Category Archives: Ponderings

Problems with prioritizing

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As planned, I started out my morning without consuming media. I got dressed for my workout without looking at my phone except to check the weather conditions, and I didn’t turn on my computer to look at any websites or social media. I put a load of laundry in the washer, pulled on my RoadID, slipped my phone into my Clean Bottle holster, and headed out the door.

Normally I try to walk five kilometers, but today I did two and a half, thinking that would be more manageable for a daily routine. I was quite tired of walking by the time I was done, even though it was nice and cool out, I think because I was anxious to get to work on my writing. I got back to the apartment, put the first load of laundry in the dryer and started another load in the washer, did my weight lifting and crunches and stretching, then grabbed an Atkins shake for breakfast.

It turned out that the first thing I wanted to write about was the Fringe season four finale, which I watched last night. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do when I have things I want to write about that aren’t going to result in publication or profit or pageviews or whatever. Today, I decided to go ahead and write it. Then, when it was done, I posted it to Twitter and Facebook like usual. I managed to keep from scrolling down on Twitter, but I ended up reading Facebook like a big doofus. Fifty points from Gryffindor :(

Now I seem to have run out of steam. I’m wondering if my approach is wrong. Should I be putting off chores and my workout until after I have done a significant amount of writing? The chores actually don’t take that much time, though, and they can be done concurrently with other activities. The workouts are necessary for health, and I’ve found in the past that if I don’t do them first thing in the morning, I’m far less likely to do them at all.

I also have a few projects unrelated to my new purpose in life that I need to get finished as soon as possible, so my mind is free to concentrate on moving forward. Maybe I should wait to start on my Serious Writing until those are done. But my creative brain seems to work the way it works, and it wants to plan or write when it wants to plan or write, so instead of making a hard and fast rule, I suppose I should just commit myself to working on those projects as much as possible and then taking the time to write when inspiration demands it.

I’m also concerned that writing this post is itself a form of procrastination, so I’m just going to stop now and go see about my laundry and try to clear my head and get back to work.

Today, I choose writing.

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I’ve finally come to accept something I think I knew all along: I should be a writer. So starting now, I will be taking significant steps to make that a reality. I’ve already been writing blog posts and charting out ideas when inspiration strikes me, but now I will work toward the goal of publication. I’m going to be evaluating various routes–fiction, nonfiction, long form, short form, magazine articles, targeted blogs, serials, comics, maybe even screenwriting–and trying to come up with the best fits for the stories I want to tell.

It all came together

In the past, whenever people told me I should be a writer, I’d always respond, “Sure, maybe, but I have nothing to say.” I think perhaps I just needed to build up life experience and let it all simmer for awhile, because all of a sudden I have plenty of ideas and desire to write.

I think fear played a role too–fear of what people would think, fear of what effect the things I wrote would have on my life. But these days I’m more afraid of what might happen if I don’t say something. It’s oddly given me an amazing sense of freedom.

I’m very lucky that I’m in a position where I can pursue something that won’t have financial benefits for years, if it even has them at all. As such, I am throwing myself into it headfirst and making some serious changes in order to give myself the best chance of success.

Maximizing workday efficiency

The first big change will be social media. When I first started using Twitter, I used it as a microblog, and I really haven’t stopped using it that way. However, few others use it that way, and Twitter obviously doesn’t want me to use it that way. I am unable to go back and read my old tweets, and as such many thoughts and ideas are simply lost. So my first change (and challenge) will be to stop posting my stream of consciousness thoughts on Twitter, and instead put them somewhere where I can use them later.

My second Twitter change will be some mass unfollowings, and perhaps following a few new accounts. At time of posting, I follow 156 accounts. Some of them I follow because they are funny. Some of them I follow because they are friends of mine. I have a smattering of Japanese twitterers I follow for the purpose of having Japanese in my stream to practice reading. And then I have a collection of people in the web design industry who I follow to keep up with trends and information.

I will evaluate the “funny” accounts on a case-to-case basis and see if they warrant keeping. Are they funny enough to spend time reading every day? For my friends, if I am friends with them on Facebook, their Twitter accounts must go. Most of them cross-post, so I won’t miss anything but annoying redundancy. For the ones who don’t cross-post, I’ll evaluate them the same as I evaluate the “funny” accounts. Ultimately, does reading these tweets help me pursue my goal or just waste my time? I will cull some of the Japanese twitter accounts, especially the ones I know I just scroll past without trying to read, but there are a few I know I would like to keep. I will also keep Japanese-culture related Twitter accounts. And finally, I will purge all web design-related Twitter accounts. I do not intend to ever again pursue web design as a career. I’ve come to realize that the things I enjoyed about that sphere were content writing/editing and graphic design/layout, and I have no interest in wrangling code. Since I am now resolved to focus on writing, I have no need to read about CSS tips and tricks.

