I helpfully pointed out "Fuck you," in response, although he must not have heard me, because he didn't say anything. That section of Albany Highway is always packed with traffic, and I saw his ute stalled in line several times before I actually not only pulled up beside him, but passed him. I was riding on the footpath at this point (no pedestrians, dual pathway), and noticed he was looking out the window at me, so I grinned and waved at him as I passed him.

His response? "Get a real ride! And get on the footpath, you stupid bitch!"

It was so obviously designed to be a personal attack, on me, the person riding this bicycle, who was DISOBEYING what he told me to do, that I found myself shaking as I was driving home. I remembered a story S. told me many years ago, when she was crossing a street at a pedestrian light, one of those ones that lets traffic go one way, then the other way, then all pedestrians can cross. She was walking through the intersection when a guy in a truck (whoa, surprise) made an illegal left turn through the intersection, on a red light (Australians, this is like making an illegal RIGHT turn...across traffic). He almost hit her. So she gave him the finger. He shouted something unintelligible at her and then drove away.

Imagine her surprise, shock, and fear when she saw him WALKING TOWARDS HER along the sidewalk minutes later -- he had figured out which way she was going, circled the block, parked his car, and decided to get out to abuse and harass her. Calling her a "white bitch" and yelling swearwords at her, he kept advancing on her. It was actually remarkably fortunate that a friend of hers, a gigantic blacksmith who looks like a neo-Nazi but is actually adorable, happened to see the situation and came over to find out what was going on.

But who grows to be an adult believing it is actually okay to personally insult someone in a public venue? Like the recent Twitter hashtag #mencallmethings, where female bloggers and activists report accounts of men trying to shut them down using organized "humorous" namecalling, it amazes me that anyone can get to a point in their lives where they are so entitled, so threatened, that they feel like it's not only okay, but the best course of action to insult someone they will literally never see again.

Sad freak.

He tried to intimidate me, tried to use verbal force to get me to do what he wanted, and he was so irrationally upset that I have no doubt he would have willingly gotten all up in my face and shouted about it some more. All because I was on a bicycle and following road rules.

Oh and also: I was a lady. Don't forget that part.

Moving towards activism

I have been doing a whole lot more activism-y type things lately. I marched to protest CHOGM -- well, not so much AGAINST CHOGM as FOR spending money on climate change awareness, renewable energy resources, and actual poor people, instead of, you know, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. I hung around at Occupy Perth and discussed anarchism, got shoved by a West Australian reporter (who called me a "fucking feral" when I told him to stop talking to me like a dickhead), and ate snacks. Snacks are an important part of activism. Snacktivism! You heard it here first.

While I was hanging around at Occupy Perth, some quiet ladies were seriously painting away at some signs for the Reclaim the Night march that was due to happen that evening at 5pm. I'm all in favour of drawing awareness to, and working to end, violence against women. I think the feminist fight is NOT over and won, and that feminism is an issue that affects EVERYBODY -- you there? Guy who complains about how women get to have the door held open for them and expect their date to pay for them? You're a feminist too! You there, person who thinks that it's funny to ask lesbians what they do in bed together? You're...well, maybe you're not a feminist. You might just be a jerk.

However, I have my reservations about the Perth Reclaim the Night event, primarily because last year's was run by ROAR, a staunchly anti-man feminist activist collective, who were specifically transphobic about RTN last year (this year's also seems to have been run by ROAR, although they're calling themselves the Reclaim The Night Collective). Following a longstanding global tradition of "when I feel slightly less oppressed, my solution is to oppress others", ROAR banned trans people from the event, claiming it was more important for people who had been identified BY SOMEONE ELSE as women, from birth, to feel safe. Cause, you know, identifying YOURSELF as a woman, despite being confusingly in the wrong body for how you identify, isn't scary and disheartening and needing of some support. Similarly, people who find themselves somewhere along the gender continuum, but have some woman in their identity -- those folks aren't welcome either. Never mind that EVERYONE can be against violence against women-identified people.

When I posted on the RTN page on Facebook asking a very simple question, I got a roundabout, evasive answer. Let's see what I got:

Claire Litton asked: “hey there, are transwomen welcome at this event?”
Kat Pinder replied: “The organisers have not developed a particular position, other than the event is for women and children. Analysis’s of trans politics can be divisive, time consuming and often unlikely to reach consensus, so it is not something that we have even attempted to reach a decision about this year. I know some womyn who are attending who would not welcome male to trans people and differing perspectives on female to trans people. I am aware that trans identified people, who were raised as males, have attended the event last year and the previous year.”

