tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111623592024-03-14T03:16:40.281-07:00Amanda KovattanaMiddle-aged musings in interesting timesAKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.comBlogger173125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-7429685631094756492023-08-03T17:20:00.007-07:002023-08-03T17:23:22.746-07:00My New Substack: Tales on the Gender Trail<p>With the publication of my book <i>The Unexpected Penis: Conversations on the Gender Trail</i>, I have taken the opportunity to start a substack specifically for articles about gender. This will allow me to more easily network with other writers focusing on gender. Visit it here. https://amandakovattana.substack.com</p><p>I will maintain this blog for articles on topics other than gender. My articles on tiny house living are continued at http://tinyreddesk.blogspot.com.</p><p>Thank you for looking in on my work.</p><p>Amanda</p>AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-55518314475121619352022-09-10T20:33:00.014-07:002022-10-23T12:27:51.071-07:00Thailand: My Covid Report<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;"></span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVKacHp_HjRuUCPw_asweIr8jM_AYX6u1ccnudGf0Mi7tn8x0-PTweD9tLiW32mArYogrExBzs8ld0h7fSCtsHdhLs2ckzaWzdsJ2tb6uJnmQARiYU-z6sgrdQercizkWK9Qb2-ZGLmj7YafgNpO92b2EY9BtAwZW4bs2QCGamklqMHg7AWRA/s4000/Health%20&%20Beauty%20Galleria.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVKacHp_HjRuUCPw_asweIr8jM_AYX6u1ccnudGf0Mi7tn8x0-PTweD9tLiW32mArYogrExBzs8ld0h7fSCtsHdhLs2ckzaWzdsJ2tb6uJnmQARiYU-z6sgrdQercizkWK9Qb2-ZGLmj7YafgNpO92b2EY9BtAwZW4bs2QCGamklqMHg7AWRA/s320/Health%20&%20Beauty%20Galleria.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span>After two years of being confined to the United States, I was relieved to finally be able to return to my home country of Thailand for a different perspective. I had been relying on this outside perspective to keep me sane during the Trump years, but once Covid hit I was stuck here with the fear. Luckily I had just returned from Thailand just before lockdown, in February of 2020, where I had already experienced life under Covid and found things to be orderly and well run with no panic buying and an acceptance of precautions as the natural course of things. After all, they had been through SARS and Bird Flu. The government had turned all decisions over to the Ministry of Health so there was a minimum of politicizing. Thailand followed what its neighboring countries were doing while working with other doctors internationally towards finding effective treatments. </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span>I was curious to know how my family and many friends in Thailand had experienced the pandemic.</span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> I asked everyone about their Covid-19 experience, if they were vaccinated and how they had treated their Covid case once they got it, as most everyone of my two dozen contacts had gotten it. The variety of answers I received made Thailand and its expat community look like the Cantina in Star Wars, so filled with all manner of perspectives and a variety of sources of information all mingling together in peace as befitting a cross-roads community of planetary relationships. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">These photos from the airport in Bangkok also tell a story. One that indicated a shift away from Western medicine. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiepuUT_jJ6cCQN2Iduhee6ZznyL5pHz-0MdMvPscAdipmIOC3LOkX6c2BHiUEvTc5LzSQoR2kxVmiZZ7hm4sRD0ZpQEFujMjKb5f7p6q2YkibAU9VbEqE_187-FAdP5-XjyyWTABz4upYpP_uNl1_rQkmBlQEd2XxlF2FcG_OvrGif9sAJDdE/s4000/Health%20&%20Wellness.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiepuUT_jJ6cCQN2Iduhee6ZznyL5pHz-0MdMvPscAdipmIOC3LOkX6c2BHiUEvTc5LzSQoR2kxVmiZZ7hm4sRD0ZpQEFujMjKb5f7p6q2YkibAU9VbEqE_187-FAdP5-XjyyWTABz4upYpP_uNl1_rQkmBlQEd2XxlF2FcG_OvrGif9sAJDdE/s320/Health%20&%20Wellness.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Gift Packs of Thai Herbal Medicines</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Thailand had reported the first case of Covid outside of China; yet its death rate is one seventh that of the U.S. It is now 29th in numbers of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105?fbclid=IwAR3rY12Y3trEh1-cculpqj902J7G5OjfA-Cw_glXBNBqQ-je6NUxFzPUw-0" target="_blank">deaths per capita in the world</a>, with the U.S. being number one. Thailand had several lockdown protocols and a 14 day quarantine period for entry into the country and even between regions. Quarantine was reduced to three days, then lifted entirely by November of 2021 with proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test within 72 hours of arrival.</span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Although slow to roll out the vaccine, Thailand now has 76.5% of the population fully vaccinated and vaccination or a Covid test is required for entry. (I showed my vaccine passport at SFO before boarding my flight.) There were four vaccines offered—two Chinese ones, a British-Swedish one and Pfizer. </p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Five of my contacts had refused the vaccine, firmly believing that it had potential to do harm because the technology was so new, and so few clinical trials had been done. They were smart people who had developed health regimes as part of their lifestyle. One elder expat, who found Al Jezeerra to be the best source of news, found an older flu vaccine to take that was seen to have worked with Covid. She had a mild case, once infected, and was soon over it.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Another unvaccinated, who already had an autoimmune disease, had the worse case of all my friends as it impacted her intestinal system. She followed the protocol <a href="https://pierrekory.substack.com/p/the-miracle-not-heard-around-the?sd=pf&fbclid=IwAR3S47YznAUlNAxW8l5iN0zQEjR4_TRTbcO74V1hvjdCp0IyUXqjhm4yUqU" target="_blank">developed by a doctor in India</a> and took a course of Ivermectin to reduce inflammation. She recovered in due time. My cousin and her two sons, were all not vaccinated. They got a mild case of Covid and she presumably used her skills in energy medicine to treat it. Her boys tested negative in 3 days. Another friend not vaccinated got it and was over it with no special treatment in a week or so.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">None who refused the vaccine were closeted about their status as this was not considered a heretical stance to take, nor were they accused of betraying the common good. The vaccine did not, after all, prevent transmission, so logically made no difference to the common good. Nor did not being vaccinated result in more people being hospitalized because doctors in Thailand urged early treatment before the body could escalate to the crisis stage requiring ventilators et al. This was also the case in many other non-first world countries.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Doctors treating Covid around the world were sharing<a href="https://c19adoption.com/?fbclid=IwAR0jwVhNvhhDzcoQ7gc86dfdWo1_XVumUtR12DcQwQL2TjFM189XHZg7zF4" target="_blank"> information uploaded to an international site</a>. They were using every medicine available to them. Ivermectin being the cheapest and most available followed by hydroxychloraquine sulfate, both used to fight malaria in hot countries. These medicines were so widely used in Africa that it was thought to be the reason why deaths were so low there. I had already perused such a site and my friends in Thailand also knew about this sharing of information. While in the U.S. it was adamantly claimed that there were no treatments available until the new Remdesivir drug came out.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrvUm_SxWL_DghNj0boXKkosS4UTpQz1y1-VXKSxU5MLYb3TDGrKmWpDdTaw9oEQBr2vFiKqN7CQsIw-Baovl4_ZgTVGYEyR1gVpCpGJ8DRsqFyBOlOxBmQSgCvORGQWTrJs8fw4iSfc2mU0bsdwY9fuFou6sommMDHamQ3YI1ewT_ujm3ZAM/s4000/FAH-TALAI-JONE.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrvUm_SxWL_DghNj0boXKkosS4UTpQz1y1-VXKSxU5MLYb3TDGrKmWpDdTaw9oEQBr2vFiKqN7CQsIw-Baovl4_ZgTVGYEyR1gVpCpGJ8DRsqFyBOlOxBmQSgCvORGQWTrJs8fw4iSfc2mU0bsdwY9fuFou6sommMDHamQ3YI1ewT_ujm3ZAM/w200-h150/FAH-TALAI-JONE.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Fah-Talai-Jone</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;">An expat friend from England treated herself and her husband with the ancient Thai herbal remedy Fah-talai-jone when they got Covid. </span><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This herbal medicine is listed with the Ministry of Health as an official treatment for Covid 19 in Thailand. It is a very old traditional herbal medicine. "It cures anything," said my friend.</span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7iYTbMhSYITxRTgFJNqZp-jvf9HcC7o1rdvfKYEXTeuQOl_SZt0SLlNXebz7yPU2gatEKh1gf_MW_bbO_Z7ekRM8itlWg1p5Z30MIgh0DD3hpZRfal32XoB9RHzM4UH3z1a-uf5rnZcSoH4_Muo2JU41dXABEgV07RoUcDCCjb6yT3aiw4o/s960/Ganmaoling%20Tablets.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="531" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7iYTbMhSYITxRTgFJNqZp-jvf9HcC7o1rdvfKYEXTeuQOl_SZt0SLlNXebz7yPU2gatEKh1gf_MW_bbO_Z7ekRM8itlWg1p5Z30MIgh0DD3hpZRfal32XoB9RHzM4UH3z1a-uf5rnZcSoH4_Muo2JU41dXABEgV07RoUcDCCjb6yT3aiw4o/s320/Ganmaoling%20Tablets.jpg" width="177" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7iYTbMhSYITxRTgFJNqZp-jvf9HcC7o1rdvfKYEXTeuQOl_SZt0SLlNXebz7yPU2gatEKh1gf_MW_bbO_Z7ekRM8itlWg1p5Z30MIgh0DD3hpZRfal32XoB9RHzM4UH3z1a-uf5rnZcSoH4_Muo2JU41dXABEgV07RoUcDCCjb6yT3aiw4o/s960/Ganmaoling%20Tablets.