Dear Curiosity Mars Rover:
Thank you.
Thank you for existing and being so cool that I stayed up way past my bedtime watching live internet video of the control room at Jet Propulsion Labs as the team of badass nerds who made you lost years of their lives to the stress of hoping you'd land successfully, then got those years back at the joy of knowing you'd touched down OK, and then gained some years with the excitement of seeing the first pictures of you on ANOTHER FREAKING PLANET OMG WTF BBQ? I mean, you had people on Twitter posting that they'd name a newborn Skycrane if they'd just given birth... well done, robot the size of a minivan, well done. (The last Mars rover had totally put a particular size and shape of interplanetary exploration robot in my head, so I was totally stunned by the full-size model of you at the American Museum of Natural History's Beyond Planet Earth exhibit back in December... yeah, I gotta go back and check that out again before it closes in less than a week... I could go on and on. Anyway.)
Thanks for being so very inspiring, Curiosity, and not just to me and this letter. I finally started writing after I saw today's XKCD comic about you, but Dinosaur Comics pretty much hit it out of the park: A BUNCH OF PEOPLE WHO TASTE LIKE PORK PUT CAR-SIZED ROBOTS ON FRIGGIN' MARS, HOW'S THAT TASTE? I say it tastes like winning.
Thank you for being deliciously good news in the face of a day that also included some jackass shooting up a Sikh temple for reasons officially as yet unknown but which are totally going to be reported as the act of an isolated individual rather than representative of an ethnic group (the shooter was a white guy, members of the unmarked category are allowed to have individual agency instead of standing for "their kind" — at best he's a "bad apple" but I doubt he'll even be labeled as such). Product of a society and culture that tolerates entirely too much hate and racism and access to deadly weapons? Nah, couldn't be. But I digress. Back to something awesome... you.
Thank you for being a use of technology on behalf of everything that's good about people — asking questions, learning, exploring, working together for causes greater than our own little petty selves. Hell, I know it's not exactly like you had a say in the matter, but thank you for your name, which makes me a little weepy as I think about it in terms of everything that's good about my species.
Thanks in advance for whatever you find out there, Curiosity, you state-of-the-stuff mini mobile science lab, you. Thanks again for being just about as real as magic gets.
Just... thanks.
Love,
-Tracy
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
06 August 2012
12 November 2011
50. Weddings
Dear weddings,
More than six years ago, I started writing you a letter that began, "I hate you, even when I like the people involved." Today, I am amending that to say that now that I'm married, I still think you suck. Now to be completely fair, what really sucks is the wedding-industrial complex, but I know of no good way to separate you out from that godawful mess, weddings, and so I get the howling fantods every time people insist on referring to the way I got married as a wedding because a big part of the whole point for me was that it wasn't. We went down to the New York City Clerk's Office for a $35 license one day, then returned for a $25 ceremony and certificate of marriage registration the next ("It's like buying a gun," said the man I now call Spouse-y McHusbandpants, "there's a waiting period.") Nobody had to spend any money on clothes or jewelry, although we did take our witness out to tea afterwards (nom, and thanks Greg!) My parents, whom I'll mention again later in this letter, were more than a little delighted and amused to hear that they'd already paid for a reception by leaving behind a bottle of champagne we didn't get around to drinking at a different celebration. Pop, boom, done! Yay.
So that was my so-called wedding, an unexpected side benefit of which was that I now look at the aforementioned industrial complex with relief and a little bit of indifference along with the same old pure white-hot loathing, because at least I am off the hook for that stuff, hoo fricken ray. (I mean, we'll get around to rings one of these days — personally I'm hoping to hold out till we can afford to forge our own, because seriously, when the hell else am I going to have an excuse to try amateur goldsmithing? — but I'm in no hurry, especially what with my student loan payments starting next year.) I haven't had a chance to test my post-marriage reactions to wedding invitations, but I'm hoping they'll be a little more "off the hook, woo!" and less fight-or-flighty-y... we'll see. I suspect I will still dread the big ritualized social occasion aspect of them even if and when there are no more laws against same-sex marriage to fill me with rage.
But back to you, weddings, and what I wrote to you more than six years ago, some of which eventually spun off into letters to your invitations and the laws that make it so you're just a symbolic gesture even in the few U.S. states that allow you to be legally binding for all couples (side note: yay for finally living in a state with equal marriage for the first time in my life, and especially for timing things so I only had to feel guilty about being unequal-married for about 40 hours). I'm pretty much still on board with most of what I had to say back then, like: I hate that people take you so personally that there's no good way I can say "I don't want to go to your wedding but I'd love to celebrate your partnership some other time in a non-wedding context," and that the aforementioned statement is all too often taken as a personal insult. I hate how you make people so stupid as to become simultaneously self-centered and excessively concerned with the opinions of others. I hate how people can't seem to get it into their heads that just about everything about you is optional — that for the legal part of marriage they can just go to city hall, for the social part they can do whatever they want from big hot ridiculousness to telling no one to anything in between (posting on Facebook! emails, or cards if you're fancy, inviting loved ones to celebrate whenever the opportunity arises! whatever!), and there's plenty of priesty types who'd be happy to assist with the religious part if they're so inclined, with or without making it into a big stupid production. Dammit. (The part about Facebook is a 2011 addition, I'll admit, but it's pretty much in the same spirit I had when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.)
More than anything, however, I still agree with this line from my original "Dear Weddings" letter:
Much closer to the point is that anecdote about my parents which I foreshadowed earlier. They used to jokingly promise that if I skipped having a big wedding and eloped instead, they'd help me put a down payment on a house. I took this message to heart so much that I got things out of order and bought (and later sold) a house with my partner while skipping out on elopement for years. All of which felt really good. So does having health insurance. But that's a privilege that should be a right for another letter.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 18 January 2005, published 12 November 2011, last updated 6 June 2014.
More than six years ago, I started writing you a letter that began, "I hate you, even when I like the people involved." Today, I am amending that to say that now that I'm married, I still think you suck. Now to be completely fair, what really sucks is the wedding-industrial complex, but I know of no good way to separate you out from that godawful mess, weddings, and so I get the howling fantods every time people insist on referring to the way I got married as a wedding because a big part of the whole point for me was that it wasn't. We went down to the New York City Clerk's Office for a $35 license one day, then returned for a $25 ceremony and certificate of marriage registration the next ("It's like buying a gun," said the man I now call Spouse-y McHusbandpants, "there's a waiting period.") Nobody had to spend any money on clothes or jewelry, although we did take our witness out to tea afterwards (nom, and thanks Greg!) My parents, whom I'll mention again later in this letter, were more than a little delighted and amused to hear that they'd already paid for a reception by leaving behind a bottle of champagne we didn't get around to drinking at a different celebration. Pop, boom, done! Yay.
So that was my so-called wedding, an unexpected side benefit of which was that I now look at the aforementioned industrial complex with relief and a little bit of indifference along with the same old pure white-hot loathing, because at least I am off the hook for that stuff, hoo fricken ray. (I mean, we'll get around to rings one of these days — personally I'm hoping to hold out till we can afford to forge our own, because seriously, when the hell else am I going to have an excuse to try amateur goldsmithing? — but I'm in no hurry, especially what with my student loan payments starting next year.) I haven't had a chance to test my post-marriage reactions to wedding invitations, but I'm hoping they'll be a little more "off the hook, woo!" and less fight-or-flighty-y... we'll see. I suspect I will still dread the big ritualized social occasion aspect of them even if and when there are no more laws against same-sex marriage to fill me with rage.