I will start to look for more people interested in writing and storytelling, and follow them for inspiration. I will also look for people who are interested in the same issues I’m interested in. But I won’t let my follow list get so large that a significant portion of my day is taken up catching up on my feed.

Facebook will largely remain the same, though I will prune some Page “likes”. I may add a few new friends so as to get them out of Twitter. Facebook is more private for me, though, so this will be done only after careful evaluation.

I will probably stop using Path. All I ever do there is tell it when I wake up and when I go to sleep, and very occasionally check in to a location.

I am very interested in continuing my study of Japanese. It’s my hope that someday I’ll be good enough at reading the language, and have a strong enough appreciation for and understanding of the culture, that I can translate literature. To that end, I’m going to be removing a few motivational websites and social media accounts from my routine. I once thought that any site that offered motivation would motivate me, but I’ve recently realized that my personality requires a certain type of motivation, and other types can actually demotivate me very quickly. Anything that makes me feel like I’m not working hard enough will make me throw up my hands and give up entirely. One site in particular is written by a person with completely different goals from mine, and I discovered that I was feeling bad because I wasn’t working hard enough on his goals! Even though I know it’s not this blogger’s intent to make me feel this way, nor any other’s, I have to be aware of my own personality and reactions and cut out any negativity, regardless of where it comes from.

Once I have cut out social media distractions and demotivators, the time I spend overall on social media should automatically decrease. I plan to ensure this by not leaving a tab with Twitter or Facebook open at all times, as has become habit. I further pledge to start my day as a producer rather than a consumer. I currently have a habit of reading Twitter and Facebook while I’m getting ready in the bathroom, then reading webcomics when I get to my computer. Instead of engaging in these distracting and procrastinating activities, I’ll think about my day while I’m getting ready, and maybe even start brainstorming what I’m going to be writing and taking audio or text notes with my phone. And when I get to my computer, I’ll start working. Simple as that.

I’ve considered even creating a separate Windows user account for when I am working, and blocking certain websites and applications that could be distractions. But I know that too much change all at once is difficult to maintain long term, so for now I will see how the above adjustments go.

Tools of the trade

Right now I don’t have a great system in place for capturing and then revisiting writing ideas. I’ve been using iPhone voice memos and notes when I’m out and about and Word documents and blog post drafts when I’m at my computer. This piecemeal approach has been okay while I really haven’t been doing anything with most of my ideas, but it isn’t very conducive to getting writing projects out the door. Ideally I will find a way to bring all of these things together so I can easily find them. I’ve been thinking about a cute yarn clothesline with clothespins to hold fancy notecards with the name of current projects. On the backs of the cards I can list where the research information and notes are stored physically and digitally. It would be a fun way to see all my projects at once and keep me focused without cluttering up my desk. I’ll have to think about where such an apparatus would actually go, though.

I already have information on getting published (or, perhaps more accurately, getting rejected) from discussing the topic in my creative writing classes in college and from reading Magazine Man’s blog. I have a few leads on literary journals and know how to find more, and I have ideas about what sorts of magazine I might want to write for. So when the time comes, I think I should be okay to start sending out short stories, essays, and articles. I am also obviously well-versed in blogging, though perhaps not in cultivating an audience. I’m not so clear on how to begin with writing for comics; I would need an artist to bring the story to life, but even writing a comic script is new to me. I will research whether or not there are templates or examples available anywhere. I know there is a format for TV and movie scripts, so all I’ll need to do is find it and study it. As to where one might submit a pitch, again, I’m unsure, but this is only the beginning, and I have lots of research to do. And writing, which is the most important thing.

As far as where I’ll do the writing, I’ve always been most comfortable in Word documents, probably because that’s where I wrote all my college papers. However, I can certainly see the benefit of using an online service, such as Google Documents, and being able to access my files anywhere I go. It’s something I’ll have to think about, but for now I will stick with Word. I will probably sign up for something like DropBox to make sure I don’t lose anything.