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></div><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A Thai friend posted on FB that she was in quarantine because her partner had it and she was boosting her immune system with the Chinese herb Ganmoeling which she instructed me could be found in San Francisco’s Chinatown on Clement or Irving street. She posted her negative tests every few days. Few of my friends in California spoke of boosting their immune system. Few talked at all about methods to keep in good health. I was beginning to suspect that the entire American population had immune systems that sucked and said as much to an elder friend who had closely followed the CDC recommendations. He did not believe that vitamins were a proven health strategy and seemed to have few remedies for the common cold. He suffered badly from any flu that came around and would urge me to get a flu shot whenever one hit. I was not in the habit of getting flu shots at all and rarely got sick.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I did visit one expat couple in Thailand who had not had Covid. They were isolated in their condo outside of Bangkok at a beach town. Both had taken the vaccine. My friend of the couple, an American and her Canadian husband, both felt the vaccine was the way to go, much like my mates at home. My friend did concede that she took Quinine as an immune booster which I hadn't heard of anyone doing, but later found that it was recommended by doctors internationally as an effective immune booster against Covid as was vitamin C, D and other supplements.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The vaccine was offered to those who wanted it. Those of my Thai friends who were largely Western educated had readily accepted the vaccine as did their staff. Except for my cousin of the energy medicine training in Reiki. She felt that those who did take the vaccine were doing so out of fear, rather than seeking natural body affirming, healthy living strategies. Her brother had taken the vaccine, but upon relating his sister's experience seemed both impressed and mystified by her success with her energy medicine methods. Nor did he feel he had to state why he had taken the vaccine. </p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There were no vaccine mandates. Thais believe that masks more prevent transmission. Those in my household wore masks when they approached me indoors and in the car with me. Masks were still mandated inside public buildings and recommended on public transport. They were surprised that I had not yet caught Covid and considered this status rare.</p>
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<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidHxxDTUAvfqDOclAauSYp4JiWCVcRZPaJPfpo4UFD9r1I9TSOosDI4tSu6oO0bF4KzA0wPuQxcNZ3dvxy9pr2TROSJslbnifkVONX0ecj_olcf1Zuep5zTzo0VnxasmWtuaUR4Pnb4gCOdJ556QB-Rhh8KxpvgLA22eGp5EghqR7pDV0DKSY/s4000/Boots%20At%20Airport.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidHxxDTUAvfqDOclAauSYp4JiWCVcRZPaJPfpo4UFD9r1I9TSOosDI4tSu6oO0bF4KzA0wPuQxcNZ3dvxy9pr2TROSJslbnifkVONX0ecj_olcf1Zuep5zTzo0VnxasmWtuaUR4Pnb4gCOdJ556QB-Rhh8KxpvgLA22eGp5EghqR7pDV0DKSY/s320/Boots%20At%20Airport.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">At the airport while waiting to fly to Taipei, I saw two duty free stores I had not seen before, both selling herbal remedies of all kinds, mostly made in Thailand. Gift packs even. Thailand has seen a renaissance in its herbal medicine practice, having shaken off being enamored of Western medicine and its pills. Such American drugs were offered for sale in Thailand below what we would pay for them in the US. I found this out when my mother went to buy her blood pressure medicine at the local pharmacy during one trip.</span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">Positioned between two world powers, Thailand already has its own Chinese community concentrated in Bangkok. Enough to make bridging with China a natural fit. While the enticements of the West are already firmly established in multiple food franchises and shopping enticements. The technology of both were readily available.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibMZk4ExTQuZWL8SkCP5q4Er-trpGRJXBj7DpsFsfSjADqWkmOLWr7V47txGuHBWR5-hqZr1Ui4Q2e1wkpII72kC1nVbdNGFP70B2tL_dlviWumksrQy-YpdrxjriFbGJPwXP1GuN2q2TA80g6g7EY49HV0u_-tKrmsqgjB5g6f_aoB7iSVZU/s4000/Please%20Pay%20Here.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibMZk4ExTQuZWL8SkCP5q4Er-trpGRJXBj7DpsFsfSjADqWkmOLWr7V47txGuHBWR5-hqZr1Ui4Q2e1wkpII72kC1nVbdNGFP70B2tL_dlviWumksrQy-YpdrxjriFbGJPwXP1GuN2q2TA80g6g7EY49HV0u_-tKrmsqgjB5g6f_aoB7iSVZU/s320/Please%20Pay%20Here.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;">My contacts in Thailand often ask me to bring them certain supplements and vitamins. My energy medicine cousin liked products offered by an American doctor practicing oxygen medicine. On this trip, due to a mistaken double order, I was carrying over $800 worth of two products, one to detox the body and one to energize it with amino acids, though I did not realize it until I saw a bill in the packing slip. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I, too, have my health regimes and returned unscathed by the virus.</p><div><br /></div></div>AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-54730242679543509072022-02-27T12:36:00.013-08:002022-04-12T07:11:43.189-07:00My Mother's Sweater<p> (I wrote this post for my FB page and it is backdated to reflect the date of my original post.)</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgViq9b_pC4oCxU2OgxtwUzaBgLHcqy-OPJGoLy-WnWC-Xt2YFUOreg804G_FipRnMKcnQzZRzhRldKB8jtHCm7_0ZYrs6mMPQq9649f1NqSPT0ZZYUTlIuF1DVHdtAFTiOLejjMUt_EF37xd4_Xz_JhfBD_ADFiN0-hSAhD8KivXly4zmKXEo/s1944/Mum's%20Sweater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1944" data-original-width="1458" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgViq9b_pC4oCxU2OgxtwUzaBgLHcqy-OPJGoLy-WnWC-Xt2YFUOreg804G_FipRnMKcnQzZRzhRldKB8jtHCm7_0ZYrs6mMPQq9649f1NqSPT0ZZYUTlIuF1DVHdtAFTiOLejjMUt_EF37xd4_Xz_JhfBD_ADFiN0-hSAhD8KivXly4zmKXEo/s320/Mum's%20Sweater.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />My mother knitted this sweater when she was a teenager in England circa 1952. When I was a teenager she told me lots of stories about WWII and the London Blitz, a few about her high school and college (where she met my father), but she didn’t tell me anything about this sweater. Given the small size knitting needles she must have used for the dense knit, it may have taken her weeks. It has a zipper which I assumed was designed to go up the back of the neck, but it’s actually more comfortable to wear at the front.<p></p><p>I would say that making this sweater was quite an accomplishment. One she could be proud of for her to have taken it with her to Thailand where there would be no need of sweaters and then pack it again to come to California where she passed it on to me once I was big enough. And I in turn saved it for decades because I had so few things from my mother’s childhood. Just a few books and a pencil sharpener in the shape of a globe.</p><p>My mother’s stories were mostly about the austerity of her childhood, the war, the rationing and how they reused materials to make new things, and having to sit in bomb shelters at night during the bombings. She told me about the whistle sound of the doodlebugs, (a flying self-propelled bomb) as it flew overhead. If it went silent they knew it was falling so everyone would look up when they heard the sound and say to themselves or maybe even aloud “keep going, keep going”. She told me these stories with a smile so as not to traumatize me or perhaps herself too. We being of the stiff upper lip tradition.</p><p>It was not until recently, when I found a written account of her wartime memories that I realized how young she was at five years old (during the London Blitz) and that they were sitting in the dark. Raised on the movies of the war, I had pictured a naked bulb hanging overhead. This fact of being in the dark made me angry for some reason. But the emotion that really got me was that she was so bored sitting there. And remembering how mad I had made her when, one summer, I had complained to her of being bored. </p><p>“Do something creative,” she had told me as if boredom was a luxury. I never complained of being bored again. This tense boredom of sitting in the dark gave this message a whole new meaning. </p><p>When war breaks out I think of embedded resilience. How this emotional self sufficiency is taught in a culture (and how it is not). And during times of crisis how tough it makes you by necessity. And how these lessons of wars are carried (and passed down) by the immigrants to this country. Along with skills to learn to do something creative as in this sweater.