so it really WILL make you go blind!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050527/ap_on_he_me/viagra_blindness&printer=1

the problem of feminism and gender

in college i stopped identifying as a woman.

well, i don't suppose i really ever did look in the mirror and say, "i am a woman." mostly i was too busy hoping my corporeal manifestation would disappear entirely. however, i did have the "i am a feminist" moment early on (thanks mom), and then later the "i am a dyke" moment compounded that.

then i stopped believing in gender altogether. more specifically i stopped believing in the gender binary that propels our particular breed of patriarchy. (how's that for a jargon-laden phrase? i do apologize. i'm usually more discreet.)

this is somewhat disconcerting because i still consider feminists and dykes "my people," as a friend would put it. but it's hard to reconcile the whole gender ambiguity thing with the very gender-specific ideas of feminism and lesbianism. i feel sort of as though my world is reduced to purely the females of the species, and within that group there are various gender identifications (girly straight girls, butch straight girls, girly queer girls, butch queer girls, etc.)... i don't even know how to describe what i mean, except to say that it's very confusing when i start following the progress of something like the blogher conference when i don't entirely embrace the idea of "women" being a whole and unfractured unit opposed to the equally whole and unfractured unit of "men." says me, it's not that simple!

pretty much i'm at the point where i lurk, because i want to feel connected to those communities, but at the same time i don't know how i feel about defining my experience as being that of one gender.

and as you can tell from this post, i have really no developed explanation or eloquent explication for the discombobulation i'm feeling.

to be continued. probably.

spore

ooh, how drooly: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4576855.stm
the guy that made the sims is working on a game where you can play an amoeba and make it evolve into whatever you want.

i hope this one doesn't have as many memory leaks as the sims2 does. hrmph.

a quote to brighten a rainy brain

"In short, the 21st century, if we survive, will be a kind of women's lib world. And as a matter of fact, it will be a kind of people's lib world because, you know, sexism works bad both ways. If the women have some role which they must constantly fulfill whether they like it or not, men have some role which they would have to constantly fulfill whether they like it or not. And if you fix it so that women can do what suits them best, you can fix it so that men can do what suits them best too. And we'll have a world of people. And only incidentally will they be of opposite sexes instead of in every aspect of their life."

from bitchphd

(and i'll ruin the quiz aspect and tell you it's a quote from isaac asimov)

gmail

because i'm in a public service announcement kinda mood this week, here's another heads up: i have so many gmail invites i could drown a small band of thieves in them.

ok, that really didn't make much sense, but it sounded cool!

anyway, if you want one, leave a comment with your email info and i'll send you one.

google factory tour

i'm watching the google factory tour, too. interesting stuff about their business model and possible future directions.

curves=supporting the bad guys

just a reminder (or a heads up in case you didn't know), curves, that ubiquitous women's fitness chain, is run by a rabid born-again pro-life christian. you have to to admit, it's pretty slick. the dude is hiding behind a pseudo-feminist cry of "girl power" (much like the spice girls and alanis morrissette) in order to fund his right-wing fanaticism.

them's some power puff sized balls on that guy.

geetar skeeelz

look out, eric clapton. i can play the 12-bar blues in exactly one key (A). i can also play barre chords, but only one per day. then my fingers cramp up like the crypt keeper's claw. i am also learning bends, but i've been slacking on those because in order to practice them i have to plug in my electric guitar. for some reason i can't be bothered.

sadly i had to reschedule my appointment to get my tattoo finished up because ducks were crossing the schuylkill expressway. they caused an hour-long backup. i shit you not.

wow that ended up being more scatalogical than i intended.

i'm wracking my brain trying to think of something library-ish to write about, but honestly i don't want to think about work. at all. ever. but especially not right now. so nyah.

incidentally, anybody else have any tips for things to do in chicago? i've never been there.

home sick

today i'm home sick, sitting in my freezing computer room, trying to plan the rest of my life.

the housing situation is resolved, for the most part. now we just have to do the actual moving. we found an apartment near philly, which makes me happy because it's not in cowtown (otherwise known as our hometown), but it's still in pennsylvania. i have an aversion to living in a state that doesn't care to afford me basic civil rights... but there isn't much we can do about it. that's where my job is.

so. we're going to move, the grrl is going to go back to school, and things are going to start getting pretty interesting.

i am definitely going to ala (there was some question because we're down to three librarians from five over the summer due to retirements) and i'm really looking forward to using the conference to expand my horizons. our library is very insular, and i'm not really comfortable with that. i think we need to network with other libraries because a lot of them are doing it a lot better than we are. i also think our particular environment allows us to become lazy, and i don't want to fall into that trap. i want to learn and publish and move forward.

boredom is the enemy!

and now it's time for cupcakes.

ALA

Well, I ignored my financial misgivings and registered today for the ALA conference in Chicago. It cost me $245 to register for the conference, a walking tour of Chicago, and a dinner. Now I have to find a hotel and a flight. Apparently discounts are available but I'm trying not to think about the grand total for this endeavor...

I've never been to an ALA conference and they're supposed to be good for networking, so I guess it's a sound career move (as much as I hate the concepts of "networking" and "career moves"). At the very least I'll get to see Baraka Obama and Ray Bradbury!

In other news, I itch.