Starting out

I’ve heard that six hours is the longest viable block of working writing time. I’m not going to start out shooting for that–going from nothing to six hours would burn me out fast. Instead, I will write until I’m fatigued every day and not worry about how long I write. I know there will be days when I don’t feel like writing, and for now, as I ease into it, I will use those days for research. In the future, though, after I’ve established a writing routine, I will write through the block to keep myself going, and try to hit at least my minimum writing time.

Looking forward

I’m excited to finally have direction in my life. For so long I’ve been reactionary, just accepting whatever came my way and dealing with everything day by day. In recent years I’ve started taking charge of my health, and that has empowered me to take charge of so much more. I’ve learned just how destructive and demoralizing bouncing through life aimlessly can be, and even though I’m scared, I’m putting a stop to the uncontrolled ricocheting and propelling myself towards a goal.

Here I come, universe.

The purpose of government

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Legislation proposed and even passed on the federal and state level in the past several years has made it unclear whether or not the people we’ve chosen to represent us in government actually know what it means to govern in a democratic republic.

Since 9/11, individual US citizens have seen their rights slowly stripped away in the name of “fighting terrorism”, “freedom”, “democracy”, “safety”, and “the greater good”. The assault on liberty has only intensified in the past few years, with the added supposed justifications of “stopping piracy”, “taking care of the economy”, and “protecting children”.

The first wave:

  • USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 (Wikipedia, EFF, Center for National Security Studies, full text from the Library of Congress)
    This was a huge increase in governmental powers of intelligence-gathering, financial regulation, and the detaining and deportation of immigrants. It also redefined terrorism to include domestic terrorism, laying the groundwork for the indefinite detention rider to the NDAA (see below). The PATRIOT Act was set to expire a few times, but has always been extended–or provisions that did expire were reborn under other laws.
  • Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Wikipedia, PBS, full text at DHS)
    This law radically restructured the US government, further threatening individual privacy and paradoxically making gathered information less safe while increasing government secrecy. Here is some analysis from the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. (Note that the TIA portion of HSA was, fortunately, removed.)
  • Military Commissions Act of 2006 (Wikipedia, Center for Constitutional Rights)
    Allows the US to detain “alien unlawful enemy combatants” indefinitely without trial, to try them in military courts, and to employ torture. This was basically our government’s way of saying they were unhappy with having to adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Apparently they liked this power so much they wanted to extend it to US citizens as well; see the NDAA below.
  • Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (Wikipedia; did not become law)
    This law would have criminalized such behaviors as sharing one’s opinion on the internet. Think such a thing would never pass? Check out the NDAA and CISPA, below.

The more recent wave:

We have essentially empowered our government to spy on us, harass us, arrest us and detain us indefinitely without trial…and to thank us, they keep chipping away more and more freedoms. How many of us even know this is happening? How many of us who do know are afraid to say anything, for fear of being targeted by the government?

Do these laws make you feel more secure?

Any law that allows the government to do something to a citizen based on the suspicion that that citizen is engaging in certain activity is a law that can be abused. Have a political enemy? “Suspect” her of terrorism, and get her locked up by the military. Don’t like a certain blogger’s message? “Suspect” him of cybercrime, and enjoy knowing the intelligence community is laying his private life bare.

Why do we have a government, again? Wasn’t it something about taking care of citizens? Let’s see. Here’s part of the preamble to the Bill of Rights, which basically says governmental powers should be limited to make sure people can trust the government:

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

And from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

It’s hard to look at what our government has done since 9/11 and argue that it has not been destructive to liberty.

What should we do? We need people in our government who truly represent people, not drug companies or entertainment empires or banks or monopolies or other huge businesses. We need legislators who are knowledgeable, who don’t spend all their time fundraising. I outlined some campaign reform ideas in a previous post; I truly think if we could do something like that, we’d be in a much better place than we are now.

Until then, we have to fight every battle as best we can. And that definitely means fighting CISPA right now. Contact your senators and contact the White House; let them know that this further incursion into civil rights and privacy cannot pass.

It also means electing people who understand larger issues, who aren’t simply motivated by the desire for a career in Washington. It’s probably going to be hard to find these people, but we have to try.

The government should not prop up failing business models

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One thing that really stuck out to me during the SOPA/PIPA debate, and is now resurfacing in my mind with CISPA, is the sheer nerve of the entertainment industry, to essentially ask the government to be volunteer copyright enforcers on the taxpayers’ dime.

