Happy Valentine's Day to Me... and to You. :)

I think it started when I was walking home from the gym on Monday. It felt great to exercise, and I felt suddenly healthier and more capable in the world. Then, as I was walking home, I saw the most beautiful silver-white moon against a dark blue sky. And spindly trees stretching up to touch it. It felt wonderful. I was suddenly at peace, and happy to be by myself, experiencing this lovely night.

I had been feeling some trepidiation about Valentine's Day. I'd been in a generally gray mood lately, quick to self-pity and slow to relaxation. And the thing is, I've never, never been one to complain about Valentine's Day. I like it, and I'm always remembered, even if it's never been romantically meant. But this year... I was feeling complainy. Rachel has a girlfriend, and my other friends are occupied on Tuesday nights, or not at all in the area. I was getting antsy about the idea of being alone. Quite frankly, I thought maybe the day might suck, and I was rather displeased with myself for joining the ranks of the alone-on-Valentine's complainers. But, as it approached, I began to notice how much care I was getting from all different sources. Two adorable cards from my mom, a present from Jeff (her boyfriend), a really hilarious card from Bekah, a card from my aunt and uncle (who always remember me on Valentine's Day), the promise of mail from Katie (which has now come! a wonderful, thoughtful card), and really beautiful and tender cards from Rachel, too. I've never really done much for Valentine's Day in terms of gifts or cards for others, and it touched me that all these people would be so thoughtful and kind and loving to me.

So, on the lovely walk home on Monday, I decided I would take myself out for Valentine's Day, and buy myself a present. I was thinking about comfortable and sexy lingerie, as I have none. I thought maybe I would also take myself to dinner, and see if anything else appealed to me, like seeing a movie or some kind of event. I also had this sudden and striking thought, in the way that sometimes words just appear in your head... that I had no idea what my romantic life would hold. I had no idea who I would end up loving in that way... it could be a man, as I have mostly assumed and sought, but it could also be a woman, which seems oddly more possible (in terms of my own internal compass) now that I am not at Bryn Mawr... it could even, though it's hard for me to imagine, be more than one person... anything was possible. But whatever it will be, the fact that it hasn't started yet is not a judgement on me... it just means there's a surprise coming, and knowing now would ruin the surprise. I don't know where this idea came from, but it was very clear and it felt very good.

Then, Valentine's Day itself started out fine. Almost everyone in the office wore red or pink, which was very pleasing. And I got a valentine from Courtney, with whom I don't even interact that much. But the highlight of the work portion of my day came when we were supposed to have a staff meeting, and instead we had a nice lunch/Valentine's party, courtesy of DeVida. It was yummy and exciting.

Throughout the day, I browsed online for activities and events happening in the evening, and I found this thing called Night of a Thousand Plays. Basically, it was many many little tiny plays (though not actually 1,000) all performed one after the other, by different groups of actors. I was kind of intrigued, though I had no idea whether this format would actually work for me. But they had a half price Valentine's Day special, and I decided to print out the coupon and see if I felt like going when it came time. Meanwhile, I was talking online to this man who had messaged me while I was messing around on Okcupid, with whom I had hit it off decently in our brief conversation... and I mentioned the show, and he seemed interested. So I invited him. And he said yes. Boom, Valentine's Day date. :) I was so surprised! We decided to meet for dinner and he gave me his number and his name (Swami, short for something really really long and Indian).

The plan we made was that I would go to the theater after work and try to pick up the tickets. I did, but the box office was not yet open. So I called him and we set a time to meet for dinner. Of course, there wasn't time to go home and change. Happily, I was wearing a new red skirt and nice shirt, but less happily, I was wearing my very very beat up and scuffed snow boots. I haven't bought new ones yet because I can get spendthrifty about shoes and clothes and I figured, hey, they're still workable. Which they are. But last night, I was suddenly very self-conscious and worried about them. So I found a shoe store, and went in. The cheapest shoes I found in there were over $100, and most were $300 or $400. Um, no. I'm even used to more high end shoes, or so I thought, because my foot is sometimes hard to fit. But PLEASE. What could they possible have done to a few pieces of nice leather or whatever to make it worth $300? NOTHING, at least not from where I and my bank account stand. So I got out of there, beginning to despair of my shoe changing plan... when I turned a corner and saw an Aerosoles shoe store! I went in, and found lovely little red suede boots, with tassels, in my size, for $30. So I bought them. And some tan trouser socks. And popped over to the McDonald's bathroom to change them, stuffing my mismatched cotton socks and scuffed up boots into the Aerosoles bag. Feeling new and spiffy, I hurried out to meet Swami by 6:30.