But back to you, weddings, and what I wrote to you more than six years ago, some of which eventually spun off into letters to your invitations and the laws that make it so you're just a symbolic gesture even in the few U.S. states that allow you to be legally binding for all couples (side note: yay for finally living in a state with equal marriage for the first time in my life, and especially for timing things so I only had to feel guilty about being unequal-married for about 40 hours). I'm pretty much still on board with most of what I had to say back then, like: I hate that people take you so personally that there's no good way I can say "I don't want to go to your wedding but I'd love to celebrate your partnership some other time in a non-wedding context," and that the aforementioned statement is all too often taken as a personal insult. I hate how you make people so stupid as to become simultaneously self-centered and excessively concerned with the opinions of others. I hate how people can't seem to get it into their heads that just about everything about you is optional — that for the legal part of marriage they can just go to city hall, for the social part they can do whatever they want from big hot ridiculousness to telling no one to anything in between (posting on Facebook! emails, or cards if you're fancy, inviting loved ones to celebrate whenever the opportunity arises! whatever!), and there's plenty of priesty types who'd be happy to assist with the religious part if they're so inclined, with or without making it into a big stupid production. Dammit. (The part about Facebook is a 2011 addition, I'll admit, but it's pretty much in the same spirit I had when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.)
More than anything, however, I still agree with this line from my original "Dear Weddings" letter:
I guess what I really don't like is listening to people whine about the terrible hardships of privilege.Seriously, I wrote, if the law is gracious enough to allow you to get married, and your church thinks your relationship is hunky-dory, then bully for you. (Today I would also add congratulations if your family and friends wish you and your partner the best.) I guess I felt guilty about writing: "But if you're going to whine about the pomp and circumstance, then shut up and be glad that you can afford any of it, and think twice about whether that's really what you want to be spending time and money and mental energy on," because I followed it with the low-self-esteem-y line, "God, I am such a bitch." Maybe I'm just a bigger bitch now than ever, but I don't think I'm being too unreasonable here. Instead, I am searching for a polite and loving way to send some extra bonus "shut up" messages to everyone who is somehow offended that I didn't have a wedding, much less that they weren't invited, because seriously, if I had wanted to suffer through party planning to stand around awkwardly for hours while hitting people up for presents and asking for blessings, I could have had a non-legal commitment ceremony any time in the past ten years. I didn't, because — again — that was not the point.
Much closer to the point is that anecdote about my parents which I foreshadowed earlier. They used to jokingly promise that if I skipped having a big wedding and eloped instead, they'd help me put a down payment on a house. I took this message to heart so much that I got things out of order and bought (and later sold) a house with my partner while skipping out on elopement for years. All of which felt really good. So does having health insurance. But that's a privilege that should be a right for another letter.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 18 January 2005, published 12 November 2011, last updated 6 June 2014.
06 November 2011
49. Global Climate Change
Dear global climate change,
I believe in you. Really. Kind of a lot. You don't have to keep proving yourself over and over on my account, especially not with freaky disastrous weather, please.
Is Bangkok such a hotbed of climate deniers as to be in any way deserving of the wreckage you've inflicted there recently? It's a lovely city! Not unlike Monterosso, in northern Italy! When did anyone there ever do anything to offend you? Now my former classmate Christine has gone from writing a dreamy story about gastrotouristic entrepreneurship to documenting the damage from storms and mudslides on her new home in the Cinque Terre. Harsh! (And, yes, I am writing you in a public forum in part to circulate Christine's blog, which includes links to ways people can help out her flood-ravaged region, because thinking about it too long gets me all overwhelmed so I don't know what else to do).
I'll grant that it was nice of you to back down Hurricane Irene until she was just a tropical storm by the time she got to New York City on my birthday. For all everybody's whining we still got in a good round of practice on how to be super-prepared for future extreme weather events, so you were practically performing a civil service. On the other hand, did you have to go and shut down large chunks of Vermont? Was that really necessary?
On a more lighthearted note, I'll grant that it's unfortunate how so many people call you "global warming," when that's an oversimplification and "global weirding" is a much better term (more fun, too!) That's still hardly any reason to snow all over the northeast United States in October, when there's still leaves on trees all over the place, so the weight of "wintry mix" (worst precipitation ever!) breaks extra bonus branches which in bring down turn power lines and more. I mean, I hate this rhetorical device as much as anyone, but: think of the children! You pull these shenanigans on the night before Halloween, for monkeys' sake? Just listen to this sob story from a 10-year-old in the suburbs:
Ok, I mostly couldn't resist quoting that, because it cracked me up, and I needed the laugh after all that other bad news. I hope that little girl believes in you now, but I promise, I know you're real. You kind of scare the crap out of me any time I think about you too hard, and I don't know what else to say except that I know you can't read this but I'm putting these ideas out in the world to share my hope that people will get better at organizing to be resilient to your effects and maybe even prevent future disasters. That's my hope.
Love,
-Tracy
Published 6 November 2011, last updated 6 June 2014
I believe in you. Really. Kind of a lot. You don't have to keep proving yourself over and over on my account, especially not with freaky disastrous weather, please.
Is Bangkok such a hotbed of climate deniers as to be in any way deserving of the wreckage you've inflicted there recently? It's a lovely city! Not unlike Monterosso, in northern Italy! When did anyone there ever do anything to offend you? Now my former classmate Christine has gone from writing a dreamy story about gastrotouristic entrepreneurship to documenting the damage from storms and mudslides on her new home in the Cinque Terre. Harsh! (And, yes, I am writing you in a public forum in part to circulate Christine's blog, which includes links to ways people can help out her flood-ravaged region, because thinking about it too long gets me all overwhelmed so I don't know what else to do).
I'll grant that it was nice of you to back down Hurricane Irene until she was just a tropical storm by the time she got to New York City on my birthday. For all everybody's whining we still got in a good round of practice on how to be super-prepared for future extreme weather events, so you were practically performing a civil service. On the other hand, did you have to go and shut down large chunks of Vermont? Was that really necessary?
On a more lighthearted note, I'll grant that it's unfortunate how so many people call you "global warming," when that's an oversimplification and "global weirding" is a much better term (more fun, too!) That's still hardly any reason to snow all over the northeast United States in October, when there's still leaves on trees all over the place, so the weight of "wintry mix" (worst precipitation ever!) breaks extra bonus branches which in bring down turn power lines and more. I mean, I hate this rhetorical device as much as anyone, but: think of the children! You pull these shenanigans on the night before Halloween, for monkeys' sake? Just listen to this sob story from a 10-year-old in the suburbs:
When I found out Halloween was canceled, I was so bummed; it was the worst day ever... I went over to my grandparents’ house in New Milford because they were, like, the only people on the planet who had power. But we still didn’t get to go trick-or-treating. There were too many trees and wires all over the place. So I sat there on the couch and did nothing. I said, "I can’t believe it’s Halloween and I’m sitting on a couch!" This is an outrage!
Ok, I mostly couldn't resist quoting that, because it cracked me up, and I needed the laugh after all that other bad news. I hope that little girl believes in you now, but I promise, I know you're real. You kind of scare the crap out of me any time I think about you too hard, and I don't know what else to say except that I know you can't read this but I'm putting these ideas out in the world to share my hope that people will get better at organizing to be resilient to your effects and maybe even prevent future disasters. That's my hope.
Love,
-Tracy
Published 6 November 2011, last updated 6 June 2014
05 November 2011
48. Poverty
Dear poverty,
So what's all this I hear about the United States Census Bureau coming up with a new way to define you? Yesterday's New York Times says the new measure erases "as much as half of the reported rise in poverty since 2006" — because, you know, it's not like anything's happened in the past five years that might have increased the number of people struggling to get by! Ha, ha, only horrified.
