A Time Machine

I desperately want one of these right now.

Why have I never heard of this before!?!

OMG! OMG! OMG!

'Cupcake weekend' opens to massive crowd
Dubai: Sun, 22 Jun 2008

Cupcake Weekend, a three-day event being held at Mercato, opened to huge crowds on Friday with workshops, competitions, and displays all based on cupcakes. 'The Cupcake Weekend', which concludes on Sunday, is being held as part of the numerous events during Dubai Summer Surprises 2008. It features a whole evening of a variety of cup cakes including workshops, a Mercato statement said. The event will be displayed in three sections - a competition area, a workshop area, and a free sampling counter. Arranged by Del Mar Cakes, the Cupcake Weekend will include cake icing competitions for children and parents, workshops on how to make cupcakes, and free cupcake samplings from a delicious range.

-TradeArabia News Service

Dykes R Us?

For me, just the idea of walking into a mall makes me gasp a little for air. I breathe harder, gulping air in mild to moderate panic when I actually do step into a mall. But sometimes, sometimes it's necessary. I need some nicer clothes. Most of my
clothes come from Upper Playground, which is fine if you're an environmental activist working for a nonprofit in San Francisco, but not so fine if you're a professional who needs to be pretty blank-slatey in terms of wardrobe. These are
the worlds I will be milling between for the next few years.

So this time, I didn't tell myself I was going clothes shopping. This time, I told myself "You are going to J Crew and Banana Republic" which is far, far easier to swallow. I was on the search for thin sweaters. That's all. Some V-necks, some crewnecks, whatever. Just thinnish, maybe merino wool sweaters. Mostly darker colors, but maybe I'd throw in a lime green for those days I'm feeling extra spunky. Certainly it wouldn't be a problem to find thin sweaters. Afterall, they
are sort of season-less, especially in San Francisco. They are perfect for layering, maybe with a shirt underneath and then a jacket over it for the chillier december-march days and from april-nov, they are great just by themselves.

I started with J Crew which had absolutely nothing that looked like it vaguely represented something I normally wear. Usually I get really frustrated really quickly and I won't take the time to really look through the racks, so I convinced
myself to paw through some racks and try really hard to find something professional, not too girly (trust me, frills and pleated shirts and light, summery materials look absolutely silly on me, plus I get the distinct feeling that I am giving up a
piece of myself when I put them on). And I found nothing. I couldn't believe it. J Crew? Really? They had truly let me down. I almost always find at least one thing when I enter a J Crew store, and usually that one thing quickly becomes my favorite fancy-ish item of clothing. Fuck the crew, on to the Banana.

As I approached Banana, I had the distinct impression that the two strores had obviously talked. I walked in, directly to the back room - the petites room! - and sighed. Surrounded by girly clothes, again. No thin sweaters to be found. Only
flowy, shapeless bright bits of cloth barely clinging to their hangers. O! Where have all the normal button-ups gone? Once again, I decided to try on things I usually don't try on. I found the perfect short-sleeved button up. Really nicely made, great color, totally hugs that professional-but-can-be-dressed-down line, and it actually fit my short but chesty body pretty perfectly. And then a deeper sigh. Fucking pleated fucking sleeves. FUCK! I just couldn't. It makes me feel like
I'm lying to myself when I see myself in clothes like that.

So am I missing something? Are there really and truly so few women (in San Francisco, I remind you), who can't shop in the men's department because it's too big, but who really don't fit in the women's department because it's too... womany?
Is there any shop that sells clothes for those who are in the middle? There has to be! I refuse to believe that I am that much of anomoly. I refuse to believe I am the only woman whose chest gets tight, who gasps for air at hearing the words "let's go clothes shopping!"

Cuba libre

Under Cuba's national health care trans folks can now receive sex change operations for free. Yay Cuba.

The Big Bang Part Deux

In like, one month, scientists are going to finish construction on a "Large Hadron Collider" which will apparently recreate conditions right after the Big Bang. They will shoot two beams of subatomic particles in opposite directions in a tube they've built underground on the border between France and Switzerland and we will know the workings of the universe!

The only problem is the apparently somewhat rational fear that running the Large Hadron Collider may result in the creation of black holes and/or strangelets. Seriously? Weird black holes fucking with time and space itself could result and they are still DOING this? But don't worry, apparently it's only a 1 in 50,000,000 chance that doomsday will happen as a result of the commissioning of the collider.
Oh and strangelets, by the way, are described by wiki as:
A strangelet or "strange nugget" is a hypothetical object consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. The size could be anything from a few femtometers across (with the mass of a light nucleus) to something much larger. Once the size becomes macroscopic (on the order of meters across), such an object is usually called a quark star or "strange star" rather than a strangelet. An equivalent description is that a strangelet is a small fragment of strange matter.. That explains it.