Digital piracy is not an indicator of masses of criminals who delight in stealing copyrighted works. It’s an indicator that people want content, and they have no easy, legal way to get it.

The makers of television programs who do not offer any way for people to purchase the programs online or watch them stream with ads are essentially saying they don’t want people to watch their content. I get that what they think they’re saying is people should watch it on TV when it airs, or maybe on their DVR…but many people have moved away from these costly entertainment streams in favor of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and iTunes, and companies need to catch up. And even if a person does typically watch a show live on TV, what if she misses an episode? Most shows build on the happenings of previous episodes these days, so just skipping one would be jarring. You’ve got to give people a way to catch up to the story.

But instead of seeing the profit potential in online streaming and digital downloads, many big content creators are just opting out, or only providing a limited offering. They’re ignoring a whole new revenue stream and then wondering why profits aren’t quite as fantastic as they used to be.

The decision-makers are so blind to their own failing business model that they’re grasping at the piracy straw and holding it out to the government in desperate entreaty. “I don’t want to let people consume my content legally. Just arrest and prosecute a bunch of people for me so I can make up some profit!”

Please note that I am not arguing that piracy is in any way right or good. I am, however, arguing that it is an understandable behavior under these conditions. Humans who want things tend to get them, regardless of the risks involved. (Illegal drugs are a good example of this.) If companies want to curb piracy, they should change their approach.

Rather than treating all potential customers like criminals, companies should make it so easy and convenient to get their content that it would be absurd to pirate it.

We are already on a slippery slope of creative control. Copyrights have been extended to a ridiculous degree, and fewer and fewer modern works are entering public domain. The original notion of copyright, to protect a person’s creation during his or her life, has become lost in corporate greed. And what people seem to be missing is that draconian copyright laws are nothing more than government handouts in the form of law enforcement muscle and court time.

Government is there to ensure opportunity for all, not to blindly throw money at problems. If the government gets involved in a company’s profits at all, it should be only in a time of desperate need. Even then, I disapprove of just giving them money or law enforcement assistance. They should come in with a business plan.

Entertainment companies should not expect huge profits in a bad economy. They should create strategies for their own survival. If and only if they still need help, and if and only if their loss would significantly impact society, government could help. But this should not be entered into lightly. Congress should not make the decision based on numbers the media company brings in themselves, for example. There should always be independent confirmation.

And when these companies ask for help, it should be publicly…not through the legislators whose campaigns they’ve funded.

Ultimately, it should not be the government’s job to funnel money into big companies. Bailouts that get paid back are one thing, but copyright enforcement would occur at the cost of the government–lost time and money. That’s not sustainable, and ultimately it’s not going to fix the entertainment industry’s lack of vision.

The value of people and community

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Not long ago I was telling someone about a story I’d heard, in which a person who had never been a parent had become one later in life. “I hope that makes this person more sensitive to the challenges of people who work and have children,” was basically how I concluded the story.

To my surprise, “I don’t like that,” said my conversation partner. “I don’t think people deserve special treatment when they choose to have a child. And I don’t like how when someone has a kid, the rest of the team has to pick up their slack.”

I felt there was something fundamentally wrong with this argument, but it wasn’t until this morning that I pieced together what it was. This argument hinges on the presupposition that work is the most important thing we do as humans, and that our highest loyalty should be to our company. By having a child, therefore, a worker is selfishly choosing to be a burden on the company and his or her fellow employees.

I can’t agree with that. Companies come and go, but the human race continues. Our most important work is preparing the next generation.

Yes, a person’s career is important. Knowledge is definitely important. But I could never value profit over family, or productivity over community. The former are terms that we essentially made up over time in order to compete with each other, and they have little to do with building a better human race–at least not if they come at the cost of human relationships. Competition may drive us to new heights of scientific achievement, of art, but without the latter components in place–family and community–we have no backbone on which to build these things, no lens through which to evaluate whether or not we should. Only through relationships with other humans can we give meaning to knowledge work. Only through sharing knowledge and fostering communication and empathy can we empower ourselves and our descendants to take the long view, to make choices not simply for our own personal gain but for the good of humanity.

A true human relationship is more difficult than simple business networking. It’s being there during bad times. It’s learning to forgive and forget. It’s trying to understand points of view markedly different from one’s own. It’s hard. The natural instinct might be to run away, from a spouse, from a child, from a friend, and bury oneself in a career. Or it might be that a person is so deep in the trenches of his or her own relationship crises that another person’s problems might not be visible. Whatever the reason, many people choose to be oblivious to others’ pain, to expect people to handle “their own problems”.