I mean, I'm glad the new metric takes local cost of living into account, but what am I supposed to make of the idea that tax credits and benefits like unemployment and food assistance are counted as assets that (statistically) bump people out of poverty into what the Times calls "the hard-luck ranks of the near poor, who do not qualify for many benefit programs and lose income to taxes, child care and medical costs"? I'll get back to those benefit programs in a second, but first I've got to go on a little linguistic tear.
You see, that term, "near poor" reminds me of the scene in Why I Hate Saturn,
wherein our down-on-her-luck heroine banters bitterly with a street person who asks,
The creation of a nice euphemism (like "homeless" instead of "bum," "Native Americans" instead of "Indians," or "African Americans" instead of "blacks"), he notes, "always signifies a major fucking."
Speaking of major fuckings, eligibility for benefits like unemployment and food assistance is determined in part by income relative to the poverty line — so what does that mean under this new definition of poverty? People who qualify for enough benefits aren't poor anymore, thanks to those benefits, and since they're not poor, clearly they don't need benefits, except without them, they'd be poor again? What? How does that work?
I'm exaggerating a little for effect, here, poverty: as far as I know the new measure isn't being applied to benefits eligibility yet — because holy mother of circular logic nightmare, Batman! — but I am really not looking forward to what this new spin on the data will do to "See, there's not that many poor people after all, we can totally cut entitlements!" arguments. Ugh.
Anyway, I know I'm hardly even beginning to scratch the tip of the iceberg with this little rantlet, poverty. I mean, I've written this far and haven't even until just now mentioned the cognitive load of always being in crisis mode (I didn't mean for that to rhyme, it just did). If I got into time poverty or the social determinants of health, this letter would turn into a book for sure. All of which is to say that this is almost certainly not the last socioeconomic justice-related Open Letter I'll be writing. But for now, this is as good a place as any I've found to stop until I write again.
Love,
-Tracy
So what's all this I hear about the United States Census Bureau coming up with a new way to define you? Yesterday's New York Times says the new measure erases "as much as half of the reported rise in poverty since 2006" — because, you know, it's not like anything's happened in the past five years that might have increased the number of people struggling to get by! Ha, ha, only horrified.
I mean, I'm glad the new metric takes local cost of living into account, but what am I supposed to make of the idea that tax credits and benefits like unemployment and food assistance are counted as assets that (statistically) bump people out of poverty into what the Times calls "the hard-luck ranks of the near poor, who do not qualify for many benefit programs and lose income to taxes, child care and medical costs"? I'll get back to those benefit programs in a second, but first I've got to go on a little linguistic tear.
You see, that term, "near poor" reminds me of the scene in Why I Hate Saturn,
wherein our down-on-her-luck heroine banters bitterly with a street person who asks,...did you ever wonder who decided to call bums "homeless"? Why did that start? It seems that as "bums", we were individuals, but as "the homeless," we're an institution....
So the word "homeless" was created. It takes the stigma off. Instead of being viewed as lazy, I'm viewed as a victim of society. When society acknowledges you as one of its victims, rather than one of its members, it no longer has any responsibility to help you.
The creation of a nice euphemism (like "homeless" instead of "bum," "Native Americans" instead of "Indians," or "African Americans" instead of "blacks"), he notes, "always signifies a major fucking."
Speaking of major fuckings, eligibility for benefits like unemployment and food assistance is determined in part by income relative to the poverty line — so what does that mean under this new definition of poverty? People who qualify for enough benefits aren't poor anymore, thanks to those benefits, and since they're not poor, clearly they don't need benefits, except without them, they'd be poor again? What? How does that work?
I'm exaggerating a little for effect, here, poverty: as far as I know the new measure isn't being applied to benefits eligibility yet — because holy mother of circular logic nightmare, Batman! — but I am really not looking forward to what this new spin on the data will do to "See, there's not that many poor people after all, we can totally cut entitlements!" arguments. Ugh.
Anyway, I know I'm hardly even beginning to scratch the tip of the iceberg with this little rantlet, poverty. I mean, I've written this far and haven't even until just now mentioned the cognitive load of always being in crisis mode (I didn't mean for that to rhyme, it just did). If I got into time poverty or the social determinants of health, this letter would turn into a book for sure. All of which is to say that this is almost certainly not the last socioeconomic justice-related Open Letter I'll be writing. But for now, this is as good a place as any I've found to stop until I write again.
Love,
-Tracy
22 July 2006
36. Feminism
Dear feminism,
I have a lot to say to you, but the idea that got me to writing this particular letter, its point, is a pet peeve of mine: the incredibly stupid way in which people talk about you as if you're just one thing. For those parts of you with a bit of a background in linguistics or grammar-wonkery, I'll put it this way: feminism is a mass noun. There is no singular feminism, just like there's no singular weather. Just like there's lots of kinds of weather, changing day by day, place by place, just like there are lots of schools of thought but not so much just one thought, there are lots of different flavors of feminism. Duh.
You know this and I know this. And I wish to hell I had a clue-bat big enough and powerful enough to beat this idea into all the heads that need to learn it. Especially the idiots who talk about postfeminism without meaning it as an abbreviation of postmodern feminism, the latter phrase being shorthand for a cloud of ideas I actually often kind of dig (ooh, this weather analogy is useful!) Post-feminism. Hah. Post what feminism? Usually it's about the aftermath of the so-called second wave feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, wherein relatively privileged mostly upper and middle class white women decided they wanted the same privileges as upper and middle class white men instead of staying home as mom-bots. Never mind that the job of mom-bot was a relatively recent invention, historically speaking, and one that wasn't really a readily available option for minority women like the ones whose families couldn't afford to have a full-time mom-bot staying home, many of whom also happened to be not white. But I digress. I think if the second wave refers to that particular sociopolitical storm (and look at me again cleverly tying things back to that awesome weather analogy!) then suffragettes and suchforth were the first wave, but from when and where I'm sitting in the third wave or whatever, I have to say this numbering system is pretty stupid since I'm pretty sure as long as men and women have been different, people have generally been making more of a big deal about those differences than is really entirely necessary, and some people (some of them even the same people making the aforementioned big deal) have been complaining about it (in case it wasn't obvious, I'm personally of the "really not such a big deal" school of thought, but not all of the complainers, not even all the ones who describe themselves with the word "feminist" in some way, agree with me). All of which is to say, albeit run-on-sentence-style, that postfeminism, even just in the sense of whatever comes after feminism, has been around since, oh, maybe about a second after the first feminist thought was expressed. Again, duh.
I have a lot more to say to you and about you, feminism, but that idea, and in particular the clever mass noun phrasing/framing thereof, and also the weather metaphor I'm digging on so deeply, was suddenly so loud and clear in my brain that I had to write it down before I could forget it. But hey, we're always in touch, even if I don't always have time to write, so I hope we're cool. As always, sweet sisterhood to the fantabulous bell hooks.
Love,
-Tracy
Started and published 22 July 2006; last updated 9 September 2006. Title abridged 1 December 2011.
I have a lot to say to you, but the idea that got me to writing this particular letter, its point, is a pet peeve of mine: the incredibly stupid way in which people talk about you as if you're just one thing. For those parts of you with a bit of a background in linguistics or grammar-wonkery, I'll put it this way: feminism is a mass noun. There is no singular feminism, just like there's no singular weather. Just like there's lots of kinds of weather, changing day by day, place by place, just like there are lots of schools of thought but not so much just one thought, there are lots of different flavors of feminism. Duh.
