One Less Invisible Oppression

Take a good look at me:

There, that was not so bad. Pictured is head and shoulders shot of a nearly forty, blond, pale white woman with glasses and a mildly challenging expression right after a free makeover.

The last thing you probably see is oppression. You do not see illness. You do not see disabilities. You cannot see bisexuality. You will never see poverty, if I can help it. Me and mine will only show you polyamory when we choose. You cannot see non-Christian in a "Christian" nation. You think you see a woman, but only because I present a woman to you, but you really have no idea. You never really do with anyone - get used to the idea.

Now that the celebrations are mostly over, we can finally start to really understand what happened with DOMA and Prop.8, what the rulings mean now and to start to understand what they may mean for the future. My favorite part was watching the homophobes start to sound off in front of news cameras and watch the cameras turn away from them to the successful DOMA and Prop.8 teams as they walked down those famous stairs and raise their hands high.

As far as I understand it, the Court "punted" on Prop 8, a term usually used when they make a ruling that appears to be noncommittal  But the verdict that the claimants (random straight homophobes that picked up the case when the state of California washed their hands of it) could not claim injury to pursue the case. I think that verdict is anything but neutral, finally saying that straight people cannot claim injury when gay people get married.

I think this punt matters quite a lot. As much as the much more decisive verdict striking down DOMA. The dominoes are starting to fall, and with gay families on military bases inside of bigoted states, and gay families moving from states that honor their citizenship to states that do not... It is only a matter of time. That time feels like forever when it is your family waiting it out, I am sure.

Now the religious fundamentalists are using families like mine, poly families, as the next spooky threat to marriage. Although they have not given one indication as to why it would be bad for the State. It would definitely be a Biblically supported arrangement if I married both the Menfolk if our genders were reversed, but that was never really the point. 

At least in California, and according to the federal government, there is one less invisible second-class citizenship status. 

Note: I am as much a lawyer as a doctor, which is not at all.

Being a Liberal and a Democrat

I set this aside months ago, but I think it is worth a revisit. Wall Street did not change, and the realities of poverty have not changed,  so here are some thoughts I have on class, politics, and "party unity."

The other day, I had political thoughts. Weird, right? Ah, I am teasing you - politics are everywhere and I think about them all the time. I often say that I am a liberal that has to settle for the Democratic party, but it takes us on the far left pulling our political leaders so that they end up center left, because they will get pulled further and further right otherwise.Here are some thoughts on being a liberal and a Democrat when it comes to economics. This may seem choppy because this is my side of a dialog edited to make more sense here, but your milage may vary.

Ever notice that your issues are important while other peoples' issues are merely politics? Yeah, me neither...

Affirmative Action: For most of us, economic arguments are not Marxian theory - it is trying to make sure you have food on the table at the end of the month. And not only do we not give a damn about the feelings of the people that put us here, we might actually like to see them squirm some. That is right on target as far as I can see here from the bottom of the heap. I know that Bain is not going to actually pay for what it did to people, neither will Wall Street. But dammit, at least they should suffer some discomfort in our name. 

The best Democratic leaders have illustrated to the majority how helping minority populations helps everyone, including them. Example: affirmative action actually allows schools and employers to see candidates that are just as promising but would have been lost in the system due to a minority status that would have otherwise pushed them down. A good leader will talk about that, you know? Same sort of thing with women's rights and how that allows women to contribute in a more fulfilling way which makes them better social assets. All we, as liberals, need are leaders that can tie that together in a realistic way rather than in the metaphorical "rising tide" way. Because there seems to be a distinct lack of motivation to do things because they are right, correct, morally obligatory right now.

Frankly, while advocating for "minorities" looks like a losing strategy in the short term, the white male vote is meaning less and less as the USian populations changes. 

Traditionally Democratic voters are not just not Republicans, we are the future. We have been united by diversity in the past, and we need to revive that spirit.  Civil rights, women's rights, disability rights (to a lesser degree) were adapted and co-voiced by liberals. The definition of conservation is to retard and stop change whenever possible, so they cannot lead on any sort of real change.

Class-based Politics: I believe that political divisions matter and have real consequences that we should not be expected to ignore in favor of political unity. I also think that these divisions, when acknowledged and worked on together, can create strong political unity. It just is not that damn difficult to acknowledge that, say, racial boundaries are contributing to poverty, so to work on poverty we need to work on racial discrimination. And so on with all our social ills.

