Totally Rad Event Update

VAGINAL STATUS: Achy


This weekend, my friend and comrade MarilynJean threw her baby shower for Bristol Palin that got some attention from BUST magazine (at the same bar in Cleveland where Princess and I had our gaywedding reception). 100 of my friends showed up, they made a giant and delicious art installation of cupcakes laid out like birth control pills in 28-day cycle packs, Lounge Kitty (a social worker and absurdly big-hair wearing jazz-singing sensation who is the toast of Cleveland) performed, people reveled in their good will toward the Palin family.

And they raised $1000 for Planned Parenthood of Alaska. Sarah Palin will get the thank-you cards, because she really started it all.

Ah, my people, how I adore your twisted little minds. Congratulations to MarilynJean and her crew, and many happy returns to Bristol. Bless her heart.

God Shopping

VAGINAL STATUS: Holy

This is my theory about how religion works: You go to the showroom and you pick one out.

Since no one knows the whole truth about the Bigness, we all conjure a version that suits our needs. It seems that trust in a larger Plan/ner is a basic human drive, and faith meets emotional and social needs as well as spiritual ones. I do believe faith generally helps people, that it’s good for us. But whether inspired or delusional every culture through all of history has come up with divine explanations to make meaning. Though some individuals always opt out of these explanations, building a cosmology is among the first tasks any emerging civilization completes; forming communal belief systems is what we DO.

So find the one that fits you. You want something reliable, not too flashy and not too expensive? Most American Protestant sects will help you out, I had a shine for Methodists. Need something to accommodate a big family? Mormons offer the mini-van of religions. Looking for an infinite number of chances to wreck and try again? Hinduism. Something fast and flashy for the social climber? Scientology. You want a classic, populist vehicle with a very strict instruction manual in 6,793 languages? You are a Catholic, my friend.

Most folks seek a religion that has a standard Home Culture feature and a built-in Family Tradition attachment. We almost always choose to be whatever our parents were, or upgrade into something that is at least a recognizable cousin. This is sensible and has a noble purity to it. We learn about the Bigness as children through the filter our People offer us, and that lens will always have the same magic to you that your threadbare Blankie does. We seek guidance and comfort from our Creator with a child’s heart. In hard times, in grief, in tenderness, in pain, we connect to the Spirit most sincerely through the first prayers we knew.

My Mama agreed (walking me to work the other morning) that we’re making it all up, though her Christian tradition is centrally important to her and she’s never driven anything else. She says it‘s important to feel connected to her roots and her family, and the hymns are special to her. Plus she likes the focal picture she has of God and Jesus, they seem like kind and protective caretakers.

But it is a choice, of course. And – just to stretch a metaphor a little bit more -- plenty of us do find that the vehicle our family used doesn’t go where we need to travel. Some folks really do start from scratch, lay out all the contenders, try the rites and read the scriptures of several faiths. For lots of us, though, we get called toward a faith by some need that our family’s tradition did not meet.

I needed a religion that was about women, because that’s the primary way I filter the world. I chose the path most attached to the untold history of women, a celebration of female power dark and graceful and holy, practiced by women for millennia in service to their communities, a faith that values transformation, justice, balance, healing, and compassion. Something earthy, sexy, shameless, pulsing and POWERful.

So that’s how I became a Witch.

But I’m in a mixed marriage, doncha know. Princess has chosen herself a path over this past year or two, and it’s a lovely group of people who I think are very good for her. She’d never have believed it her old self, but she’s in total NRE* about a RELIGION.
And the winner iiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssss:

Independent Catholic!

It’s gay Catholic, in practice, how hot is that? They are dead fucking serious about reclaiming the traditions and she is soaking up the holy revolution of it, it lights her up. She feels finally at home. It’s lovely.

She’s decided to get baptized.
And that’s another post.

*NRE = New Relationship Energy...common term among poly folks that acknowledges the time when you first get together with someone/thing new and you are kinda psycho because of how into them you are. You are sweet and annoying, no way around it. Just FYI.

