future majority is a blog that i don’t read often enough. but every time i sit down to try to catch up on it i wind up learning some new cool stuff and getting some pretty cool ideas for my own organizing. now that i’ve plugged the site itself, i have to take issue with this post.

basically, michael connery is live blogging while particpating in a panel discussion entitled “Making Offline Magic: Converting Online Friends to Activists on the Ground.” This sounds fascinating and i wish i’d been there. but i also wish that the organizers of the panel had made the effort to find one (1) female organizer to participate in their panel. now don’t get me wrong, they put together a good panel. a guy from facebook, some one from the fred thompson campaign, a guy from rnc ecampaigns and matt from moveon. (i know matt from moveon!)

so i would love to have heard the whole discussion, and i think their thoughts are useful. but i happen to frequent the feminist blogosphere and i know for a fact that there are many, many women engaged in dialogs about organizing online. i also know that, compared with moveon (for example) most of the pro-choice organizations i follow do a shitty job of online organizing. but i’m wondering if it’s the chicken or the egg on this one. is it because the internet is still considered a largely male space that feminist organizations don’t do much with it? or is it that feminist groups haven’t done enough online to be taken seriously?

two post scripts:

do not argue with me about the internet being male-dominated, because i will say in response “open source boob project” and i will win that discussion.

if i’m wrong about feminist groups doing really effective online organizing, please send me links and links and i will do my best to publicize them. i don’t want to misrepresent things, but i haven’t been impressed by most of the groups i’ve found.

I am so confused.

This morning, Adam Rueben from MoveOn invited me to participate in a neighborhood walk for Obama to test out their GOTV (that’s get out the vote, for the non-wonks). I do love me some MoveOn, and if I wasn’t working on Saturday, I might just be there.

But then the Obama campaign emailed just now, asking me to host a Unite for Change house party on Saturday. I am in favor of unity, as well as change, but it seems a little weird that they’re organizing competing events with the powerhouse organization that can make or break the election in November.

I mean, you wouldn’t organize your own birthday celebration on the same day that your friends have planned you a party, would you?

It’s a little alarming, especially given that the Obama campaign has already asked supporters not to donate to “liberal independent political organizations” to try to control negative campaign messages.  I don’t think this will really hurt MoveOn or anything, but I would argue – and I wouldn’t be the first – that MoveOn’s endorsement of Obama played a significant part in his primary victory. And I get that message control is critical in a campaign – but MoveOn has millions of members, so clearly their message resonates with a few people here and there, right?

And it pains me to do this, but I’m inclined to agree with the quote from Chris LaCivita, from Swift Boat: “At the end of the day, every individual has a right to participate in the political process whether John McCain likes it or not. It’s their constitutional right.” I feel like I need a shower now.

Anyway, I know the temptation to do things yourself. I’m a control freak and sometimes I have a hard time delegating parts of my job to other people who can do them just as well because they might not do them exactly the way I want them. But I suck it up, because it’s really, really stupid to refuse help from someone who’s on your side and willing and able to work with you.

Especially if your spouting a message of unity out the other side of your mouth.

Before we begin, I have to plug David Sedaris’ new book When you are Engulfed in Flames. It’s hilarious, as you’d expect. He visited Denver this weekend, showed up an hour and a half early for his reading to begin signing books and read to us from his diary. He recently quit smoking, so when he signed our books, he chatted with Dan and I about how we should continue smoking because it makes him feel superior.

And now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

So I have learned many useful things from Men’s Health magazine in my life. One of those things is that ReserveAmerica is totally sexist. I received a year’s subscription from them as a thank you gift after reserving a campsite last year. I know I wrote about this on my old blog, so I’ll stay off the soapbox for the time being, but I do think it’s a ridiculous, ridiculous assumption that people who camp must be concerned with men’s sexual health and fitness.

In any case, I do flip through the issues before I bring them to Dan’s house for his roommates to enjoy. This month, I learned of a new study that spending two or more hours a day on a cell phone lowers men’s sperm counts by about 30%. And keeping the phone in your pants pocket may exacerbate this by exposing your sperm-producing equipment to harmful rays.

I can not wait for Focus on the Family to get wind of this. I’m looking for Life Chain http://www.nationallifechain.org/ events outside of Verizon and Apple stores. I want little kids shouting “Daddy, Daddy, don’t kill me!” at dudes walking down the street talking on cell phones. I want my members of Congress introducing legislation to prevent men from having more than two hours a day of cell phone access – because “A person’s a person, no matter how small” right?

And pigs will fly out my ass.

I know this isn’t going to happen, mostly because men’s procreation isn’t up for federal regulation the way women’s is. Sigh. But maybe cell phone companies can start marketing themselves as birth control devices for men and take the pressure off women to do all the birth control work.

Also, severe thunderstorm warnings in Denver right now. The sky is overcast and the clouds look all bloated with potential thunderstorm. I’m hoping for hail. I love living in a place with weather.

We didn’t get to plant a garden this year (as evidenced by the jungle in the background of this photo) but a few of last years sunflowers have sprouted, and the first one bloomed just in time for the first day of summer. I’m stoked.