Bring in the folks that have dealt with it their whole lives or have dedicated themselves to these issues and give them equal places at the table. Make efforts to make sure those voices are heard. Hell, make efforts to make sure they can get to the table and feel safe and honored so truth can be spoken.

Liberals cannot go back to class based politics. Class based politics never left us.

Political Identity: As a poor liberal aligned with the Democratic Party (more because it is the best thing going, and better to be a red headed step child than an orphan) I do not stop being poor because "the Party" decided to stop dealing with it. I do not stop being a woman because the party shies away from gender issues. I do not stop being handicapped just because Democrats have never achieved uniform enforcement of the ADA. These issues never leave the party, no matter how fast the mucky mucks may insist on our votes, taking them and then slapping our hands and worse, our ideas away.

While I appreciate the history and academia - they matter less to me than my lived life and the lives I have witnessed. We, and our issues, did not leave the party - perhaps because there is simply no other politically viable place to go. 

The Base: The post [was] about caring for the feelings of Wall St. elites. You know, elevating the fee-fees of the Brooks Brothers crowd above people struggling with the lived reality of poverty. I added that the politics of poverty have not left the party, even though the party has sometimes not stood up for the poor. I say you illustrated the point because you went into history and academia - valuable but distancing the conversation from the lived reality of poverty (and wrestling with the party about it) or even the rich saying their feelings were bruised. This was a fairly accurate microcosm of the same thing the Party does when confronted with this issue (and others!). 

In the last three or so years the Party has divorced me at the rate of about once a month. I keep voting Democratic because the other guys (still pretty much guys) are worse, so where would I go? In any other setting, this would be the definition of an abusive relationship .

With all the indignities heaped upon me by the people that are supposed to represent me, I will be damned if they, you, or anyone else can turn around and call me their blasted Base. Especially when they rend garments and gnash teeth wailing about how any criticism of President Obama and/or his Administration [was] throwing the election. Do we not understand that our petty lives or morals or issues are so much less important than a facade of party unity? Sigh.

I felt like it was important for you to understand this aspect of lived lives, even if it was just mine. I am out of spoons, though, and I am sadly not sure we are going to get anywhere near that goal even if that were not so. 

Note: saying that PotUS could do things better, could be better, could appeal to our better selves rather than coddling rich cry babies did not cost him the election. But silencing the voices crying out for economic justice were ignored. Way to go.

Microsoft's Rape Joke at E3

Women and girls should not need to play games to play games. But we do. The following post is about sexism in gaming. You do not need to have a press pass to E3 or be into MLG to understand what happened or anything, just know that it is a gaming industry conference and that this industry is particularly hot spot for sexism and gender essentialism (along with dis/ableism, racism, and most social ills that come to the mind of rage quitting troglodytes).

Earlier this week, a cheap ass rape joke was made at a Microsoft press event. 
Feminist Frequency, no stranger to sexism and frequent target of the fetid MRA crowd, was given a reminder of their tantrum tactics when she mentioned Microsoft/Xbox's lack of female protagonists. The next day FF posted some offerings that do appear to offer women out in front. I like to think that she posted it just because it was news and an interesting juxtaposition. However, the bellowing boys of the web demand (you can see it for yourself in some of the offerings in the first FF link) that should any right, proper, human behavior happen anywhere near a sexist foul up, that it be reported on as well or nay, you are only telling an unfair part of a story to forward your misandrist agenda!

Microsoft issues an apology - so those would-be non-apologists attempting to downplay this or act like it was not wrong, can have a goddamn seat.

The trouble is not just the rape joke itself. The trouble is not just that it was issued by a superiorly experienced and equipped male player to a less experienced and equipped female player. The trouble is not just that it was made in a professional environment. The trouble is not just that it was made in a public environment.  The trouble is not that behavior like this but far more terrible is ubiquitous in not just gaming but in a lot of places in US culture - so much so that complaining about this one incident is seen as hair-splitting, nit-picking, and mountain-of-molehill making. The trouble is not just the message this sends to young gamers of all/any genders.

The trouble is all of the above. 

If Self Improvement is Masterbation...

I have not written much about me personally lately. I shy away from that sort of thing when I am stressed. So here is what is going on with me and mine for the folks that are interested. All of this is happening with tons of help from the family, particularly the Menfolk. I would still be splashing in a miasma of good intent, stalled efforts, and drama without their support.

