the winter game plan

living as a lady of pen (like this one)

it has been one month. a solid thirty days. a world away removed. dissent in disconnect and wordily obsession. few phone calls. fewer emails. zero posts on my behalf. it is an estranged thing to remove oneself from the internet, the grand new world order of communication and relationship, and then to return again once more. I am certain whatever meager readership I had is gone, but it doesn't bother me because I want to shift away from this space and onto something else. Something more applicable and meaningful. Part of the reason I put down the pen for a month was because I needed to work on filing away my thoughts into categories. Scrambling to bank and process the things which are factual and the things which are emotional. I was increasingly worried about swinging the pendulum too close to the heart and away from my head; I was increasingly disgusted with the confused, self-reflexive blither I keep regurgitating and acting on. It is important, but I should certainly censor it on here. Who knows whose eyes are reading?

& this is the point: the blogosphere and I are at odds. it is a dangerous instrument. I read something recently that made my heart jump into my throat in unison to things that happened once before. I was embarrassingly conflicted, it affected me so. one part wicked laughter and one part mourning. But, a newfound concentration of categorization had me swinging the pendulum towards my brain again, raising red to removal with an unlikely narrative, (who reminded me that I am not the same.) and distancing myself for awhile. cutting myself off from the main vein, as it were. focusing on the things that are tangible, infrontofme, concrete. Outsmarting the words set like traps and the things we know though we have fled from them.

Since then, things were notable: A lover returned, midterms were written, songs were made, chords were practiced, shows were screamed&danced, grades were earned and I was published. the day of the dead came & went in one, slutty upheaval and I worked my ass off at a costume shop and then wound down into a routine with a spoon. poof.

Since then, Obamamania climaxed and succeeded. ((I have printed a million shirts of that mans face I cannot even tell you, though it didnt trump slutty halloween things)). I also met my first republican, which was an interesting conversation in and of itself: she came in, bought a canadian leaf tshirt, and tried to convince three liberal canadians selling obama gear that electing him president was the worst thing america has ever done and then left in a scoff. seriously. ((guantanamo bay?. no big deal, obama's on it. the a-bomb? ancient history. weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be war propaganda? forgivable, because 911 happened and bush is outta there anyways. chôlis.)) Speaking with her was like briefly meeting some sort of rare species whose language I cannot comprehend and whose core values I cannot fathom. It was an ideology war of epic proportion. Perhaps I can take out something from this other than the fact that I think she is delusional; perhaps I have met the embodiment of adversary.

Since then, the world economy still sucks and could get suckier. one hand-out has turned into another - and had better not be subsidized by the government this time. have you heard about this? the big three of automobiles looking for a bailout? Fuuuck off.

Since then, I have read some interesting things that I would like to share with the world of women who ride seasonally and otherwise, (madge I fucking love you) From Bradleys Women and The Media, again:

The introduction of the bicycle complicated the concerns about fertility, as riding astride was seen as damaging to a woman’s reproductive center. Advertisements for bicycles emphasized the role of the bicycle in maintaining health of women, with its subtext that riding a bicycle would not damage women’s ability to have children and might even improve their chances. Riding also contributed to one of the dramatic fears of the period - like the vote, the inchoate, hardly to be expressed notion that it forewarned the annihilation of masculinity.

[The bicycle was also considered socially racy] for women due to the impositions that fast riding might be doing for the sexual pleasure promoted by the position of the seat. Bicycle seats were redesigned to eliminate the possibility. Handlebars were raised and women were shown bicycling in rigid, upright positions, decorously dressed in long skirts.

The ‘bloomer scandal’ of 1895 in Toronto centered around the morality of women teachers who rode to school on their bicycles wearing bloomers. The adoption of male attire for the purposes of bicycle riding further inflamed already growing concerns regarding the increased freedoms brought about by the availability of the bicycle, whether for the purposes of transport also fed into a growing debate about women’s dress reform more generally, which was increasingly framed within a discourse of increased surveillance over women’s growing freedoms. 110

bicycles and suffrage. fuck yeah.

and since then, things have changed, things have stayed the same.
I received some packages from winnipeg today and felt I had to orient myself once again. After catching up with the words that fashion my understanding of where I come from, I feel I needed to tell whoever is still out there where I am now. I will be more consistent in the next little while, I have sworn it to myself. I also have ideas to develop other things somewhere else, somewhere factual. collecting the tidbits one by one, biding my time for when I have time to do things properly. But before I can call it quits on first term and write what I wanna write, I have a tv package due, a 600 word story to write and a take home history exam. But it all ends in December so December is mine; I am not coming home for the manufactured holidays. I want to build up some freelance par excellence, if I can. (with a plan to get rad.)

Living as a lady of the pen.

So here's the launching point. Here's to a productive sort of month after taking one off. I have to commit to it now and I will by these words: I have a winter game plan.