Minor Lessons Learned While Home Sick

1) They do not escape at the end of The Great Escape
2) Only 2 of the Magnificent Seven are anywhere near magnificent
3) Basing an HBO series on characters' inability or unwillingness to change means that the intellectually compelling part of the series tends to dry up or become repetitive long before the writers have run out of story lines.
4) Very few movies are made about heroic single women entering middle age.
5) When at home, sick, alone, and feeling sorry for yourself, do not read books about suburban malaise in characters younger and wealthier than yourself.
6) When at home, sick, alone, and feeling sorry for yourself, do not read books with precocious characters who are younger than yourself written by precocious authors who are also younger, wealthier, and have prettier author photos than yourself.
7) When at home, sick, alone, and feeling sorry for yourself, do not read books by former high school classmates (although, she was really cool, and I am happy she ended up successful).
8) Too much orange juice and postnasal drip (yes, snot) will make your stomach upset.
9) You have to really be in pain before they give you the good drugs, but coughing might get you codeine.

Sounds of Silence

Somewhere along the line I picked up the notion that silence was good. Perhaps on that last camping trip I took, back in 1999, to the Texas Hill Country. I had always lived in the city, near an interstate or a very busy street, and did not particularly notice noise. At this time, I actually lived down the street from a fire station, so even sirens in the middle of the night did not phase me. Going to the Hill country made me realize how much effort my ears had been exerting to close out that general noise of the city. My eardrums relaxed and the silence became very big.

These past couple of months here, in the middle of nowhere, I've been surrounded by silence. This silence has become particularly acute in the past weeks, when I have been at home sick. Normally, when I am sick, or at least at home with a migraine, I have the t.v. on in the background to distract me from whatever is making me miserable. At the moment, I have no television reception (long story for another time). Lack of t.v. has been another acquired notion of goodness. With no television noise, with no street noise, with no noise at all, I have had time to wonder why people think all of this silence is somehow virtuous.

In all of the quiet, and devoid of any real energy to actally do anything productive due to whatever virus is now plaguing me, I find my thoughts wandering about to places that maybe they do not need to go, with a tendency to find their way toward whatever moral or psychological weakness that I might have. "Why have you not written a novel yet?" my thoughts ask. "Why did you go to that university? Why weren't you more interesting in your youth? How did you end up in the middle of nowhere, with everything you have to show for yourself lying wasted?"

Then, I start to hear music. At first, I thought that the music was a neighbor, but a quick investigation, accomplished by putting my ear up to the wall, indicated that this was not the case. Also, after a moment or two, a person can usually tell if the noise is coming from outside or inside their head. This is coming from somewhere in between. So, I'm now hearing things. Silence can make you crazy.

I think I am reaching this point in my life where the ways I have been trained to be and the ways that I have been trained to act are no longer useful. For instance, all of this "silence is good" and "television is bad" has not really been the way that I have actually lived my life, beyond the general sense of guilt that I should be doing something more productive or intelligent that constantly accompanies me. Silence has generally led me to boredom, and boredom has led me to trouble. Television has occupied that part of my mind that becomes bored and leads me into trouble when I have to do essentially boring tasks or live through boring periods of my life, such as paying the bills, doing the laundry, or migraines and illness. Silence as a rule does not lead me to any enlightenment or calm. All it does is agitate me. I need a certain level of noise most of the time.

Maybe that is what this period of silence has taught me, and this is about as enlightened as I will become right now before I start hearing voices with that music. Meanwhile, I desperately need some cable.

Personal and Political: Stuck in the Middle

This morning, one of my friends from a big ole suthun state, sent me a video from a national news station featuring a group that goes to the Dallas airport to welcome soldiers returning from Iraq. The piece was a human interest story, with lots of tearful families and soldiers, and veterans from the Korean and Vietnam wars talking about how they weren’t welcomed back so they want to make sure that these “guys” (yes, all of the soldiers depicted were men, as were all of the interviews with the exception of one wife. All of the soldiers were physically unwounded, as well) didn’t feel the same rejection. Heck, I was feeling a tad choked up, even as I felt frustrated and manipulated.