You know this and I know this. And I wish to hell I had a clue-bat big enough and powerful enough to beat this idea into all the heads that need to learn it. Especially the idiots who talk about postfeminism without meaning it as an abbreviation of postmodern feminism, the latter phrase being shorthand for a cloud of ideas I actually often kind of dig (ooh, this weather analogy is useful!) Post-feminism. Hah. Post what feminism? Usually it's about the aftermath of the so-called second wave feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, wherein relatively privileged mostly upper and middle class white women decided they wanted the same privileges as upper and middle class white men instead of staying home as mom-bots. Never mind that the job of mom-bot was a relatively recent invention, historically speaking, and one that wasn't really a readily available option for minority women like the ones whose families couldn't afford to have a full-time mom-bot staying home, many of whom also happened to be not white. But I digress. I think if the second wave refers to that particular sociopolitical storm (and look at me again cleverly tying things back to that awesome weather analogy!) then suffragettes and suchforth were the first wave, but from when and where I'm sitting in the third wave or whatever, I have to say this numbering system is pretty stupid since I'm pretty sure as long as men and women have been different, people have generally been making more of a big deal about those differences than is really entirely necessary, and some people (some of them even the same people making the aforementioned big deal) have been complaining about it (in case it wasn't obvious, I'm personally of the "really not such a big deal" school of thought, but not all of the complainers, not even all the ones who describe themselves with the word "feminist" in some way, agree with me). All of which is to say, albeit run-on-sentence-style, that postfeminism, even just in the sense of whatever comes after feminism, has been around since, oh, maybe about a second after the first feminist thought was expressed. Again, duh.
I have a lot more to say to you and about you, feminism, but that idea, and in particular the clever mass noun phrasing/framing thereof, and also the weather metaphor I'm digging on so deeply, was suddenly so loud and clear in my brain that I had to write it down before I could forget it. But hey, we're always in touch, even if I don't always have time to write, so I hope we're cool. As always, sweet sisterhood to the fantabulous bell hooks.
Love,
-Tracy
Started and published 22 July 2006; last updated 9 September 2006. Title abridged 1 December 2011.
20 January 2006
25. 2005
Dear 2005,
I wasn't sure about writing you, what with having already done a year in review letter for your predecessor (and also I could whine on for pages better used in other letters about writer's block and how the dead of winter is generally a slow time for me to put it mildly but I will limit myself to this one parenthetical comment here). Then Merriam-Webster Online released their top ten most-searched words of the year:
But of course, life keeps going on in any case, and I'm personally still glad I saw you through, 2005. I traded the best job I'd ever had for an even better one, successfully converted large chunks of my front yard from lawn to garden, and generally lived really well, to judge by the various scribblings on the calendar and Slingshot planner I used during you. I'm oddly fascinated by the contrast between those scribblings and my memories, but if I come up with anything more interesting or coherent to say about this phenomenon, it'll probably be fodder for at least another letter. Speaking of writing, I'm quite pleased with many of the open letters I've finished over the course of a year, and a little intimidated by the number of letters I started but have yet to finish. All of which is to say that it's about time I finished addressing you, 2005, and got on with a new year of living and writing.
Thanks for everything, and goodbye.
Love,
-Tracy
Title abridged 1 December 2011.
Started 29 December 2005, published 20 January 2006.
I wasn't sure about writing you, what with having already done a year in review letter for your predecessor (and also I could whine on for pages better used in other letters about writer's block and how the dead of winter is generally a slow time for me to put it mildly but I will limit myself to this one parenthetical comment here). Then Merriam-Webster Online released their top ten most-searched words of the year:
integrity, refugee, contempt, filibuster, insipid, tsunami, pandemic, conclave, levee, inept.I mean, damn. Even given the fact that the south Asian tsunami disaster was actually in 2004, and you didn't produce anywhere near that kind of nasty last-minute surprises, it was impressive enough to rock me for a day. (The taking weeks to finish writing about it, I did that part all on my own, along with plenty of whining about having no motivation to write.) Don't get me wrong --- it's not that the word lists for previous years haven't been sadly telling as well, in a "check out the state of U.S. news and especially politics" kind of way. But even discounting "tsunami" from your list, you've still got Hurricane Katrina and the abandonment of New Orleans, avian flu, a scary new Pope, and in general entirely too much political obnoxiousness of the sort that makes me say "no more stupid please, I am full." Now if only I could say something to undo the resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor from the U.S. Supreme Court, maybe the 2006 word list wouldn't reflect quite so much of that last... but no, we've already had plenty during the Alito confirmation hearings. Dangit.
But of course, life keeps going on in any case, and I'm personally still glad I saw you through, 2005. I traded the best job I'd ever had for an even better one, successfully converted large chunks of my front yard from lawn to garden, and generally lived really well, to judge by the various scribblings on the calendar and Slingshot planner I used during you. I'm oddly fascinated by the contrast between those scribblings and my memories, but if I come up with anything more interesting or coherent to say about this phenomenon, it'll probably be fodder for at least another letter. Speaking of writing, I'm quite pleased with many of the open letters I've finished over the course of a year, and a little intimidated by the number of letters I started but have yet to finish. All of which is to say that it's about time I finished addressing you, 2005, and got on with a new year of living and writing.
Thanks for everything, and goodbye.
Love,
-Tracy
Title abridged 1 December 2011.
Started 29 December 2005, published 20 January 2006.
05 May 2005
17. Laws Against Same-Sex Marriage
Dear laws against same-sex marriage,
I used to dream that I would get married someday. That's not too surprising; I grew up in a society with lots of ideas, images, and assumptions about marriage, the kind that get repeated rhetorically by the politicians who claim we need laws like you to protect the foundation of a stable society. Big deal. But regardless of what I absorbed or learned, or whether our society is stable or not, I didn't have a stereotypical little girl's dreams about my wedding day, ceremonies, spectacle, big fancy dresses that would never be good for any other occasion, or even about cake. I'd learned from my parents pretty early on that the ceremonial parts of marriage are a big hoopla mostly for the benefit of the friends and family of the couple getting married, and that people who sign papers at City Hall with a minimum number of witnesses are just as married as the folks who shell out big bucks for a celebration with all the trimmings. My parents got married because otherwise my mother wouldn't have had very many rights in the United States when she came here with my father, and because it made my grandmother happy — though I don't doubt that Oma had been quick to point out the pragmatic benefits of having their relationship legally recognized. My mother never had a white wedding dress, but instead a brown one she wore to many other occasions, and when she was unhappy with the hairstyle inflicted on her by a salon staff over-eager to cater to a bride, she washed it out. That's the kind of woman my mother is, and although we have our differences about plenty of other things, I admire her for this story. I have relatives who lived together in longterm committed relationships that lasted years before legal marriage. One pair of family friends married when he was drafted to go to Vietnam, so that she could collect widow's benefits if the worst came to pass; years later they divorced and continued living together when that arrangement proved more financially beneficial. My family didn't go to church, so the question of whether a marriage was civil or religious wasn't really an issue. So my view of marriage was never religious or romantic, but more practical. And my dreams of marriage were less about ceremonies and flowers, and more about sharing my life with someone and living happily ever after, more or less like my parents did (just don't tell them I said that).
