Sleepless

There's a man living in my building. Or maybe not my building but maybe the building that adjoins mine. I hear him at night. He makes a loud noise that sounds like a crying out of some sort. The first time I heard him I listened harder worried that he was hurt. The noise sounded like it could be coming from someone in pain. It's not really a groan. It's a loud release of sound. So the first time I listened harder. I don't want to be one of those people who hears the sound of distress and ignores it.

Years ago I watching TV and slowly became aware that I was hearing someone yelling loudly, seemingly in combat and calling for help. By the time I became fully aware they had stopped. A few days later I was talking to a woman who owned a shop down the street. She had been the one calling out. Someone had come into her shop and stolen something. Her boyfriend chased them and they attacked him, hurt him in some serious way that I don't remember and then she attacked them with a fork. I think it was a fork. I'd been close enough to help. Call the police if nothing else. But I had no view of them. Only the sound. In the city you learn to ignore noise.

So the first time I heard the man I listened to try and hear and understand what he was communicating. It's hard to describe the noise. It could be the sound of someone coming to the end of a yawn. My mom makes a noise at the end of some yawns. It's more a release of sound than a purposeful communication. It might be the sound someone makes when they are drifting off and trying to stay awake. A coming back to awareness with a start kind of sound.

There's an air shaft between the two buildings. More than an air shaft really. It's a smaller space that opens to a larger patio and some apartment have back doors that open onto it. My living room window opens onto it. I hear the clatter of shoes on wooden stairs. I hear conversations and brooms and hoses and windows opening and closing.

I haven't been sleeping well. I start the night in my recliner. I turn off what ever I've been watching on TV, lean back, close my eyes and try to sleep. If I get in bed too soon I toss and turn but in the recliner I stay still. I lay there and listen to the drone of my internal dialog until I drift off. If I'm lucky I sleep a few hours. I wake up because I need to go to the bathroom. I go and get in bed. Sometimes I can't get back to sleep so I return to the recliner. I try to tell myself stories to quiet the drone.

That's why I hear the man. I'm right by the window in the living room. I can't tell what apartment the noise is coming from. I hear the noise a few times every night. Eventually it stops. Or I stop hearing it. I've already noticed that I hear it as a background noise and ignore it. There's an odd awareness of a choice to not pay attention that happens in the city. Or maybe it's just me.

I wish I could sleep.

Letting Go

I've been going through my blog roll again trying to knock it down to something I can actually get through. I am failing. As fast as I delete I add. I'm trying to use some kind of common sense. If I'm not reading someone and they aren't reading me then ... but I'm too attached.

I finally canceled my WoW account. I've haven't played in more than a year. The last few times I tried to play I ended up downloading patches and lost interest. Given all that you might wonder why I hadn't done it sooner. The minute I did it I felt sad. It's easy enough to rejoin. Sigh.

I'm not exactly a pack rat but I do have a lot of stuff that I should just toss. Little plastic animals from martinis, rocks and shells, piles of magazines.

The blog roll trip brought back memories. I've always liked big brain blogs many of which I don't even understand. I love art and photo blogs. And I love journals. I've stopped believing in a blogging community. I think they exist and are useful but I've never quite fit in.

Heh.

I love the random stuff you can find. This is who I want to be when I grow up.

There is a lot of chatter about what the Internet is doing to our brains. I've heard this guy on a few shows. I have the radio on listening to the news from last night, which makes me angry and sad while I'm smiling over a photo of a baby. And I jump to Facebook every so often. Short attention span, multi tasking suits the Gemini brain. It's why I was a good line cook. I can manage more than one pan at a time. However, in the moment that I'm seething and smiling I do wonder if it's all too much.

Lately I've had days when I need to sit with my eyes closed. No sounds except for the neighborhood rumbles and bangs. It's a raggedy kind of meditation.

IMHO

When days and days go by and I don't write my inner nag begins to poke and question. I used to write about the political news of the day but now I often wonder if it's useful. There is almost nothing but opinion out there.

Friends post and link to fear laden articles about the worst possible outcomes. It's all Armageddon. Others post and link to positive action based stuff. Hard to want to criticize but it often feels like avoidance.

Things is tough all over. No doubt.

I read, listen to and watch a lot of political chatter so I must find usefulness in it all.

I don't know how to not have a broken heart. There is too much to mourn. So the question becomes how to hold it all and still want to take the next breath.

I don't have the answer.

Yet.

Huge. Again.

Yeah. I am so boring that all I have to write about is television.

So.

Second episode of Huge. There are things to like.

I've been reading other fat activist commentary and reaction, some of which given without a viewing of the show. There is the fundamental issue of how fat positive can a show about a diet camp be and I am with that concern. But I also think that the show is portraying some of the issues in fat life in a very subtle and even moving manner.

The intersection of food addiction and fat politics is problematic. In every gathering of fat community I've ever attended someone has whispered to me about their food addiction. On the one hand, maybe fat community isn't the place for that conversation. On the other hand the fact that a fat person can feel so unsafe to talk about it feels sad. The whole - no diet talk - position feels silencing and heavy handed. On the other hand, I've been on fat political list serves and forums in which someone blathers about their diet and exercise habits and it can become annoying. Sometimes when I'm writing about fat politics I feel the need to make a statement about my own feelings about food and exercise because I have very strong feelings about what constitutes good food. I'm less interested in talking about exercise but generally speaking I think moving is a good thing.