When I arrived at the appointed corner, at first I saw only an old man. But then I caught sight of a young man on the opposite side of the road, surveying everyone who passed. We ascertained our mutual identities and he came over to my side of the street. To my delight, he was handsome! He had dark, full, wavy hair and beautiful dark eyes with long eyelashes. He gave me a hug hello, which was interesting to me, because I had been debating between a hug and a handshake. We headed down the street to a little Italian restaurant right across from the theater, and got seats even though we didn't have a reservation. It was a really pretty, cozy place, and all the waitstaff were very friendly.

We talked throughout the meal about various things. He's really smart. I mean, he's about to get his PhD from Penn in physics (he'll be done in December) and he's only 25. Apparently in India he just had this really driven life and had to go go go all the time... and now that he's here, he's sort of sick of science and he doesn't really want to keep on with it as a career. He's more interested in the artistic arena, apparently, and tried many things before he settled on this improvisational jazz thing that he does. He plays percussion. But it's funny how I could notice his scientific training coming through in his way of perceiving and noticing things. For example, there was a candle on our table, and we were watching the light come through the candleholder and splinter into little points on the tabletop. And suddenly he tells me that he did a project on why light does that in just that way. It was kind of fascinating. He also told me that he loved to play with fire as a child and he has little scars on his hands from it. Which sounds like he's way more edgy than he mostly seemed, and I'd almost forgotten that until I wrote it down here.

We also talked about adjusting to a new culture, and movies... he asked if I thought he should see Brokeback Mountain, and of course I responded enthusiastically in the affirmative, and then that led to an interesting discussion of how he has trouble connecting emotionally to gay stories. He basically said that he can understand and accept it intellectually, but emotionally he hasn't made that connection. So... I tried to indicate how connected I am to such matters without exactly saying "some of my best friends are gay." Though that's basically what I said, because even though it sounds silly, it's absolutely true. And he hastily assured me that he lived in an "artists' house" and that most of the time when they had parties there were gay people making out all over the place... though it didn't seem he was entirely comfortable with this. Yet, he could hardly be entirely uncomfortable or he wouldn't have brought up Brokeback Mountain, I suppose. Anyway, we had a pretty lively talk about the movie, and how I really thought he should see it because I think it's ideal for making exactly that emotional connection. He expressed some skepticism about "Oscar movies" in general, which I found a bit pretentious, but you can't win 'em all, right? This discussion led me to ask about cultural differences in this area of thought between India and the US, and he said that, because men and women were mostly kept apart until marriage, the bonds between male friends there are much more at the level of intimacy that is expected between female friends here. I think this is really interesting, though it makes me wonder if he had much contact with women his own age before coming here.

We also talked quite a bit about the intellect, and what kind of importance it has to us, or has had in the past... he said that for his whole life he has been so focused on the intellect as the paramount thing, but now he realizes that it is not the most important thing, and he really wants to branch out and explore other parts of himself. It's funny, because he's obviously excellent in an academic environment, but I got this strong sense of him being, more than anything, sick of it. I told him about my decision to take time off after Bryn Mawr. I think, in a lot of ways, he's in a similar mental place now as I was then, even though he's light years ahead in terms of the schooling he has finished. Although from how he speaks, his work in physics is never going to be his life commitment, or even his job beyond a few money making years. He said something about wanting to work for a few years and save up money to do something else, like open a restaurant. That surprised me, since he also said he didn't like/know how to cook. So I don't know what's up with that. Really, it seemed like his real love was this percussion/improvisation/free jazz thing. I find this kind of fascinating, because I can see that trait in him (starting with the fact that he was often drumming with his fingers and working out a rhythm in pauses in conversation, especially in the theater and once we were out of the restaurant). According to him, he just decided that science was not his thing (which continues to astonish me, given how far he's going with it), and that he wished to engage artisticially. He then tried writing and painting, among other things, and finally hit on his affinity for music. Maybe this is baffling to me because I had my strongest affinities from a very young age... the first thing I was going to be was an actress who writes her own plays. And, the way Swami tells it, he was all science science science, and then one day decided art was it for him, instead. It's a very different sort of experience.