My dreams began to turn sour in 1996, when former U.S. President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act — and when I started to realize that I could be attracted to females as well as males. It was an eye-opening experience, realizing that the law would recognize and support my relationship only if I loved a member of the opposite sex. (And if you'll tolerate one more brief flashback to my childhood, I'd like to point out that the first time I can remember talking to anyone about homosexuality, it was defined in terms of marriage: "gay" was when a man wanted to marry another man, or a woman wanted to marry another woman. Chew on that awhile.) Anyway, I was angered and disgusted by DoMA, and like I said before, whatever sweet marriage dreams I might have had gradually turned sour, and finally bitter, in the following years, as more and more states passed discriminatory laws to limit the definition of marriage to "one man, one woman". These laws prompted me to learn more about the other ways marriage discriminates (why can't bureaucrats create paperwork that separates us into "married" and "unmarried", instead of assuming that the opposite of "married" is "single"?) and better understand my dissatisfaction with the legal and social institution of marriage (again, the religious aspects weren't really relevant to me). In 2000, when the state of Vermont created its same-sex civil unions, the state of California, where I was living at the time, passed its own law — Proposition 22 — so it could refuse to recognize even marriage-like legal relationships created in other states. Today the United States government spends millions to promote marriage as an alternative to welfare, as if somehow it's better for children to suffer poverty as long as their parents are wearing wedding rings — I could go on and on, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
In 2004, almost the present day, the United States Senate debated a proposed Constitutional amendment that would deny marriage rights to same-sex couples. (I won't say "once and for all", because Prohibition was struck down, but that took a Constitutional amendment, too, and years of misery in between.) Needless to say, the proposed amendment would have been an added layer of redundancy on top of all the unfair laws passed over the years since DoMA, but I wasn't as angry or disgusted as I was in 1996 or 2000. Instead, I was disappointed and sad, even after the amendment failed to pass. Later that year, the state of Oregon, where I live, responded to the city of Portland's decision to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples by passing its own "one man, one woman" referendum, Measure 36. Five months later, I still can't bring myself to take down our sign protesting its injustice.
In 1996, marriage was just a hypothetical possibility for my future. In 2004, after six years with the same partner, it broke my heart to know that although we, as an opposite-sex couple, could have our relationship legally recognized, we could have at best a pale imitation of such protections and support if we were a same-sex couple. I still hope that someday things will change, that laws will be rewritten to treat all couples equally, but for now all I have is hope. Same-sex marriage is still only legal in one state in the U.S., and it still isn't enough for its opponents to know that same-sex couples are largely excluded from the rights and privileges extended to married people, even by the highest law of the land. Even civil unions, domestic partnerships, and reciprocal beneficiary status are controversial, and as if to highlight their separate but hardly equal status, laws providing such limited legal alternatives to marriage routinely exclude opposite-sex couples like me and my partner. I don't dream of getting married anymore, and it's largely because of laws like you.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 23 February 2005, posted 4 May 2005, updated 20 October 2005. Title abridged 1 December 2011.
I used to dream that I would get married someday. That's not too surprising; I grew up in a society with lots of ideas, images, and assumptions about marriage, the kind that get repeated rhetorically by the politicians who claim we need laws like you to protect the foundation of a stable society. Big deal. But regardless of what I absorbed or learned, or whether our society is stable or not, I didn't have a stereotypical little girl's dreams about my wedding day, ceremonies, spectacle, big fancy dresses that would never be good for any other occasion, or even about cake. I'd learned from my parents pretty early on that the ceremonial parts of marriage are a big hoopla mostly for the benefit of the friends and family of the couple getting married, and that people who sign papers at City Hall with a minimum number of witnesses are just as married as the folks who shell out big bucks for a celebration with all the trimmings. My parents got married because otherwise my mother wouldn't have had very many rights in the United States when she came here with my father, and because it made my grandmother happy — though I don't doubt that Oma had been quick to point out the pragmatic benefits of having their relationship legally recognized. My mother never had a white wedding dress, but instead a brown one she wore to many other occasions, and when she was unhappy with the hairstyle inflicted on her by a salon staff over-eager to cater to a bride, she washed it out. That's the kind of woman my mother is, and although we have our differences about plenty of other things, I admire her for this story. I have relatives who lived together in longterm committed relationships that lasted years before legal marriage. One pair of family friends married when he was drafted to go to Vietnam, so that she could collect widow's benefits if the worst came to pass; years later they divorced and continued living together when that arrangement proved more financially beneficial. My family didn't go to church, so the question of whether a marriage was civil or religious wasn't really an issue. So my view of marriage was never religious or romantic, but more practical. And my dreams of marriage were less about ceremonies and flowers, and more about sharing my life with someone and living happily ever after, more or less like my parents did (just don't tell them I said that).
My dreams began to turn sour in 1996, when former U.S. President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act — and when I started to realize that I could be attracted to females as well as males. It was an eye-opening experience, realizing that the law would recognize and support my relationship only if I loved a member of the opposite sex. (And if you'll tolerate one more brief flashback to my childhood, I'd like to point out that the first time I can remember talking to anyone about homosexuality, it was defined in terms of marriage: "gay" was when a man wanted to marry another man, or a woman wanted to marry another woman. Chew on that awhile.) Anyway, I was angered and disgusted by DoMA, and like I said before, whatever sweet marriage dreams I might have had gradually turned sour, and finally bitter, in the following years, as more and more states passed discriminatory laws to limit the definition of marriage to "one man, one woman". These laws prompted me to learn more about the other ways marriage discriminates (why can't bureaucrats create paperwork that separates us into "married" and "unmarried", instead of assuming that the opposite of "married" is "single"?) and better understand my dissatisfaction with the legal and social institution of marriage (again, the religious aspects weren't really relevant to me). In 2000, when the state of Vermont created its same-sex civil unions, the state of California, where I was living at the time, passed its own law — Proposition 22 — so it could refuse to recognize even marriage-like legal relationships created in other states. Today the United States government spends millions to promote marriage as an alternative to welfare, as if somehow it's better for children to suffer poverty as long as their parents are wearing wedding rings — I could go on and on, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
In 2004, almost the present day, the United States Senate debated a proposed Constitutional amendment that would deny marriage rights to same-sex couples. (I won't say "once and for all", because Prohibition was struck down, but that took a Constitutional amendment, too, and years of misery in between.) Needless to say, the proposed amendment would have been an added layer of redundancy on top of all the unfair laws passed over the years since DoMA, but I wasn't as angry or disgusted as I was in 1996 or 2000. Instead, I was disappointed and sad, even after the amendment failed to pass. Later that year, the state of Oregon, where I live, responded to the city of Portland's decision to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples by passing its own "one man, one woman" referendum, Measure 36. Five months later, I still can't bring myself to take down our sign protesting its injustice.
In 1996, marriage was just a hypothetical possibility for my future. In 2004, after six years with the same partner, it broke my heart to know that although we, as an opposite-sex couple, could have our relationship legally recognized, we could have at best a pale imitation of such protections and support if we were a same-sex couple. I still hope that someday things will change, that laws will be rewritten to treat all couples equally, but for now all I have is hope. Same-sex marriage is still only legal in one state in the U.S., and it still isn't enough for its opponents to know that same-sex couples are largely excluded from the rights and privileges extended to married people, even by the highest law of the land. Even civil unions, domestic partnerships, and reciprocal beneficiary status are controversial, and as if to highlight their separate but hardly equal status, laws providing such limited legal alternatives to marriage routinely exclude opposite-sex couples like me and my partner. I don't dream of getting married anymore, and it's largely because of laws like you.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 23 February 2005, posted 4 May 2005, updated 20 October 2005. Title abridged 1 December 2011.
06 March 2005
14. DMCA
Dear Digital Millenium Copyright Act,
I knew you were a bad law from hanging around with geeks who care deeply about intellectual property and freedom, but it wasn't until recently that I found out exactly how bad you really are.
