kiya

This is a political post. Keep in mind that I don't like feeling political, I find feeling political to be a visceral response to a wrongness in the universe, feeling political is "Every Hetheru has an inner Sekhmet", it's not a mode I find natural or comfortable, so this may be incoherent and ranty in bits.

Since I'm being incoherent and ranty on the subject of sexuality, who knows, it may be incoherent, ranty, and not entirely safe for work. Probably won't be, but I haven't written it yet, so I'm making warning noises about the possibility.

Also, the random music selection is amusing me in a dark bitter chocolate sort of way.

Okay, enough disclaimer.

( Women's sexuality, ownership thereof. )

rasfc is currently having a discussion of sorts on the subject of intelligence and what it's good for, and whether it's an important factor in appreciation of books, and so on. Overall, it's one of those conversations that I find fascinating in the "I want to poke at this" sense but am wary of saying anything in, because the embroilment potential is very high.

There's something of a cultural divide going on, I think, though I can't figure out where the boundaries on it are, quite, since bits of it appear to be me and folks in the UK (or Commonwealth nations) on one side of the line. (I theorise a little that we're back to Yankee-people-and-their-culture on this, but who knows? I was raised in a culturally odd environment.)

( This may wind up being long. Cultural and class stuff, intellectualism stuff, snobbery. )

I think I am becoming sick. This is not making me a happy birdie.

I am not accomplishing much these days. A lot of staring intensely at the blank page that is 3.13. I should go clean the bathroom tomorrow just so I'll have done something. Today I ... well, I reviewed my logs from overlandmush so I know what I need to be available for when we get going again. And I revelled in having a shirt. And I answered yezida's 'How's everyone doing with the work' finally.

I have also made soup.

Edited to add: And while I'm whining, my left hip is stiff and achey. Which is better than the sharp though intermittent pain it was manifesting for no damn reason yesterday, but still meh. In non-whining commentary, this case of recreational cognitive dissonance will amuse me for some time.

Memeish thing nicked from griffen:
( Ten things I figure that people know about me. )

This story takes a lot of context to tell properly; I'm going to tell it with all its context for the first time ever. It may well be frightfully dull. Some of it will be graphic.

In a way, writing this will be an offering to the Eyes of Ra for the new year: there is in here stuff that needs to die. Kheperu.

( No Pity. No Shame. No Silence. The commentary. )

That's all of it. All that I can remember right now. All as coherent as I can get it.

If I rip open the scar tissue, maybe it'll bleed out the rot, and maybe it'll heal true this time.

In other conversations about gender identity . . .

A day or two ago, montrealais wrote this post on the SDMB. It's worth reading. Presuming the hamsters are willing to give anyone access.

Somewhere in my head is something about mindfulness and identity. It comes out in strands of light, like a cat's cradle of meaning, and I don't know how to get it quite into words right. So I sketch, and see if it exists in the negative space.

Again I say: existence is dialogue. Before there were two things, is the phrase in some of the myths. And I said once or twice, if we were all the same, who would speak our Names?

That which is other, which is different, that brings out an ability to be aware of related things in myself. The context of the post that inspired this was a discussion about where gender identity comes from, and whether it's 'really' real, and a bunch of other stuff. And I see him saying that look, this is something that at least might lead people to think about this stuff, think about what it means.

Mindfulness. It's hard to be mindful of traits, of differences, of realities, that haven't been shown to differ. Things which are just the way things are become invisible, glossed over, they vanish. Difference -- creates the possibility of mindfulness. Mindfulness -- creates the possibility of dialogue. Dialogue -- reinforces existence.

If we were all the same, who would give us names?

Hello. I'm a writer. I'm a pagan; beyond pagan, I'm a recon; beyond recon, I'm Kemetic. I'm a woman. I'm a wife. I'm a partner. I'm in my twenties. I'm polyamorous. I'm heterosexual. I'm a one-of-each bisomethingal. I'm a submissive. I'm plural -- median, to be exact. I'm a mystic. I'm depressive. I'm a dropout. I'm a Yankee. I'm a sculptor. I'm a snarky, wiseass bitch. I'm a gamer. I'm a musician. I'm a singer. I'm a baseball fan. I'm a brewer. I'm a Discordian. I don't think in words most of the time. I hold in my mind gateways to whole universes. And many other things besides.

I am other. I am like you.

Let us be mindful together.

Just wrote something elsewhere that I wanted to keep. (Context: calling people by their 'real names', which phrase I hate with the burning passion of a thousand suns.)

The only purpose the legal name serves in my life is to fill out legal forms for people who have no need to know who I actually am and to receive checks. I'm not kidding when I say that I don't always remember to answer to it; it doesn't belong to anyone who lives here, it's just the address for the body. Calling me 'Heather' feels about as personal to me as calling me 'Lewis Street'.

You know, the more times I witness variants of this argument, the more appealing the concept of changing my name legally is. I could pick something that actually sounds like me to me and stop having quite so many, ". . . wait, was that directed at me?" moments. I even know what I'd do if I could be arsed doing it.

(Word count for today: 798, and that's section 40 and done. Yesterday's was 98 on 39, which finished it.)

This one looked actually interesting.

( Friday Five. )

And this is because teinedreugan and I were snuggling on the couch and Arthur came over and proceeded to bonk everyone with his nose; teinedreugan said, "No, Arthur, you can't nose my banana" at which point Arthur promptly climbed up and started earnestly sniffing at the banana-grasping hand.

( Rainy Day Arthur )

Because this whole getting work done thing isn't actually functioning.

Some of the seeds of this were set in an earlier, locked entry, and I'm not sure how I feel about the etiquette of posting a link to it that some people might not be able to follow, so I won't. :P

( Seeds, having grown into thoughts. )

I think I'll use Darkhawk's rune for the icon on this, because it's far more geekery than spirituality at the moment, all analysis. And then back to the staring uselessly at the work.

Wanted to put it here, too, so fyrekat and others could see it.

fyrekat has been writing about the Netjerw she knows, and I've been considering on and off doing something of the same. Hence . . .

( The Sutekh I know. )

One of my normally quiescent mailing lists has been fairly chatty of late, with people who keep saying daft things that I feel an urge to poke holes in with a sharp stick.

One of the things that provoked a breaking out of the sharp stick was someone who was basically arguing in favor of subvert-the-dominant-paradigm lifestyle polyamory and ragging on people who don't do enough to undo social conditioning or what have you.

As I said to the gang: It occurs to me that by denying the necessity of iconoclasm in a fringe subculture, I'm being a terrifically perverse stereotypical Aquarius. (Unpacked slightly: The fashion is iconoclasm, so I won't.)

Though to continue with the astrology, a bit of backhanded perversity is probably in the books, given that my ascendant is Scorpio.