</p>AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-68593895952810209902021-11-27T13:59:00.001-08:002021-11-27T13:59:36.682-08:00 The Perils of Lesbian Dating <p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I wrote this piece for my friends on FB back in August a couple of months before the BBC published its <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385.amp">piece on similar experiences</a> happening in the lesbian community. I hadn't wanted to write something so personal as how I operated on a date, but it turned out to be an effective story to convey how gender ideology is impacting the personal lives of lesbians in a way that is increasingly becoming a form of harassment.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Throwback Thursday: In 2014 I was active on dating sites OkCupid and Match. I enjoyed meeting women, hearing their stories and telling mine. I also corresponded with two transwomen who contacted me. Both had recently transitioned. One described her journey to me at length answering my gentle questions. She was exploring her feminine nature on a spiritual level encouraged by her yoga teacher she told me. After two weeks she said that telling her story to me was the reason I had appeared in her life and we did not need to meet or correspond further.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The other, pictured here, had just moved to the Bay Area and asked to meet me. I suggested the restaurant and picked her up outside her condo. Given what she was wearing (a semi formal gown) I treated her like a lady and opened the car door for her. She also waited for me to open the car door upon our arrival. She towered over me at close to 6ft as I opened the door to the restaurant. We were at a Thai restaurant where I could show off my Thai by ordering dinner.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">As we talked I learned that she was from Texas where she had raised three children as a man and that her wife had not wanted to remain married as she transitioned at the age of 58. She asked her company to move her to California for the more liberal atmosphere. She was well received here and her workmates seemed to think her transition was innovative; the company was a weapons manufacturer and commercial and military electronics firm. She appeared to be quite high up in this firm and was regularly flown across the country to review projects. She offered that she was politically on the conservative side of liberal.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">As I was realizing how highly paid she likely was I was also noting that there was nothing about her story that was the life of a woman. Nothing of the history and struggle of being a woman. Nor did this tall thin person appear to be a woman apart from being dressed as one. All I could feel was the male privilege of a high ranking man. And such a presentation did not qualify as a woman in my book (her trans struggle notwithstanding). Not that I was going to tell her that. I had just thought there would on some level be something that would say woman to me. Then she mused that having transitioned it seemed that she would have to take up the identity of a lesbian. It was not a category that seemed to garner much enthusiasm.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I thought of how I had spent a good deal of my life energy defending this category of lesbian long before any of my lesbian peers had come out or thought it was even a good idea to be out. And I was offended that here was a man assuming that not only could he just take up this title, but without even considering if other lesbians would have him as a romantic partner. He certainly wasn’t asking me this question (or anything about me for that matter). Why did he not just seek partners from the pool of bisexual women? I had seen a profile of such a woman who specifically stated that she would date transwomen because as she put it she "was familiar with the equipment”.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">At the end of our dinner we each paid our way and I asked our waitress to <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/15730322898/">take our picture</a>. She was happy to do so and that was the last we saw of the wait people. Thai people know a transwoman when they see one. Or as my aunt once put it “that’s a Katoi; you can’t fool me” when I showed her my college photo album and she pointed out my friend Mark in drag. Katoi is the word for third gender meaning those, mostly men and likely gay, who cross dress and take on the role of the opposite sex.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I took my date back to her condo and gave her a hug in the parking lot. She wrote me later that she enjoyed our time together, but did not wish to date me because I was too close to having just ended a long term relationship. Such judgement did not sit well with me. Hadn't I decided I was ready to enter the dating pool? In turn I said that I did not wish to date her because she didn’t have enough body fat on her.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“That’s the first time anyone’s complained of that to me,” she responded taking it as a complement. I didn’t want to appear rude by pointing out that I didn’t sleep with men no matter how much of a woman he fancied himself to be. I was fine letting these men have their woman idea of themselves. I just wasn’t willing to accept that I should be expected to date them.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In debriefing this experience I learned that there was a term called “the cotton ceiling” that referred to lesbian underpants. It was used in a title of a workshop at an LGBTQ conference offered in 2012. The complete title “How to Overcome the Cotton Ceiling: Breaking Down Sexual Barriers For Queer Trans Women” was for a workshop designed to convince lesbians that transwomen are women (biology notwithstanding) and should be regarded as such. It is fully admitted in the workshop description. I was incensed by the concept that barriers had to be overcome so a man could, through linguistic sleight of hand, persuade a lesbian to consider him a suitable romantic partner. I did not wish to be strategized by such language. I am the kind of woman who considers the visual thought experiment of removing my underpants for the purpose of breaking down sexual barriers for male access to be a violation akin to rape.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">And that my friends is how I came to be “peaked” as they say in the resistance.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Now workshops are recommending that transwomen in my age group hide their trans identity due to our exposure to 2nd wave feminism and steadfast ideas of what a woman is; whereas before transwomen had been proudly open about their male to female status on dating sites. And so it was that I found myself earlier this year corresponding with a person presenting themselves as a woman who I strongly suspected was a man. So much was every line devoid of female camaraderie and imbued with a slight tone of condescension. There was only one small portrait to go by plus a lot of group shots from a winter mountaineering expedition while she tried to impress me with her LinkedIn resume which showed the considerable commercial accomplishments of an architect. When I told her of my early lesbian activism and asked about her coming out she said that was a question that required a lot of thought and would have to wait as she was being deployed to the Gulf by the Coast Guard. And that was the last I heard from her. Yes, no transwoman wants to be interrogated by a long time lesbian activist as to their lesbian credentials.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What is the logical outcome of this hiding strategy? Where does the secret end? In the bedroom? In the deplatforming of homosexuality? In the reprogramming of lesbians? All this already seemingly a done deal with the young.</span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Today if a lesbian states on her profile on lesbian dating sites that she will only date biological women she will have her account shut down for not adhering to community standards. To state a preference for a biological woman is to use “hate speech” and is called “genital essentialism”. Lesbian groups that state biological women only are shut down. Lesbians are being asked not just to mind their own business, but to show their solidarity to transwoman i.e. men by pretending to be open to sleeping with them. The term “lesbian” is now more and more being associated with being a hater. While "pansexual" is the preferred term for "bisexual".<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Transwomen fond of positions of power have asserted their voice and their demands in just about all organizations devoted to women and lesbian causes. The American Medical Association by advise of trans activists recently recommended that the designation of sex be removed from the public side of birth certificates making biological sex a matter of utmost privacy implying that we have no right to know the true sex of a person. As if it will no longer be obvious given enough plastic surgery and pharmaceuticals.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The public will continue to be asked to ponder if laws that safeguard women and girls safe spaces and opportunities reserved for them being now open to men is just fine for a society that prides itself in upholding women’s rights and women's opportunities. This is just my report from my lesbian corner of the world on the status of compelled speech, thought control and the right to assemble here in the U.S.