You see, it turns out you're the reason I can't listen to live internet broadcasts of Vin Scelsa's freeform radio show Idiot's Delight, because Vin's prone to stuff like playing the entire B side of an album when it suits him, which is just too... oh, I give in, it's too free for some people, never mind that it's exactly that freedom that makes it good art, and if you don't think deejaying can be art then clearly you've never listened to Vin on a good night, which is why I want to be able to hear him here on the West Coast though the signals don't carry that far and for a brief shining moment I thought maybe the marvels of technology might be able to help me out. But no. Vin's show is too free-form and too free for the likes of laws like you, and so he can't be broadcast online.
You suck.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 18 January 2005, published 5 March 2005, last updated 25 May 2005, a few happy weeks after I had been advised as to the whereabouts of online archives of Vin's shows (yay!)
I knew you were a bad law from hanging around with geeks who care deeply about intellectual property and freedom, but it wasn't until recently that I found out exactly how bad you really are.
You see, it turns out you're the reason I can't listen to live internet broadcasts of Vin Scelsa's freeform radio show Idiot's Delight, because Vin's prone to stuff like playing the entire B side of an album when it suits him, which is just too... oh, I give in, it's too free for some people, never mind that it's exactly that freedom that makes it good art, and if you don't think deejaying can be art then clearly you've never listened to Vin on a good night, which is why I want to be able to hear him here on the West Coast though the signals don't carry that far and for a brief shining moment I thought maybe the marvels of technology might be able to help me out. But no. Vin's show is too free-form and too free for the likes of laws like you, and so he can't be broadcast online.
You suck.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 18 January 2005, published 5 March 2005, last updated 25 May 2005, a few happy weeks after I had been advised as to the whereabouts of online archives of Vin's shows (yay!)
16 February 2005
10. Wedding Invitations
Dear Wedding Invitations,
You stress me out so hard. I mean, it's bad enough when you're an invitation to a wedding that I clearly don't want to go to, because it's hyper-formal, tons of nested envelopes requesting the pleasure of a reply, return address is someone's parents and not the couple (I don't care if it's proper etiquette, it's archaic and downright creepy to pretend like the people getting married aren't consenting adults capable of announcing their own commitment celebration, and if the party's so huge they need their parents to help foot the bill, that's another sign that I don't want to play). Some of you have obvious scary church stuff warning me to stay away; I don't need to go to any more weddings where the bride promises to obey her husband and be his appendage instead of her own person, and God blesses it six ways from Tuesday. Invitations like those are bad in their own way, but at least they're fairly easy to deal with, because I can just be snarky about them and be happy I don't have to go.
On bad days, I think all wedding invitations should say something like:
But then some of you are the occasional good wedding invitations, coming from dear close friends whose love I truly want to celebrate, invitations that aren't hyper-formal or churchy or addressed from anyone's parents and maybe even straight-out answer the questions I'm not allowed to ask, like "Why are you getting married when you already love each other and live together and everyone who knows and loves you is happy about it? Is there a legal need? Couldn't you just have a party and a preacher person if that's your thing? Do you really have to deal with the law? Couldn't you at least put it off until the law's a little less sad and messed up?" Good wedding invitations are the ones that really hurt. Because despite all of my discomfort and disgruntlement with weddings, which in turn make me twitchy because they all too often reflect the most glaring and horrific flaws in the institution of marriage, at the end of the day I still have the best friends in the world and if anyone can change both marriage and weddings for the better, it's them. I don't have the strength or the stubbornness to subscribe to a system I hate and change it from within, but I can wish my friends the very best in doing just that, just like I wish them the very best in everything else they do. And so the good wedding invitations break my heart even more than the bad ones make me sick to my stomach, because I want to raise my glass in salute to all the happy couples that I love, but I wish it were easier to do so in a way that makes it clear I'm drinking to them and only them, and not to any church or state that blesses their couplehood while refusing to recognize other committed relationships.
And so my stomach churns and my blood pressure rises every time I read one of you, wedding invitations. I've only just started to recognize these feelings as the fight or flight response, and the more I care about the people involved, the worse it is. And sometimes it's just alienation at the reminder that I'm completely from-another-planet out of touch with what feels like most people's opinions about weddings and marriage, but sometimes it's an all-out battle between the parts of me that rejoice and thrive at seeing friends and especially friends who love each other awesomely, versus the parts of me that die inside when I bite my tongue through the part of the ceremony that asks if it's right for the couple to wed, the part that makes me want to get up and beg "Just don't sign the papers! You can be partnered without reinforcing the hateful, wrong laws!" But I digress.
Sigh.
I think these thoughts and feel these feelings every time I encounter one of you, wedding invitations, but there's almost no one I can tell about them, and there's almost invariably somebody who's going to take it really personally whenever I mention this stuff in the wrong place or at the wrong time. If I'm lucky, it's just the people who most recently sent me an invitation, which makes me wish I could be writing this letter in like 1984, before anyone I knew was getting married. And so I'm writing this letter, addressing you instead of the people who send you, because I am a giant coward, and you couldn't read this even if I found a way to send it.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 18 January 2005, posted 16 February 2005, last updated 16 May 2005.
This letter is dedicated to Mark and Sara Betnel, because on very rare and lucky occasions sometimes I don't have to be a coward. "What more can you share than your whole self, your whole life, all the nights and all the days?" (Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed.)
You stress me out so hard. I mean, it's bad enough when you're an invitation to a wedding that I clearly don't want to go to, because it's hyper-formal, tons of nested envelopes requesting the pleasure of a reply, return address is someone's parents and not the couple (I don't care if it's proper etiquette, it's archaic and downright creepy to pretend like the people getting married aren't consenting adults capable of announcing their own commitment celebration, and if the party's so huge they need their parents to help foot the bill, that's another sign that I don't want to play). Some of you have obvious scary church stuff warning me to stay away; I don't need to go to any more weddings where the bride promises to obey her husband and be his appendage instead of her own person, and God blesses it six ways from Tuesday. Invitations like those are bad in their own way, but at least they're fairly easy to deal with, because I can just be snarky about them and be happy I don't have to go.
On bad days, I think all wedding invitations should say something like:
In case you don't get enough daily reminders of heterosexual privilege, here's a big huge party to celebrate just that! If you're extra-lucky, it'll be super-formal AND in a church, for all the bonus alienation points! And maybe if you're a girl you'll be invited to buy a big ugly dress that's no good for any other occasion, just so you can be part of the scenery!
Come, pretend like this archaic ceremony and adjustment of legal status also changes something about this couple's relationship to each other, even if they've clearly already made these promises and commitments in private! They're having a party so you can witness their vows, but do they celebrate the fact that you're participating or do they pretend that it's just between them and maybe their God? The only way to find out is to come to the party, grin and bear it, and suffer through heterosexual supremacy hell!I suppose, wedding invitations, you could say that on bad days, I don't much like you at all.
But then some of you are the occasional good wedding invitations, coming from dear close friends whose love I truly want to celebrate, invitations that aren't hyper-formal or churchy or addressed from anyone's parents and maybe even straight-out answer the questions I'm not allowed to ask, like "Why are you getting married when you already love each other and live together and everyone who knows and loves you is happy about it? Is there a legal need? Couldn't you just have a party and a preacher person if that's your thing? Do you really have to deal with the law? Couldn't you at least put it off until the law's a little less sad and messed up?" Good wedding invitations are the ones that really hurt. Because despite all of my discomfort and disgruntlement with weddings, which in turn make me twitchy because they all too often reflect the most glaring and horrific flaws in the institution of marriage, at the end of the day I still have the best friends in the world and if anyone can change both marriage and weddings for the better, it's them. I don't have the strength or the stubbornness to subscribe to a system I hate and change it from within, but I can wish my friends the very best in doing just that, just like I wish them the very best in everything else they do. And so the good wedding invitations break my heart even more than the bad ones make me sick to my stomach, because I want to raise my glass in salute to all the happy couples that I love, but I wish it were easier to do so in a way that makes it clear I'm drinking to them and only them, and not to any church or state that blesses their couplehood while refusing to recognize other committed relationships.