Interesting. That sounds to me like "we don't want to talk or think about this Very Important Issue so we haven't developed an Official Position on it, to avoid having anything in writing that says we DON'T like the trans people, but also that we DO." Many other Take Back The Night and Reclaim The Night rallies specifically include transwomen (who really should just be known as "women"), and it's a bit sad that these guys have kind of gone out of their way to not be inclusive...but not really be UNinclusive either. Guess they learned that lesson last year.

I find it grating that she said trans politics are "divisive". You know what helps make them divisive? Creating arbitrary divisions between who you think should be allowed to call themselves "women". Just a thought.

I am also unimpressed by how she sort of laid the "blame" at the feet of transwomen -- just so they know, "some womyn" attending have problems with MTF trans women, so, y'know, those transwomen should take that into account and be polite enough to stay home. So they don't offend their womyn compatriots. Who don't really want them there anyway. Because they're not women. They're men. Or something.

And let's not even talk about "analysis's."

I dislike any attempts to create a mysterious third gender consisting of all the "other" people, as we deem them. You're not a woman, MTF transwoman! You're a TRANS. You're not a man, FTM trans man! You're a TRANS. And you guys who have alternative gender identities, you don't really count at all.

So after that answer, I was really unimpressed by the Reclaim The Night ideals, but was willing to see how events unfolded and maybe consider joining them if I felt comfortable and welcome, and that everyone was included.

Until I saw the very serious quiet woman painting the following on her gigantic banner: PROSTITUTION = PAID RAPE.

Now call me a crazy feminist ("Okay, you're a crazy feminist") but I'm gonna call Andrea Dworking and all the other ladies who subscribe to that whole all-sex-work-is-oppression-and-by-the-way-any-hetero-sex-is-rape-because-penises-are-evil CRAZY FEMINISTS. Okay, maybe they're not crazy. But they're sure taking any form of agency and choice away from the women for whom they claim to speak, the women they claim to empower.

Some sex workers, which include prostitutes, are oppressed. Some office workers are oppressed. Some sex workers are in the sex industry against their will, through coercion. Some women become doctors against their will, through coercion. Implying that women who choose to be in the sex industry for their own reasons are doing it because they are sadly deluded or forced is patronizing, misogynistic, rude, and disempowering.

Furthermore, implying that a rape survivor's experience is in any way similar to what a prostitute experiences is deeply patronizing to a rape survivor. A sex worker has a choice about who she sleeps with. A rape survivor doesn't. A sex worker frequently acts like she enjoys it. A rape survivor doesn't. A sex worker uses condoms (and in some places, is required by law to both use condoms and dental dams, and get mandatory regular testing). A rape survivor doesn't usually have that option. Cheapening the experience of a rape survivor by saying it's "same-same" with sex work is shameful.

So, Reclaim The Night Collective, whoever you are, because I couldn't find anywhere on any literature anything about who you actually were, you faceless entity -- bad show. You are presenting a space where YOU are the ones who get to choose what being a woman means. Must be nice for you.

(Also, just as a disclaimer, I am a cis-woman myself, and I have attempted to use language in a way that gets my point across without implying divisivenes. I hate using "transman" and "transwoman" instead of just "man" and "woman" but I felt like it was necessary in the context of trying to explain why I was pissed off.)

Not a long post

But a quote, found on the literary tattoo website Contrariwise, and a quote from Whitman I've oddly never heard before. I'm not as well read as I used to be, and haven't picke dup a classic work of literature in years (am I blowing my cover?), but this quote resonates with me in so many ways:

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

This is from Leaves of Grass, but it was apparently only ever published in the first edition and in no other editions. A shame, because it seems like the best possible life motto.

The words of life

It would be good if life actually had warning signs like this, wouldn't it? Instead, we get stupid ones like "Don't Walk" or "Danger: Cliff", which actually, now that I think of it, are pretty good warning signs.

They say that the sense you use the most when you're remembering things is your sense of smell (now, who "they" are and why they keep saying things that we take at face value, I don't know) -- and certainly nothing brings back a sense of BEING in a memory like a smell. It's not like looking at the picture of my mom and I hand in hand in the driveway of our old townhouse; I look at the picture and it jogs faint impressions, of the babysitter I had when we lived there who let me watch Happy Days and the movie "Bloodsport" which I claimed for a long time was my favorite movie because I was nine years old and my hippie mother had never let me see anything with violence in it before so I naturally assumed that anything forbidden was AWESOME and I still vaguely believe Jean-Claude van Damme is sort of cool just for that reason.

