The Hunger Games is World Systems Theory structuralist.

Center= capital (also see district 13)
Periphery = outer districts
Semi-periphery= the close in districts that supply soldiers and tech

And without putting in too many spoilers, I have to say I loved the last book especially for its bold faced critique of imperialist regime change. I know there are others who hated it. But fuck ’em. Collins managed to put some complicated political machinations into a book for teenagers.

I can’t wait for this fucking movie to come out.

Today I am 37. Today this blog is 6 years old.

I have no idea how either I or this blog have lasted this long. I haven’t always been the most faithful of blogmistresses. Especially not these last months of fulltime paid work. I swear I wrote more typing on my little cellphone with no internet access and no home than I do now that I’ve moved on up to the top end of the working poor. I feel like I’ve written the same things over and over again, but then I realize that my views are more radical now than they were when I first started.

I started as an agnostic, yellow-dog never miss a vote Democrat. I am now an atheist with zero love for the party of 2% less evil. You might think that cutting the string of faith in either a higher being or legacy party or a political system in general would make one more pessimistic. Oddly enough, the opposite is true. With my rising cynicism in all that is current comes a rising optimism in all that is possible. It’s weird.

There’s a saying that therapists use with abuse victims. “Once you see it for what it is, you can’t unsee it”. I think that doesn’t just apply to the individual horrors, the day to day interpersonal violence, but to the big, systemic, institutionalized ones as well.

So I went through this thing, where I saw the full measure of awful and had my core shaken a bit. You all were there for it. You all kept us fed through it. It’s a little knee-bucking. And for a while I could not see how I could win this rigged game of life. I still don’t think I can win it. But I think I can survive it.

belle hooks (who doesn’t love belle hooks, right?) talks about love being an action and not a feeling. That helps. Feelings happen to us. We have this idea that we have no control over them. And that’s sort of true (cognitive behavioral therapy says we can change how we feel). But I think of love as an active choice. I choose to love my kid and my friends and my boyfriend. And I commit acts of love

and that knowledge make me sick inside. But that doesn’t change jock shit.

For those of you who don’t know who the racist, murdering, piece of shit George Zimmerman is- here’s the story.

Now I would never, and have never, and will never, follow a Black kid around cause he’s “suspicious” and then shoot him. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t benefit from the people that do. White privilege means I don’t have to do anything to benefit from racism. It requires no outward act on my part. I can be as much of anti-racist ally to POC that I want. It doesn’t erase the benefit I receive.

And one of those benefits is that I am more likely to be believed by people in authority when the other side of the story is coming from a person of color (or in this case, no side of the story cause Zimmerman shot him dead). I’m more likely to be believed even if I have a history of violent behavior, as Zimmerman did. I am more likely to be believed even if there had been previous complaints about my overzealous activities as neighborhood watch captain, as there were against Zimmerman. And the cops are more likely to try and turn witnesses in my favor, even when their statements and experience of the crime says I am guilty as fuck, as cops did for Zimmerman.

That’s not all though. I mean I am really never gonna act on that privilege, but the violence that Zimmerman and the cops protecting him from justice and the entire criminal justice system, ect… enact on people of color devalues their lives. A Black man or woman is worth less than I am. I don’t have to like it. But I benefit from it. I benefit by higher wages, better access to schools, less government interference in my personal life (and I know from government interference- hello poverty!) more protection from criminals (unless those criminals are white men- then I’m just a slut who was asking for it). I don’t have to want any of these benefits, but I get them. And I get them because the lives of people of color are worth less than mine.

And that is how all of us white folks are George Zimmerman, whether we are gun-toting, shit face crackers in the south or “nice” progressive white folks in the PNW.

It only took 4 tries, a surgical dose of valium, more lidocain than all the teeth in all the world need ,vicodin, advil, and one super amazing doctor with her awesome sidekick resident- and I have joined the ranks of the IUDed.

I am achey and crampy and all together too aware of where my internal organs are at the moment.I am also surprised I can type. Gonna go cuddle up with the boyfriend and make gushy eyes at him because he offered to come in and hold my hand. I got a little misty over that.

It’s always “shared austerity” but never “shared prosperity”?

Never ever do these douchenoodles who are all about (allegedly) spreading the pain around talk about spreading the joy around too. That goes for both parties, btws.

