Sunday, January 31, 2010

"Gay Marriage"

Not the issue, the term. Hence the quotes.

I understand the desire to have a simple term, but it surprises me that in this age of political correctness, no one has noted that this term technically excludes bisexuals. It is clearly not the intent, and I will accept that, but...well, show of hands if you've seen womyn (or another variant), or heard someone complain about 'man'ual labor (which comes from Latin manos, meaning hand, but that's rather my point).

I have yet to run across anyone talking about this. I haven't done particularly extensive research, but satire is one of my favorite genres, I frequent TV Tropes, I read news magazines, one would think I would have at least read some snark on it by now.

And it's particularly odd in that it's not like the black people/African-Americans, where the latter rules out blacks who aren't of African descent and living in America, not to mention being long. Same-sex marriage is a perfectly reasonable term, and is all of one syllable longer. It removes, simply by being used, any exclusion of bisexuals (or for that matter, asexual people who are romantically inclined towards people of the same gender--human sexuality is complex), and any Us and Them mindset.

Of course, something that bothers me more is that, despite actually being bisexual, it took me this long to think of this. What else am I missing?

Feel free to post some guesses in the comments section, along with whatever else.

Addictive Interestingness (TV Tropes)
Word Power

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Help for Haiti

Help for Haiti: Learn What You Can Do

Don't know how many people will actually read this, but I've donated and I hope you will, too.

The easiest ways to donate are probably to text “QUAKE” to 20222 to charge a $10 donation to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund (the donation will be added to your cell phone bill), or HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Being Broken

"They can't break me, as long as I know who I am."

-I'm Still Here, from Treasure Planet

This occurred to me a little while ago. I don't know when I finished the thought, but I do know what it came out to. We say someone is broken, or talk about breaking someone, but it's treated like this thing where you have to go through x, y, and z, and each must be done perfectly, without hesitation, and only by this manipulative mastermind.

And that's not it. Breaking someone is simply what the full phrase suggests: Breaking someone to your will (singular or plural you). If you have a specific idea in mind for what to do to someone else, then yes, you need to be a genius to pull it off properly, at least one in the ways of the human psyche. But you do not need to be up against a genius to be broken. You don't need to be strictly up against anyone. It can just be a group of neutral people who push you, pull you, shape you, until you fit their idea of what you should be.

The easiest way to break someone I've seen is erosion. You have different people in different groups with no connection, and you just hammer and wash and blow across them until they aren't themselves anymore. You're annoying, be like this. You're stupid, leave me alone. You like what? Ick.

And the thing is, once you realize that, it becomes much harder to be broken. Because, whether another person is trying to or not, if you can spot what would break you, you can fight against it. You stand up and you push back, instead of just being pulled. It won't always work--humans are social animals, so we're supposed to listen to the pack--but it helps. Who are you, where are you going, and why do you care what they say?

Tropes (as per usual, thought of afterward) (Oh, and addictive)
Break The Cutie
Broken Bird
Earn Your Happy Ending
The Woobie

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Musing#4: Friendship

Loyalty is when someone turns to you and tells you to run, then you say, "No," and help them.
Friendship is when someone tells you to run, and you say, "Hell no. You run," and you both stay.

Loyalty is when you follow someone to Hell and back, fighting and watching her back all the way.
Friendship is when you follow someone to Hell, and watch her back as you know she watches yours.

Loyalty is when you follow someone because he's right.
Friendship is when you stand by someone who's not.

Loyalty is a solid, honorable duty to stand by someone.
Friendship is when you can leave at any time, and don't.

Loyalty is a trait.
Friendship is a bond.

Hope is when you can see a light at the end of the tunnel, and go to it.
Faith is when you see no light but follow it anyway.

Hope is when everything you know is destroyed, then you see something you don't know.
Faith is when everything is destroyed, so you look for something that isn't.

Music is emotion and pitch weaved together until we barely know how we can separate it.
Magic is that which you allow it to be.

Goodness is doing what helps.
Evil is doing what hurts.

Now, riddle me this: Which of these do I believe?

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Poem

When You Must
There are times when you run or hide.
This is not that time.
This time, we stand.
This time, we fight.
This time, we go hand in hand.
We will not go gentle into that good night.
We will fight so long as we may move,
As long as we may breathe,
As long as our heart may beat.
We fight.

And when we stop...
We lay down our arms.
For to do otherwise is to be the next threat that must be fought.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Musing #3: The Year 2010

Not originally a musing, but got that way as I wrote.

Whether you pronounce it twenty-ten or two-thousand-ten, it's here. And with it, something else, at least to my mind.

There are important years in our life. As an American, at least, I've gotta say ten, thirteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one. As myself, I'll say five, six, twelve, and sixteen. That last one is coming up.

How many of you just did the math in your head there? Yeah. I've been writing the year as dd/mm/0y since I was six. It's...almost jarring to realize how much I've grown in that time, and how long it's been since 199x. I have grown from incapable of always keeping my letters straight to--well, I won't say my writing style is amazing, but the technique is there. And I've started to make it my own. I've figured out my main interests, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to get as a job. At six...I wasn't even sure who I was, in any way. Now, I may not know everything about myself, but I know that I want to sing. It hasn't come across on this blog very strongly, but music is my life. Singing, listening, playing...it's such a huge part of me, it's odd to look back at my self when I was so young I didn't know that. Even if I somehow was unable to get a job in music, I would sing.

I don't know if anyone reading this who doesn't know me will understand that. But now I feel like music is something that's written on my soul. And I didn't even think of it then.

I'm sixteen in a few months. I'm learning how to drive, which is an entirely new experience in and of itself. I have never had a form of movement that wasn't intuitive. Scooters? Turn the top thing the way you want to turn, push forward with your foot to move. Skateboards, pretty close, but it's weight distribution to turn. Bikes? Pedal and turn, clutch the brake to brake. But in a car, you've got all this stuff between you and the wheels, and you've got the gearshift, and then there's the fact that you can't see where the car is just by turning around, you have to memorize it by...well, hitting stuff. One hopes they're 2-liter soda bottles.

So, I guess the point is...I didn't realize I was growing up. It was there at the back of my mind, but I didn't feel it. I'm sixteen soon, and I remember not turning fifteen too long ago. I remember being, learning, teaching, seeing, knowing, changing, but not growing. I don't think I really have ever noticed that. I know what all of the others are, and how you do them. But what is growing? It's just something that happens. If I were in a cave and living, I'd be growing. I'm here in my nice, warm house and I'm growing. Growing is what you do when you're living.

...Huh. I guess that's it. Growing is everything you do when you're living. Growing is the adjustments to your environment, large or small, that allow you to keep moving. And whether those adjustments are to yourself pushing inward or other things pushing outward doesn't matter. Because changing others changes you. It might lead to introspection or direct action, but it changes you.
© 2009-2013 Taylor Hobart