He asked me lots of questions, but I think I did the same. There were a few awkward pauses, but less than you might expect for two total strangers. Overall, I really enjoyed it. He was an interesting combination of being rather shy-seeming and a little deferent (sp??) on the one hand, and being sort of suddenly extremely committed to his opinion (the Oscar movie thing, for example). And dinner was quite excellent. I had lobster ravioli, and he had some kind of other seafood/pasta dish. Oh, this was kind of odd- at the beginning of the meal, when we were looking at the menus, I asked him if he wanted to get wine. He responded right away by saying he didn't drink. I said ok. Then he said I could get it if I wanted to, of course. Then he said he would have wine if I picked one for him that wasn't too strong. He said he was happy to try things but he didn't like them too strong. So I picked cabernet sauvingnon for myself, and then asked the waitress if she had a suggestion for a sweeter, less dry wine. She seemed very confused about what I was asking, for some reason, and finally pointed one out that said "dry" in the description. So I had no idea what was going on there, and I decided to order him chardonnay, since I find that sweet and in general white is sweeter and more palatable to less enthusiastic wine drinkers than red. I don't know if he liked it. He ate like a bird... only about half his entree (I find many restaurant entrees big, but this was just the right size, to me) and maybe half of his wine. I polished off my whole entree and my whole glass of wine, which, just to give you a picture, came in a glass the size of my head. I mean, it was not full, of course. But his came in this tiny, delicate wine glass. I know it's something I would understand if I knew more about wine, but it was odd. I had the briefest moment of being insecure about my dramatically larger appetite, but it passed quickly. I was hungry, and I decided to be ok with that. :-) I think it was interesting (word of the day, sorry), too, that were had this sort of odd back and forth in who took what kind of role in the evening. I mean, I invited him, made the plans, ordered his wine, and paid for his theater ticket. He, on the other hand, carried my shopping bag, paid for dinner, stood on the bus behind me instead of sitting somewhere else, and initiated all of the (awkwardly executed yet warm and pleasant) cuddling that took place during the play. So I don't know. I probably wouldn't be this obsessed with it if I didn't worry a little that he will suddenly turn into a real partriarchal type. Or, to be honest, that the cultural differences between us mean that he has expectations of women of which I'm fundamentally unaware. Well, who knows, I guess.

By the end of our dinner he'd expressed interest in my theological leanings (I told him about applying to grad school), and we discussed my thesis briefly. He latched onto the idea and said he could tell me about parallel situations in Indian religion and mythology. I'm super excited about that. I tried to explain it carefully and well, without assuming that he had or didn't have a base knowledge about Christianity. I can't wait to see what ideas he has about it...

Anyway, we finished up our dinner, and headed out. The waitress came running after me to give me a rose, which apparently she was supposed to bring to the table! I was thrilled! A pretty red rose, just for me, just because it was Valentine's Day and I was a woman and there. :-) Though I've also been thinking lately how men must sometimes feel less special than women, overall. I mean, I won't say that women don't still get the raw end of the deal, because we do, and I would trade being coddled for being powerful any day... but still. On Lost, there was this part with two men talking about the possible destruction of an Iraqi village in the first Gulf War. And the one said to the other, think of everyone who will be killed. Innocent women, children. And I thought, what about innocent men? What does it say that men are consistently told that women are somehow more "precious" than they are? I'm not saying I don't understand the concept of "women and children first," or whatever, but just as it is destructive to women to assume that we are inherantly sweet and innocent, it is destructive to men to assume that they are inherantly not, or that women have some kind of uncorrupted innocence/worth that men must seek to protect even at the expense of themselves, because men are powerful, and therefore not innocent. My dad said that as a kid he hated hearing that girls were "sugar and spice and everything nice" and boys were "snakes and snails and puppy dog's tails." He didn't understand why he didn't get to be nice things, too. Bah, the whole dualistic hierarchical gender system hurts everybody!

