So Undignified

Catching up with Alison, an old friend, who had a baby a little while ago... 

... My brother and his wife just had a baby as well so I can fully appreciate how busy wee'uns keep you. Oliver can't crawl either. Holding him and playing with him, I realize just how long it takes for human beings to acquire some semblance of dignity. It's at once endearing and pathetic. Good thing we can't remember those early struggles. Or do you think it would make us kinder, gentler, more sympathetic and more humble, if only we could?

No one is watching

but you always play to an audience. take a bow, or a blow, and get off the stage. then you'll be comfortable, though you don't know it yet.

'I saw.'

Song

Each person whoever was or is or will be has a song. It isn’t a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their own song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our voices, or that our words are too foolish or too honest, or too odd. So people live their songs instead.

Take Daisy, for example. Her song, which had been somewhere in the back of her head for most of her life, had a reassuring, marching sort of beat, and words that were about protecting the weak, and it had a chorus that began “Evildoers beware!” and was thus much too silly ever to be sung out loud. She would hum it to herself sometimes though, in the shower, during the soapy bits.

And that is, more or less, everything you need to know about Daisy. The rest is details.

(Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman - sorry I lost the page reference). 

Yikes

Please say that it will go away.

Even then

'Mustn't crab the Government, though! Don't know really what we'd do without it. I can tell you that nowadays you can walk in most anywhere with a notebook and pencil, dressed right, and speaking B.B.C., and ask people all the most intimate details of their daily lives and all their back history, and what they had for dinner on November 23rd because that was a test day for middle-class-incomes - or whatever it happens to be (making it a grade above to butter them up!) - ask'em any mortal thing you can; and nine times out of ten they'll come across pat, and even the tenth time though they may cut up rough, they won't doubt for a minute that you're what you say you are - and that the Government really wants to know - for some completely unfathomable reason!… it's the best line we've ever had… Yes, Government snooping is God's gift to investigators and long may it continue!'

(Agatha Christie, After the Funeral, first published 1953) 

A long long time ago

When I was in high school I got talking to a guy who plays blues in the subway stations around Toronto (most often, Eglinton). I'd see him every once in a while, and he he'd always play 'messin' with the kid'



and 'pride and joy' for me because those were my favourites.



He also got me listening to Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee.



Wonder what he's doing now.

Pulp

Good morning, Wednesday. You will never know what Different Class means to me. 

On Translation

我從來沒有請人先譯初稿過。我知道的人裡面也沒有人請別人先譯初稿的。當然這種事情要結果好的話一切都好，不是請人先譯初稿是好或壞的問題。只是我個人認為，如果請別人先譯初稿，那麼翻譯這種工作的最美味部份不就流失了嗎？因為翻譯最令人怦然心動的，再怎麼說都是把橫寫出來的東西化為直寫出來的東西那瞬間。那時腦海裡的語言系統，一收一放的舒展肌肉的感覺，真的舒服的不得了。而且翻譯出來的文章之活潑靈動，正是從這初始的舒展中誕生出來的。這快感，恐怕只有實際嘗過的人才會知道。


（村上春樹，「村上朝日堂是如何鍛鍊的」）

Work in Progress

Let's all of us lie down & die in the hole we've dug ourselves. 

(today. or tomorrow. whenever is more convenient.) 

Yesterday

it wobbled rather badly. I'm not sure if it will get up and walk again. Except of course, I want it to. But it might be more convinced that it'd be much easier to stay lying down. 

Seriously

if I wear makeup, glasses, and heels. 

Blip

Sometimes when I'm using Blogger I jot down things as I go along, saving it to drafts for later revision. Yesterday I inadvertently published an entry I'm working on, and though I immediately reverted to draft, it's been burned to my feed.

Just so you know I've deleted my feedburner feed - it's way old and I think blogger now provides the same services. Sorry if you have to resubscribe.

Unbeknownst to you...

you are among friends. And if you should come forward to tell the truth, we will believe you, support you, and think more, rather than less of you. Be brave, and trust us to be understanding. 