Umbra does not care if this post gets finished.

So if I get through today the same, this will be my first week at under 12 cloves a day. Or 12 cigarettes or under, but I hope for the former. While the eCigs are a wonder and I am using them frequently, I do think I am cutting down on my overall nicotine intake. I do not know if I will keep moving on nicotine reduction once I have the cigs kicked. Nicotine itself is not a health concern for me right now, and I am not sure that it should be one. 

"Once I have the cigs kicked" - I was not sure I would ever seriously use those words, but I just did. Woot!

My avoidance is not so bad when I stay in contact with people that reciprocate my caring and love for them. So I am using my emergency med less. But I prefer to take it when people stress is building and neither practical methods (STFU, GTFO, etc...) nor internal coping mechanisms are cutting it. If you are familiar with autoimmune illnesses like lupus/SLE, you know that other people's bullshit can literally make us lupies physically ill by stressing us into Flare's Ville. I do not talk about that much because people can be awful, but fuck it: that is the state of things. 

For about a year, with lupus in full effect but we were still unaware that it was there: I was stressing myself into the ER or a hospital room about once a month with a combination of physical and emotional stress. I just cannot let people do that to me anymore - what if the next flare convinces my immune system that my kidneys have become enemies and should be destroyed? I had to kick the part of myself that comes from abuse and neglect and remind her that she and I do not take shit anymore.

I have cut back on my caffeine, especially Red Bull. Now, I still drink a lot of it, there was just plenty of room for improvement. That and more generally weight reduction will not be a focus until the smoking thing is done, before the end of the year I hope. 

We are starting the Medical Mystery business that is my life back up again. Hopefully we can get some answers on the stuff that is not under the umbrella of lupus/SLE or fibro.

We are going to do more meditation at home and plan on going to more open sittings and the stuff we can afford to do with the local Buddhist group we met this spring.

I am working on writing more and actually putting it out there. I am getting better at actually posting what I write when I write it. I am also making time to write whenever I have the bug instead of letting it wait 'til I get back to my desk.

So, what sort of self improvement are you engaged in now? Is it working? Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate it!

The Intersection of All and Nothing

When you do not fight for justice for everyone, you stand for justice for no one.

We cannot stand for racial justice without standing for gender justice because people of different races are also gendered. 

You cannot fight for gender justice without standing for QUILTBAG justice, because women are also sometimes lesbian or bi or queer. 

People cannot stand for QUILTBAG justice without standing for economic justice because sometimes trans* and queer folk are poor, often more poor.

They cannot stand for economic justice without standing for disability justice because sometimes the poor have disabilities. 

I cannot work for disability justice without supporting racial justice, because sometimes the disabled are black and brown.

Do you want justice? Then want justice for everyone. The fight is not either/or it is all or nothing. Equality is a state of being, not a race to be won.

Justice is not a prize to be hoarded if it is to mean anything at all.

Quit telling people to sit down and be quiet in favor of your cause. Their cause is your cause.

The Fault In Our Stars

I am able to do some odds and ends around the house today, so I give to you my Goodreads review of #TFioS as a meager offering. It feels good to post more often, and I am doing my best to do just that as I can. I want to delve further into this book regarding disability, chronic pain and other issues here soon. Right now we are still passing it around at home and starting some really good discussions together.


The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you, John Green for a great book, and a piece that my daughters and my menfolk and I could all share. Thank you for the community and other efforts you and your's maintain and nurture.

As I was reading TFiOS, I could have sworn that a Spoonie wrote it. I could have sworn that the author must have personally experienced certain health events to have written them so well. Some of the specifics of being chronically ill, of disability, of unrelenting physical suffering are very well described - along with the emotional, familial, and social baggage it can bring. Unlike most works that deal with these issues, this is not made the center of the universe of the characters, which is a welcome uniqueness.

I recommend The Fault in Our Stars highly, but to enumerate why would be to take apart something you should be able to enjoy whole first.

So far, half of the Family here has read it and we all are very taken with it. It has sparked ongoing talks about exactly what constitutes Young Adult fiction - in a content sense, not in a subject sense. What happens to the characters in here happens to kids, and it is handled in what feels like a very real, honest way.

We will discuss this book here at home for a long time, I think, and that is a great thing.