Whatever, all I'm saying is that if I'm late to work sometime in mid August, it's because I got sucked into a black hole, and it's an hour earlier in my parallel universe.

I like it

One of the newest changes in my apartment is the addition of my craft "nook." I'm using that word because it's the cutest way to describe a tiny-ass corner of a small apartment. I mean, maybe it's just me, but I'd love to go apartment hunting to find a nice kitchen nook, or even an entry nook. Thus my craft nook.

Here it is. It's got shelves for organizations, baskets of yarn and cute papers I've collected and a small magnetic fuzzy mushroom hanging out to watch all the action (thanks smelissa!).

Holy

Crap.

Gender Identity Disorder?

Bah. I hate the DSM. It's the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which chronicles the symptoms and behaviors associated with each psychological disorder out there. Less than 30 years ago, homosexuality was listed as a disorder. Less than 30 years ago.
Since I started studying psychology I have always had a problem with "Gender Identity Disorder." The current DSM, the fourth edition, is flawed just like the rest of them. Institutionalized trans-phobia. It's obscene, really. The fact of the matter is, folks with so-called Gender Identity Disorder may be feeling really incongruent and shitty and horrifically depressed, but that's not due to the so-called disorder. The feelings are due to some inner turmoil, but mostly the pressures and reflections from society that causes them distress. Therapy can help them to externalize all of this in order to understand the depression better. But I can understand why, for some of them, therapy is the last place they would go for help because of this horrible silver book, the DSM.
Some psychologists argue that because of the way the health care system is set up, the DSM should maintain the disorder label for insurance purposes - in other words to make sure that trans folks can have adequate access to care. And I understand that argument, but why not put the code down for depression and be done with it? If one is suggesting that they are just submitting the code of gender identity disorder for insurance purposes only, just submit something else.
It's a horrible cycle. Inadequate access to care only exacerbates the symptoms, but who wants to go to therapy when you're going to be stigmatized in the exact same way you are in society? When a therapy session is supposed to be a safe place, maybe the one and only safe place.
Pathologizing any gender is sickening, and I hope that in the newest edition of the DSM it'll be deleted. Unfortunately this doesn't seem likely. Dr. Kenneth Zucker, who oversees the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Committee is himself, of course, trans-phobic. He is most famous for forcing gender-variant children into reparative therapy to conform to his expectations for male and female behavior in children. In other words, he literally doesn't allow "gender-variant" boys to play with dolls and "gender-variant" girls to play with trucks.
It makes me want to scream! And why in hell would the people involved in creating these task forces and committees for each new edition of the DSM assign such a high-powered role to such an obviously extremist individual?
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Things I did last night

thingsididlastnight.com

Dear The State of California,

Dear The State of California,


Thank you. Thank you for deciding that if I do want to get married at some point in the future, I can now do so. Thank you for stepping up and saying "um, actually, she should be able to marry the love of her life just like I can."

I'm not a huge fan of marriage - I still think there are a lot of issues with it, let alone all of the sexist and atrociously antiquated patriarchal aspects - but that isn't the issue. Everyone knows that 50% of marriages end up in divorce - it's just a fact. But why decide, out of fear and igorance and hatred, that 10-20% of the United States population is not "allowed" to get married?

But today, you stepped up to the plate joining Massachusettes (Go Red Sox!) in the decision that is illegal to deny marriage rights to gay people.

Thank you for treating me like everyone else. That's all I really want.

Sincerely,
Robin

Cult Status

Saturday, in the park, I think it was the 10th of May. Triple, Smelissa, Toto, Jen and I were setting to lunch on bi-rite cheese, everything flatbreads and fresh fruit. Suddenly, a very very large family descended upon us, offering smiles, art projects and beverages. 3 girls spread out on the red tapestry to work on a paint-by-numbers. 2 other kids began to play their respective guitars, strumming simple peppy tunes. The mother? looked over at us and smiled as if she knew us. She bounded over and asked if we wanted some tea. Some of us did.

Then it got weird.

The eldest child came over in order to tell us "God bless you." The mother?, deep in conversation with Jen, had just started a story about a miracle she saw on TV. A priest blesses people through the TV and, you wouldn't believe it, but he's raised two people from the dead! It's going to make national news soon. And you know what it is? It's the healing power of Jesus. He's coming back. Have you accepted Jesus into your heart? You have, haven't you?