But that was a loooooong soapboxy tangent. I was delighted with my rose. Let's go back to that. ;-) We went to the show, and I insisted on paying for his ticket (it was, after all, still much less than the meal). It was at the Adrienne, in this space called the Playground, which was a really nice little theater. I wanted to sit front and center, and he was startlingly adamant about sitting back (and side, which I thought would be the worst view), and we agreed at last to sit back and center. I wasn't sure why this was such an important thing to him, like, we were looking around and i was like, well, we could sit up front, and he was like, no. Back. It was odd. Aggressive reticence? I don't know.

The play was good. I know if you've made it this far you probably are getting a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information in this post, but it was, and I feel I should say something about it, too, not just my date. For the first couple of little three minute (or so) bits, I wasn't sure if it would be good. Then either I wrapped my head around the format or they hit their stride or both. There was one that was basically ruined because for some reason one of the young women was on book, which was utterly distracting for us, for her, and for the other actors. And there were a bunch that fell flat. But there were also wonderfully hilarious ones, especially as the evening wore on. There was one that reminded me a lot of Dilexi, in a way! It started with this coffee barista trying to sell coffee to a rushed man. The man kept asking for something plain, and she would offer him a ridiculously complicated list of choices. It seemed a funny, if ordinary set-up. But then, the man remained calm, and the barista got all crazy, saying that he couldn't win, and the way the sketch had to go was that she kept offering him all these pointless choices until he became overwhelmed and collapsed to the ground. And then another woman came in and she and the man started flirting, and exchanged names, and the barista was freaking out because they weren't supposed to be able to do any of this... well, it was funny and exciting. The best one, hands down, was this one about a really reserved, precise man who got into a totally unexpected sexual situation... i was so funny and so well acted. There were also a couple of songs done by this guy who apparently was the musical director of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I don't know where, but they seemed pretty proud of this, so maybe it was the original production. Anyway, he was very good.

And, true to his proclivities, I guess, it was during the musical numbers that Swami started snuggling up to me. As I said before, most of this was done rather oddly and awkwardly, but... I find him attractive, so it was nonetheless quite pleasant and I didn't mind. Though there was one moment where for some reason he started stroking my throat quite a bit, and that got weird, so I guided his hand away. But generally, aside from the awkward and abrupt way in which he intiated most of our contact, it was very gentle and nice and exploring, without being too much or going to the wrong places. And he smelled really good. ;-)

After the show we waited for the bus together, having discovered we live about three blocks apart! This got a bit long, and was the part of the evening where I was most aware of not being sure of what to talk about. But we finally got on the bus, and he stood behind me as aforementioned, and pet my head from time to time, and told me a bit about his family and also his taste in ice cream. Oh, yes, this is also when I though he was telling me something more about his grandmother's education, and I said "Wow" with a big smile, and then realized he was telling me that his grandmother had died. Whoops. That was my most awkward moment of the night. But we got over that, and when he left he bent and kissed my forehead before getting off, and we made plans to get together again sometime next week.

I was a happy camper coming home, and I put my rose in water and went online to tell people about my night... where I was promptly engaged in conversation by this other boy from Okcupid, and I found an email from a man who wanted a date for Margaret Garner (an opera I am so eager to see) saying that though he'd already gotten someone to go, I was really cute. And I still have to deal with Mark, who continues to call and email me though I haven't responded in a bit... (I know, it's not a good way to handle it. But I'm not used to this). I think that's the bottom line. This is all really great... but I'm not used to it! Apparently all of a sudden all I have to do for male attention is stretch out my hand... it's soooooooooo so so different from my previous experiences. Not that I'm complaining, but it's... weird. And I definitely want to see Swami again, but it all makes me a bit nervous as well. Like, I've gotten so used to being single I can hardly imagine what it would be like to be otherwise. Bah, I sound like I'm at least middle aged, and I'm not trying to be pretentious... but you know? It's true.

