Diary of a KillJoy

This is going to be a quick one, because I have exactly 7 minutes of free-time before I have to get caffeinated ass to lab before they close the doors. Why did I want to be a doctor again? sheesh. 

I haven’t been writing lately, because simply, I barely have time to talk to people who are standing in front of me, let alone sit and write depressing/angry/critical/cute blogs on the internet :p

But this one is important to me; 

It was my dad’s birthday yesterday. I don’t know how old he turned because it seems I don’t know how old anyone is these days, including myself. Yesterday I thought I was 25 and had an anxiety attack about my future, and then realized that I was 2 years off. 

But, it was my dad’s birthday. and I guess I just wanted to say a few things about him, because sometimes I think he feels he’s in the background watching - but it really isn’t true. 

I’ve had a lot of conversations with friends lately about our relationships with our individual fathers. These relationships are complicated, and sometimes a struggle, which I can relate to… Dad and me have not always seen eye to eye, or communicated very well - but, in the last year, things have been really great. I remember once telling my mother after I had had a huge blowout with my dad that I just wished dad and I could be friends. I really feel like that’s where we are at now. I don’t know if its because I’ve grown up, or because we both have, but things between us are really good. I just wish I had more time to call and chat on the phone.. life takes over sometimes. 

I don’t have a very strong urge to move back to the west coast - I really love it here in Halifax. I feel at home in a way that I didn’t think you could feel if it wasn’t where you are from. But my family continues to be a pull towards Vancouver, and my dad is a major component in that. It would be so nice to have weekly dinner’s with them, or to have my dad see my amazing life here.. Visits just never seem to be enough. 

Anyway - I’m 3 minutes over my time limit - maybe I’ll add more to this later. 

Happy Birthday, Dad - Missing you lots as summer rolls into the East.  

**Trigger Warning: descriptions of sexual subservience, pornography, body image**

We brought in Jaclyn Friedman in December to talk to Halifax about “shame free, guilt free” sexual experience. Jaclyn has a pretty awesome statement when she says that she wants girls to be “subject of their own sexuality, not the object of someone else’s.” There are many ways that you could interpret this - but one way is that its telling young women that they can experience sexual pleasure that is theirs, not just enjoy being sexual pleasure for someone else.

I wish someone had told me that when I was 18.

18 year old me was not critical of the world around me that was filled with ways to be the perfect object. 18 year old me didn’t get that my world didn’t have to revolve around someone else. 18 year old me didn’t want to get it, because 18 year old me wasn’t going to be told-by-any-feminist-that-my-desires-weren’t-real.

I started having sex when I was 17.  I had never watched pornography, but I had picked up what dirty pornographic sex was kindof like through watching 18A movies and reading Cosmopolitan, with their repetitive “give him the best sex/head/lapdance ever!” cover stories.

I had never watched pornography, but my first sexual partner had and that’s the kind of sex we had. I played that part well. I was the perfect object.

Here’s what I did know when I was 18: I knew that men really liked my long, beautiful hair. I knew that they liked it when I dropped my head back in seeming pleasure and let my hair whip back in the process. I knew that men liked it when you look at them when go down on them. I knew that men really liked it when you had never had sex with anyone else. I knew they liked it less if you had had sex with lots of people. I knew that I must be one of those “bullshit percent” of women who can’t have orgasms when they have sex. I also knew that I should fake it so not to bruise the ego of my lover. (I knew that men were sensitive about this stuff). I knew that if I arched my back a certain way I looked like the girls in the movies. I knew that if I never said no to anything, I would be memorable. (the best they’d ever had).  I really was the perfect object.  Atleast I knew one thing that was right - I wanted to be remembered. I wanted to be respected - and in an 18 year old girl’s view of the world, the only way to be remembered and respected is through the body.

Being the perfect object is exhausting. It doesn’t leave much time for school, or sleep, or eating right. But atleast I knew I was the best object that anyone could ever be. But it is exhausting. You get worn down always being someone else’s pleasure. You get hurt  - but you aren’t allowed to show it. You feel used - but you’re never supposed to need anything.

When I had finally widdled myself away to just a body - I disappeared for awhile. When I think of my 18 year old self - I think I do not know her. but really, I know her too well.

The first thing I did when I began to rebuild was I cut off all of my hair. I deconstructed my objectivity. (If I’m not a women’s studies major, I don’t know who is :P )

And so began my journey in beginning to do things for myself. I’ve had short hair ever since, and on many days - I love myself.  For a period of time I was on the other end of the extreme - I ignored my body - I desexualized it - I did not want it to be part of my sexuality. But it is - And it is still a negotiation - but atleast I know now, that for the most part, my 18 year old self didn’t know very much.