I started to walk away at this point, only to pass eldest child once to more to see her wide blank eyes, slightly tilted head, and flowery, syrupy voice eagerly calling after us: "god bless you all, god bless you!!"

I'm glad I didn't drink the tea.

I'm like, obsessing over tiny chairs

I don't know why, but I can't stop thinking about these tiny model chairs I found at Kid Robot one day. They don't carry them anymore, but aren't they adorable?

The healing serpent of the mysteries

Inspired by a comment below to re-read some Jung, I found this, on one's 'shadow':


"It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses- and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the monster's body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature...

We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and who betray to the world nothing of the conflicts that rage within them..."

and this, this is so gorgeously written:

"Taking it in its deepest sense, the shadow is the invisible saurian tail that man still drags behind him. Carefully amputated, it becomes the healing serpent of the mysteries."

It's time for...

Triple and Smelissa found this incredibly amazing video - editing "Fuck the pain away" by Peaches into muppet show clips:



which inspired me to find two of my favorite muppet show moments:





god those veggies are adorable! Jus' look at 'em!

Grad Skool in-a-box

Education in a milk crate.

positivity

I've been slowly learning how to get away from being overly optimistic (because really, what I'm doing is denying my angry/bad/sad feelings), but right now it's all I can do, and I have to believe it helps. Positive vibes still going strong for my boy adam.

My master's is pretty much officially completed, which is sweet and now I have 3 months of no school before 5-6 years of school starts again. And I can't wait. Srsly. My friend and I were talking the other night about how we love that pure excitement we feel in class when we're learning something so fucking brilliant that we then get to go apply to our lives and our relationships and help others to do the same. And I get 6 years more of that!

And it's been feeling like late spring/early summer recently here in the city. Warmth, chirping, small plane engines heard humming above, and that smell - that new, but earthy smell. It's much easier to maintain positivity in the folds of this gorgeous city in summer.

positive vibes positive vibes positive vibes

I love you Adam. You're going to be okay.

4 gay minutes

I wouldn't be gay, and I *certainly* wouldn't be a JT-lover if I didn't post the new Madonna/JT/Timbaland song/video I jusssst found out about. Muh-donnn-uh!



But also, for your viewing pleasure, Jay-Z and Timbaland loving on The Faint!

blocked

My dreams have always been extremely important to me. When I was little I kept dream journals next to stacks of dream dictionaries, excitedly engorging myself with knowledge of dream symbollatry. As I got older I learned that looking at my dreams through the lens of my own life - not the life of the theorhetical dreamer (or maybe the definitions were based on the dreams of Freud or Jung, respectively) - was more important, more exciting and more telling. Lately, among many other things that I am defending against - trying at times to understand them and other times trying to suppress them - I haven't been able to remember my dreams. And I always remember my dreams. But I have woken up each morning for the past two weeks knowing a sense, a general feel or theme of the dream but void of all the details. The same feeling, the same sense each and every morning for the past two weeks. What is this dream that is refusing to show it's face?

matchbooks

Ew, gross. Plain, white matchbooks?

No thanks.

Decoupaging everything in sight yesterday, I really like these guys.




I need a craft sale to join.

Trees

I have been dying to go to Flax to slowwwly puruse their papers section for a few weeks now. Last week I walked all the way there from my house (uphill both ways, srsly) only to find that it's CLOSED on Sundays. Which? I don't know, just doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, I digress. I spent about an hour and a half there today - how is everyone who works there so friendly? - and came home with a bunch of huge sheets of super-adorable printed papers, a new exacto knife, a glue gun with the wrong size glue (BLARG!), paper mod-podge and the coolest thing - a bag of about 100 different 3x5ish-sized papers, all different colors, prints, textures, etc etc etc.

Obviously, when I dumped it all out on my bed I was quite overwhelmed. But then I remembered my doodles. I doodle a LOT in class. A. Lot. And I seem to always doodle the same sorts of things. Mostly it's a tree with pointy branches. So I decided to do some papercuttings of my tree using different squares from the big bag o'love.
One of them started to behave very weirdly once it hit some mod-podge. It started to curl in on itself. So. I decided to make it into a vase.



I also liked this one:


mmm, paper makes me happy.

I got in!

*jumps up and down!!!!!!!!*

Audre Lorde

A classmate of mine lent me "Sister Outsider" by Audre Lorde last week. As I read her speech "The transformation of silence into language and action" I felt it was something I had been needing to read for years. It's for everyone who feels they must keep quiet, or even fights to keep quiet a piece of themselves. I think that maybe we all do this. I think that the better you are at un-ignoring those parts of you which you work to ignore, the closer you are to self-actualization, or self-knowing or true self-confidence.
Here's an excerpt, and read the whole thing. She wrote this speech after finding out she was going to die of cancer (she later survived).