Three Wise Men

VAGINAL STATUS: Smartypants


I heard Salman Rushdie speak last year – megawatt smartie, he. He spoke to the conflicts going on around our world these days. There is a misconception, he said, that we are engaged in a holy war; Christians versus Muslims. East versus West. Actually, says he, these are not separable factions, let alone polar opposites, these “sides” are an illusion.

East and West are inextricably intertwined, and have been since the Crusades. Christians and Muslims are both the children on Abraham; they dance, taking turns leading and following, their diaspora link together somewhere in every family, the tracks of these ancestors cross and cross back through millennia.

The conflict, says very smart Salman Rushdie, is between reason and fundamentalism.

And he is right. Two other smart men have also come to this conclusion. Mouse is a student of History, actually, literally, and a teacher to his core. He tells me this is all about the Age of the Enlightenment. There was a time when God was the only Mover, and human lives were short and brutal, and a Better World was the thin comfort that kept the peasants from revolt. Then the Enlightenment dawned, the Revolutions rolled over tyranny and superstition, and the world r/evolved forward.

We built our nation on reason, on logical fairness compelled via laws written and interpreted by Reasonable people. Certainly the system runs good people over from time to time, is full of the flaws that come with humans – our cradle-mates, fear and stupidity – but the basic tenant is that we will try to uncover truth and live by what it says. During the Enlightenment science was at the pinnacle of regard, a web of discovery and excavation expanding our self-knowledge through deciphering the codes manifested in the natural world. Truth IS discernable, our earnest nation thought; we have to make ourselves wise enough to REAL-ize it.

And now this third smart man, Barak Obama, he is telling us that our reasonable selves are needed by our country. He talks to us as though we are capable of critical thinking. He does not refuse to acknowledge complexity, nor does he see complexity as an impossible barrier. He tells us the solutions to our headaches of Now are still possible, but that they will require much work and these hard times are realistically likely to last a long while yet.

Sarah Palin and John McCain are the poster kids for fundamentalism, for because-I-said-so logic, for the theory of fake science that the world was Intelligently Designed for us to consume, for the comforting binary of Us vs. Them. They are rumor-sowers, conjuring up the dragons we ignorant serfs both dread and worship. The bogeymen of that dark side have cultivated our savagery until we’ve almost eaten ourselves right up.

Obama is about nuance and negotiation, wisdom and justice and restraint and the daily work of citizenship, asking us to vote our better selves in a cool, low-pitched lullaby tone. He’s literally the Voice of Reason. Blessed be his name, may he deliver us from evil.

Baby Shower for Bristol

VAGINAL STATUS: Expectant

This is such an awesome idea, my friend MarilynJean is a superwoman. She's been working for choice in innovative ways for many years, and this party is a grand example thereof, it's inspired! It reminds me of the Pledge-A-Picketer program they are running at Preterm, where I used to work -- for every hour that Protestor X spends screaming at women going into the abortion clinic, a pro-choice supporter gives a donation. If the screamer shows up, s/he is just giving the clinic cash to pay the baby killers. Sweet!

Anyway, CleveLanders, try to make it if you can. There will also be clothes to purchase from my favorite fat fashionista, Rachel Catherine!

Baby Shower for Bristol - Celebrating Comprehensive Sex Education

Host: MarilynJean
Location: Prosperity Social Club
1109 Starkweather, Cleveland, OH 44113
When: Sunday, October 19, 3:30PM
Phone: 216-926-8819

While Bristol Palin's pregnancy is a personal family matter, it has re-energized a national discussion about abstinence-only education and its failure to be effective. Along with movies like Juno, the baby craze sweeping Hollywood, the hyper-sexualization of teen starlets, Jamie Lynn Spears and the rise in sexually transmitted infection cases in NE Ohio, comprehensive sex education is needed now more than ever.

Join me and other snarky change agents on Sunday, October 19 at 3:30pm at Prosperity Social Club in Tremont to celebrate the benefits of comprehensive sex education and take action on the Ohio Prevention First Act.