Ah, but all that aside, it was fun. It was fun fun fun and cozy and pleasant and I felt attractive and smart, even though he was definitely also attractive and probably smarter, or at least more educated. (God, at one point he was saying that he should learn a foreign language and I asked if he had studied any, and he was like, no, I just speak six Indian languages, completely serious, and I was l

Anyway, the whole thing left me grateful and happy: Grateful for my first "romantic" Valentine's Day, grateful for my truly wonderful friends and family, who are so central to my life, and grateful for the fact that I really, actually do enjoy my own company... and that I was willing to have a go at being lonely to figure that out.

:-) I wish you all the same sorts of experiences, in whatever way they work for you. And those of you who I know read this... I love you! Thank you for being in my life. It means the world.

A Bit of Homegrown Gender Theory

I wrote this up for the Bryn Mawr Alumnae list serve, and decided I wanted to post it here as well... I probably said something about this to many of you when I first conceived of it, but let me know what you think anyway...

I think our basic societal perceptions of sexuality and gender are predicated upon the man-as-subject, woman-as-object relationship. (By subject and object I mean perceiver and perceived, or actor and acted upon, not necessarily the popular meaning of objectified as devalued, though it comes from the same root, I think.) This relationship is central to our societal conceptions and regulations of, as well as needs from, gender and sexuality.

This is the reason that heterosexual men (in the non-specific, societal sense) are both able to handle women falling in love and having sex and also basically encouraged to fetishize this-- and also why lesbians are, generally, far less visible than other populations. The women (two objects) are acting as subjects, true... but because the man is the real subject, the owner, if you will, of subjectivity, he can objectify them both, and there is less actual threat perceived from them because of this. Of course, it also tends to invalidate and/or veil the lesbian experience. Heterosexual women, for their part, are less likely to feel personally threatened by female homosexuality than heterosexual men by male homosexuality. I think this is because, as a subjective person, everyone must act as a subject in her or his own perceptions of the world. Therefore, all women experience the doubling, somewhat disconcerting sensation of being simultaneously a personal subject and a societal object-- as a normal part of their existance! So, to see women acting as subject and object to each other is not as threatening to their understanding of themselves and their societal role. However, this mushiness between subject and object identification, and indeed the intial construct that one must be a subject or an object in any sexual relationship to another might explain the confusion people sometimes experience/express about what constitutes "real" lesbian sexual intercourse-- and even the rather bizarre assertion that "real" lesbian sexual intercourse cannot exist.

It follows, then, that this is also why heterosexual men tend to be threatened by male homosexuality in a much stronger way. Male homosexuality creates a situation in which men act as subject toward male objects. As mentioned before, men have the power of subjectivity-- the whole system requires them to have it. So, a man will have trouble denying another man's subjecthood, which is fine as long it is turned upon women... but when it is turned upon men, any man may be suddenly put into the object position. This "feminizes" him in a much more disconcerting way than a simple sex act could, by making his relationship to society essentially feminine. (And, in turn, destabilizing the assumptions that our entire societal gender system is built upon!) This would also explain the almost compulsive societal need to stereotype homosexual men (not that lesbians are "un"stereotyped, but, as a general rule, it is the stereotypes of homosexual men that ellicit constant remark, use, parody, and also which have the most credance in society as a whole. If at least one homosexual man can be externally feminized enough to deintentify him with other men, placing him in his own special category, the threat he bears can also be isolated. Brokeback Mountain offers no such defense... in fact, no defense at all. To me, this is what makes it have the potentional to be so wonderful and liberating to people of all genders and sexualities... but therein also lies the threat. When someone reacts by striking out wildly at the very concept of homosexuality, I assume it is not merely a personal sexual discomfort and threat that s/he is reacting to, but also the implied dismantling/reshaping of (what I view as a false and very harmful but nonetheless extraordinarily pervasive) an entire societal system of gender.

I can see places in this where people might ask, but where is the penis? The vagina? Penetration etc.? Especially when I talk about what constitutes sex acts, and certainly with the subject-object motif. I agree that this is relevant, but I would argue that instead of our ideas about gender roles arising spontaneously out of the sex act itself, the way in which we frame and conceive of sexual activity and its implications arises from (and serves) the prevailing gender model.