Our relationship with food is part of our experience. Most fat people have some diet history. Placing the show in a diet camp seems reasonable to me. And. It is a worry.

The manager of the camp has her own diet history and it seems to be linked to her relationship with her father. There was a moment when she was trying to write an email to her mother and ate a small muffin without noticing. I've had that experience. I have been eating and spaced out. It hasn't happened to me in a long time but I have had that experience. For some people it's a daily occurrence and source of concern. It is a real experience and was nicely portrayed.

The show may overly problematize food. And that would be a drag. It does seem like they also point out how overwrought things can be in many ways. In the first episode the tent councilor confiscates anything that might be "food", like gum, breath mints. When she asks if a toothpick is flavored she seems crazy. In last nights episode a package from home needs to be inspected for possible contraband.

I always have the same reaction. Instead of infantalizing why not empower? Why not try to engage people in a deep understanding of food and cooking? I sometimes feel at odds with the fat activist community because I am critical of what I call crap food. And I doubt I'd have much credibility in food political movements because ... I'm fat. What's a girl ta do?

Heh.

The show has created so many interesting relationship story lines and is full of subtle moments. In last nights episode the not-really-fat and very pretty girl notices the younger sister of a new camper checking her own belly size in a mirror and has a look of concern. It's a fleeting moment. Easy to miss.

The thing that really worries me is the new campaign being launched from the show. They're talking about "living" to your fullest and there is a diet and exercise message.

So far I think the show is dynamic and interesting. Is it fat positive? Not exactly. Is it about the lives of fat people? Somewhat.

I have always wanted us to find a way to talk about food and food issues in the fat political community. It's not a simple conversation. But if we aren't a part of the conversation the people who think we need to be thin to be healthy own the debate.

Huge

I was really looking forward to Huge. The commercials were pretty great. There were things that I liked very much not the least of which was how many young fat actors now have jobs. I thought they created some interesting relationships and portrayed a variety of characters. It's a little hard for me to understand how they're going to maintain the fat rebel character when she's choosing to remain at diet camp but it will be interesting to watch. And most of all I liked that they showed how damaging dieting can be to a young person's sense of worth.

I'm not that well versed in eating disorders but I don't think there are fat bulimics. I might be wrong and maybe the portrayal of a young woman who eats a bunch and then throws up was intended to show a beginning bulimic. It just wasn't clear to me.

The Times did a review that begins with an assertion that gainer blogs are an offshoot of the fat pride movement. Um. Wrong. Someone trying to gain weight is pretty much as loopy as someone trying to lose weight in my opinion. Fat pride (a descriptor of the movement that always makes me a little tense) has nothing to do with trying to be fat when you aren't. It's about owning the body that you have and making food and exercise choices that are about ... food ... and exercise.

I think there many as many ideas about "the movement" as there are fat people. I've never loved size acceptance. It feels passive. Fat pride feels active but I don't feel any more pride about my weight than I do the color of my eyes. I'm fat. It's just one thing about me. It's become central in my identity because of the cultural crap about it. Not because I needed or even wanted to focus on it. I'm not ashamed. I'm not proud. I'm just fat.

The main character's rebel stance is an act of defiance. I understand that. I think that's often the way it begins. But the review in the Times takes home the message that being fat is about being discontent. And I can see how they got there. I'm not sure how they can establish a grounded notion of size being a fact of diversity. It's a show about a diet camp.

So we'll see.

Mornings

April linked this on Facebook.
In the morning we awaken loaded down with the weight of entropy and sleep. Our natural response is to turn over and go back to sleep and put off the crisis of stepping out into the world. Perhaps the promise of something better gets us up onto our feet. Most acts of engagement require an effort of will, desire and an emotionally charged image of how things might be different.
It's interesting because I've been thinking a lot about my mornings. I've always needed time to be slow in the morning. If I need to be somewhere early I wake up earlier to allow for slow time. I stumble to the computer, check email, play something mindless like Spider Solitaire while I eat. Even when I swim I wake up early enough to have a little zone time.
When I was working on the MFA and for a few years after that I got into a habit of listening to KPFA or KQED while I read blogs and wrote my post. I listen to the radio now but I don't blog very often. I half read some newspapers. Play a game.
I keep thinking I should try to do some yoga first thing. I am in the pool three days by 6 AM and by 8:15 on Saturday. Then I come home and zone.
Most acts of engagement require an effort of will, desire and an emotionally charged image of how things might be different.
I think there is something to just imagining how it might look if it were different. I don't begrudge myself some zone time but I wish it were shorter. I realize that I am the one who needs to make it shorter.
Writing often begins as a revelry. I walk around with a repetitive narrative and eventually I sit down and type. I have something in my head these days.
...will, desire and an emotionally charged image of how things might be different.

The Book

I got a new computer. It's a very happy thing but it doesn't have a floppy drive. I guess those are being phased out. I was going through floppy discs looking for my book and I could NOT find it. I have some hard copies and there's a copy at U.S.F. I tried to let it go. Today I made one more effort to find it and ... it was on the first disc.
In the days between giving up and finding it I've been sad, angry with myself, resigned. I realized how deeply I've given up on it.
I really don't know how to revive my writing. I know it felt really good to open the book on the new computer. I feel like the book needs work and I've had ideas about it all but I just do not get it done. Maybe this will give me the nudge and get me writing.
I guess we'll see.