So I’m writing a blogathon for the next month and will be posting about body image/fatphobia here: http://thatsnotacompliment.wordpress.com/  

Read along, comment, or join the challenge!

*trigger warning*

The new year is coming - a time where most make resolutions to fix their faults; be kinder, be happier, be thinner, stop smoking, stop being dissatisfied. Last year I decided to stop. Just to stop trying to “improve” myself of all of these things that we can never really obtain - we are always just becoming them. But mostly it had to do with my body. I decided to stop hating my body. I decided to stop weighing myself. I decided to stop obsessing about whether I had gone to the gym enough that month. I decided to stop thinking that I wasn’t good enough. I decided to stop thinking that my body was my worth. I decided that I would think I was beautiful. I decided to eat without shame. 

And I did - I did a lot of those things for awhile. I felt amazing. But they creep back and forth - and now I feel guilty for both. I feel guilty for eating - I feel guilty for thinking about not eating. I feel guilty for telling people to stop hating themselves when I can’t even do it myself.

I’m supposed to be planning a body positivity campaign for the month of January - to combat and challenge all those resolutions to lose weight that won’t succeed because its not about how much you weigh- its about the fear of fatness. But I feel like a hypocrite - because I’m still struggling to stop hating my body.  To stop thinking I’m not worth it. 

So I’m coming out this new year - I’m not making a resolution, I’m just coming out of all the closets that I hide in. 

I am a feminist. but I’m angry at my own feminism right now. I learned how to stop objectifying myself, and seeing myself through the male gaze, but now I don’t know how to feel sexy… I am desexualized because I do not have my own gaze of myself. I really do feel that way… My sexuality is not with me, its just an identity. 

I am queer. Sometimes I like men and sometimes I don’t. I fell in love with a woman when I was 19. She was 9 years older than me. Two weeks later I was raped by my highschool ex boyfriend. I repressed it. I smoked a lot of cigarettes. 

The woman broke up with me. I cared. I slept with lots of men. They didn’t treat me well. I went back into the closet. I broke another girls heart. I left for Nova Scotia. I started identifying as a Lesbian. I slept with another man. I had a pap test done. The doctor triggered me. I cried a lot. I told my mother in an email. She understood. I didn’t come out to her. 

Now I’m with a male partner. He is wonderful to me. He is wonderful. But I am still desexualized. I blame myself. I blame my feminism for failing me. I thought it had all the answers, but it just taught me to deconstruct my world, not how to rebuild it. I am erased. I do not have an identity. I don’t know what to say. 

I thought that I was fixed, I thought my  healing  was finished. I was wrong.  I was triggered two weeks ago. It happens more when I am in Vancouver. I ran into him last Christmas. We shop at the same store for clothes. My heart stopped. I walked by him. He pretended to be on the phone. 

I guess this is my coming out story. I cannot just tell someone that I am queer. I cannot just come out. My queerness is a trigger. Don’t deconstruct it. I’m trying to rebuild.

I guess I’m all out now.  

I can only really write in the wee hours of the morning
Either I have been up to late, drinking coffee or sleeping the day away

or I am awake, for no reason, before anyone else
and the rain is screaming against my windows
and it sounds like I live in the middle of the ocean
With unforgiving waves, and all the fish have gone into hiding
Its nothing they haven’t seen before

But I am dry
In many senses of the word -
My creative self is dried up, uninspired, bitter
But I decided that I should be writing anyway - despite the mud that mumbles from my mouth

He called me little wee. Now, I don’t write about my father very much, because it can be hard. Because it takes time time to accurately present the complexities of our relationship.

But he used to call me little wee. If you ask me,  I think he still thinks I’m little wee. To be honest, I still feel that way sometimes.
My father was not absent, although, if you listen to him talk about us growing up, it feels like he always thought he was an onlooker - while my mother took an active part.

But that’s not what I remember. My father loves music. More specifically, he loves music that my brother and I play - I always think on this, and wonder… children are not also making the most beautiful music, but he would ask us to play for him all of the time. Even when we were teenagers, and wanted to hide in our rooms, pining over unrequited loves, and hormones, and gossip.

We fought a lot when I was a teenager, when I didn’t want to be wee, i wanted to be grown up, I wanted to be by myself. The truth is - we are very alike, him and I. Hot headed in some ways, smart, and for whatever reason - can always tell if someone is lying or being deceptive. Its a gift and a curse.

It makes making and maintaining friendships difficult - since many people are deceptive, and many people lie. It makes having the urge to say “I told you so” a usually present one, even though, the truth is - saying that is never appropriate.