</span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-51841735463313672492021-06-27T14:12:00.002-07:002021-06-28T12:37:53.204-07:00To Incarnate As A Woman<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZegw5NLWdzo8al0dBOCmeKA_fZ5jwaDqwv4Vdy0jQTGlQmSO29UVOItyVM7T8m8N_IK2-Dr61W_1qU7exhFKj4KucC4Zp60S2qMSAbXJs6zsM5C2qLNavH_3Qgy_7sSu3ioUUvQ/s1282/Amanda+Boy+Avatar.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1282" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZegw5NLWdzo8al0dBOCmeKA_fZ5jwaDqwv4Vdy0jQTGlQmSO29UVOItyVM7T8m8N_IK2-Dr61W_1qU7exhFKj4KucC4Zp60S2qMSAbXJs6zsM5C2qLNavH_3Qgy_7sSu3ioUUvQ/w285-h285/Amanda+Boy+Avatar.jpg" width="285" /></a></div><br /><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">My ‘big sister’ cousin in Bangkok made this avatar for me. She chose the photo. The one that reminded her of my father. The one I posted to show the butch side of myself. The male persona that telegraphed itself from a previous life into my rebirth as a woman in this life. For clearly my karma as a man in that previous life needed a new perspective. I may have been a womanizer, a man of power. An abuser of such power</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> as a man with many wives </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">as one (American) psychic channeled it. I was a young feminist angry at male privilege when I received this news. It struck me as a cosmic comeuppance. It gave me more compassion for men, but made me no less of a feminist.</span><p></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">The cosmic joke of reincarnation is that we are all "born in the wrong body". Over and over again for the sake of experiencing separateness and a different perspective with each rebirth. For that is the human condition. To compress the entire gloriousness of the soul into this animal existence of biological human form. It is the seat of our existence to experience this dissatisfaction and if we do not see it at first we will in sickness, old age and death.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">To incarnate as a woman is to be gifted a relationship so closely tied to the body that it feels like an assault. An assault of messiness, drippiness, blood red so visible we must learn to hide it as part of our suffering, our coming of age. And what about birth that ultimate messiness? Or as my American teacher of womanhood told me “The woman is the one whose body is turned inside out in pregnancy and birth. The woman is the one who faces her own death. And she breast-feeds. She feeds the baby out of her own body. She feeds the baby her own blood turned into milk. It is the woman who is forever changed in that physical metamorphosis. And it is so utterly completely and totally difficult.”</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I am gifted in this life to love women as a woman. To serve and empathize with women. To luxuriate in their bodies, their carnal sacredness and beauty. To receive their love in my earthly body of female knowledge. I am gifted in this life to bridge two cultures (three if you're counting) so that I may better see all that an incarnation has to offer in human society. I rejoice in being reincarnated yet again. To once more arrive in a new body in an unfamiliar life so that I may be reborn into new knowledge as I spend this incarnation getting to know it so very intimately as my own life experience. </span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">I offer you this message of incarnation in a familiar form from American culture.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">"Goddess grant me the serenity to accept the biology of my sex, the color of my skin, the circumstances of my birth. The courage to be proud of who I am, who I have become and can become. And the wisdom to know it is all a journey. A karmic ride."</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Happy Pride Y’all.</span></p><div><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-66164745957654963212021-05-27T20:03:00.013-07:002022-04-09T08:30:19.182-07:00Birth of a Resistance<p><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-kerning: none;">Last Sunday, <a href=" https://www.cbsnews.com/video/transgender-health-care-60-minutes-video-2021-05-23/?fbclid=IwAR0zQ6PsLI3bkNOr4qjRa7-mAeAuhEaE5E5oCSZn963wq2zBIRBKuObs4fk#x">60 Minutes aired a segment on “transgender health”.</a> As reported by interviewees the original intention was to do an hour long story on young people who regret altering their body in their attempt to achieve the goal of changing</span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> their</span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-kerning: none;"> sex. Trans activists objected heavily to this story about detransitioners claiming it would endanger the lives of trans people. So the program was cut</span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> to 14 minutes</span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-kerning: none;"> and more was added from the pro-trans side to give it “balance”.</span></p><p class="p4" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Yet a story about a young<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>person happy with their transition cannot compete with those who regret theirs. Regret being one of the most compelling human conditions especially when the stakes are so high as to involve cutting off body parts that give you biological function and sexual pleasure.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p4" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Thus the add-on scenes seem scripted and the explanations by a trans therapist do nothing to clarify wh</span><span class="s5" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">at this is even about, and why</span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> so many are going down this path. The guidelines cited for transitioning are too vague and the timelines too short before medical treatment is given is the only conclusion to be had. And when a medical doctor claims that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are not an experimental treatment no studies are offered. (I have already posted the <a href="https://www.voorzij.nl/more-research-is-urgently-needed-into-transgender-care-for-young-people-where-does-the-large-increase-of-children-come-from/">statement from the original Dutch researchers</a> pleading for more research on puberty blockers because they themselves knew their work was experimental.)</span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p4" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">To ignore these</span><span class="s5" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> detransitioner</span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> cases</span><span class="s5" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> of </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">regret</span><span class="s5" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> and harm</span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"> is to appear heartless to the tragic turn these lives took. But an industry that has decided to affirm and escort into medical treatment anyone who decides that their problems stem from being the wrong sex cannot afford to be wrong.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Entire mental health institutions have set aside a hundred and sixty years of developmental psychology to bow down to the concept that humans have a soul that is gendered and those with body dysphoria must be rescued from their physical body. As if their whole body were one big birth defect for which, if not treated, the only outcome is suicide. To question this ideology is to be called transphobic and bigoted. Researchers and institutions unused to such accusations have stayed silenced.</span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Framing and manipulation of language by the trans ideology has kept the public confused. Defeat has been a master teacher as women from all manner of backgrounds bond over this issue,</span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> sharing information on how this</span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> is affecting so many. Medical students are being taught to negate biological sex through correct trans ideological language whereby they are told that there are <a href="https://thepostmillennial.com/university-of-british-columbia-medical-school-teaches-that-women-may-or-may-not-have-a-penis">women with penises</a> (and men with vaginas) for instance. Never mind that men and women are biologically subjected to different medical issues and that this should never be overlooked as in the case of the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/05/16/pregnant-transgender-man-births-stillborn-baby-hospital-missed-labor-signs/3692201002/">transman who didn't know "he" was pregnant </a>so no medical personnel at the ER thought to check this possibility in diagnosing "him" resulting in the loss of the baby.</span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">To deny that detransitioners exist is foolhardy. Trans activists will hang themselves by their own rope in their attempt to cry foul on the</span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">se</span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> detransitioning stories. 