This same friend, earlier this month, sent me a “joke,” told in the voice of a gray haired veteran. In this joke, the veteran was advising the young returning soldier that, when an anti-war protester comes up to shake your hand to thank the soldier for his service and welcome him home, the soldier should wink at the protester’s girlfriend because he knows that she knows that she’s “fucking a pussy.” I do not have enough room to analyze the things wrong with that “joke.”

I can only imagine why he sends me these sorts of things, knowing our vastly different politics. He probably thinks they are funny or touching and sent these e-mails to me assuming that I will think they are touching and funny. I had expressed my displeasure at the “fucking pussy” joke e-mail, so he either sent me the video to mess with me or because he thought it was apolitical. My dad used to do the same thing until not only I but also my aunt and uncle and one or two of his more liberal friends rather loudly and in all caps requested that he remove us from his list. He still occasionally sends along things that he must either have sent to the wrong list or he also thinks are apolitical.

This latest video e-mail from my friend, however, made me wonder about the extent of politics in personal life. I’ve written before that I am not a particularly political person, but I do believe that the personal is political since I am, after all, a feminist. Yet, in holding that “personal is political” belief, I also wonder how to manage that in personal life. How far can a person take “personal is political”? The obvious answer in my radical-yearning little heart is “all the way.” Ideally, yes, “all the way.” That is, until I have to interact with people from home, back in Texas, back where people whom I love for non-political reasons behave in ways that are quite abhorrent to me.

The answer, on the surface, is to not talk politics with them. If my love for them and their love for me are based on something else, then we keep the conversation to that something else. I don’t send them mass e-mail jokes or spam on anything other than pets or babies. I don’t ask them to sign petitions or “check out this video” or “very funny” lists of gender differences. The most I ask in the grain of politics is that they extend that courtesy to me and that they not teach their children to refer to women as “bitches.” The “bitches” part I take personally since I was referred to as “bitch” for about ten years by everyone in my home (and not in a nice way, either).

Avoiding political talk, however, is not easy when you consider the personal as political. I can’t not consider the personal as political since many of the political ideas that I hold are based on personal experience, some with these very same people. For instance, being called “bitch” by my family for many years. “Bitch” used in that sense had very much to do with me being female and me not acting according to the definition for “female” held in my house.

When I grew up and left my home, I quickly learned that the same held true for the rest of the world, and I believed that the use of language to control someone was not right. I learned that the shape of my body, my very chromosome, differentiated me and marked me for discrimination in a million ways, some of which privileged me but did not empower me, some of which put me very much at risk. Realizing that, I was able to look to other people who were subjected to the same process by nature of their skin color or country of origin.

Perhaps I became too sensitive, but I want to err on the side of empathy (which actually causes me problems in the area of religion, but that is another story for another time). So, for me, the subject of politics began with personal experience and empathy. That sounds ridiculously emotional, not at all rational, which may have something to do with my own language. In reality, however, most people act politically in their own interest. Many people, however, would not characterize self-interest as emotional or soft. They would characterize it as “survival.”

Yet, none of my family, even the liberal one, sees any connection between political ideas and personal life. For instance, because they all think this e-mail sending friend is cool and funny, they want us to “end up together,” as they told me this past Christmas. They see no potential marital conflict stemming from differing political opinions. They do not understand why I don’t laugh at those “jokes” that cast men as idiots and women as smart and good. I’m a feminist, after all, so shouldn’t I find “men are dumb” jokes funny, isn’t that what I believe? They don’t understand why I bristle at racial pejoratives because “we don’t mean any harm,” and “oh, yeah, we forgot, ‘some of your best friends are black/Mexican/Asian/gay.’” In fact, I am more often than not, told that I need to get a sense of humor or get laid (yes, that is my own family saying, “you really need to get laid”) until I finally become so uncomfortable that I feel silence has become complicity. In other words, to them, politics is something that has nothing to do with the personal. Politics is on t.v., and concerns policies and war and elections whereas to me, it is something that affects people I know and care about. It is something that affects me.