We have our struggles - I don’t think he understands my firmness in feminism, the need for social change for women. But he tries - I see that - and he can relate it to me, and we keep talking. We fight less, although I fear the kind of damage that has been done over the years on our relationship. Because I’m still little wee - with the same vices and intolerances - and he’s still my father. But I see him, he is so tired.

But we both have changed, I believe that. But I’m scared that we will never become friends - like I want us to so badly. I fear that where I have moved has disallowed me to engage with my father regularly enough to lay a foundation for our friendship, as adults. Its one of the only reasons I ever think of moving back to British Columbia.

I guess, I just miss my dad.

So I have this memory, from when I was young
and I was trying on what it felt like to worship God
Every Sunday

Now I don’t know if I made this up, or if it really happened
But my mother told me that the other ladies and gents at church didn’t like our reverend

Why not? thinking how much I loved, June because she would bless me even when I hadn’t been baptized
even when I hadn’t fully taken Jesus Christ, Our Saviour, officially, into my heart.

Maybe that’s why they didn’t like her, I thought.
Because she let the sinners in, and barade about, like they had any business coming into a place so holy, and so sacred.

I don’t really know if a 10 year old can be a sinner, but I suppose I am one now…
But that’s not why they didn’t like her, my mother said.
My mother said, that “they’ being some of the ladies and gentlemen at the perish didn’t think the June should be our reverend because women aren’t supposed to be reverends, supposedly.

Now, my mother, who has her own, very special and real relationship with the bible, and i respect it. I admire it. She told me that this was wrong and that God loved anyone who wanted to commit their life to him, regardless of whether they are men or women.

I think I know better now. I know that its not just about the rules that June didn’t follow.

Its that women cannot be spiritual  because they tell us that we are dirty purely by the fact that we must acknowledge our bodies regularly.

Bodies are dirty.
They say that we should not do anything to draw attention to this dirtiness, because if you do, you are a slut and deserve the rapture.

If you obey - you are a dyke, because you are no longer desirable. Now, my definition of that word is different than that, but I know that when they say that - it is with disdain. Because a woman isn’t a real woman unless her life revolves around making her body desirable to men. And a man isn’t a real man unless his life revolves around using women’s bodies for gratification.

They say that if you are wearing a low cut shirt, that you should expect that people stare at your breasts. But really, what they mean is that you should expect for people to stare at your breasts because you have breasts.

Its just the way they say it should be. That women’s bodies are not their own - even though they fight to say so - and that if you understood, you REALLY understood why God put women on this earth, then you would know - you would know - that we are here to be punished.  (because the bible tells me so).

Now, before any of you reading this get really mad, and yell at me for being ‘too extreme’ I’m just going to say something:

If I am being so extreme - then please give me another reason why we allow rape as a war tactic. Where we actually allow for rape to be used as something which is institutionally acceptable. Which is seen as a means to gain power and control over other territories, because women’s bodies hold that much power.

If I am being extreme, then please tell me why almost every 1 in 4 women, before she is 30 will be raped or sexually violated in some way. 

If I am being extreme - tell me why we tell our boys that its normal to have sex in their teens, and we tell girls that if they lose their virginity that no one would ever want them. 

He won’t buy the cow, if he gets the milk for free. 

If I am being extreme - why am I being referred to as a cow for sale in analogy’s.

If I am being extreme - why is most of the world’s labour done by women, but we only hold 1% of the wealth in the worlds economy. 

I am being extreme - because these issues are extreme. 

And like the earth, who is also raped and used and torn up - we will fight back. Women have volacano’s too, and our plates will move causing earthquakes in this system. 

Because the women of the world are filled with rage - and if Patriarchy is like an ice age, then it will begin to melt, and chip away. 

The weight of the world rests on our shoulders, but we do not tire, we do not fold. Because we have bodies - that are strong and worn and bold. 

We have bodies - Get over it. 


 

I just titled this to get your attention. I am talking about the S&M relationship, but not in the way we normally think about it.

Last year as I ventured briefly into psychoanalysis (which I still go back and forth about, but agree with some of the things it has to say), I read an article out of the book “Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored.” Now, I’m no expert on psycholanalysis, but this caught my interest.

The basic idea and explanation of tickling was phrased in a type of S&M relationship - this being, the nature of tickling.

Tickling provides pleasure most usually to the point of discomfort. The analyses of this is that it is a sexual tension that cannot be relieved through any type of orgasm, and therefore the pleasure very quickly turns overwhelming and uncomfortable. It is the constant negotiation of the line between pleasure and pain. We, as individuals however, cannot tickle ourselves, and therefore must be tickled by someone else. This is where S&M comes in.