And so my stomach churns and my blood pressure rises every time I read one of you, wedding invitations. I've only just started to recognize these feelings as the fight or flight response, and the more I care about the people involved, the worse it is. And sometimes it's just alienation at the reminder that I'm completely from-another-planet out of touch with what feels like most people's opinions about weddings and marriage, but sometimes it's an all-out battle between the parts of me that rejoice and thrive at seeing friends and especially friends who love each other awesomely, versus the parts of me that die inside when I bite my tongue through the part of the ceremony that asks if it's right for the couple to wed, the part that makes me want to get up and beg "Just don't sign the papers! You can be partnered without reinforcing the hateful, wrong laws!" But I digress.
Sigh.
I think these thoughts and feel these feelings every time I encounter one of you, wedding invitations, but there's almost no one I can tell about them, and there's almost invariably somebody who's going to take it really personally whenever I mention this stuff in the wrong place or at the wrong time. If I'm lucky, it's just the people who most recently sent me an invitation, which makes me wish I could be writing this letter in like 1984, before anyone I knew was getting married. And so I'm writing this letter, addressing you instead of the people who send you, because I am a giant coward, and you couldn't read this even if I found a way to send it.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 18 January 2005, posted 16 February 2005, last updated 16 May 2005.
This letter is dedicated to Mark and Sara Betnel, because on very rare and lucky occasions sometimes I don't have to be a coward. "What more can you share than your whole self, your whole life, all the nights and all the days?" (Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed.)
20 January 2005
5. U.S.A.
Dear United States of America,
So as of today, George W. Bush is sworn in as President, and even cynical little me has to admit he was probably elected this time around. At least this time we didn't have to get the Supreme Court involved, right? That's got to count for something, right? Okay, I'm grasping at straws here.
I've been meaning to write you a letter since November 2004, of course, when the election happened and I couldn't bring myself to call it a re-election, but I also couldn't bear to think that we averaged 70,000 votes worth of fraud per state this time around. Of course, most of my letters started out, "Dear U.S.A., what the fuck?" and didn't get much more eloquent from there. It was the popular vote that really turned my stomach. I mean, I was glad it matched the Electoral College results for a change, not that I particularly like the Electoral College, but that's a topic for another letter. But G.W.B. didn't win the popular vote in 2000, and carried on like it was a landslide anyway, so the thought of what he and his team would do with even a slim majority was pretty sick-making. So was the thought that a majority of people cast "Please sir, can I have some more?" votes, and wondering what the hell was going on in their minds, and feeling like an alien maybe a little more than usual even. Also I really didn't like the thought that people with opinions and ideas like mine (and a lot of people with opinions and ideas a lot less extreme than mine, for that matter) were going to be thorougly ignored for another four years. I wrote about wanting to leave the country, like a lot of people did when post-election despair was strongest, but then I found, to my surprise, that some parts of me actually identify with you after all.
I've always been something of a foreigner here, from the fact that I was born with dual nationality and grew up speaking two languages, to the fact that my family didn't go to church. On the other hand, I always had the reassuring knowledge that there's another country I could easily call home if I so chose, even if as I got older I gradually learned that the Netherlands was not the land of gifts and unconditional love --- that was just my grandparents' house, which happens to be in the Netherlands. Still, the growing-up realization that I would probably never fully fit into either country didn't particularly make me like the United States any better. So why was I suddenly discovering in myself this sudden refusal to leave?
Part of it was just stubbornness, and the knowledge that if everybody like me left the U.S.A. it would make the administration's job that much easier. Part of it was the fact that damn it, my house is here. But to my everlasting surprise, there was more.
Dear United States of America, you're my country, too. I may be a second-class citizen in a lot of ways: I'm a woman, sure, and to make matters worse I'm a woman who's had an abortion. I'm an atheist, I'm a foreigner, and I'm a queer. But despite all those things, I was born here, and that makes this my country even if I don't always like it, and I'm not going to cut and run just yet. I've made a list of things that would make me leave: another war, one that threatened to draft my partner; a national law against same-sex marriage; a national law making abortion illegal. Even the reversal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court might not be enough to make me leave you, U.S.A., because if Roe went down I'd have work to do, making sure that women in states banning abortion had ways of getting to free states. I might join a new Underground Railroad if that's what it took to help keep women from dying from unsafe illegal abortions again, okay? And (I know this is getting off topic and it isn't even addressed to all of you) shut the hell up about abortion being dangerous and traumatic, because 1) it's still safer than childbirth and 2) I for one am living proof that they're not going to leave every woman who has one crying and wishing for the child they could have had, assuming they stayed safe and healthy and didn't miscarry. Okay, I can get back to my main point now.
Long term, I'm worried about my ability to keep living here, United States of America, because the writing on the wall seems to be that we might soon be paying taxes only to support international imperialism instead of to take care of our citizens. Call me a socialist if you want, but I'm not particularly interested in being ruled by a government that thinks guns are more important than feeding and sheltering and providing for the health of its citizens. Maybe that makes me an anarchist, too. Whatever. My point, United States of America, is I'm still a part of you, even though I'm not a rich white Christian male imperialist capitalist bastard, which seems to be what we're stuck having in charge today. And for your information, I'm by far not the only non-white, non-rich, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-Christian, non-capitalist, non-imperialist motherfucker out here. I'm pretty sure we're the majority, even if your last election's popular vote didn't reflect that too well.
Have you noticed that I haven't once yet called you America? It's tempting, don't get me wrong; I want to quote that Ginsberg poem with all my heart, but that abbreviation happens to ignore the inhabitants of all the other countries on this continent and the one to the south, and that's pretty poor form if you ask me. Just a thought.
I'm running out of steam, so I'm going to finish this letter here and send it as is. Long story short, U.S.A., is "Howdy. I'm still here." For now, we're stuck with each other --- I hope we can play nice, because it turns out I don't want to take my ball and find a new home.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 2 November 2004, first posted 20 January 2005, last updated 6 June 2014.
So as of today, George W. Bush is sworn in as President, and even cynical little me has to admit he was probably elected this time around. At least this time we didn't have to get the Supreme Court involved, right? That's got to count for something, right? Okay, I'm grasping at straws here.
I've been meaning to write you a letter since November 2004, of course, when the election happened and I couldn't bring myself to call it a re-election, but I also couldn't bear to think that we averaged 70,000 votes worth of fraud per state this time around. Of course, most of my letters started out, "Dear U.S.A., what the fuck?" and didn't get much more eloquent from there. It was the popular vote that really turned my stomach. I mean, I was glad it matched the Electoral College results for a change, not that I particularly like the Electoral College, but that's a topic for another letter. But G.W.B. didn't win the popular vote in 2000, and carried on like it was a landslide anyway, so the thought of what he and his team would do with even a slim majority was pretty sick-making. So was the thought that a majority of people cast "Please sir, can I have some more?" votes, and wondering what the hell was going on in their minds, and feeling like an alien maybe a little more than usual even. Also I really didn't like the thought that people with opinions and ideas like mine (and a lot of people with opinions and ideas a lot less extreme than mine, for that matter) were going to be thorougly ignored for another four years. I wrote about wanting to leave the country, like a lot of people did when post-election despair was strongest, but then I found, to my surprise, that some parts of me actually identify with you after all.