This is wrong. In the realm of human relationships, there should be no “them”. If there is a person in front of you who is suffering, and you do nothing, you are not “right”. You are part of the systematic breakdown of community.

We are a global society now. We have ways of learning more about virtually any topic, any culture, any history. But as we’ve gone global, rather than expanding our minds and opening our eyes, we’ve instead drawn ourselves further and further inward, walling others out, expecting everyone to take care of themselves. If they can’t, well, they just made the wrong choices. Them’s the breaks. Luck of the draw. Oh well. Right? This approach is grossly negligent and it’s teaching our children, the future of humanity, to be selfish and cruel. Imagine what a few generations of eat-or-be-eaten will do to our world. You don’t even have to work hard to imagine it; it’s happened plenty of times in our history. Only this time it will happen on a global scale. Do you think the human race will survive?

If someone undertakes the most important human work–raising a child–we should all be eager to help. Rather than sitting around shaking our heads at the next generation, we could be doing something. Fighting for higher pay for families. Working to get decent maternity and paternity leave for parents. Allowing and encouraging breastfeeding in the workplace and in public. Guaranteeing equal childcare support and opportunities regardless of income. Instead we seem to be trying to shame parents into keeping their kids at home in front of the TV, like it’s too inconvenient for us to be around them. We ignore problems that “don’t affect us”, like school lunches and childhood obesity and education. And that’s not right. It all affects us. Even if we don’t have kids ourselves, we must respect what it means to have them. And if we’re so worried about where the world is going, we should be as involved as possible in helping the next generation prepare.

I simply can’t see family, community, relationships, the human race as a “hassle”. Yes, there is a lot of hatred out there, especially if that’s all you’re looking for. But there’s so much beauty, too. Let’s get out there and nurture that beauty wherever we find it. Let’s lift each other up. Let’s talk. Let’s learn. Let’s strive to be better. And let’s prepare our global community for the challenges ahead.

Lent

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As an adolescent and teenager, I often observed Lent by giving up some treat that I’d normally regularly indulge in. The two main ones I can remember right now are chocolate and soda. I don’t recall going crazy on Mardi Gras beforehand–actually, I’ve never really done anything for Mardi Gras–but on the years I gave up chocolate, I excitedly awaited Easter and the accompanying basket of goodies.

There were times when I would fast for a day as well, drinking only water, looking forward to the next day when I could eat again and the food would be twice as sweet.

I used to think these periods of stringent self-denial helped to build willpower. Now, though, I think that they didn’t, at least for me. A critical problem is that I always knew they would end. And once they ended, I’d celebrate by overindulging. That’s not willpower, really…it’s more like anticipation. It’s not behavior modification, but simply a deferral of desire. True willpower–at least in the “ideal”–would be to give something up forever, without hope of ever regaining it. Realistic willpower would be to make small changes in habits and diet over time, maintaining them for the rest of your life.

A friend has been exploring the paradigm of denial and indulgence in western culture, the “I deserve it” mindset, the outlook that one has been “good” or “bad” and that food can act as a reward or comfort. It’s interesting to see her take on this. She didn’t grow up within it, at least not in the same way I did. (To be fair, my family has always rejected the “I deserve it” mindset, but the other pieces are there.) My friend observes all this with a sort of bemusement and detached frustration. One of her thoughts is that this approach toward food demonstrates a lack of discipline, and she identifies “pre-1970s” as a time when the people of America had “values” rather than “obsessions”.

While this somewhat smacks of the “good old days” fallacy, I think she may be on to something, at least in terms of the relationship of Americans to food. Food is so plentiful here that it has become just as much a consumer product as anything else, and we are nothing if not a consumer culture. And as a consumer culture, we continually demand more for less. Even as the quality of food declines with price, we buy and eat more of it, because we feel we are getting a good deal.

As an example, I used to make and eat an entire box of macaroni and cheese myself. Why not eat it all? It was delicious. I’d offer some to Sean, but he’d always decline, saying he didn’t eat macaroni and cheese by itself; if he ate it, he wanted it with a meal. Sean, who was raised with significantly different food values than me, was, quite frankly, horrified by my eating habits. He doesn’t generally air complaints if he doesn’t think they matter in the grand scheme of our marriage, so I’m not sure I fully grasped just how grotesque he found my relationship to food until I started to share his opinion. And that didn’t come until after I had weight loss surgery, and I started eating more the way he eats. Now I look back at the way I used to eat and it seems shocking, unbelievable.