In some ways, I consider those visits, and my connections down there to be insights into the way that the “other side” thinks and behaves. They keep the “other side” human to me so that I don’t end up vilifying the other side the way certain well-known talk show hosts and politicians do. At the same time, I not only feel complicit but also personally attacked by much of the discussion, even when it is not explicitly about politics.

I suppose, in some way, this is a perennial problem with many families, especially between generations. Unlike Tolstoy, I think that many unhappy families are unhappy in very similar ways. This problem may also be endemic to old friendships in which the two friends have developed in very different ways. I also think this problem is related to respect. I want to respect their ideas and their own ideological development, so I don’t overtly try to convert them. At the same time, I want my own ideas and person to be respected, especially if I must have an ongoing relationship with them, as is the case with families (and I do rather like my family for many reasons). That means that I must, at some level, try to convert them or at least make them see how they are behaving badly towards me. There, in the point between asserting my right to be respected and my desire to respect them, the point where the political becomes personal, is where I am stuck.

Railroads, Quilts and Myths

Continued from "The Underground Railroad Slept Here"

In the past ten years, a new layer has been added to the Underground Railroad mythology with the stories that enslaved women made quilts that provided maps of the route to freedom. This myth began with the 1999 book, Hidden in Plain View, and was perpetuated through a documentary and grade school curricula. Most recently, the story was embedded in the plans for a Frederick Douglass memorial to stand in Central Park, despite the fact that the quilt myth has no connection whatsoever to Douglass, including his own escape. The book and its supporters have been completely refuted by scholarly historians, most recently on the H-Net listserv H-Slavery, on the History News Network blog Cliopatria, and by historian David Blight in regard to the Douglass statue. Yet, the myth retains a strong hold on the public imagination.

The popularity of the quilt code story probably lies in the new dimension that it brings to the Underground Railroad myth. The standard narrative depicts the frightened slave running north where he (or she, but usually he) is hidden and assisted by white abolitionists. The hero of the story is the white sympathizer, the villain is the white slave catcher, and the slave is the victim. Harriet Tubman provided a compelling counter-narrative as the slave who not only escaped, but returned and helped others escape. She became a black hero in an Underground Railroad story. Additionally, the fact that she returned to Maryland to help other fugitives suggests the existence of a broader black community in which kin assist one another.

Tubman, however, was exceptional in all senses of the word. The quilt story takes on the part of Tubman's story that incorporates the enslaved black community and enslaved women into the popular Underground Railroad narrative. The quilts that allegedly gave directions to freedom were made by enslaved women incorporating both women's skills and African symbols into their codes, thereby placing emphasis on the women, their work, and the African heritage of the slaves. The quilters become heroic and an awareness of an African past is retained. Thus, those millions of people who remained in slavery are granted a central role in undermining the institution by assisting fugitives.

The quilt story, then, incorporates some of the realities of slavery into the Underground Railroad by placing black people at the center of the narrative. In this way, the quilt story incorporates some of the realities of slavery into the Underground Railroad myth and at the same time broadens its appeal.

The problem with these myths, however, is that they are just that. Expanding the appeal of a fiction does not make it a truth. The problem with the Underground Railroad story, quilts and all, is the same that is encountered wherever scholarly research meets with the public. Somewhere there is a demand for "heroic" stories, stories that are uplifting, that have heroes and villains, that end happily ever after. The demand is for an archetypal narrative that simply does not exist in history (or in life). When people attempt to shape historical events into that archetype, they create myth; and on these myths they create a form of public religion. They do not create history.

Spartacus

Because women have been told to be quiet about their opinions and the way that they express them from the dawn of time.