A friend of mine, having seen my Project Unbreakable post, recently wrote to me about another friend, who had been sexually harassed in the work-place. My friend said she:

... was talking me through it with the self-doubt and guilt that I never expected a strong woman like her to be experiencing. She is an [...], and seeing that the field is intimate, that kind of reputation could cost her any future aspirations- she could, basically, become unemployable ( her boss warned her). Very sad. 

Stories like yours need to be heard if anything is ever going to change.

Here is my reply, for the benefit of anyone who is going through a similar experience. Please know that there are innumerable others out there like you - silenced by the social stigma of the crime for which they were not guilty. 

...It's a very sad but true fact that grown women who face sexual predation often feel that to come out with their story would actually do they themselves more damage than good - especially in terms of career. It's very understandable, due to the stigma we have about sex, to feel shame and be convinced that no one will believe us, or that they will think we are somehow at fault for what has happened. Like you said, the only thing that can change this is if survivors united and turned the tide - but the first few will always be ones swimming against the current - ergo higher risk of drowning. But it ain't killed me yet.

Seriously though, I'm fortunate enough to not belong to an industry where my career can be thus jeopardized. I suppose I've finally found a good thing about not belonging to any particular industry at all - or having career aspirations....
Though I am happy to report that having spoken to many people who have come forward, we are more often than not pleasantly surprised by the amount of validation and support we receive from peers. Like Project Unbreakable reveals, there are many many among us. So who knows, perhaps your friend will one day decide to expose her abuser too. If and when, I hope she nails him dead to the door. One of my good friends... her boss harassed her... [but] she kept cool and collected enough evidence against him (both professionally, as he was a dodgy administrator, and criminally), to basically ruin the rest of his life...

Essential skills they don't teach girls, eh? We don't need to know how to be GOOD (read: obedient). We need to know how to be strong. 

Excuse the off-hand tone of most of this post. It was taken directly from my email exchange with a friend. Plus if I can't make light of something serious, well, I probably wouldn't be here, so that's that. I've also removed any mentions of names and specifics for obvious reasons.

With regards to the life of sexual predators being 'ruined,' as I so glibly put it - it's important to remember that they did it to themselves. For a very long time I debated whether I ought to come forward with the truth concerning my experiences of abuse. My abuser is a relative - and I know and love his children. A good deal of my teenage and young-adult years were spent on feeling burdened by the knowledge that their father is a pedophile. I felt like the keeper of a secret - and I felt responsible for protecting them. It took me many years to realize that if he wanted his kids to have a father they can be proud of, he should have done what was right rather than what was easy. 

In short, if you go around harassing and abusing those near you - then you have marred your life already, all on your own - whether those you victimize speak out or not. So do the right thing by yourself, those who love you, and those who come across your path - don't be a fucking shithead. 

Doing what is right rather than doing what is easy also basically sums up why I decided to take part in Unbreakable. For others like me out there, I encourage (though I would not say that I urge, as only you know what you need) you to do the same.  

The talented Mr. Charlie

I friended Charlie on Facebook because he is hilariously funny. Having met him in person I am happy to report that he's lived up to every expectation. Here's two related status updates that I loved... 

In the dream she walks toward me with a measured grace and matchless beauty. "You write the funniest posts on Facebook," she says, "everyone else's are rubbish." "Marry me," I say. "You see!" she says. "You're so funny!"

and another... 

"I notice you're able to translate your jokes into Chinese," she continues. "You clearly possess superior genetic material." "I also have a British passport," I reply.

Now is good

I posted on my Facebook: "You know you would feel better about everything if you could just do something, however small, for even just one person." At the time I was not thinking about myself, but about a friend of mine who I'd been talking to.

Then Hendrik came back with: "At a time in your life you must reach out your hand to another. If not you, then who? If not now, then when?", which is a quote from the Torah.


This then lead me to think about everything I had done since my experiences of abuse at a young age.

The thing is, reaching out to help others is the only thing I can do to make my abuse, which was a very negative experience, into a very positive one. It feels sometimes like I am a wall, or a dam, and I can be the shield that stops the harm which so often perpetuates from abuser to abused. I want to be the one to end that ripple effect, to turn the tide.