Note: this was written on a brain fog day. Please pardon the irony of a review that is itself so poorly written for a book that is so well formed.


View all my reviews

Fuck Fair: Favoring the Injured (On Safe Space)

There are a lot of places that need your time today, thank you for spending a moment or two here. Please see the Red Cross if you want to help out Moore, Oklahoma. They will need your help for a long time coming. So if you could not donate the first time around, like me, keep them in mind for when you can spare something to help, please.


A “safe space” is a convention where a chat room, a comment thread, a blog, or what have you is considered more safe than the average Internet site for expressing thoughts, experiences and conversations regarding societal oppression, patriarchy, or other designated topic, grouping of people, or sharing of an idea.

Safe space is not about not getting hurt. No one can police for everything. It is knowing that you are in a space where it is safe to get hurt.


There's no OED for social justice, so we all need to spell out what we mean when we say things like "safe space." I have to be honest about conversations here: I cannot promise folks will not get hurt. Somebody is not going to know "g*psy" is an insult or that a band name is triggering or whatever. I do understand that sometimes genuine mistakes get made - and I will judge those as they occur. We are people, mistakes get made and when your wounds are out they sometimes get opened.

I say this again: fuck fair, favor the injured. In the rest of the world, people with privilege are actually fucking privileged and can have their say as they will. A safe space puts the dis-empowered on the at least the same level, with the same expectation of opportunity to speak, to be, to live.

You give people space, let them know you are there, you listen when they are aggrieved. You care. You do not just let them know that you care, you fucking do it. Give other people reason (since the injured party should never need to) and opportunity to apologize and maybe even go learn more and be a better person. I give the injuring the opportunity to grow in a way that is not hurtful to the injured... And if they do not take it, fuck ‘em.

Bigots and cads and shit stirrers get tossed. Here, that is by my discretion alone at this point. Mistakes among the rest of folks means giving genuine opportunity for real recovery, and for folks learning - really learning, real space to do that too. Probably not together, though. But they voices dimmed out there are favored here, and that is that.


Finally, if need be, I am comfortable asserting that I Am The Bitch Boss Here if needed. A lot of this is hard to put down in solid rules or guidelines. If you are here, then you have decided to trust me as the arbiter of that. I am perfectly comfortable with the fact that you can go almost anywhere else and say what you want. More power to you, as if you need it. I stand (sit) behind what I have written here and elsewhere on the subject.

SSI: Not Enough for Rent

I already had an article ready for today, and then this showed up in my Inbox:

Study Finds Average Rent Cost Higher Than Entire Monthly SSI Payment of Many with Disabilities via Disability.Gov.

So guess what I want to talk about! You got it...
Please feel free to take a moment to recover from the shock that SSI payments are just not enough to live on. Are you okay? Want a drink? A towel? A fainting couch?

There was recently a cost of living increase, by the way. Heh.

Besides finding some clever ways to say “fucking duh,” I really do not have anything to add to the facts of the matter. Well, I will say that it does parallel my lived experience.


It is difficult to complain when I feel damn lucky just to have the system to work at all for me.

Politics matter: you need to remember this when you hear that the Administration has put SSI back on the table as a gambling chip. You need to remember this instead of calling the people against it “emo progs.” You need to remember this when you visit your relatives trying to live a life on money that is not even rent. You need to remember this when the language of “makers and takers” gets louder again (and it will).

You need to remember that we are part of the 47%. We did not want to be here. We did not get here on our own. We did not decide to injure or sicken ourselves so much so that we could get a check that would not even cover basics.

This leaves us no room to do or be anything other than disabled.

Remember us.

GimpyGamer: XBoxOne and Motion Wut?

Yesterday (5/21/13) I sat my complicated self down in front of the XBox One console reveal. I am a video gamer. I am also a mom, a wife, a girlfriend, a gimp, a member of the LGBT/QUILTBAG community, a mom of someone in the QUILTBAG community, a liberal (if we must), a franchise wide Halo fan, a person at the beginning of the middle of ages, I contain multitudes but let us get to the geek!

I liked a lot of what I saw, and I gave them room to save most of the sweet game reveals for E3. There is an industry show for that coming up soon, okay. It looks like Microsoft is really taking the dive to make the XBox One the ONE CONSOLE TO RULE THEM ALL. Not the other consoles, I mean, but to RULE YOUR LIVING/FAMILY ROOM!