Because it could be anyone, anytime, for anything; especially if you run afoul of the "right" people.

A Major Award!

What a surprise! This 'blog has been given "A Thinking Blogger Award" by Another History Blog (who has a delightful discussion of "y'all," among other suthunisms).

According to the rules of the game, I have to list five other 'blogs (but I don't consider them "tagged" as in "you're it and now have to make a post of your own") that make me think. Pretty much all of my little list to the right would be doing that, or I wouldn't have them listed. In particular, however, I will single out a few.

1) I Blame the Patriarchy, because Twisty Faster lives out there on that radical feminist edge where you have to question every assumption about gender. That is a very unsettling place to go, so having a guide and companions makes the journey a little more comfortable.

2 & 3) Angry Black Bitch and blac(k)ademic, who is now taking a break from blogging, because they both remind me that I am not the center of the universe and that there are other experiences of the world out there.

4 & 5) Is There No Sin In It and Mad Melancholic Feminista, because they operate in different disciplines than myself, thereby showing me the different ways that those disciplines approach similar material.

6) Girlbomb, because she makes me aware of my own writing style.

I would also include the Babulon, but it isn't exactly a 'blog (not that I'm prejudiced against it for being a mere website) and Babu has not posted to it in forever so it is out commission; but, Babu always makes me think.

Fish and House Guests

I am currently playing host to these lovely guests, minus some red blood cells.

With all of the sleep, I thought I might have somehow invited some other type of visitor.

Apparently, you have to actually go to Africa to retreive the second visitor. I've only been as far away as Canada and Mexico. I did not pick up any visitors there. The first visitor would be a leftover from my mispent youth, except the mis-spending of my youth was not that exciting.

In any case, I have learned that fatigue, headache, and general "flu-like" symptoms mean that you are, in medical terms, sick; hence, the feeling of being unwell. Harmony exists in the universe.

Fun? Who Knew?

I missed my own 'blogiversary or 'blog birthday or whatever you would call it when you maintain something for a whole year. Most of my romances haven't lasted that long, and none of my jobs for the past three years (granted, most of them were by nature temporary. The jobs, too).

The anniversary was two days ago, when I slept for 24 hours. I looked back on my first post, "Why 'Blogs," in which I came up with a fairly negative assessment of 'blogs and asked myself why I was trying to "do" one if I thought they were so repulsive. Over the year, as I have written and as I have read 'blogs, I realize that there about as many ways to shape a 'blog as there are people. There are professional 'blogs, personal 'blogs, 'blogs about politics, 'blogs about babies, adult 'blogs, Adult (XXX) 'blogs, 'blogs that combine many things, 'blogs that are eloquent, 'blogs that are barely literate, 'blogs for commercials, 'blogs for communication, 'blogs for communities, and all sorts of nasty little trolls on 'blogs. I think to say that you have a 'blog today is as ubiquitous as someone literate in the 18th or 19th century saying that they kept a journal. Not everybody does, but no one is suprised if they do.

'Blogs seem to take on many different types of literary forms, as well. Bitch PhD wrote about 'blogs resembling 18th century periodical essays. I'm comparing them to journals. I have a friend (whose address I keep losing) who keeps one that seems to be taking up the torch of P.J. O'Rourke. Another friend keeps a MySpace page (she asked me not to link) blog where she publishes her poetry. These last two, like me, are treating the 'blog like a vanity press for our own literary ventures. Janice Erlbaum of Girlbomb, on the other hand, is turning hers into "more of an Official Author Website," due to the success of her own professional writing.* So, again, there are as many types as there are people and functions. 'Blogs, unto themselves, seem to be their own literary form for the age of the internet. None of this is, of course, news or theoretically ground breaking to anyone who has even heard of a 'blog; but it is some of what I have learned through association this year.