I've always been something of a foreigner here, from the fact that I was born with dual nationality and grew up speaking two languages, to the fact that my family didn't go to church. On the other hand, I always had the reassuring knowledge that there's another country I could easily call home if I so chose, even if as I got older I gradually learned that the Netherlands was not the land of gifts and unconditional love --- that was just my grandparents' house, which happens to be in the Netherlands. Still, the growing-up realization that I would probably never fully fit into either country didn't particularly make me like the United States any better. So why was I suddenly discovering in myself this sudden refusal to leave?
Part of it was just stubbornness, and the knowledge that if everybody like me left the U.S.A. it would make the administration's job that much easier. Part of it was the fact that damn it, my house is here. But to my everlasting surprise, there was more.
Dear United States of America, you're my country, too. I may be a second-class citizen in a lot of ways: I'm a woman, sure, and to make matters worse I'm a woman who's had an abortion. I'm an atheist, I'm a foreigner, and I'm a queer. But despite all those things, I was born here, and that makes this my country even if I don't always like it, and I'm not going to cut and run just yet. I've made a list of things that would make me leave: another war, one that threatened to draft my partner; a national law against same-sex marriage; a national law making abortion illegal. Even the reversal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court might not be enough to make me leave you, U.S.A., because if Roe went down I'd have work to do, making sure that women in states banning abortion had ways of getting to free states. I might join a new Underground Railroad if that's what it took to help keep women from dying from unsafe illegal abortions again, okay? And (I know this is getting off topic and it isn't even addressed to all of you) shut the hell up about abortion being dangerous and traumatic, because 1) it's still safer than childbirth and 2) I for one am living proof that they're not going to leave every woman who has one crying and wishing for the child they could have had, assuming they stayed safe and healthy and didn't miscarry. Okay, I can get back to my main point now.
Long term, I'm worried about my ability to keep living here, United States of America, because the writing on the wall seems to be that we might soon be paying taxes only to support international imperialism instead of to take care of our citizens. Call me a socialist if you want, but I'm not particularly interested in being ruled by a government that thinks guns are more important than feeding and sheltering and providing for the health of its citizens. Maybe that makes me an anarchist, too. Whatever. My point, United States of America, is I'm still a part of you, even though I'm not a rich white Christian male imperialist capitalist bastard, which seems to be what we're stuck having in charge today. And for your information, I'm by far not the only non-white, non-rich, non-male, non-heterosexual, non-Christian, non-capitalist, non-imperialist motherfucker out here. I'm pretty sure we're the majority, even if your last election's popular vote didn't reflect that too well.
Have you noticed that I haven't once yet called you America? It's tempting, don't get me wrong; I want to quote that Ginsberg poem with all my heart, but that abbreviation happens to ignore the inhabitants of all the other countries on this continent and the one to the south, and that's pretty poor form if you ask me. Just a thought.
I'm running out of steam, so I'm going to finish this letter here and send it as is. Long story short, U.S.A., is "Howdy. I'm still here." For now, we're stuck with each other --- I hope we can play nice, because it turns out I don't want to take my ball and find a new home.
Love,
-Tracy
Started 2 November 2004, first posted 20 January 2005, last updated 6 June 2014.
11 January 2005
2. 2004
Dear 2004,
Goodbye. I know, I know, technically you've been gone a week and a half, but I only got around to the traditional New Year's Day meal of blackeyed peas and collards on Sunday, and anyway, you're still on my mind.
I want to say you were a pretty good year, but I can't exactly ignore the fact that you ended pretty poorly. I mean, first there was that stupid U.S. presidential election --- that wasn't very 21st century, was it? I hope not. (In fact, it was a pretty bad election year overall for the U.S., but I've got other letters to write about that.) And then there was the South Asian earthquake and tsunami disaster, eclipsing ever so much other news both good and bad. We're all going to have to wait and see, of course, but I think that last is most likely to put you in the history books, which is a bummer, to put it mildly.
Personally, ignoring the troubles of the world, I did all right in 2004. My partner and I bought a house, for one thing, and I'm still loving it into this new year. Also I held a job for an entire calendar year, January through December, something I'd never done before. Not a full-time job, but then again I don't really want one of those. And sure, it isn't a job even remotely related to my pricey college education, but so far it's a hell of a lot more fun than any job I've had that did relate to all that schooling and stress. Hrm. A hint of bitterness there, something to think and probably write about, but not in this letter; it's way off-topic.
Back to 2004: I began and ended the year in the company of good friends! My friends are awesome, no two ways about it. I got a piano! I started a garden! I lived with people and cats that I love! Despite all of these good, exclamation-point-worthy things, I was still prone to fits of severe depression! Okay, that last was a sarcastic exclamation point. Back to you, 2004.
Is it even fair to judge a year by its events? I suppose they're really all I've got, and what I'll remember the year by, which in itself is a kind of judgment, memory being selective and all. Besides, it's not like I'm blaming the events on the year; that's almost as pointless as a writing project based on letters that can't get replies. But enough with the self-referential cuteness.
Perhaps my biggest disappointment of 2004 was the fact that I didn't do anything lasting and creative. My job throughout the year was playing with food, and I made a lot of awesomely tasty things outside of work, but I didn't really get any writing done. I did, however, get the idea of writing letters, even letters I couldn't send, so at least you helped me find the seeds of something, even if I didn't get it started until 2005. For that, 2004, I thank you.
Love,
-Tracy
idea: 14 December 2004, writing: 11 January 2005, posting 18 January 2005, last update 6 June 2014
Goodbye. I know, I know, technically you've been gone a week and a half, but I only got around to the traditional New Year's Day meal of blackeyed peas and collards on Sunday, and anyway, you're still on my mind.
I want to say you were a pretty good year, but I can't exactly ignore the fact that you ended pretty poorly. I mean, first there was that stupid U.S. presidential election --- that wasn't very 21st century, was it? I hope not. (In fact, it was a pretty bad election year overall for the U.S., but I've got other letters to write about that.) And then there was the South Asian earthquake and tsunami disaster, eclipsing ever so much other news both good and bad. We're all going to have to wait and see, of course, but I think that last is most likely to put you in the history books, which is a bummer, to put it mildly.
Personally, ignoring the troubles of the world, I did all right in 2004. My partner and I bought a house, for one thing, and I'm still loving it into this new year. Also I held a job for an entire calendar year, January through December, something I'd never done before. Not a full-time job, but then again I don't really want one of those. And sure, it isn't a job even remotely related to my pricey college education, but so far it's a hell of a lot more fun than any job I've had that did relate to all that schooling and stress. Hrm. A hint of bitterness there, something to think and probably write about, but not in this letter; it's way off-topic.
Back to 2004: I began and ended the year in the company of good friends! My friends are awesome, no two ways about it. I got a piano! I started a garden! I lived with people and cats that I love! Despite all of these good, exclamation-point-worthy things, I was still prone to fits of severe depression! Okay, that last was a sarcastic exclamation point. Back to you, 2004.
Is it even fair to judge a year by its events? I suppose they're really all I've got, and what I'll remember the year by, which in itself is a kind of judgment, memory being selective and all. Besides, it's not like I'm blaming the events on the year; that's almost as pointless as a writing project based on letters that can't get replies. But enough with the self-referential cuteness.
Perhaps my biggest disappointment of 2004 was the fact that I didn't do anything lasting and creative. My job throughout the year was playing with food, and I made a lot of awesomely tasty things outside of work, but I didn't really get any writing done. I did, however, get the idea of writing letters, even letters I couldn't send, so at least you helped me find the seeds of something, even if I didn't get it started until 2005. For that, 2004, I thank you.
Love,
-Tracy
idea: 14 December 2004, writing: 11 January 2005, posting 18 January 2005, last update 6 June 2014
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