But let me get a particular smell and it SMACKS me back into my grandmother's driveway in August, in Hartford, CT, in my little-girl clothes, when I decided I was going to be altruistic and give all my toys away to the neighborhood kids, so I left them all on everybody's doorsteps and then instantly regretted it, and went crying to my mom so we could go get them back. I liked those bears. Or a dry sandy smell places me on a rooftop in Morocco in 1999, desperately in love with Wolf and the newness of everything.

Music, and particular songs, do that for me as well. Now, I am kind of a musical weirdo. I rarely buy or download new music, even by bands I really like, and happily allow my iPod to shuffle its way through the 17 days of music I already have loaded into it, skipping the approximately 6 days of which are bellydancing music. The kind of music I like leans towards clever or monstrously sad lyrics, acoustic guitar, and Canadian lesbian acts (that's you, Tegan and Sara!), and I happily accept recommendations from people who are cooler and more vastly connected with music than me: like my ex-crush who used to be a radio DJ, and Arlette, who is just cooler in general than basically everyone on earth, and also funnier.

This is the kind of joy Arlette gives me: the kind I want to write about on garbage bins.

But every now and then, a particular song swims up on my iPod and it just brings me right back to a place, or a person.

I was massively ambivalent about leaving LA: on the one hand, I was finally allowed to LEAVE LA, which gnawed metaphorically on my heart like an apathetic, laidback zombie. On the other, I was going away from some very good friends, and a boyfriend (which actually turned out to be a pretty good move). But I was torn, and on my last night before flying out of the country, I found myself at home alone for a short time, while packing the gigantic piles of stuff I had strewn over the living room (have you ever tried to pack to move to another country where you can only take what fits into your checked luggage on a trip to Thailand?).

Water makes everyone introspective, particularly feet,

And while I was at home, I found myself playing The Weakerthans "Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure" over and over again. Now, this is The Saddest Song Ever, but sad in a satisfying way, and the lyrics are just heartbreaking, so of course I LOVE IT and I found myself singing along to it over and over again, with tears in my eyes. Hearing that song now brings me back to the tiny office room and living room of that pool house in the San Fernando Valley, which I can picture almost exactly, with every decoration intact, and the empty dusty shelves that used to hold my clothes.

Similarly, They Might Be Giants "We Want A Rock" ("Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads...") immediately plops me into Colleen's tiny Smarte car convertible, driving down Highway 1 to the Pacific Coast Highway from Camarillo, under a cloudy sky, with the top down. She and Peter were crazy enough to get me to housesit for them while they went to Australia for their honeymoon, and I totally had a wild party every night and sold drugs and made pornography movies and snorted cocaine through a hundred dollar bill. But when I wasn't doing that, I fed their cats and drive Colleen's car to the beach and enjoyed being alone in a remote area, and actually felt the first smidgeon of affection for California as a location, rather than a movie set.

My Honda. I miss the bumper stickers. A lot. More than the weird rattling noise it made.

The Magnetic Field's "All My Little Words", despite having been given to me as part of an attentively-constructed song playlist by an elegant paleontologist I had a giant affection for, actually reminds me of driving again: driving between Christy's house in the hills above Boulder, CO and town itself, passing along the winding roads in the sun, with the trees surrounding me, and the music blasting from the speakers of my old Honda Accord (sold for $750 to a teenager who I think was stoned, bumper stickers and all). I was excited because I was helping a camp get ready for Burning Man, and because mountains are awesome, and because I got to sleep in the tiny cottage with the gigantic Tempurpedic bed ALL BY MYSELF.

It didn't hurt that Christy's neighborhood looked like this.

"La Famiglia" by Mirah, a light-hearted and delicate song about boning, reminds me of staying at Reed's house in the Presidio, sunset lowering over San Francisco. James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" brings back both the heady rush of loving someone that turned out to be a self-centred egotistical asshole and the tears that trickled down my face as I remembered him, flying home from Biloxi, MS with Beth after teaching a dance workshop, looking out into the dark mile high air so she wouldn't see me crying and ask what was wrong.