A warning before I get off my soapbox: The evidence I have for all of this is based on my own experience and observation, and I'm sure many theorists that have soaked into my brain, but at this time I can name none, so I take credit for both my insights and my errors.

I Know These Are MUCH More Interesting To Me Than To Anyone Else, but You Can Take it Too.

Found this in Nathaniel's Blog.

Two Names You Go By
1. Becky
2. James

Two Parts of Your Heritage
1. Irish Catholic
2. German Lutheran (I feel like my mom would be sad if I didn't also say Italian even though it didn't fit in with the contrast-making!)

Two Things That Scare You
1.Being attacked by people I pass outside at night, mostly men.
2. That I'm going to suddenly go irrevocably and cosmically wrong with my life path, and therefore sacrifice all happiness and acheivement forever.


Two of Your Everyday Essentials

1. A satisfying lunch
2. A little time to read

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now
1. Cool brown and blue suede boots with manageable heels. (Arguably the most attractive and stylish footwear that I own, being that I own very little.)
2. Brown skirt that is tighter than it used to be, which fact I am not fond of.

Two of Your Favorite Bands or Musical Artists
1. Gogol Bordello! Gypsy punk!
2. William Finn (not really a band or a musical artists, but related to music and a favorite)

Two Things You Want in a Relationship
1. A place for my spirit to be free and my imagination to be fed.
2. Sex-- at the right time and in the right way and when I'm sure it's a good idea... but also with a sort of wanton and consuming passion. Hmm.

Two Truths
1. The world can be incredibly frightening, dangerous, and savage. Which sometimes I believe, and sometimes I don't.
2. To (perhaps quote, perhaps paraphrase) Julian of Norwich: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Which sometimes I believe, and sometimes I don't.

Two of Your Favorite Hobbies
1. Theater of any stripe except certain mainstagey weird stripes that pretend to be stripes but are actually polka dots.
2. Singing-- I miss it.

Two Things You Want Really Badly
1. To be a published writer.
2. To understand my direction in life and be at peace about it.

Two Places You Want to go on Vacation
1. India
2. Canada

Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die
1. Visit every continent at least once (including Antarctica!)
2. Walk in beauty every day. And go into space. Both are difficult, but worthwhile.

Two Ways that you are stereotypically a Chick/Guy
1. Wonderful and circuitous language skills.
2. Confusion about all things mechanical, or which have to be manually assembled.

Two Things You Normally Wouldn't Admit
1. What people think of me matters to me way too much (taken from Nathaniel because he's right)
2. I think about sex, my own sexuality, and tie myself in knots over real or imagined attractions more than I would EVER say. And I get very jealous about such matters.

Two Things You Are Thinking About Now
1. How to promote a Christmas Carol at Thanksgiving.
2. If anyone other than the people I know about actually reads this journal... and whether I want them to.

Two Stores You Shop At
1. A Garland of Letters
2. The Last Word (I'm picking the cool sounding favorites, not the grocery store and stuff)

Two people I would like to see take this quiz
1. Rachel
2. Katie (Because they will read it)

Two people I haven't talked to in a while
1. Cristina (and I really should because I'm head over heels about her being in Philly)
2. Kirstin (and I really should because I'm head over heels about her being in Pennsylvania)

Morality Play

Things got kind of strange at work today... Tall young Michael made some comments about women, how he thought women should be subordinate to men or some such, and it all sort of went downhill from there. Heather countered him, mentioned my name, and the next thing you know we're embroilled, eventually getting all the way to gay marriage and religion. I feel rather odd about the whole thing. On the one hand, I feel like if I'm going to go around with a very good opinion of my own articulation of ideas, and support for my positions, I can't really avoid these kinds of conversations. And to a point, they can be very interesting. But it's hard with tall young Michael, because he's so naive and definitely uneducated in many, many ways... but somehow he also strikes me as sort of innocent. He says terrible things, really not ok... but I feel, ironically, that I should be gentle toward him, because he is still, in some fundamental way, a little boy. He wouldn't thank me for that, I know. And it's hard because I express myself in such measured, qualified prose, which at this point is natural for me in matters of import, but doesn't seem to be natural for anyone else there, so I'm not sure if they understand what I am really trying to say. I think the really difficult thing there is that I have adopted such phrasing because I have been taught that it is in some ways essential to clear communication, and yet often it hinders my ability to communicate in situations where people have not been so trained. So that kind of defeats the purpose right there, doesn't it? I have an inordinate love for linguistic care, and I don't know if this makes me a more precise communicator, as I would wish, or not. And Heather is so forceful and convinced that it is hard to disagree with her. Or maybe it's just that now we are on a "side" together in the argument, but in actual fact I do not agree with all the conclusions she draws.