It’s Father’s Day. I’m in the office. I called my dad and left him a voicemail, because he got called into work, too.

He is now a driver for an assisted-living facility Upvalley (that means St Helena, for the non-Napkins reading this) (Napkins means “people from Napa”. It sounds like “munchkins” and I think the idea is to take the piss out of people who take Napa too seriously.) Anyway, my dad and I are not close. He sends me text messages when he receives overdue parking ticket notifications. When he calls just to say hi, I’m always a little surprised. I guess my mother does enough checking in with me for both of them.

Meanwhile, the NY Times wants you to know that “Gay Couples Find Marriage is a Mixed Bag.” Uh, really? Apparently some of the couple who married after Massachusetts legalized gay marriage have since divorced. This is news, people.

What pisses me off about this article is that we’re somehow supposed to find it revolutionary or surprising that homosexual couples have relationship issues just like straight couples. Apparently they sometimes rush to the altar and break up later. And sometimes they have kids together and then don’t know how to deal with that if the marriage doesn’t work out. And sometimes one partner wants to get married but another doesn’t.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because you probably have family, friends and colleagues, both straight and gay, who have gone through the same stuff. Welcome to everyday life, NY Times.

But it seems the reporter found that it was much more fun to write about couple having problems than happy ones. Which is fine…except that it gives readers the false impression that gay couples are having more problems than not. This is prejudice, but it’s really insidious. The article never comes out and says that gay marriage is more problematic than straight marriage. But by devoting more attention to couples with relationship problems, this makes it really easy for bigots who are passing petitions around in California to justify being ignorant.

And really, the last thing our radical conservative friends is more justification for their ignorance.

Sooooo…this begs the question: how could the NY Times do a better job reporting on the gay marriage? On the one hand, I want to say: not at all. Stop treating the fact of gay people and their relationships as something we should all be concerned about. Maybe publish a full page ad that says something like: Get over it. Maybe do an analysis of how society’s prejudice might be putting excessive pressure on gay couples – but they still fall in love and want to get married, so let’s just leave them to it.

I wish they made cat food for humans. Seriously.

I am not what you might call a “foodie.” My mom did most of the cooking in our house and she’s got a pretty bland palate. Most meals at home everything was seasoned with garlic salt. I didn’t try things like kalamata olives or brie until I was in college – actually I was well into my twenties before I gave brie a chance.

Anyway, there are a few days or a week of each month that I’m either too busy or distracted to think about food. I don’t have what you’d call an appetite; no type of food is tempting. I actually resent leaving my desk to go get lunch because I don’t want it. But I know that I need to eat, because if I don’t I get light headed and spacey.

I remember reading somewhere that by the year 2000 we’d have pills that contained all of our daily nutrients and just pop a pill a few times a day and be done with it. this might have been a pretty old book, but the concept is genius.

It’s at that point that I actually envy Zelda Fitzgerald, who eats half a cup of the Science Diet every day. Neither one of us put much thought into her diet and she does fine. If there was kibble for humans, I would probably be the target market for it.

Word does not like the construction of my next to last sentence. Instead of “Neither one of us…”, Word would like to suggest “Both one of us put much thought into her diet and…” I’m totally writing Bill Gates a fan letter after I finish the spreadsheet I should be working on right now.

I’m super-disturbed by an ad I just saw on the NY Times online. Apparently, someone decided to make a movie of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, Choke. I say, more power to them. I was underwhelmed by Fight Club. I saw the film first, which is always a bad idea, but I wouldn’t have pursued Palahniuk’s writing if a friend hadn’t passed off a copy of Choke.

Thus began a love affair with his writing that lasted until I read Snuff a few weeks ago, but that’s a blog for another time.

Anyhow, Choke is mostly about the main character’s psyche and his relationship with his mother. The ad I saw today, however, features the silhouette of shapely female legs in high heels strutting across the screen. The legs are only seen from the knees down until the female figure trips, stumbles into the open mouth of a male face (also in silhouette), and then just the legs are left, kicking helplessly outside of the mouth.

Creepy? Yes. But also weirdly misogynist and having nothing to do with the substance of the story, unless the filmmakers are taking a whole bunch of liberties with the book. Either that or the marketing team is counting on the fact that women’s body parts make people want to buy things like movie tickets.

so this is weird:

Hermione Clinton

The Democratic nominating system favors the most liberal candidate — in this case, Barack Obama.

But there is a second reason Hillary Clinton lost that some are reluctant to openly acknowledge: a latent and lamentable sexism. She lost because the superdelegates — the Democratic establishment — went against her.

She became a caricature: too smart, too strong, too assertive, too rational, too competent. Think how the young Harry Potter and his male friends initially reacted to Hermione Granger and you get the idea.

— HEATHER WILSON, a Republican representative from New Mexico.

i’m wondering if it’s taken out of context, maybe. but it’s pretty crazy for congresswoman heather wilson (who received only 50 out of a possible 100 on naral pro-choice america’s 2007 congressional scorecard) has come out more strongly and publicly than, oh say senator boxer or speaker pelosi….

i’m just saying is all.

Kinda.