We were out at Ted’s Montana Grill with friends not too long ago and I tried a small taste of their chips and dip. The dip is an amazing French onion that I enjoyed very much. I related how I used to like to sit with a huge bag of Ruffles and a tub of French onion dip and just eat and eat and eat. And then I paused. “This has been a ‘This Is Why You’re Fat’ moment!” I concluded into the awkward silence. I’m not sure that I would have confessed such a thing before having weight loss surgery, or that I would have been able to make a joke about it.

My friend argues that our food obsession has Judeo-Christian roots. She points to the language used in advertising, phrases like “you deserve it”, “reward yourself”, “indulge”, “sinful”. These phrases either offer the consumer a reward for being “good” or encourage the consumer to be “bad”. Either way, they play on a cultural obsession with good and evil that is invisible to those of us who grew up with it. It’s odd to my friend mainly because it’s so alien. (Imagine how other religions are depicted in American media, when they are depicted at all. They seem foreign, unknown. Often all that can be done to make them acceptable is to add humor. Other attempts often feel preachy.)

It is fascinating to me to take a step back and see my own culture as it’s perceived by someone with one foot firmly in it and one foot firmly in another, or by someone completely outside it. I enjoy having my expectations and understanding shaken. I like to think about what it all means, how much of me has been shaped by my culture, whether there are universal values…there is so much to explore and try to grasp. More than one could ever hope to study in a lifetime.

I haven’t observed Lent in many years. At this point, in terms of food, there’s not much more I could give up anyway. But I’m glad I took part when I was younger, even if the lesson I learned was different from the lesson I thought I was learning. And I’m glad to have my culture, something that is mine, a place that is cozy and known. No matter how philosophical I want to get about it, it will always be my home, and a place of love.

Fat dream

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Last night I dreamed about going to some sort of meeting. I don’t really remember what the meeting was about, just that there was a guy who seemed to be the leader who said several things that he’d already said in the email he sent out when he called the meeting. I was glad to be there; I felt I was with like-minded people and that we could perhaps accomplish something, though I don’t remember what.

What I do remember about this dream is catching sight of myself in a mirror and being taken aback by how fat I looked. I was wearing jeans and a pink-purple sweater, an outfit I’ve worn before, and I was sitting down, which is the worst way to see yourself when you’re obese. I didn’t look the way I look now. I wasn’t 179 pounds. I was probably 260.

I looked something like this:

me at approximately 260 pounds

me at approximately 260 pounds, June 2011

It was really jarring…and yet really familiar. I recognized myself. I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t horribly depressed. I had a sort of resigned acceptance, like, “Yeah, that’s me.”

The thing is…that’s not me. I don’t look like that. I look like this:

me at 179 pounds, today

me at 179 pounds, today

And there’s another weird thing. I can’t recall ever identifying as obese in my dreams before. In my dreams, I always just identified as me. I kind of assumed that my dream self embodied my ideal self.

Maybe my subconscious is confused now that my real body is transforming into something closer to my ideal body than to my obese body, so to keep the existing balance, it’s just flipping the roles. But I really don’t want to think of myself as obese when I’m not. (Technically, I’m still obese, but I won’t be forever.) I want to have a healthy understanding and acceptance of my body as it is. I don’t want to wish for an impossible ideal or long for my known, comforting blubber.

I’ve been thinking more about how I’ve used weight as a shield. I’ve used it as an excuse not to bother learning how to do hair and makeup, because why bother to try to look pretty when you’re fat? Only now when I want to look cute or beautiful, I don’t know how. I’ve used weight as a security blanket, irrationally believing that no one would want to rape me because being fat made me unattractive, and this is now leading me to irrationally believe that I’m turning myself into a target by losing weight. I’ve used my weight as a way to avoid fundamental questions I’ve been having as to what it means to be a woman–the fatter I was, the less feminine I felt. (The infertility contributed to that, too.) I’ve quietly used my weight as an excuse as to why I’m not a social butterfly, why I don’t get invited to parties, why people all around me seem to instantly forge connections while I struggle to make one good friend. That “people would like me if I was pretty” feeling defined my high school existence and sent ripples out into my adulthood, even though I knew the real reason was that I’m simply not an extrovert. I felt comfortable getting fatter and fatter because I could use it as an excuse as to why no one ever called or texted me.