As the tickle-e we take pleasure in the negotiation through discomfort, as well as are completely submissive to the wills of the tickler. The tickle-e has to completely trust that the tickler will not go too far, and turn the whole situation unpleasant.

On the other hand, the tickler also experiences pleasure through being in control and negotiating the line of the other person’s experience of pleasure and pain. In many ways, according to the psychoanalytic perspective - the tickler is gaining pleasure out of being in complete control, and the tickle-e is experiencing pleasure out of being completely powerless. S&M, perhaps in one of its truest forms.

A group of friends and I recently went to visit “the blood fields” - its a haunted corn maze out in Truro. Its similar to any kind of haunted house deal - they hire actors to dress up and jump out and scare you - they chase you, that stand too close - in general, they are they to freak you out.

I love haunted houses. I am the person that is unable to tell that the situations aren’t real… but I love being scared. None the less, it is a constant negotiation as to just how scared I can get before I am too uncomfortable and I want to leave.

In some ways, its just like being tickled. I like being tickled because of how good it feels when it stops. Its the same thing with being scared - I like the way it feels once I’ve made the way out of the maze and I know I am safe.

So if we compare this to tickling, where I am the tickle-e, then the actors - are the ticklers. Strangers, masked individuals who I have no idea about… but I trust that they will not violate the contract that has been made between me and the owners of the corn maze.

One of the rules in these kinds of haunted houses is that that the actors are not allowed to touch you, and vice versa. We trust that they will not.

It makes me think about the people who decide to be the scarers’ - do they feel powerful being able to invoke fear, even if it is momentarily, into stranger’s lives. Does it feel good to have control over someone’s instincts?

One of the actors chased me and grabbed my torso. I suppose sometimes you can’t always know for certain that your trust will not be breached. That’s what makes it fun - you really never know. But it also makes it scary - The corn maze was awesome, and horrible at the same time. I didn’t go into the second “haunted barn” - I  had had my fill of masochism for the day.

Kind of a funny way to think about things, but they sort of make sense, no?

I suppose he was just a pet, but he was my pet.

When I took him in because those who had him before didn’t want him anymore, I didn’t really know what to expect. He wasn’t always an easy pet to take care of, he would sometimes bite, and was often very afraid. But I loved him anyway. He really liked banana and sitting behind my ear. And as odd as it may sound - would chatter in content if I sang to him. I found that out the first day I brought him home, when he was scared and unsure what was happening. He was a funny little rat.

  As he began to get sick, he became gentler in some ways, most likely because he  knew he needed me to take care of him. I wasn’t always the best at accomplishing this task - but I did my best. And atleast I can know that when he died, he wasn’t suffering anymore.

I’ve never had to put a pet down before - When I was a child, I was never really affected by the death’s of my pets. I would be sad momentarily, but then would seem to bounce back pretty quickly. But Theo’s death is sitting heavy with me these past few days. I don’t really like sitting here in the office where he used to live, and I seem to revisit his memory often. It seems I cannot prevent thinking about him.

I know it seems silly to be writing a blog dedicated to my rat, but its all I can think to do with this. I’m sorry that I didn’t find him another companion rat - I was worried he would be aggressive toward it, but ultimately, believe he was lonely for some of his life. Its very hard for humans to fulfill the companionship that rats need and I am sorry that I did not try harder to be that for him. I tried - but I’m not sure it was enough. I wish I could have been with him when he died, saying goodbye was too short in the back room of the vet’s office.

He was a good pet, despite all of his flaws, and seemed to love me back despite mine. Seems stupid thinking that your pet really loves you back… but I think he did. My mother says its funny how these little creatures find their way into our hearts, but they do.

It was nice to go through old photographs of him and especially to find this one. It reminds me that he was healthy for a long time, and that really rats don’t live that long. It reminds me of what he used to be like - lively and happy.

Anyway - as silly as it may be - I miss him and that’s really all it is.

I have many hats.

Erving Goffman said that the way we facet our sense of Self is through gauging social expectation of our own social roles. As a result, Goffman’s theory would suggest that our sense of Self is always changing depending on who is around us - who is giving us our Selves back.

He says that it depends on the roles in which we are performing and playing in certain contexts. Sometimes I am the lover, sometimes I am the professional, sometimes I am the survivor, sometimes I am the queer, the feminist, the woman - like I said, I have many hats.

Judith Butler takes from Goffman in some ways, and lets us know that it is not even necessarily the presence of actual people that enforce our roles and behaviours, but that we actually internalize the gaze of what those would be enforcing (in other words, socialization).

