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“Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality." Jules de Gaultier

Sunday, April 10, 2005

The End of this World

...is just around the corner.

I've decided to shut down the back burner. I've loved the experience. And occasionally not loved it.

But I've recently been keenly aware that my original intent with this blog --

to simmer back burner ideas to fruition....

(particularly, back in those days I was thinking of a microcinema)

-- has given way entirely to (best case) keeping in touch with long distance (by geography or time) family and friends and (worst case) to providing a constant "flow" of content to a nebulous audience of hits, loads, servers, operating systems and geographic regions...

It's an odd sociological experience to have an expression of yourself floating in cyberspace available to friends, family, strangers & acquaintances. If you like to manage face (and I, unfortunately do), you begin to feel panicked whenever your cyborg self has been frozen in some maniacal grin or snide critique for more than a day.

There was a month where I went to my friend Brian's blog every day and he said, "things are getting better."

and part of me knew that he just wasn't blogging anything new, but another part thought: Geez! How good can it get for him!

But of course, its better to be frozen in a happy, bounding upward motion than in the swirl of downward feelings that so many bloggers end up disappearing into

And this pressure of expressing something which is more NOW and therefore more AUTHENTIC is sometimes exhausting. But, more than anything, I'm keenly aware of the fact that I'm not doing enough of the writing projects that I *really* want to, and sometimes I'm hiding from that fact by writing toward the more immediately gratifying blogosphere....

So I'll miss this avenue of communicating with you -- but I hope we'll find other ways to keep in touch?

Shut down date is scheduled for the 17th. That's two years after the earliest archived entry. Which seems like a nice whole and complete way to bring closure. Thanks for reading. Its been a great boon to see the hits of friends and family and I know that eyes that return to any place on the web are either a compliment or a sign of great friendship. Whichever yours are, I thank you.

peace~

Labels: community, technology

posted by Redbaerd at 10:27 PM 6 comments

Friday, April 01, 2005

Still Not Cat People

So yesterday as I was sitting in the sunshine, Jaelyn and Addison happily digging to the bottom of the sandbox, and petting Liam, the formerly male cat, I thought to myself:

How does this happen?

How does someone who makes cheap jokes at the expense of cat lovers? Someone who says he's NOT a cat person? Someone who swears vows that he will not own a pet, not even a dog, which he loves, until his children NEEED a pet to survive...?

How does that guy end up with a purring pregnant, formerly male cat on his lap, petting the cat in the sunshine?

...

We named our first cat ( the first one that found us, that is ): Emma.

Because that is the name of Jaelyn's Beloved Cousin.

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(this is Emma)

Jaelyn names all dolls Emma, all stuffed animals are Emma, there's a magical land named Emma somewhere over the rainbow, and she herself pretends to be called Emma sometimes.

Was there any surprise when the stubby-tailed cat who nuzzled and purred and loved to be picked up by over-eager five year old hands was named Emma? Not really.

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(this is emma, the cat)

The only dark side of paradise was that Emma started to become Jaelyn's cat in the minds of everyone. Addison was a little bit scared to touch her. She was a she, and gender norming is a powerful thing in our culture. So Addison started to say each time Emma and Jaelyn embraced:

I wish *I* had a Liam.

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(this is Liam)

This is Addison's cousin Liam who is the brother of Emma

and this...

...unexplicably as if an answer to Addison's informal prayer...

...is Liam, too.

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(Liam the cat, that is)

...

There was a point at which I thought I was living in a nightmare populated by feline ill will. Not, mind you because these are mean cats. They're great cats. They treat you like a person, not an annoyance. They like to be petted and touched and they aren't too pushy. So why a nightmare?

Because not long after Emma and Liam arrived. Their MOTHER arrived. WE didn't take pictures, because we tried to discourage her arrival.

...

Now we get to the gender bending part of the story.

One night while I was holding Liam, I noticed that his ...er...equipment was a little off.

I came inside.

"You'll never guess what I just found out," I said, "Liam is a girl."

Addison looked at me confused.

"Our cousin?"

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

....

I imagine there will be a day someday in the future when parents send out gender re-assignment announcements, covered in a gentle transclucent paper, complete with a braided blue and pink ribbons tying the transcluscent veil over the ink jet printed digital photo,

but...just for the record ...this was not that day.

Liam our nephew has *not* become our niece.

*But* Liam our cat has since become Snowflake -- or more often -- Liam/Snowflake.