The Ohio Prevention First Act focuses on the prevention of unintended pregnancies through comprehensive sex education for teens, including abstinence, and affordable, accessible birth control. The Ohio Prevention First Act will reduce unintended pregnancies through: Realistic sexuality education and teen pregnancy prevention programs, Funding for family planning programs, Guaranteed access to birth control prescriptions, contraceptive equity, and emergency contraception access and education.

In lieu of gifts for Bristol and Levi, I ask that donations be made to Planned Parenthood of Alaska in honor of Sarah Palin. Donors will be invited to sign a letter that will be sent to the Governor's office in Alaska, as well as the McCain-Palin HQ thanking Gov. Palin for her generous support of sex education programming. There's no minimum or maximum on donations and donations are not required to attend.

Can't make it? You can send donations to:
(address deleted for confidentiality -- email Starla and I will pass your contact info on to MarilynJean)

Bonnie, owner of Prosperity Social Club, is being generous and opening early just for us AND offering a special on her house Sangria. Prosperity has a full menu and seasonal drafts on tap. There will also be homemade Cupcakes for Choice and baby shower games and prizes!

NOTE ON ATTIRE: I know its autumn, but pastel-colored attire is strongly encouraged!
Can't make it or send a donation, the please share invite with your (cool) friends.

Love Sarah times infinity plus one?
Check out: The Palin Effect

REAL BABIES WELCOME!

Disclaimer: This fake baby shower is supported by many cool women and men, but not endorsed by any candidate, political party or organization. So if you gotta problem, come see me.

Where Ya Been?

It's so sad, I don't even have a dozen posts yet and I can't keep up with my blog! I expect my rate to dwindle over time, sure. I have good "starting energy", a euphemism that means I get really quite obsessive about new projects until I abruptly quit mid-sentence, mid-puzzle, mid-skein, mid-chopping, whathaveu. So that will likely happen again, I fear. My couple-of-posts-a-week goal will become links-once-a-month, and that will be that. I mean, probably. We all have infinite capacity for change (I am a social worker, it's the mantra of my profession), but let's do just acknowledge my habits and their near inevitability.

But anyway, this is not that. I been a BUSY beaver, yes yes! Here's what's up with me: the Charm City Kitty Club (www.charmcitykittyclub.com) (and can I just take a second to be annoyed that making a link in html is not working for me? Just cut and paste already, bitches) show is this weekend -- we have three a year and those weeks are always pretty up-for-three-days crazy. Princess would like to especially invite all you folks (the three or four Clevelanders that read this) to join us -- she directed the "Pussycat Players" (the skits we do in between the performers we bring in and showcase) this time and she is busting her buttons with kinda bashful pride.

So there's that. I'm in the show (well, my voice is), I'm "in charge" (total figurehead) of our Merch Team and am selling the folkses my own crafts, I'm baking cookies for the bake sale, making props, finding costumes, frantically emailing details, on and on and on, it eats life in the crunch time.
And, happily, I'm helping to get our house together (though, let's be honest, it's 15% my work and 85% Princess') because one of those three fine Clevelanders IS coming down to see the show. It's Sparkle (Hi Sparkle!), Princess' BFF and a very close friend to me as well -- I can't can't CAN'T wait to spend some time with him, he's a mensch.

Aside from Kitty Club, CubeCity is swinging into its busy fundraising season and eating us all alive along the way. I'm coordinating our department's cook-off day. This is a-lot-by-a-mile more work than that little sentence would convey. It's on Monday. The day after Kitty Show weekend. I'm making sure we have enough crockpots (5), Foreman grills (4) and blenders (3) to get the job of feeding our floor tempting treats to raise cash accomplished. It's basically a details-and-chatter job, not the sort I'm suited to at all, and it's at a time when the JOB part of my job is pretty heavy as well. But, obviously, I'm sorta proud of myself as well, it will be a swell event and I'll get a lot of feel-good strokes off of it.

I'm also doing this and that -- house parties and play parties, day trips and head trips, busy and dizzy, helping and counseling and teaching and settling, the flotsam of laundry and jetsam of bills...you know, life. I don't have a weekend with a free day until after Halloween.

I'm overstimulated and grateful and, today, really pleased with how beat my drum in the world. I'll see ya when I see ya, ok?