Thankfully, in recent years I have begun to deal with that last problem, so I probably won’t be shocked when I become thin and the world doesn’t come rushing to my door. I have friends, good friends, relationships that I have worked to maintain. I may not be clubbing or partying or whatever, but that’s not who I am. I’m happiest when I’m learning, discussing, hearing someone’s story, appreciating beauty, exploring. And I’ve found friends who also love those things.

But that still leaves all the other things, and perhaps more issues I haven’t identified yet.

So, right now, I reject the idea that my obesity and infertility make me less of a woman. Hell, I reject the idea that womanhood can be so easily defined, and I reject the idea that it needs to be. I reject the idea that obesity defines me. I reject the idea that it’s too late for me to learn how to do hair and makeup–please! And I reject the idea that I can or should do anything to my body to make myself more or less appealing to a lowlife rapist.

I’ll press on, one foot in front of the other. I’ll keep writing when I need to. I’ll identify these mental demons when they rise up, and then I’ll knock them the hell down.

me at 179 pounds, today

Beauty

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They tell you when you decide to have weight loss surgery that the physical changes you undergo will touch off emotional reactions. Here’s how my handbook puts it: “Although you have intentionally undergone the surgery to resolve your obesity, weight loss changes the life style you knew so well. Even with its problems and tensions, obesity was comfortable, it was known. Now that life is gone.”

This is not something you really understand until it happens. I read these words. I read about the stages of grief, which many patients go through after weight loss surgery. I thought I knew what it meant. I thought it meant that I was comfortable with my old eating and (lack of) exercise habits, and that I’d have to be strong to adjust to the changes.

So I prepared myself to change my eating and exercise, and I’ve worked really hard at both. And while I do find it depressing that it’s difficult for me to get enough protein each day, I’ve felt strong, and I’ve persevered. Every day is a victory.

But that wasn’t what the handbook was talking about at all.

Today, I am just barely (by .1 pound) into the 170s. My body has changed so much. Sometimes I don’t recognize myself. My face is slimmer, but to me it looks like Play-Doh, like a field of enormous dimples. In the apartment complex fitness center the other day I looked in the mirror and saw an ugly old woman, thin hair pulled back from a big pasty face. It was me.

When I look at my naked body in the mirror, I can see that I’m starting to have a more pleasing shape. But I can also see how being fat has destroyed my skin. I’ve got the surgery scars, of course, but worse than that, I’ve got stretch marks. Everywhere. Stomach, arms, legs, breasts, everywhere.

I have always held in my head this perfect image of how I’d be if I wasn’t fat. I’d look great in a bikini. I’d have a cute face with big eyes and smooth skin. I’d look young.

I’ve never really worried about age before. I’ve never worried about whether or not I could look like my perfect image, because I never thought it was possible to not be fat.

I didn’t really know this until today.

Now I’m looking at myself in the mirror and I’m disappointed. I’m not approaching that perfect image. When I reach whatever final weight I reach, I’m not going to look 22. I’m not going to be able to wear a bikini.

I had never thought of myself as vain before. I always thought I was “above” that somehow.

Now I know that I was just using my obesity as a shield.

Thoughts of Birmingham

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A few weeks ago, Sean and I went to Birmingham, Alabama for his work. I took two days to explore some of the city’s attractions and had a really good time, despite the cold, rainy weather.

Last night, I had a dream that I was in Birmingham looking into some fictional university. The place was huge and architecturally impressive, and I also found it to be forward-thinking. For some reason Willow, the character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was there with me. It started snowing. (These two parts of the dream may be related to my watching several episodes from Buffy season three before bed.)

Then a tornado siren started going off. Thinking back to my time living in Huntsville, I wondered whether Birmingham was also within Tornado Alley, and whether frequent storms were something I’d have to get used to. Willow and I checked out the sky looking for funnel clouds, but my good sense prevailed and we holed up in the basement of a building on campus.

In the dream, I remember being really excited to move to Birmingham. Indeed, I enjoyed visiting, and there were many places I could see myself returning to again and again, like the Botanical Gardens or the Museum of Art. And really, I am the type of person who craves change and enjoys the challenge of getting to know a new place. For a laugh, I checked Google Maps to see how far Birmingham is from my family in Kentucky compared to where we live now, and it’s not that different. Plus, the route would be new and interesting: instead of old, familiar I-75, Chattanooga, and Knoxville, I’d take I-65 through Nashville. The thought of all these new adventures is actually pretty exciting.