Maybe the point is that I am really, really, really confused about morality, and it preoccupies me to an extent that even my closest friends don't always understand the mixture of intensity and trepidation with which I approach the subject. Because intellectually it is clear that morality is a relative, culturally detirmined thing. But my heart wishes for a standard against which I can hold my own actions and those of other people, and therefore... be justified in judgement, I suppose, be it good or bad. I know judging is a trap, but it is so incredibly hard to avoid, and to be honest I like it. When I can make a judgement I feel safer, more certain about the world.

And it's easy to question morality when those around you have a different point of view, but it's not something we even think to question when we are all making a moral judgement in consort. For example, later in the day we watched Oprah, and there was no debate over whether the mother who gave her children Xanax to sedate them was morally wrong to do so-- we were all certain that she was. And I am certain. But what if this was a highly contested issue? Would I remain certain?

I think one of the bottom lines I come to is that morality can be detirmined situationally rather than generally. Take the issue of gay marriage, or marriage at all. There definitely may be couples where it is morally wrong for them to marry, and couples where it is not wrong (I don't know if marriage is morally "right," since to me that carries a bit of a compunction to commit a right act). This has nothing to do with their respective genders. Are there actions, then, that are always or almost always wrong? It's interesting to get to this point, because I think that murder is essentially worse than rape, however I would say that rape is always wrong, while killing may not be. It's so CONFUSING!

Also, I'm often nervous about expressing my views in a company where people disagree with me, and I don't like this about myself. I am morally scrupulous, but I'm not sure that it makes me essentially better as a person.

Then there's the fact that I love shady characters and antiheros, and can forgive in fiction what I would condemn in life, and especially in myself.

WHAT IS MORALITY? Is it relevant? Is it absolute? Is it relative? Is it the essence of what makes someone a "good" person, or is it merely an attempt to codify compassion? Does it actually relate to compassion directly? Now accepting submissions on all of these questions!

Ooh... and if anyone really thinks that women are inferior to men, I think your opinion is the intellectual and moral equivalent of horseshit.

I'm a bundle of contradictions. Love to my faithful readers, if you happen to exist... sound off! Inquiring minds want to know.

Normal

No matter what font I choose, this font happens.

I'm reading a book called Normal, by Amy Bloom, whose name is inexplicably familiar to me, though I am not certain I have read anything else by her. It's about Female-To-Male transsexuals, heterosexual male crossdressers, and finally, the intersexed, commonly known as hermaphrodites.

Endless fascination. I could do about a hundred riffs on the subject(s), but I'll try to limit myself to some hopefully cogent thoughts, as the endless toil of phone answering again beckons. I'm also still pondering a talk I went to with Rachel last night about GLBT issues and religion.

I think perhaps a good entry point, therefore, would be the conversation I had with Randi, a Male-To-Female transsexual where I work. It wasn't really even a conversation. The box office was crowded and loud, and people were sort of going back and forth shouting things, as happens occassionally. Randi was across from me at Albert's (the treasurer, my de facto boss, and another story) chair, and one of the noisy men I have trouble keeping straight was saying some noisy thing with a lot of swearing in it. And Randi, a very slim, tall, well-but-a-little-tartily dressed African American woman (ok, tartily is not quite right. I say tartily because she's thinner than I am, and there's something about her sexuality that is sharp and metallic and therefore threatening, therefore to be distrusted), Randi looks up and says something to the effect of "Don't use that language, there are Christians in here, myself among them."