What are your songs? The soundtrack of your lives?

Major difference in cultural points

So, since coming to Australia, I watch a lot more tv. This is due to several factors -- my old housemates watched tv in the evenings, Jason loves having the tv on, I've lost the will to fight about it as much as I did when I was 22, and there are actually sometimes shows on that I want to watch.

One of these, a recent Australian production, is called "Winners and Losers", and is a night-time dramedy about 4 deliberately quirky friends who were outsiders in high school ("losers") and then meet up again at their 10th reunion to kick ass and show the bitchy Queen Bee (described by one of my coworkers as being "almost American") who they are...namely, they are WINNERS! The plot twists are deeply improbable; for example, they become actual winners when they buy a lottery ticket, and are each the recipient of $2 million -- at the end of the first episode. How am I supposed to identify with that? I was definitely not the coolest of kids in high school, although I never saw any stratification of the type common to Lindsay Lohan movies, so I was doing all right with my "amen, sister!" until they won a ton of money and then I immediately could not sympathize with their problems anymore ("Oh, you can't set a date for your wedding? Boo fucking hoo, YOU HAVE A YACHT!!")

One part of this show that made me almost drop-jawed in amazement was a scene near the middle of the first episode (and the episodes go for indeterminate amounts of time...the first one was about 2 hours long, while the second was one and a half hours long, and the third was about 45 minutes. Maybe they're using up all the story early?). The four girls all have definable traits, and one of them is the Hot Brunette. She's also the Only Brunette, since Australians are OBSESSED with blondes in the same way Americans are obsessed with redheads. But Hot Brunette is a personal trainer, which is how she lost all the weight that made her a loser in high school, and to deal with her nerves at the reunion, where she teeters in on improbably high heels and a sexy tight-as-skin dress, she pops into the nearest bathroom stall (see if you can tell what's going to happen), takes a COMPACT MIRROR out of her bag, TIPS SOME COCAINE out onto it, and SNIFFS it with an audible snort!!

Australians: take a minute to imagine the amazement of my American compatriots, who, even now as they read, are probably staring at each other saying, "You can SHOW that on AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC TELEVISION?" Americans: this wasn't even cable. This was a channel that everybody gets. And the show airs at 8:30, which is actually within the kids-are-awake window of prime-time programming.

I tell you what, I was floored. And then, in the next episode, she answers the door to a couple of police officers WITH A PLATE OF COCAINE IN HER HAND. And they arrest her. And then SHE'S ALLOWED OUT ON BAIL. With a fine. A fine! They have not revealed on the show how much her fine will be, but I looked up drug laws online, to help curtail my amazement (thinking, "Well, it's got to be like $50,000"), and discovered that anything up to 2 grams is okay, with a fine of up to $2000 if they catch you and are in a bad mood.

Stop to imagine the cultural divide, here. More like a cultural yawning gulf, with dudes in helicopters with uzis patrolling the borders of it. Not only would you never see drug use on American non-cable channels unless it was in the form of a cautionary tale ("Tiffany started out as a perfectly normal, happy eight year old...until she took ONE PUFF of a marijuana cigarette. Now she's a streetwalking whore doing gang bangs for crack."), but it would never be a trait of a sympathetic main character. And if you got arrested for holding a plate of cocaine in front of police officers, you could make damn sure you would not be let out with a fine and a slap on the hand from a magistrate, who I always picture as portly red-faced men in wigs and waistcoats. You would go directly to jail, do not pass go, and you might get out in a couple of years after you had become the bitch of several men with THUG LIFE tattooed on their foreheads.

This is how badly our ridiculous War on Drugs has screwed up our nation. Drugs are not necessarily bad in and of themselves; just what people do when they're on them and addicted to them, and in my opinion, alcohol is the worst of all of them. Have you ever been aggressed on the street by someone who'd just finished smoking pot? Now how about some dudes outside a bar at 2am? Which one is more likely to punch you and which one is more likely to take your corn chips and give you a hug? And alcohol is the legal one.

Sometimes I don't remember I'm a foreigner until something like that happens, and my mind gets completely blown.

PS In other news, one of the guys I work with told me about a hilarious practice he and his friends engage in called "stealth bumming", where you wait for someone to be doing something that involves them bending over, then you sneak in and pretend to be pounding them in the ass ("bumming" them, in British) while someone takes a picture. Then you post it on Facebook. Perhaps thisisphotobomb.com should change their name to thisisphotoBUMMING.com. If only.