60 Minutes was unable to do much of an investigation given the politicizing of this issue, but </span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">e</span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">ven in the truncated time offered with only two of the four </span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">shown </span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">allowed to sp</span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">eak</span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> </span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">(</span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">30 actually interviewed</span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">)</span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> all the components of how this phenomenon arose are there in the details of the</span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">se compelling</span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> stories. Along with the</span><span class="s4" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">ir</span><span class="s3" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> revelations about gender stereotyping. These young people who are seeking to give meaning to their messed up lives have nowhere to go, but out into the open with their stories.</span><span class="s5" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></p><p class="p6" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p8" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In light of the recent four hour <a href="https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-crime-of-the-century">documentary on the opiate industry</a> by HBO it is an easy leap to imagine that the opiate crisis was hardly the exception, but rather the ruling strategy when it comes to the pharmaceutical industry pushing a product. The microdosing of cross sex hormones is a concept now <a href="https://lesbianandgaynews.com/2021/05/bryndis-blackadder-they-are-marketing-these-subscription-prescriptions-to-women-who-just-dont-want-to-see-themselves-or-be-seen-as-women/?fbclid=IwAR3l19U8QhOG8xTj8tgbeJc3X24nB2CBORWjBSS7YEE-BSe7N_puIJR-WMs">being marketed to lesbians</a> suggesting that masculine-presenting women should want to use testosterone to erase their female bodies.</p><p class="p8" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I had the pleasure of co-hosting a Zoom presentation on transgenderism recently. We had Scott Newgent as a guest. Scott had an <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/we-need-balance-when-it-comes-gender-dysphoric-kids-i-would-know-opinion-1567277">article published in Newsweek </a>stating her concerns about children undergoing sex reassignment treatment as a transman who has suffered serious medical complications from transsexual surgeries. She now defines herself as a lesbian transman who would detransition if the prospect didn't require more painful medical alterations.</div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Scott would be livid with the statements made on this 60 Minute program by the pro-trans side. She argues that, at 42 years old, she was not given all the information she needed to navigate her dysphoria which she now says was a mental health issue related to homophobia. She had to do all the medical treatments first to find out that modifying her body did not solve her issues. So, as she points out, how can anyone expect a teenager to understand all they need to know about it. (She has three children in this age range.)</div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Scott claims that 9 out 10 trans people regret their transition. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD5g8_IEWpw">Buck Angel</a> being the only transsexual in her circle who is happy with transition. The remaining one percent wish there were things they knew regarding side effects before committing to it. Buck now answers questions as "Transpa" giving cautionary advice on a personal YouTube channel.</div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Scott also said that even with all that went wrong with her phalloplasty she could not find a single attorney to take her case to sue for malpractice. Every attorney explained that there is no baseline of correct procedure for such surgery because it is experimental. Buck Angel has not attempted a phalloplasty because of its terrible failure rate. </div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div></div></div><p class="p8" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Given the relentless overreach of transgender ideology especially in schools ever more information is being launched blog-by-blog in classic grassroots fashion. <a href="https://www.transgendertrend.com/">Transgender Trend</a> in the UK was one of the first to aid parents with science-based information devoid of gender identity ideology. Individuals (some with their identities carefully hidden for fear of being called transphobic and losing their jobs) are posting compelling information they have researched. One reveals the educational material used in schools where children are being taught <a href="https://youtu.be/KkmmEHvlpTk">gender ideology</a>. The story books for children are so creepy I could hardly watch more than a few minutes at a time. So much did the narrative suggest that children should view their body as a disassociated entity as though it could be traded in like an appliance if it didn't satisfy them. Not to mention changing one's sex as a journey of self realization as described in fairy tale fashion in the book <i>I Am Jazz </i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Jennings">(about YouTube child star Jazz Jennings).</a></p><p class="p8" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p8" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Recently I reviewed a parenting book focused on advising blind sided parents faced with the harrowing journey of a child suddenly announcing they are trans. The title <i>Desist, Detrans, & Detox: Getting Your Child Out Of The Gender Cult</i> caught my attention. It was such a statement of resistance. The author and her team also have a website offering information challenging gender ideology in the context of developmental psychology. They kindly <a href="https://www.partnersforethicalcare.com/post/an-independent-review-of-desist-detrans-detox-getting-your-child-out-of-the-gender-cult">published my review</a>.</p><p class="p8" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The collaboration gave me a chance to talk to the author about the section in the book that she called "the God part". She explained that she and her team did not want the book to be perceived as solely a Christian book, but did feel it was important to include the section challenging the idea that a child can be born "wrong" because so many Christian parents want to be pro-trans in order to atone for the sins of Rightwing Christians.</div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;">I have heard the same said by a psychologist (a gender specialist who recently resigned from the Tavistock gender clinic in the UK). He commented on the eagerness of psychotherapists to be trans affirming in order to atone for the damage done to gay people by their profession in the past. I would say that the profession has been recalibrating their assessment of gay people since 1972 when homosexuality was delisted as a disorder from the diagnostic manual of mental disorders (the DSM). They were still listing gender non-conforming presentations as a disorder, but that too was being gradually reassessed as “gender dysphoria”.</div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;">To throw away all methodology in favor of deferring to what those afflicted with body dysphoria declare is true would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When it comes to mental health it is still wise to have an objective person challenge your thought processes as to why you have come to a certain self-diagnostic conclusion. To allow teenagers to self diagnose and then give them body altering drugs without any attempt to question further is rash don’t you think? Yet that is what is happening with these quickie one hour assessments at Planned Parenthood which is now the leading dispenser of cross sex hormones for those 18 and over.</div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div></div><div style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;">This is my first public collaboration with the resistance against transgender ideology. I am one of the few contributors to show my picture and name as other contributors are parents wishing to protect the privacy of their trans identifying child.