I have also learned that the format of a 'blog makes me write more, which was one of the things that I had hoped would happen. 'Blogging is a form of productive procrastination that brings me back to elementary school when I started writing little essays about people that I knew, illustrated at the bottom of the page. The essays were followed by the spiral notebooks filled with my Novels, also illustrated (but less so over time). Writing was fun and natural then, something I lost over the next few decades because any writing was for work. Any writing that did not involve work was A Waste of Time.

Yet, during those intervening decades, writing was something that I could do well. I did not struggle at it, as many of my classmates or fellow grad students did. My ideas might not be as cohesive or original, but, DAMN, I could put a sentence together without even thinking. The reason that I could write with relative ease lay in those years of writing for fun. Those years of fun were practice, even if they seemed like play. I had always tried to get adults to learn that computers were much easier for children to assimilate into their lives because children saw computers as toys and would play with them. Adults saw computers as work, and wanted as little trouble with them as possible. Adults had no time for play. Yet, when adults played with computers, their general computer skills seemed to improve. So, I take the same approach to writing now. I may not, at this very moment, be writing the article, or the book review, or the book that is work; but I am writing, keeping myself "warmed up," letting ideas flow, working with language. I may be procrastinating, but I have given the procrastination some purpose.

Keeping in practice, however, doesn't make this 'blogging thing fun. That distinction lies with the part of 'blogging that is self-publishing. Writing something, writing THIS, and seeing it appear only seconds later on the screen is a form of authorial cheap thrill. Plus, the possibility of an audience induces a small adrenaline rush. Even if there is no audience, or if the audience consists of only four regular readers (including myself), a few stop-bys from other blogs, and the we-are-going-to-pretend-they-aren't-pervs-so-we-can-sleep from Google searches, the mere prospect of an audience provides a bit of a thrill, an incentive.

I haven't clearly defined what the 'blog is supposed to be about any more than I did when I first started. I just enjoy doing it, and plan to continue for as long as it serves that purpose.

*I'm thrilled for Janice's success (and I don't even know her in person), but disappointed that her delightful style won't be so freely available on such a regular basis anymore. I'll just have to wait for her next book, or haul myself up to her next reading.

Sleeping Beauty

If a nap lasts 24 hours, can that nap rightly be called a "nap?" What if that "nap" had been preceded, only hours before, by a full night's sleep of 8 hours? What if that 8 hours of sleep itself had been preceded by a 3 hour nap, which itself had been preceded by 10 hours of sleep? What if the 24 hour nap, then, was followed by 12 hours of sleep? What if, in the space of 72 hours, a person slept 57 hours? Shouldn't all of this more rightly be called "hibernation?" Since humans do not hibernate, then something else must be going wrong. I await the count of my various types of cells, captured in lovely tubes of red, to learn if something actually is wrong, or if my mother was correct all of those years and that I am actually just inordinately lazy.

Nephew the Elder, asleep
(this post is not about him)

Presidential, Race

I’m not really a political person; or, rather, I’m more of a “personal is political” than a “politics as sports” sort of a person. I don’t write about current political events because I don’t really have anything new or erudite to contribute to the discussion beyond a comment on someone else’s more articulate blog. Still, I got into an e-mail discussion with a friend today that made me think that, as a historian who has some specialization in African American history, as a white person who is trying to understand white people’s role in stopping racism, and as a person who is being represented in Congress by one of the men in question, I might should say something on this “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” matter.

To quickly sum up the situation, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del)* began his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination by summing up his potential opponents. When he got to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), he described Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” He, unfortunately, meant this assessment to be a compliment; and, in his attempts at retracting the statement, he clearly does not seem to understand exactly why he has caused such a furor.

Biden betrayed in his statement something Big D calls “white liberal paternalism.” White liberal paternalism, while ostensibly well meaning, is in fact just a slightly more benign form of racism. People who adhere to this paternalism are not overtly racist in the ways that most people seem to associate with racism. For instance, they don’t lynch black people, they don’t use derogatory terms about black people, and they oppose the KKK. They will often make statements like “some of my best friends are black,” or “black people are just like you and me,” or “he’s not really like other black people.” In making these statements, the speaker thinks that s/he is paying the black person a compliment by being inclusive of the black person or praising the black person when, in fact, the speaker is pointing out that the black person is actually an exception to a rule. Whatever this exceptional black person is, all other black people are not.