Interesting point, with clarification

It has been pointed out to me that I ruminate a lot on the nature of leaving; that I talk about how sometimes it's sad to move around the world and leave people behind and stuff, and that there might be some kind of inherent implication in that: the implication that I don't like where I am.

It never occurred to me that anyone might think my sadness over leaving one group of friends might not be able to co-exist with my happiness in a new group, or that my expressing said sadness might not similarly imply my future sadness for eventually leaving all awesome people in my life. So here we go: if any of my totally fantastic friends and amazing fun partners have ever been upset or offended by my unwitting implication that I Just Don't Love You, I'm really really sorry. I may be sad to leave the other people, but I will definitely be sad to leave YOU. You are the cat's pajamas. You are the bee's knees, and my life is much richer and better with you in it.

I have to say, the main reason I wrote this most recent article was simply because I still, despite evidence of Niagara Falls-worth of apathy on his part, often think about my ex-boyfriend. It's rough to like someone a lot and they tell you they like you, that they love you more than anyone else on earth in fact, and they tell you so much that it's easy to forget that they're not actually SHOWING you, so the relationship is not that great really. Actually, emotionally, it sucks. So why should I miss that person? Well, because he was charming, and really funny, and because he had a particular turn of phrase that I found hilarious, and could talk to me about pretty much all the music that I liked, and he generally did almost all the things a perfect life partner for me would have done except ONE THING: want to be a good life partner. FAIL.

And actually, missing him PISSES ME OFF because it is dumb. Emotions are weird. And then Facebook has to turn up and even though I have blocked him from my news feed, I just can't bring myself to unfriend him, because yeah, he's pretty funny, so instead Facebook is constantly reminding me of the latest Place he checked in at (with by the way the new girl he instantly replaced me with) or reminding me that I have some photos in which we are both tagged, and generally constantly reminding me of a person that never thinks about me. So...well, it's a bit emotional sometimes.

That's why I wrote that.

I hope all my friends, old and new, know what they mean to me. And if you don't, I will SHOW you (not tell you) every day, because frankly, that counts so much more than anything you could ever read online.

Disposability, impermanence, and Facebook

Sometimes, what I absolutely can't stand is thinking that someone I care about might find me...replaceable. Nothing says, "I don't really love you that much" like plugging another person right into the spot you left behind -- nobody wants to be so indispensable that their friends are left weeping in inconsolable heaps upon departing, but a wee bit of grieving might be nice.

It just goes along with the nature of a nomadic lifestyle, though; until I can perfect my Evil Secret Plan (now not so secret) that means everyone I love will come live with me in a commune and stay with me forever, chances are some of my relationships will end because of choices I make. And not choices like "I'ma join a Doomsday cult and get my hate on for comets." No, choices like, "I don't want to live in the same place for very long." Some relationships rely on proximity for maintenance, and as soon as the distance increases, the relationship decreases, until you're left with...nothing.

Morose? Partially. Obviously, with every new move, comes new opportunities to increase your social circle...every time God closes a door, he somehow opens a window, yadda yadda. But something I've been thinking about thanks in no small part to Facebook. Facebook allows you to keep in somewhat obscene faux-proximity to people you might only have met once; before you know it, you find yourself reading the daily ruminations on breakfast food or dreams of some girl you sat next to in a lecture that one time, who you kind of liked. I remember in my orientation program at Curtin, I briefly talked to a lovely Singaporean girl on my way to the gym where we were being oriented, and she wouldn't release me from her grip on my arm until I gave her my phone number. She really wanted a new friend.

Facebook means impermanence is so much less likely -- how can you pretend someone's not in your life when you constantly see them changing their profile picture? (Answer: do what my ex, Justin, always does, and just don't read anyone else's Facebook, ever, preferring instead to concentrate only on what everyone else thinks of YOUR Facebook profile) However, it also increases the sting of disposability confirmed: nothing drives home how replaced you've been like seeing your ex-girlfriends out on dates with new guys, or your old tango partner swinging around with someone else (note: these are generic examples, as I neither date girls nor dance tango).

Dear Zuckerberg: you've made it easier to stay in touch, but also easier to grind salt into the wounds of loss. I'm sure you don't find it so dramatic, since according to The Social Network, you're just pounding cocktails and banging girls, so you'll never read this. Also it's a pretty melodramatic way of putting it. But still.