</div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Luckily I do not have to navigate this territory alone. I have a friend (an <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-45650462">adult human female</a>) with whom to debrief, share information and construct clarifying analyses. We message each other daily with the latest discoveries and triumphs as legislation kicks in state by state in the US and in the UK where the discussion is further along. We are also in a study group with two men who are concerned about the implications of all this thought control on free speech and discussion vital to a healthy democracy. We have presented information to others hoping to encourage critical thinking rather than just going along with whatever the trans coopted LGBTQ organizations dictates must be so. </div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Lesbians have long been protesting the presence of heterosexual men identifying as lesbians in our dating pool and commandeering lesbian only space. Gay men were late to the party, but are taking notice and contributing to the conversation now. One talented man with the handle Mr Menno creates <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvM1ev2JNTg&list=LL&index=6&t=6s">witty song videos</a> that offer in three and a half minutes what would take me lengthy carefully worded articles to parse out the same issues. </div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p class="p4" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">Over the last year I have been fascinated to watch women learn that outrage must be replaced by carefully thought-out language on such a meta level that it feels like feminism and womanhood a</span><span class="s5" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-family: Arial; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">re </span><span class="s1" style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;">being freshly discovered. The farther this ideology reaches and the closer it gets to thought control the more people will be drawn to question it. Discussions of psychology, philosophy, what knowledge-based learning means and what women’s experience consists of are becoming so basic that the collective discussions become a mass educational process as if the world were just being born. Movements like this become a review of the entire society. A much needed cultural audit it may be too carrying with it a great deal of energy and excitement as we realize what is at stake.</span></p><p class="p7" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br style="color: black;" /></p></div></div>AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-20387698799119630212021-01-21T07:28:00.003-08:002021-01-22T07:53:04.978-08:00The Inauguration<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">As posted to my FB page</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Thoughts on the morning of: I am somehow reminded of a sunny January day when the Challenger exploded on live TV. Today it is what is in our heads that will have us glued to the TV. May it be uneventful in the nicest ways. May we be a governable people. May the peaceful transfre of power remain the organizing principle of this country. For it is a beautiful thing. I never fully appreciated this before. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">My Morning After review: I didn’t expect to be so moved by THE INAUGURATION. The joys, the firsts, the brilliant colors all chiefly brought onto the stage by women. It was that final scene in a tense suspenseful movie when those in hiding can come out again into the sunshine. But there was no director artfully manipulating this storytelling. It was ritual that held it together. And in the making of this event each person makes their own decision as to what to bring to it. From my personal favorite, Lady Gaga in her</span><a href="https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/51577/1/a-massive-vulva-sculpture-has-appeared-in-brazil-juliana-notari-diva" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> inverted Vulva skirt </a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">so large and so red (so as to be seen from the eye of a satellite) belting out the anthem on her own personal gold microphone to the poised and petite powerhouse of a young poet in a bright yellow coat rapping the nation into participatory attention to this thing called democracy. Words to march by.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“If only we’re brave enough to see it</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If only we’re brave enough to be it.”</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My eyes followed Kamala Harris stepping out in her Shirley Chisholm purple, her pearls and her spike heels with her protector husband standing in ritual on the Capital steps to see her predecessor out. Pence giving us that grace just by attending where the Other would not. And so we had our moment of knowing what it looks like when a woman stands at the helm. A preview.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And I stayed too to watch the new President and his Dr. First Lady leave in the protector vehicle and then get out and walk all the way to the White House. She again in spiked heels. So much more are the details by which women will be judged. But it is now by with style that ritual is enacted.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And then almost a throwaway moment as Kamala walks up to the White House and returns the salute of the military officer with the many gold braids adorning his coat. Salutes not in submission, but as second in command and as a woman. That’s not something we’ve seen before.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">President Jo Biden gave a speech I actually listened to, so compelling was the reality he actually addressed. And then we had a much deserved party of high caliber entertainers all across the nation and a fireworks display that pulled out all the stops. I had no idea what a patriot I was to find this all so gratifying.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But I will offer a recent story. Last year in Thailand at a farming conference attended by a handful of nations I was the sole representative of the U.S. which prompted the presence of our flag on the stage with the five other nations. And we were told that on the final day we would be asked to sing a song of our country. I would have to sing it solo in English, the language everyone would understand. When I thought of the song I would sing I was so choked up by it I near burst into tears in a field of cabbages. So when the microphone was passed around on the shuttle home on the last day I belted out in my best high school musical style the song that had welcomed me to these shores in 5th grade in 1968.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“This land is your land and this land is my land</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">From California to the New York Islands</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">From the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This land was made for you and me.”</p>AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-4074457052576827622020-08-14T15:27:00.016-07:002020-08-16T10:34:12.130-07:00Normally I Woudn't Be Here<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>In which I question call out culture, extremist activism, LGBTQ splintering and perspectives in an opinion centered culture vs a non-confrontational collectivist one.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I would normally right now be overseas in Thailand enjoying being pampered by my cook and traveling to my farm with Clasina. Or alternately traveling to my other home of origin the UK. My devising to be overseas every six months began in earnest during the Trump era. This has proven to be an excellent strategy for saving my mental health. </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">Thai culture being a collectivist culture doesn't burden the individual with the need to move daily through a barrage of opinions. I once joked to a Thai friend that for every American who believes they can change the world this instant by delivering an opinion there needs to be at least a hundred Thais in agreement just to begin a discussion on a topic. This expressed equally our frustration with both Thai and American culture.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">While in Thailand any actual requirement of me to express myself is so reduced that my stress level comes down to a soothing slowness that gives me a sense of timelessness and spaciousness. It also gave me the clarity of mind to look back at American culture through Facebook and sharply see the biases at play there.</span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">When people ask me how I stay so thin I tell them it is because my brain uses up so much fuel just trying to deconstruct my life given all I have to process making sense of it as an American of multiple perspectives.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><b>Lockdown Retreat</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">Luckily I had the best of all possible lockdowns mostly alone which gave me a lot of space in isolation in my tiny house with lots to do putting in a garden and adding new dimensions to my off grid life. I kept expecting long tracts of boredom which never appeared. I was kept so busy reading the news. And I had two classes to attend on Zoom for which I installed a hanging chair. One class is called The Fool’s Journey, a year long exploration into the Western mystery school tradition using the Tarot deck designed by my teacher Pamela Eakins. I spent a lot of my shamanic journeys for the class hugging my two spirit guides and holding hands with them to fill the void left by all the social distancing. This felt so real to me I could feel my heart opening to receive their love.