Deborah Lipp

This is some rubble we saw in Kotor, Montenegro in 1988.

Jody is feeding it on a more or less 24-hour schedule right now–enough to keep it reasonably active, but not the full schedule necessary for bread readiness. When Jody wants to make bread, she’ll feed it about every 8 hours or so for a day beforehand.

Not really fire; just sunset reflected in the windows of Lone Mountain campus, USF.

Here’s a story of basic human decency in darkest Indiana:

Sophomore Megan Chase wrote an opinion piece – her first for the [school] newspaper – that appeared in the Jan. 19 issue of the Woodlan Tomahawk that questioned people who believe it’s wrong to be gay or lesbian. Chase said she wrote the piece after a friend disclosed to her he was gay.

“I can only imagine how hard it would be to come out as homosexual in today’s society,” Chase wrote. “I think it is so wrong to look down on those people, or to make fun of them, just because they have a different sexuality than you. There is nothing wrong with them or their brain; they’re just different than you.”

…and of the efforts of school officials to crush it:

A student editorial in the Woodlan Junior-Senior High School newspaper calling for more tolerance for gays and lesbians sparked the principal to seek approval of each edition before it goes to print and issue a written warning against the journalism teacher….

Principal Edwin Yoder wrote a letter to the newspaper staff and journalism teacher Amy Sorrell insisting he sign off on every issue. Sorrell and the students contacted the Student Press Law Center, an advocacy group for student newspapers, which advised them to appeal the decision.

Last week, Yoder issued Sorrell a written warning for insubordination and not carrying out her responsibilities as a teacher. He accused her of exposing Woodlan students, who are in grades seven through 12, to inappropriate material and said if she did not comply with his orders she could be fired.

Inappropriate material. Advance Indiana has the full text of the editorial (scroll down). Go read it and see if you can tell any better than I can what the ‘inappropriate’ part is. The part where she says homosexuality is not a disease? Where she says it’s unfair for religion to condemn people to hell for something that isn’t a choice? Where she says being homosexual doesn’t make a person inhuman?

The journalism teacher and students are fighting it, with help from the Student Press Law Center. Meanwhile, the Fort Wayne Community School District “encourages [us] to comment or ask questions”, so if you have any comments or questions be sure to drop them a line.

(Hat tip: Shakespeare’s Sister.)

[Cross-posted at If I Ran the Zoo]

In 1983 I had a boyfriend named John Franza. He had this tape* that a friend of his had made. Never met the friend, can’t remember her name. She was a singer-songwriter, and it was a demo tape, with maybe five songs on it. John, Roberta and I would listen to that tape over and over. We loved it.

For two days I’ve had one of the songs, Don’t Go Down to the Pier Tonight, stuck in my head.

Don’t go down to the pier tonight
There’s a boat sailing out on a mirror of moonlight
I gotta do what’s right
I”m going back to the boys tonight.

I can’t believe I remember that. Unbelievably catchy hook, killer delivery with a powerhouse voice packed with emotion. Her co-writer was a gay guy she’d had a relationship with, and this song was their story (he went “back to the boys”).

There was another song called “Which Window,” which was an unrequited love song. The lonely guy follows his love to her apartment building and sits outside, wondering which window is hers. Which window, which window is hers? is a very difficult line to sing over and over, but she did it.

I have no idea who that woman was, whatever happened to her, if she ever had any success as a musician. But I’ve got to acknowledge the power of songwriting that remains memorable after twenty-four years.

*Cassette tape. We used them for music back then.

Tough going this week.
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I hate my birthday.

I hate my birthday because I want it to be magnificent and glorious and “My Day” and all that. And if it isn’t, it’s disappointing. I want to be surprised, but if I don’t tell anyone, then my chances for magnficence and lots of birthday wishes are decreased. And if I do tell people then I don’t get my surprise. (Once, my then-husband surprised me by telling me he couldn’t be bothered with my birthday this year so don’t expect anything, which hurt so much that when the surprise came, it turned out not to be worth it.)

So until yesterday, I never hated Valentine’s Day. But yesterday, I had a very pleasant day. No relationship. No cards. No flowers. No glorious romance. No disappointments. No keeping my fingers crossed hoping the man in my life won’t fuck up. No agreeing not to do V-Day and then being the idiot standing there opening a present without one to give in exchange. No agreeing to do V-Day and then being shattered when I get nothing nothing nothing. Again.

Yesterday I felt free. I didn’t even notice it was V-Day until I logged onto some blogs. And then I thought, “I feel better this way. I like me better this way.”

There’s a scene in Robin and Marian. Robin has been at the Crusades for thirty years, during which time, Marian became a nun, and eventually an abbess. And she says to him, she was at peace for all those years, and one day with him and she is happy to throw away her peace because she loves him so.

Damn, I love that movie.

But I also know that’s true for me. I know I’d throw away this peaceful feeling for expectation and hope and disappointment and aggravation, all of which are part and parcel of being in a relationship. But I also know I really do like the peace.

Sorry it took so long. Snow day an’ all.

I should like to ruminate, however disjointedly, on the notion of the first date.

What do you look for? Who is the person across the table? What’s the goal, here?

I kind of thoroughly reject the notion that the goal is to find the other person sexy. “Sexy” tends to derive from our subconscious stuff, our dysfunctions and sick expectations and bizarro wishes. All the “bad boy” stuff that doesn’t serve you in the real world and is best left in fantasy.

Yet while rejecting it, we hope for it. Because, y’know, why can’t I meet a nice guy I like who is also sexy to me? Fundamentally, the artificial confines of “date” world make that less likely. But then, if your ignition isn’t lit, you go home with the wondering. The ‘he’s a nice guy will he ever be more?’ thing. Because there are a finite number of dates you’ll go on with such a guy.

There was a guy I dated about 2 years ago. Exactly three dates. And I thought, if I knew this guy for like a year, if we hung out in the same social circle and sort of saw each other and were proximal to each other, I bet we’d hook up. Because we really do like each other and we really do connect to each other. But not in the boy-girl way. No spark. No sexy. And no time in which for it to develop. Again, “dating.” So artificial. Three is really as many as you can do. Especially because he wasn’t exactly local. So sometimes I think we kill the possibility of relationship by dating. But what else are you gonna do?

So you eat a nice meal and have a nice drink and you talk. And what I mostly notice is the persistance of me. How I can’t stop being me in all the ways I annoy me. How I am charming and funny and over-monopolize the conversation. How I distrust a man being charmed by me because I know I’m too good at that. And how I wish I had the trick of silence because I want to listen more and I don’t.

And here he is. Nice man. Not sexy to me tonight. Doesn’t mean he won’t be in the future. Doesn’t mean he will be either. And there is nothing to do about that except ride it out.

We are bad at creating relationship in this culture. We suck at it. I have Hindu friends with traditional arranged marriages. And I think, who are we to look down on that in our patronizing Western way when we don’t have a better answer? Our answer is to be lonely and to struggle and to hope. And to eat nice dinners and talk and wonder what it all means.