So not only is Kid older today, but tomorrow is round number 4 of “Let’s break the laws of physics using RQ’s girl parts”. And it’s the fucking communist invasion for the 2nd time this month (I knew something was up when the last one was only 5 days long. But hoped that I was just getting a reprieve from the semi-regularly scheduled slaughter. But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

Anyways, since I am now officially a pro at pre IUD prep (and after throwing a screaming fit- will getting a surgical dose of valium) I didn’t even ask when the pharmacist handed me a bottle of misoprostol. I got this down. I know what’s up. You stick it in your bits the night before and according to legend your cervix magically opens the next day to reveal the lost city of El Dorado!

But that’s not what my instructions say. I actually had to go look the word “buccally” up because despite my fairly impressive vocabulary, I had not fucking idea what the hell that was. It turns out that this time I am to stick the pills in my cheeks (face not ass) and wait for them to dissolve. This sounds like some kind of hell. I will be sitting in my office tomorrow, cheeks puffed with gross, gritty drugs, bleeding from my vadge, feeling like a colony of smurfs is waging a spears and mace war in my uterus, counting down the hours till I can sign my damn consent for to have the jaws of life used on my bits, so that I can take the magic pills that will probably knock me the fuck out for the entire ordeal.

(I want a prize for longest run on sentence in a blog post, please).

If 4th time isn’t the charm- I am selling my uterus to the highest bidder. It causes me massive issues- but it’s super fucking fertile. TAKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kid is seventeen. Holy fucking shit! JesusMaryAndJosephChrist! I don’t know how this happened. But I am intensely proud of the person he has become. He is sweet and funny and kind. He’s a little bit (a lot) of a hermit. But I think the social stuff is something he will figure out once he’s out of the house. I know and love a bunch of late bloomers on the social stuff and they are fine.

This is such a weird time, this beginning of the end of childhood. I am not quite sure what to do with myself. And I have to wait to see what Kid will do before I can plan. I think that is what is weird. Years of being the one in the driver’s seat and then WHAMO! and they are driving off on their own. Will Kid stay home for long? Will he want to go to college straight away (he’s starting at community college so he can plan as late as he wants) or will he want to work for awhile first. That was one of my favorite people’s plan and she’s now getting her PhD in math and awesomeness. I don’t know. He doesn’t know. He has to make the decision for himself and all I can do is give advice. Weird. Sofaking weird.

And weirder still is the fact that I am more, what exactly is the way to describe it. It’s like the little fluttery fear and excitement you get standing on a diving board while deciding to jump or not. I am more outwardly that than the Kid is. He’s all cool now. He’s mastering my raised eyebrow of doom. He would think that I was being silly and ridiculous for being all WOO WOO 17!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My baby is 17. I am still not sure how that happened.

Since he says the same damn shit I’ve been saying about charity but better.

And just FYI- since Oscar Wilde is so quoted in this. You all should know that Wilde’s mom was an Irish republican (the good kind of republican).

Boyfriend and I just got back from a weekend trip to Canadia! Land of hockey and universal healthcare! Here are some things I learned in my 3 days there:

1) I got some serious, hardcore weird looks for ordering a mimosa with brunch in the fancy hotel restaurant. Like I blew the waitress’ mind by ordering it.

2) But you can can get booze in coffee shops? (Grower’s pear hard cider is the fucking bomb!)

3) For as much as they say it rains in Seattle, British Columbia takes that to a whole new level. I kept joking that we were actually driving on the ocean floor. MY hair was wet for 3 days straight. I didn’t dry out until I got back today.

4) That whole “Canadians are super nice” thing is true (in my experience- ymmv).

5) Small mountain towns are the same everywhere. Everything closes at 8pm except that one bar where the diehards hang out.

6) I would sell my soul to spend 24 hours a day in a hot spring. I spent some time trying to figure out if a plastic ball, like the kind hamsters roll around in, could be engineered to be full of hot water so that I could just roll around in that all day. The couple of hours we spent soaking may be the longest pain free period I have had in 3 or 4 years.

7) Canadians have succumbed to the under-cooked sausage trend. Seriously people- you need to fucking sear the skin or sausage is just mushy and weird. COOK THAT SHIT!

8) Canadian tv is just as bad as American tv, but instead of channels with people screaming about sports and channels with people screaming about politics, you mostly have channels of people talking about hockey and people talking about politics.

That’s all I got, for now. Maybe next time I’ll get in a visit to Tim Horton’s and try to explain what the fuss is about.

and you don’t have access to safe, affordable, appropriate contraception. And when that fails, safe, affordable, accessible abortions.

Reading this is triggery if you are sensitive to blood and surgical stuff. It also made me cry.