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">The second class was also taught by Pamela and that was a women’s writing class. We had been meeting for several years at her comfortable home on the coast and now on Zoom in the strange prison of our individual cells we spent that first meeting voicing our fears and wondering if anything we had been writing had any relevancy at all. Pamela with her usual stroke of inspiration had us sit down and write whatever we had to say about the pandemic. The pieces were so full of energy she decided we were to do a book and invited more women writers on her list to contribute. The poems and essays came in so fast that Pamela was soon able to produce our finished book. Called <i>Pandemic Carona: Poems of Shock, Fear, Realization and Metamorphis</i> by the Sisters of the Holy Pen which you can now <a href=" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088BHTVX6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1" target="_blank">order on Amazon</a>.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">This project saved our sanity and gave us purpose. And most important it kept us writing and I was able to regain my sense of relevance. The book itself is a diverse collection of voices some intentionally ordinary and full of love, some brilliant at times profound. It is a capture of the arc of this pandemic and its impact on us collectively. We did a book reading this week on zoom for 29 of the writers hosted by <a href="https://www.ebookwoman.com/" target="_blank">Bookwoman</a> an independent bookstore in Austin Texas attended by some 70 people. The reading a performance that was part ceremonial, part intimate revelation. It was recorded so you can soon enjoy it at your leisure.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">Nevertheless as we approached June I had been alone so long I started to feel the edges of the abyss, the sense that if I didn’t work at holding it altogether I would unravel into some sort of crazy fractured despair. I was no longer as captivated by the discoveries of the evolving virus and the shenanigans of the current administration threatening to collapse our country. I kept in mind an astrological interpretation of 2020 which described a year of turmoil as long held assumptions and structures were challenged, but clarity would come sometime in December it promised. As I wondered how this turmoil would manifest George Floyd was killed and society broke open with rallies led by Black Lives Matter. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">I breathed a sigh of relief. If this was the turmoil we needed to process (yet again) we could do this. Race was something every American had to address in some fashion and had a handle on though likely not the same handle, but at least a perspective from which to begin. In short order just about all the books on the New York Times bestseller list was about race. I was touched by the interest my white women colleagues showed in rolling up their sleeves to get a grip on white fragility and structural racism so that a solution might be found and applied. I also came to understand through Black activist contacts that white women were far from considered trustworthy (largely because of their role in lynching history and now as Karens) and had to work super hard to offset this distrust. I came to the conclusion that only with a Black woman in leadership would we regain any sort of feminist credibility.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> (Go Kamala Harris.)</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">I listened to podcast discussions of American History including the 1619 project and a much more comprehensive series of podcasts called “Seeing White” and “The Land That Never Has Been Yet”. This last title a quote from Langston Hughes. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">Seeing American history through the eyes of slavery and the cruel brand of capitalism that evolved from it along with the associated societal disdain for the poor was a perspective that actually made me feel better about the current administration. When Trump was first elected I felt that the GOP had pulled off a coup which was an alarming concept even for a Thai. But from this historical perspective I saw that the U.S. had all along contained this element of bias for wealthy white men and Darwinistic cruelty for those who couldn’t cut it in this supposed land of opportunity. This made me feel that the core of this country was still stable in nature; it had just been backsliding rather terrifyingly.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">It allowed me to see that those who managed to succeed at all in such a country were heroic. This was a helpful concept. It reminded me of the Buddhist teaching that all life is suffering. So we were doing well if we managed not to suffer.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><b>Out Onto The Streets</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">I attended the Black Lives Matter rally in Redwood City which happened early on while we were still in quarantine and was well attended. I was pleased to see the large presence of white people and subsequent rallies through the largely white towns of Woodside, Half Moon Bay, Palo Alto and Menlo Park. In Menlo Park I attended the LGBTQ+Black Lives Matter rally held on the anniversary of Stonewall. I pulled out my vintage “Queer N’Asian” t-shirt and made myself a little Black Lives Matter sign. The t-shirt gave me claim to being a part of queer history. I hadn’t felt such a sense of belonging in a long time especially as a woman of color and now as an elder asking the young women if I could photograph them.</span><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Having given my time to Black Lives Matter I reserved a little space to present my own cause by presenting myself as a butch lesbian in a post on Facebook. Most Americans don’t read me as butch because I am Asian and have kept my hair long. And Asian women are so highly fetishized as sexual creatures that they are seen as a dish for men (and thus assumed to be straight and femme). So in order to counter act these assumptions I posted a picture of myself wearing my Fruit of the Loom tighty whities. This classic garment being the only male garment not appropriated by women so could still truly be said to be cross dressing. I paired it with a wife beater tank top and photographed myself from overhead while lounging on my bed in classic pseudo pin-up fashion. It got my point across.</span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> See it <a href="http://amandakovattana.blogspot.com/2020/06/trans-in-amandaland.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjmIk3UannYhyphenhyphenI9FG4CYvNU0KKapYMC0knpEq_Au2FlgslMP303lvmHPylHHsFh-JF_JqqcQaCb4a2hYE_atLT9FxdkLj_8A9tGq5PDMZzYTjXTkH3aWZTjt_6G5451xkHns1KEg/s1554/Self-Portrait+circa+1983.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1554" data-original-width="1044" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjmIk3UannYhyphenhyphenI9FG4CYvNU0KKapYMC0knpEq_Au2FlgslMP303lvmHPylHHsFh-JF_JqqcQaCb4a2hYE_atLT9FxdkLj_8A9tGq5PDMZzYTjXTkH3aWZTjt_6G5451xkHns1KEg/w275-h410/Self-Portrait+circa+1983.jpg" width="275" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">I wouldn’t have to do this in Thailand where I am read as a Tom the slang term for masculine presenting women. Tom is short for tomboy and also means lesbian. I was assured of this presentation by my housekeeper when I mentioned to her that I was going to lunch with my Tom friend. </span><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">“Are you a Tom too,” she asked.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"> “A little bit,” I said. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">“More than a little bit,” she responded. I smiled broadly pleas</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">ed at this reading. That was another perk of</span>being in Thailand. I am seen for who I am. And the visibility of other butch lesbians in Bangkok is prevalent. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">I was making myself visible to my Western audience in order to maintain this aspect of lesbian culture especially in these times of makeover by the transgender movement.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">Thai people already understand what a transgender person is. There is the term katoey used to identify those (mostly men) who are cross dressing and presenting as women. They do not hold the same status as women, but they have a place in society that goes back through history. Most Asian societies have this category in their lexicon. Similar to Native American society under the name Two Spirit.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">It was because of the term katoey that I knew I would have a place in Thai society. The explanation for this transgender presentation is explained as most things in Thailand are by the concept of karma and reincarnation. I was told that I still carried the spirit of a boy implying that I had been a man in my last life. The idea that transgender people are persons who are trapped in the wrong body would seem beside the point to a Thai. The whole point of incarnating is to work through your stuff where you now find yourself which is as a man or a woman. Though Thailand being the sex change capital of the world is eager to accommodate those who wish sex reassignment surgery. Because if you can have it why not? The Thais are as much about acquisition as any consumer society.