But realistically, I can’t say I want to move right now. For one thing, there’s no reason to, beyond my illogical wanderlust. I can’t say that I saw enough of Birmingham in the two days I spent exploring it to know that I would be happy there. I don’t know what the job market is like. Birmingham is slightly farther from my family and double the distance from Sean’s. And the base for Sean’s work is here. He may get dispatched to Birmingham and other locations occasionally, but being here is the most economical.

Still, it’s fun to have these flights of fancy from time to time. At the very least, I know that if I want to, I can visit Birmingham as easily as I can visit Augusta. And I still have plenty more to learn about Atlanta. I’ve barely even scratched the surface.

There are plenty of adventures to be had without moving somewhere new.

(That sounded convincing, right?)

ACTA and TPP: The new(?) threat

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Shortly after the SOPA blackout, I became aware of ACTA–the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. This is a treaty, negotiated in secret among various nations, whose ostensible purpose is to protect copyright. I then started hearing about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, purported to be even worse.

Despite the fact that many people are only now hearing about ACTA and TPP, these treaties have been around for awhile.

In a move that completely flouts the open style of government he claims to support, President Obama signed ACTA back in October, without getting public or legislative approval. Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, and Singapore also signed at that time. Many countries in the EU signed the agreement in Tokyo two days ago, but EU countries can still fight the ratification procedure. Here in the US, it’s currently unclear if what Obama did is constitutional, or whether the treaty must be approved by Congress.

Meanwhile, there’s the TPP, whose purpose, among myriad other things, seems to be to cover all the digital copyright stuff that was negotiated out of ACTA. Here is more information on the TPP from TechDirt, which has been following its evolution as best as you can follow the evolution of something being developed in near-absolute secrecy. Here’s a slightly dated rundown by the EFF. Most terrifying, given that like ACTA this treaty is being negotiated by people who are not our elected representatives, is this:

All signatory countries will be required to conform their domestic laws and policies to the provisions of the Agreement.

So basically these people, with no transparency, no input from citizens or democratically-elected officials, are rewriting global laws?

Just whose purposes are being served here?

E.D. Kain at Forbes has a discussion of how ACTA has evolved and how TPP continues to be developed in secret. Here’s a line that struck home with me–it’s an obvious allusion to the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

If lawmakers start baking restrictive IP laws into larger bills – maybe stitching them into defense funding bills, for instance – it may become increasingly difficult to see what’s happening.

The NDAA included a rider authorizing the indefinite detainment of US citizens by the military without trial. Attaching this egregious infringement of Constitutional rights as a rider on the military budget essentially held all military personnel and employees hostage; unsigned, it would have left them without any money as the new year started. The choice ended up being “unpaid soldiers” or “loss of liberty, with a note saying we promise never to actually do this”. The latter was chosen. (The author of this piece would say I’m being too generous to the president. Maybe I am. Time will tell.)

Obviously, riders are one effective way to get something passed that wouldn’t normally pass, and as Kain points out, this will surely be a tactic used in future intellectual property fights. But ACTA and the TPP bypass legislation completely, and they are shrouded in secrecy. We barely even know what’s going on before it’s happening to us.

If you’re interested in taking action on these issues, here are a few links that might help.

One thing that seems evident is that these treaties, developed in secret and intended to alter intellectual property law across the globe, are being backed by major copyright holders. Big corporations. The entertainment industry, to be blunt. I’ve already written on what I think they should be doing rather than trying to change the law to protect their dying business practices, but perhaps I was being too charitable. That they have wormed their way this far into not only our government, but governments around the world, is unconscionable.

I’ve heard that some are planning a complete media boycott for the month of March, to hit the proponents of this sort of legislation where it really hurts. Honestly, I’m not sure a month-long mass boycott is as plausible as a day-long internet blackout, but it certainly seems like the right strategy against executives who seem to only understand money.

Could you go a whole month without buying entertainment from big companies? No cable, no Netflix, no movie dates, no iTunes…heck, maybe a month off might prove which services you actually need and which ones you don’t even miss. And you could take the opportunity to discover some independent creators, people who just make good stuff and make it easy for people to buy it.

It could work. You could save some money. You could directly benefit actual content creators instead of middlemen. And you might help get big entertainment companies out of our government.

What do you think?