Without thinking about it, I look up, and catch Randi's eyes, and smile. I know the kind of smile it is, it's a sly one, a little grin, a you-and-me-are-in-this-joke-together smile. I get good results from that smile. People like to be together, and people like to be together at the exclusion of those who are not in the together at the moment. Jokes are the best for this. Jokes, between friends, are like a clannish sort of love. I like this smile, too. I feel worldly-wise and smart when I wear it, fun, my insecurities just a jacket that this keen minded, sharp, sparkling eyed person wears from time to time. Randi, however, does not appear to like this smile.

"Why're you laughing?" she says, smiling back in an uneasy way I am not used to from her; she always seems so confident. "I am a Christian." She's laughing too, but something in our exchange has gone wrong. "Don't laugh at me, you'll hurt my feelings."

"I know," I say, or "I believe you," or something, backpedeling as fast as I can. I know there is still a sly bubble of laughter in my voice, as much protection as her smile, I now see, may be. She looks suddenly vulnerable, her eyes want my approval, but don't want to ask for it. Oh no, I think, I've done something wrong. I, who wrote my whole thesis on religion and gender-crossing, do not even have the necessary skills to have a normal social exchange with the only real gender-crosser I know. What, exactly, I wonder, is the joke? What did I assume Randi and I were sharing, that we clearly were not?

First of all, I should admit that from the beginning, Randi made me nervous. There is really nothing masculine about her, in any overt sense. Yet, before I knew her history, every time she came into the office, something inside me said, man, or at least, not a woman like you. I thought I was being ridiculous and crazy. So her voice was a little deep, this was clearly unwarranted. But I couldn't relax. I was on tinterhooks every time she was in my presence. Of course, this could partially be explained by her outspoken, politically incorrect, and, in my ever-so-careful, academically-trained mind, often incoherent opinions on everything from race to sex to the war in Iraq. (She voted, if anyone is interested, for Bush, and she indicated this by gesturing to her hard-won genitalia.) However, whether or not this was a factor in my discomfort, I have to say that I felt a good deal of relief when it was finally stated clearly that she is a transsexual. I also felt clever, and intuitive, and generally grand about my own perception, especially when I just learned that Heather, a co-worker who I think is generally on top of things, did not know she was a transsexual at all.

All right, so, my always very limited relations with post-revelation Randi were, in my mind, a bit more comfortable than those with pre-revelation Randi, and gave me fodder with which to ponder (Do you ponder with fodder? Well.) all sorts of questions of femininity, hers and mine, and where they intersected and did not intersect. Apparently to the point where I had invented, completely unconsciously, a secret understanding we could inhabit together.

I'm worried about this, though not in a terrible way. After all, I doubt that Randi has given this moment a second thought. Just yesterday she made a comment to tall young Michael (explanations later) about how nice it was to have a "real man" in the office, that women "got nervous" without one and "these two foo-foos," (meaning, I assume, Albert and short older Michael) did not count. So, while I would still hate to be offensive to her, I assume that political correctness is not high on her list of priorities.

But I want to know. What was the joke? Is it (and should I be ashamed of this, if it is so?) that she is a sexual deviant, socially speaking, and therefore occupies a transgressive space in religion. I, on the other hand, am not a sexual deviant, or not in any obvious way, and not in any obvious way a deviant at all. The church has been happy to have me. Nonetheless, I am a mental deviant, and in some ways a spiritual deviant, from some of the doctrines of the church. So, somehow, her public and visible transgression enrolled her in a transgressive Christian club, we might say, which I myself am enrolled in, though without my consent, no one need ever know. And that was the joke, which somehow she was supposed to get? I think maybe I expected her to get it because her incongruity with mainstream Christianity is so obvious, and that... well, I'm not pleased about that. I would like to not make such assumptions, even if my society does (as though that is a breezy sort of task.)

I think it's something like that. That her difference is so public, and so others (namely me) can project a shared differentness, or use her as a place to locate difference.

I'm not sure this is readable, but I do think the ideas are interesting, so ask me if you don't get it and I'll try again.

Time to post this, since it is several days after I began.