The years long hour.

Tomorrow I have the most important hour of my life, thus far. And while I am known to exaggerate once in a while, this is foh-real. It's my doctorate school interview. I feel like I am going to throw up or implode or explode or melt into a puddle of thought full of questions and anxieties. I need to come across as intelligent, but also genuine and passionate. I need my interviewer to know how much I want this. How much the institute is perfect for me. But what is she going to ask me? Will I feel better after the interview or worse?

And then I wait.

Until April 1st.

When I find out if my future is going to go the way I want it to.

Rainbow or chocolate?

I hope they are rainbow sprinkles. Can you imagine rainbow sprinkles falling from the sky? I can and it makes me happy.

I mean, you knew it was coming.

You did, you knew it was coming. Of COURSE I am going to talk about my magical The Blow experience last night.

Khaela makes me smile. Really, that's what it comes down to. I was expecting cool dance moves and heart-hugging vocals. But I didn't expect her to be an expert storyteller or a performance artist. She not only talked about where the songs came from and why she wrote them, but she actually started to deconstruct what makes a song, how creativity works from the inside out! And as always, I appreciate her lyrics, her storytelling within the song. And it's the simple lines of hers that make her music so relatable. Like the line: "If something in the deli isle makes you cry, of course I'd put my arm around you and I'd walk you outside, through the sliding doors - why would I mind?" that end bit the "why would I mind?" adds so much more to the story, it shows a certain depth that I can't quite put my finger on, but it's there.

Anyway, she was real and hilarious and so. damn. adorable. I wish I could upload this one clip I have of her singing "Babay" because when her voice hits the top note, it's so pure and exact, it's just gorgeous.

But lets settle for a passionate khaela photo:






Okay, I'm done about The Blow. I promise. For a while, anyway. :)

Cornelius at the Fillmore

My friend Melissa introduced me to Cornelius several months ago. What I learned quickly was that he is just as much a visual artist as he as a musician, and his show last night at the Fillmore combined the two worlds with grace. I don't know much about him, but often I feel that he hits just the right notes together as if he has studied music for decades; as if he has come to know intimately the music centers of the brain and knows, factually, that this sound and this other sound go together perfectly and it's obscene that they haven't been put together before.

The show began when a large white sheet was pulled up in front of the stage. Blocks of color were projected onto it from the back, allowing the audience to make shadow puppets of bunnies and eagles dueling it out. The show continued to be an interactive dream, even as the sheet fell and we gazed at the four magical musicians and the large screen set up behind them, which continuously ran visual sequences to move with the songs. Whether it was splatters of primary colored paint, or the full produced videos (like this one for Tone Twilight Zone), or the flood lights aimed at the audience radiating pulses of light to the music, we were treated to a full sensual experience in keeping with the namesake of the evening: "Ultimate Sensuous Synchronized Show". Thankfully I am not prone to seizures, because I imagine that the lights, music and atmosphere could certainly induce a hypnotic trance and a widening of the pupils for the person with even the slightest trace of ADD.

Oh, and cornelius himself is super adorable.

Gawwwd, she's still obsessed!

Addiction Chronicles continued...

Yep, still love The Blow. Still love Khaela Maricich. And!!! I am going to see her live next week. I actually can't believe it. I was thinking of getting a t-shirt made that says "Why would I mind?" or "Every little thing she does is magic" or "Khaela is for lovers" but I will probably just wear my hot pink tie.

I wish this video hadn't stopped short:



and this one is so uber cute:

citystitchcraft

backlog of wallets

I probably have close to 20 or so duck tape wallets in various boxes around my apartment. Sometimes I'll get home at night, pour myself a glass of cheap white wine, sit in front of the TV and whip out 3 or 4 new wallets. I get extra excited when I find new colors in unlikely places. (Walgreens on New Montgomery has hot pink, red and neon green!!!) Mostly I just give the finished product away, or stick them in my 'crafted' shoebox under my bed. But why not sell them? Like sort of in a for-real shop, except it's on the interwebs.

So behold my etsy shop.

citystitchcraft.etsy.com



I have to admit, I set one up before and never uploaded any items to sell, working instead to make customized wallets, but now I do both! I'll also be adding some of my felt crafts to peek at and enjoy.

so yeah!

fucking cold

10:07am, dude outside: "Oh. My. God. It's Fucking Cold.... FUCK!"

3 weeks in fast-forward review

Panama, Costa Rica, SF Bay area NYE sunset, rainbow-sprinkle-colored balloons!
Happy 2008 :)