.....

Gender Bender Part Two

During the same week, Jaelyn Burst Into the house!

Mommy, Daddy! Liam's Mom keeps jumping on to his back and STEPPING on him. And She won't get off.

hmmm.

So Liam become Snowflake and his mommy became her daddy. And hopefully not even her daddy...or is that sort of thing acceptable amongst barn cats.

......

So how do people that are NOT cat people come to be so fond of a gender bending, profoundly preggers cat?

I suppose the same way that we live with all the rest of the contradictions that sew our lives together...

How do you continue to love the people whose annoying quirks you understand the best? How do you manage to hold onto your idealism once you realize that there are no niches of the world untouched by the corruption of politicking and bueracracy and power-hungry elitism?

......

hope you're at peace with the cats in your life~

Labels: community, family, story

posted by Redbaerd at 6:59 AM 2 comments

warmed over leftovers

  • who *is* my neighbor?
  • broken things
  • a vanilla shake afterwards
  • fading sense of destiny
  • turtle shells & suffocation
  • love and death in every little thing
  • project: take back eden
  • still taking back eden...
  • a tedious discovery
  • change of address
  • the end of the line
  • sunday afternoons in realty
  • where he came from
  • soundtracks and set pieces
  • what's the secret, max?
  • top two christmas presents
  • size matters
  • rabbit trailing
  • secret agent visits
  • the robots are coming!
  • saturday! finally!
  • snapshots of marital bliss
  • jonathon montgomery are you listening?
  • memory in a pan
  • moving the frig
  • get rich quick scheme
  • fear not / choose love
  • i am what / i wear / what i am
  • spirituality
  • when the naked guy puts his clothes on
  • into the shit
  • poor & oppressed
  • waiting
  • peace vs. ( )
  • buddha & thirst
  • ambivalent luck
  • 10 things i'm "into"
  • dreaming cedarville college
  • adding to apocrypha
  • the smell of bacon everywhere
  • sparkling clean septic systems
  • mugging
  • limin
  • rites of passage
  • status & solidarity
  • nametags & academic culture
  • longing together
  • alt.story
  • nobody's called me
  • vocation in the accidents of their work
  • difficult to hear God
  • the luxury of pondering calling
  • re-solving
  • announcing the end
  • the last post

blogs i read

  • David
  • Cliff
  • the waalkes fam
  • Mike & Jenn
  • Marcaus
  • Breathing Hope
  • Nate
  • Josh
  • Christian
  • Anti Onion Katie
  • Skylark
  • Brian
  • KatieSams
  • Kelly
  • Jared
  • Toph
  • Hula Girl Blues
  • Kev

more about me

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  • The Fam
  • My Work Identity
  • My Employer
  • Lynn
  • My sister
  • My Dad
  • My Mom

curious about culture

  • Ad Busters
  • low culture
  • scott mccloud
  • doug rushkoff
  • media ecology
  • mcluhan and wireless
  • ong and wireless
  • pop politics
  • pop cult mag
    • movie stuff

      • Wordplayer
      • Triggerstreet
      • ifilm
      • IMDB
      • done deal script sales
      • red clay pictures
      • broken sky films

      alt.story

      • locus novus
      • vidlit
      • artfish film
      • bull fight review
      • tree city
      • moment showing
      • zenvirus flash fiction
      • flashquake
      • vestal review
      • Yan Nascimbe's art
      • aiming for shalom

        • Sojourners
        • the hunger site
        • centre for social justice
        • trade justice movement
        • catholic teachings on social justice
        • increasing wealth disparity
        • walmart watch
        • 12 reasons gay marriage is wrong
        • from Ralph to BILL
        • Race and the wealth disparity
        • racial discrimination and hiring
        • mennonite central committee

        life in ohio

        • akron christian reformed church
        • canton
        • the repository
        • cantonweb
        • muggswigz
        • canton urban league
        • arts in stark county
        • the palace

        music

        • Paste
        • KCRW
        • Joseph Arthur
        • Track Star
        • Petrakovich

        notes on blogging

        • blogosphere as labyrinth
        • welcome to the backburner
        • the end of the backburner
        • simple RSS tutorial
        • History & Purpose of Blogging
        • How to start a blog pt. 1
        • How to start a blog pt. 2
        • Weblog Glossary
        • Weblog Heaven
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        • What Makes A Weblog A Weblog
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