The problem with this is when these roles collide with each other - what do you do when your clients see you drunk and grinding at a bar? or your mother finds your vibrator? Goffman says that these are the moments that we would call “faux pas” or lets just say it - really fucking awkward timez.

In some ways this makes  me think about identities. How are our identities shaped by context? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why we organize through identities and identity politics. Why do we have gendered space? or queer space?

If you had asked me a week ago I would have told you that I am beginning to really hate organizing based on identity. As if we all have the same needs and interests because we are women, or trans or queer.

And then Take Back the Night happened. And has left me feeling pretty conflicted. This TBTN march was exclusive to women and trans identified people and I have to say - it was pretty overwhelming. I have never heard so many women’s voices (and I say women because those were the majority of voices that were being heard) speaking out against rape all at once.

It was powerful to me. And I still don’t know if it was the right thing to do. But that is the way it went. I have also heard feedback that male allies from the event felt uncomfortable in the reception after, and upset. I do not know how to reconcile that. In some ways, I do believe that part of being an ally for some things means being able to step back and allow space for those identifying with that cause or group. In some ways, while I am not happy that was the experience of those men, their expression reminded me of the way I often feel in male dominated rooms and events. Silenced, the odd one out, strange, unwelcome.

It is these feelings that for many, spaces based on identity must exist.

I still don’t know where I stand on those things - it seems, my Self is divided up into too many roles right now. I have too many hats. I cannot reconcile them - my life is one giant awkward moment, and one mashed up faux pas.

Sounding like enough of a teenager for you?

I’ve kind of been feeling like a teenager again lately - I kind of love it. Its like I’m rediscovering my old self that I had to leave behind for awhile. I’m re-discovering my love for kick-ass girl rock and thick eye liner (well, lets face it - I never forgot my thick eye liner). I’m glad my hormones are back. Thats really the gyst of it. I forgot how awesome estrogen roller coasters can be.

I like being anxsty and broody, and happy all in a few hours.

Anyway - I’m kind of conflicted on some stuff, but usually that means I’ll figure it out sooner or later. At least its on my radar.

Lovin’ being a kick-ass femme though! <3

As most of you probably already know, (due to my whining, complaining and lack of presence at gatherings), Pat and I just moved in together. We found a little three bedroom a few months ago, owned by a British family - located in Halifax’s North End.

I am new to Halifax, but I really love the north end. Maybe it is because it reminds me of Vancouver - in the way that everyone always told me not to go down East Hastings, or walk home alone at night. People do that here too. The North End has been deemed dingy, unsafe, poor. It is a site of much racialization and continues to reaffirm to me that racism is not gone, but steadily moving through and through. (I recently had a friend of mine comment, “well I definitely dont think I could live here” and when I asked why, our other friend commented “no no, I’m sure there are a few white girls in this neighbourhood”).

When people says things like this, or tell me not to walk alone at night, or tell me that I should be living somewhere else - I always want to say that the frat boy sitting next to me in class makes me feel 100 times more afraid than any interaction that I’ve had in the North End. Just like Vancouver, when I used to ride the nightbus home from work (which goes slowly through all of the ‘scary’ parts of Vancouver), the homeless men and women asking me for money, or drugs were never the ones that made me scared - it was the twenty-somethings coming home from the clubs, my peers, who made me sit close to the driver and ask him to drop me off in between stops.

As far as my experience has lent me, the North End is amazing. Community here has a different emergence - people know their neighbours, talk to them, bake for them, watch their kids. They sit out on their stoops, drinking a cup of beer and chatting to whomever decides to come by. They organize, they rise up, they speak out, they love. It really is community - in the sense of the word. And I love it.

My house rings a similar bell. As we have been living here for a few days - little things have come to our attention. The flooring is flaking in some areas, the cupboards don’t totally close, the last tenants didn’t clean the house, the paint jobs are poor. Many of these things are small fixes - and we cleaned ALL day yesterday and still have more to do. But, right now, its starting to feel pretty good. It feels like it could be home, for me,  for awhile. I like living in houses that feel lived in - clean - but still lived in.

My family never had a maid, or a stay at home parent to clean the house all the time. And really, we didn’t need to. Sure our house wasn’t always the cleanest, and it too, had some things that needed repairing. But, it was my home. It is a different lifestyle to always live in spotless, disinfected surroundings. It means you have to have someone always cleaning up around you, for you, after you.

Women’s work - I enjoy it - but not all the time.

I guess all I’m trying to say is - I think I’m beginning to find my home. Even if my glimpses of home are represented in splinters all over the country. Even if some may think that its too old, or too broken. Even if its not good enough for me to be normal in the eyes of others.

I think I like it here.