More importantly, the white speaker demonstrates that s/he has divided people into “Us” and “Them” categories based upon race. George Bush made a very revealing statement of this sort many years ago when he referred to a black audience as “you people.” White people did not understand the anger of black people over this statement because white people believed Bush was just addressing a factual difference that he was white and the audience was black. Black people, however, understood this statement as one of exclusion. This “Us” and “Them” dichotomy also carries the implicit assumption that “Us” is better than “Them” and that “Us” is normal while “Them” is not.

Biden set up the “Us” and “Them” context of his offending statement by assessing his white opponents’ political record, then assessing his black opponent’s hygienic record. He did not have to point out the white opponents’ hygiene, intelligence, ability to speak well, or physical attributes because those were all either given or irrelevant. Thus, he suggested that articulate, bright, clean, and attractive are all qualities of “Us,” white people. Inarticulate, unintelligent or dull, dirty, and unattractive are all qualities of “Them,” dark people. Obama, of course, is the exception because he is not like the other “mainstream” black people, or he is not like other black politicians whom Biden seems to presume are out of the mainstream.

Still, Biden seemed to believe that he was paying Obama a compliment by crediting Obama with qualities that he already assumed were inherent in his white opponents. This reveals another aspect of paternalism. “Us” is a category of privilege and power while “Them” is a category of exclusion. The white speaker is acting as a gatekeeper to that privilege and allowing the black person access to that privilege. Access to the privilege is not equality, however. Biden may have been so gracious as to allow Obama to sit among the potential contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination; but, the implication was that Obama is permitted while the others are entitled.

In addition to the paternalist brand of racism that Biden expressed, his statements were factually wrong. They were not factually wrong in the sense that Obama himself is not articulate or bright or clean or attractive. He is, and more, and not in spite of or because of being black. Biden was factually wrong in assuming that Obama is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” either in or out of politics, either now or at any time in the past. I will refrain from making any sort of list to provide evidence because, as a commenter pointed out on BitchPhD, a list of “mainstream African-American[s] who [are] articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking” still reinforces the concept of racial rules and their exceptions. Ialso think debates about who should go on a list underscores just how marginalized black people have been from the "mainstream" throughout U.S. history.**

Since I am making many inferences about Biden’s statements that do not reflect well upon Biden, let me give him the benefit of the doubt and make some inferences that could work in his favor. Obama certainly seemed to do so in saying that he believed Biden meant no harm. Let us assume that he rather clumsily meant to say, “here is the first black man who could be a serious contender not only for the Democratic nomination but also for the presidency.” Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton might take exception to that, but let us assume that Biden’s statements were made after in depth and professional analyses that concluded that Obama had the popularity, charisma, connections and whatever else goes into winning elections and, therefore, was a clear threat to Biden’s campaign. Many a commentator has speculated on Obama’s potential in just such terms.

Biden seems to have recognized something important happening in the history of race in America, but he seems not to have the language to express this in any other terms than that of white paternalism. He recognized that a black man could be a very successful competitor in the primaries; but he did not understand exactly why. The black skin confused him because of his assumptions both about black people and about black political opponents. His statements implied that Obama would be a successful candidate because Obama overcame a variety of character flaws that Biden seems to associate with black people, and that his popularity stems from being the first black politician to do so, regardless of evidence to the contrary. Obama may be successful for many reasons, but not because he overcame being black. He is black, was black, and will be black, no amount of questioning his blackness will change that, and everyone reacting to his blackness proves that. Obama will be successful because he will overcome the clear and present racism of the American public while also doing everything else a candidate must do to win an election.