I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather for a while now. Not any specific illness, mind you. Just a little lethargic, a little sniffley, occasionally nauseated, a headache every so often…

Some of this is probably psychosomatic – frustrations with my job finding no outlet but the physical. But I have to admit that some of it is my own damn fault as well. So despite my New Year’s Resolution to continue smoking all year, I am taking a break.

No smoking.

No drinking.

No coffee.

For…a while. I haven’t settled on a time span yet. On the one hand, I am afraid to commit to something and then fail. On the other hand, if this is easier than I think it will be, I don’t want to make it two weeks or a month or whatever and then start smoking and drinking because I can.

Here’s a quick recap:

Day 1, Friday: So I’d already committed to organizing Beauchamp’s goodbye party Friday night, as he is leaving for Pittsburgh Sunday. No cigarettes all day, and dinner was fine (we had root beer floats and milkshakes instead of booze) until my old roommate showed up and started loudly and excessively congratulating me for quitting cigarettes. The trick to quitting, see, is not thinking about it…but after that interaction I couldn’t stop thinking about it and was cranky at her all night.

Post-dinner trip to my favorite bar was harder. I didn’t have any alcohol to make me forget I was tired or prevent me from realizing that my friends are super obnoxious. (When they’re drunk. Not all the time.)

I also realized the thing I am going to miss most about smoking – it provides a 10 minute escape window, for when things get annoying, boring, or so interesting that you need to slip out with just one or two people and compare notes. Not being a smoker, you miss out on the entire subtext of hanging out in a bar.

Day 2, Saturday: Grand F-ing Opening of Kilgore Books and Comics! After I ran around picking up balloons, champagne, snacks, etc. Dan informed me that even people in AA get to have “days on,” like holidays. I chose to believe this, and drank champagne all day. Not a ton of champagne. More like a champagne drip IV. I also smoked one cigarette – a Marlboro Red, which was a smart move. Not being one of my beloved Parliaments, I pretended it tasted like chemicals and ass because it was a Marlboro.

Post bookstore, we went to dinner for Hammer’s birthday. I was sleepy and dehydrated by this point and all I could think about was going home to go to bed.

Day 3, Today: I got up early, un-hung-overed, and got to have breakfast and hang out with Dan before work. Usually he slips out and I sleep an hour or so longer. The only time I have really, really wanted a smoke so far today was when I drove 15 minutes across town in repulsive traffic to a yarn store that doesn’t open until 2 p.m. Disregarding the fact that their business plan must have been written by a seventeen year old stoner, there’s really nothing else in that neighborhood to keep me entertained for 2 hours. So I went to Target instead.

Anyway, I can’t say that I feel fantastically better yet. But I was kind of worried that my friends would see me not smoking or drinking and assume I was knocked up, so I’m officially announcing my not-knocked-up state here.

So again with the pathetic blogging. Work has been super busy and I’ve been kind of cranky and too impatient to bother with writing about things.

Anyway, I went to an Atmosphere show over the weekend. It reminded me of college – there were a lot of black Xs on a lot of hands and everyone was smoking ridiculous amounts of weed.

I felt old. This is sort of new for me. It was a sixteen and over show, so there were people in the crowd who were nearly a decade younger than me. A decade! And let me tell you, high schoolers seem even dumber in hindsight than they did when I was actually a high schooler. I have to say that I truly and deeply appreciate that all of my friends have grown out of the i-like-you-so-much-that-i-must-know-the-status-of-your-tonsils-now phase. Well, to be honest, not many of my friends actually went through that phase. But it’s alive and well in high schools all over Colorado.

It was especially funny in light of a conversation I had on the bus earlier that day. I was heading into the office and reading The Great Gatsby, and this guy near me asks “Hey is that a good book?”

I’m about 15 pages in, which I admit, explaining that I don’t know if the book is good yet. Then I go back to reading.

“Well, you’ll have to let me know how it is.”

Yes, of course, stranger. I will most definitely track you down someday to share my thoughts on The Great Gatsby. And I go back to reading.

“So what’s your name?”

This is when I start to get annoyed. First of all, I suspect this guy is fucking with me. Second, I am clearly trying to avoid this conversation by burying my face in F. Scott Fitzgerald and it isn’t working. So I introduce myself, find out his name is Preach, and go back to reading.

“So how old are you, Mari?”

Seriously? Seriously? I’m 25, okay? And I’m trying to read this book so that I don’t have to talk to people like you on this bus.

Preach is shocked. Blown away that I am actually 25 because I don’t look older than 19. One thing about being 25 is that I am not yet old enough to be flattered when people think I am younger than I am. I know that’s the stereotype of women in America – we always want to be told we don’t look a day older than 10 years younger than we actually are. I have no desire to be 19 or to pass for 19. I like being 25. Which is fortunate, because Preach is 22 – but will be 23 in like a month. I think this is meant to reassure me in case I am feeling guilty for passing for 19.

It is at this point in the conversation that Preach’s companion, a woman he referred to only as Sister and who did not seem particularly pleased at our conversation, hops off the bus. Not a word of explanation, just peaces out. And Preach follows.

And I go back to reading.

Despite the fact that I look nineteen, I have a lot less patience than I did then.