And it wants to get your ass moving.

Here is the thing: gaming is a great pastime for some folks with disabilities. In particular, it allows for a time of virtual/physical competition that people with mobility issues really cannot get anywhere but with video games. When a game is really engaging, really immersive, you tend to equate the physicality of your avatar/silent protagonist/franchise space marine/sprite with your own. Just watch a handful of gamers sit together and play and watch their body language, not just before and after but during play

The reveal, and the industry in general, has me worried that as we progress along the motion control future, people like me are going to get left out in the cold. It is hard enough some days just to hold a controller, why must everything be swiped and pinched and snapped in big gestures? In a big way, this is what I got into gaming to avoid. I appreciate motion sensing in general - it lets my decrepit self work with a yoga section of a fitness game and a meditation game pretty well.

I want to shoot for the big snark target and say that if gamers wanted to be physical, they would go play goddamn sports outside! But that is not, and has never been true. Exercise and adventure games are great for kids in neighborhoods where maybe their parks are not as safe as they should be, exercise games let a lot of us that would feel awkward for a whole host of reasons in a gym participate in guided exercise, and sometimes it is just good in general to get off the couch, if you can.

The mandatory motions in tablet and phone games, the movement wands and cameras with consoles, the mandatory twitch skills raiding now requires - they could all start freezing out this small contingent of geeks to which I belong: gimpy gamers. Just keep us in mind, gaming industry. Sometimes it is hard enough to work a keyboard or a controller or a wand. Let us continue to play, too. Thanks.

Is there Cake? I Was Told...

Or: Is diagnosis fatigue a thing? I do not want another thing...

Do not be surprised if posts that are not particularly timely start showing up as I attempt to clean up my drafts with a “put it up or dump it” eye. Except the Angel Pillows piece. It makes me shudder, but I need to do it.  Sometime. Dammit.

I have to do something to not feel useless sitting in my office chair to re-situate my SI Joint Dysfunction. That mostly looks like doing nothing and can rapidly deteriorate into actually doing nothing. Well, or what other folks might call nothing but I call Internet Rabbit Hole/Tabspolsion Learning Time!

I recently realized that after the first couple diagnosis I received, after the first couple of dozen prescriptions and recommendations and all of that - I stopped being Super Learning Gimp. I did not just quit caring, but it got kind of numb. Whatever. What does this mean? What do I have to do? What do I have to take? Will it get better?

Is there like, cake, for people that get long lists of unspecific symptoms diagnosis? Because I am really hoping there is cake because this fucking sucks. I did plenty of testing, where is the cake?

Come home and say “looks like they think I have blargity blarg.” They ask what they can do at home, because my family is awesome, but they kind of get the blank slump I get now too. Then we just kind of sit and commiserate in the suck for a little bit and move on with this new word in our lives.

Ask the pharmacist to check for interactions because I can fucking care less at this point. Sure. 

Wait for the referral call for the specialist which will do one of two things: tell me they cannot help me and bounce me back to my GWP, or start running tests and writing more Rxs and suggesting life changes. Whatever. All of which I will heed, it is just rare to care about it anymore. Or maybe not care, but have an emotional reaction other than the mild cry I am sure to have that night.

Which is why I hardly ever mention the recent (months ago) IBS thing that came up. Yeah, my body party was not rocking enough, you know? Heh. And I lost coverage just as that was getting started, so I have an Rx and some advice on life changes and that’s it. Other than what it does to my every fucking day and life in general, it’s actually kind of hard to care about it specifically, at this point, you know?

Seriously, where is the cake?

What is this morning? Lupus flare? Fibro spots giving me daggers today? Tesla coil -esque electric charges up my back? Joints upset over the lingering weather pressure border turning my Human Barometer status into a nightmare? Can I stay more than 15 feet away from the bathroom today? This week? Do I have spatial coordination today? Will I need my cane or my chair if I have to go out? Can I go out if I have to go out? What is the definition of “must” today? How are the headaches? Big today?

What is an adequate day under these standards?

Take up the standard "dress to play even if you know you will be on the bench." Get dressed every day, because not is a tacit acknowledgement that the world spins without you, and even on days you are okay with this fundamental fact, other people expect you to be as not okay with it as they are with the idea regarding themselves.

Fucking hellooooo! Where is the damn cake?