Overcoming that racism, however, is the key. Biden’s statements reveal the varieties of racism that still exist even among white liberals. Be it overt racism, paternalism, or the denial of race through “color blindness,” white people have a very difficult time with black people in positions of power. Obama’s potential presence in next year’s election, and the reactions to his presence, especially if those reactions change over time, will tell enormous amounts about white racial attitudes (which is different from racial relations) in the United States today.

*Like I said, I'm not a politcal writer, so I am not well versed on Biden or his career and have no strong opinion about the man. This post is an analyis of his statements about Obama only.

**Would, for instance, Frederick Douglass have been considered "mainstream" in 1845? Or Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1955?

Paranoia!

SiteMeter gives you some interesting insight into the human mind as it searches the internet. For the most part, people find this blog via my comments on other sites. That's cool. That's why they have you put your web address on the little comment form. It's the community part of blogging and its great.

Then there are the people who find you through Google searches. Now, who knows exactly what they are looking for. They could be doing research. Once, many years ago, before I had internet at home, I myself was doing research after hours at work*, looking up Andrea Dworkin. She wrote a lot about power and sexuality, with pornography being her focus. Clicking around, I must have hit on a wrong link, or hit a link that I thought was going to contain more information about power and sexuality as it manifests in porn. Well, it was that; except more in an "example" form, if you catch my drift. I shut that puppy down fast (people get off on that stuff? Definitely not my thing).

Then, about two months later, the web spies sent a message to my boss saying someone was surfing for porn at the office. They even had the address, although the did not seem to have the context. They also seemed to have investigated the site in much more depth than I did, because their descriptions of the site content were a little more detailed than I could have given. That's what you get for doing your personal work at the office when the office is kinda-sorta but not officially religiously affiliated with the Baptists.

Anyway, this is to say that people looking for "gay fucking boys" or "fucking children" or "teacher fuck student" or some other combination of words that inevitably includes "fuck," "sex," or "cock" (use a word once!) might just be doing some important research, or are on some FBI sting operation to arrest pedophiles, or something positive. Sometimes a little denial is a good thing.

They all aren't pervs, or people researching pervs. There was the person searching for "procrastination." Isn't that sort of a meta-concept in regard to blogs? There was also the person searching for "High School Love." Awwwww.

Then, of course, there are the locations where people are surfing from. Ifind it amazing that someone in Europe is actually looking at something that I wrote. That's so cosmopolitan! I was a bit curious about the Iranian viewer; but that was just a prejudice. Not everyone from the Middle East is some terrorist.

Then there was the Pentagon -- Yes, it said Pentagon.mil -- who visited earlier today. They came in via Shakespeare's Sister, from some innocuous comment I made about Joe Biden putting his foot in his mouth, even as he tried to extract it. I'd be disturbed if it came from the comment about wanting to smack the shit out of W. Bush if I ever met him. Still, do I now have a "File"? Am I considered some dissident? Am I a threat to National Security?

Are they now investigating that time that I tried to join the Army to escape my crummy life but ended up barred forever from service and then stayed in a hotel next to the Arkansas State capitol the weekend before Clinton was reelected and gave his speech from the platform that they were setting up just under my window and I kept joking in very poor taste about the Oswald's eye view and the hookers headed up to the campaign press whatever on the upper floors while I was also reading Primary Colors and went to the barbeque joint that "Anonymous" Klein mentions in the book and went there with six -- yes SIX -- black men and then became a radical feminist and ended up on not only the front page but also the subscription ads of the Socialist Workers' Party newspaper and then was contacted by an old friend who now works as a civilian for Navy intelligence but decided that he didn't want to be my friend anymore because I was a big ole radical and now I write a blog?

Or do people from the Pentagon just surf the web on company time?


*We won't get into the issues of using work equipment for school research, which would fall under the category of "personal use" and would be wrong. I was wrong in that respect; but I wasn't wanking off at the office!