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Given this reincarnation karma story you would likely call this a religious ideology and I’m fine with that. But by the same token I can also claim that the idea of a person being trapped in the wrong body is an ideology. One that is being enabled by the “new” science of gender. Such science has proven that those who are transgender have the brain of the sex they identify with. Society needs science to prove such things because of the logic of American civil rights. For in order to legislate protection for those who face prejudice from others who would enact violence or bias against us it </span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">is best that such</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> characteristics be determined to be immutable. </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">In other words it’s not a choice or a psychological aberration. Because after all we are a self flagellating moral society and if it were a choice or a psychological aberration we would be obliged to fix it to conform to societal mores. And if science says you were born in the wrong body then by all means let us alleviate the stress of this suffering preferably wth medical intervention as we do every other condition in this over-medicalized society so we can make some money off it and contribute to the GNP.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">The ideology of karma makes for better stories about past lives which includes historical circumstances and some artistic nuances in the telling. A psychic is the professional you would call to help you see into this past. But mostly we just shrug and leave it to the mystery of not knowing. Remember mystery? That element of awe and how to live with what you cannot know with a hope for the poetic justice of karma in the end.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><b>Cancel Me This</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">An opinion in Thailand does not require a response. To object to it would be to seek conflict which would cause suffering and that would just not be a good practice of Buddhism—to intentionally cause more suffering. But here in the West we have elevated an opinion to such a point that people are publicly reviled, lose their jobs and their reputations while attempts are made to prevent them from speaking further.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I read a few analysis to understand this </span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">phenomena</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">. Call</span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">-out culture</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> I learned was largely due to Twitter empowering those who usually don’t have a podium. From the perspective of the status quo it was mob rule. And this technology had empowered young people, African Americans and Trans Activists one article stated. I remember being young and gay recklessly making declarations</span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">and refusing to trust anyone over 30. The second category wasn’t surprising given the history of this country. But this final category; how did this tiny </span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">.01% </span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">minority become so virulent?</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">The best way to explain this last category is through the shallow lens of American pop culture. You will no doubt remember that five years ago Bruce Jenner became Caitlin Jenner in a manner so public it put the whole trans story into the public eye and explained the idea of a man trapped in a women’s body. And because Jenner had access to not only the finest plastic surgery that money can buy but the glamour arm of Hollywood the results were absolutely spectacular. Americans love a story of transformation and glamour and ate it up. The story might have ended there, but for the political aspects of the trans movement and the ongoing violence enacted on transgender people. This violence targeted at any gender nonconforming, cross dressing individual, but because of the popularity of the transgender story it became mainly about transgender individuals. And how to protect those individuals.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">Both the United States and the UK took steps to protect transgender people basically by inserting the word gender into all the discrimination clauses where the word sex had originally been inserted to legislate equality between the sexes i.e. men and women. This change had an impact on the protected class of women. But before we could even get a grip on what this might mean cancel culture determined that anything that was not pro trans was bad whether it had an impact on natal born women or not. And that’s how J.K. Rowling became the poster child of transphobia. And by trouncing the writer of this most popular children’s book series of all times every liberal straight person could now virtue signal their support for the T in the LGBTQ alphabet without even fully understanding what any of it meant. And trans activist could use the headlines trouncing the author for being a transphobe to further present all the pro trans ideology as established fact (to fill the vacuum of this absence of understanding). </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">When I read these articles I was struck by the calm matter of fact language used to establish an authority that was not to be denied with links thrown in liberally to “prove” that these facts were not to be contested. And when I followed the links<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I found more of the same style of language interpreting science based research that basically came down to opinions rooted in an authority that was backed up by nothing more than the lived experience of a trans woman. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">This illusion of authority was so complete that it took me a few minutes to realize that we were allowing a person who transitioned as an adult and had no actual lived experience as a girl to comment on both the lives of young girls and how their social lives operated. And that I in fact had more authority having come out much earlier than my peers in the context of an all girls school. A school that came to be known in the psychiatric community as the hotbed of eating disorders and other self harming practices due largely to the incredibly high expectations placed on girls being groomed to leadership as stated by the school mantra or at the very least the trophy wives of the rich given the demographic.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">It is in the arena of high school that trans ideology is having its biggest impact and had come to the attention of research scientists given that the number of teenage girls seeking sex reassignment surgery had shot up by 4,400%. Seventy times what it had been before which was so negligible that it couldn’t even really be counted. Before 2016 the number of gender dysphoric kids had been predominantly pre-school age boys.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The moment the first research study was published it was debunked and cancel cultured into disgrace by trans activists. But the researcher prevailed, apologized for any offense taken and successfully </span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">re</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">published the paper with just a few clarifications on methodology. But further research has been stymied and gone underground. Nobody wants death threats just for doing their job. But a brave journalist did publish a book on the phenomena</span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> of this trans contagion among girls</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> which I have duly read and <a href=" https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/50178686276/in/dateposted/ " target="_blank">reviewed here</a>.</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> It’s a compelling read of sociological significance.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">Meanwhile almost no girls seemed to be identifying as lesbians anymore. Lots of lesbians in my age group wanted to be boys as children including me (and we are all glad we remained women). So what was going on during an era that is supposedly so gay positive. Or was it?</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><b>Gay Liberation No More</b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">When I came into the movement post Stonewall it was determined that to be accepted by the public we needed to present ourselves as ordinary people. Ordinary in the sense of being just like anybody else, wanting to live quietly with our chosen partners, get married and have a family. This line of thinking required the right optics i.e. that we also look and act like straight people and basically keep our fabulousness off the streets and safely cordoned off to the night club act and movies as entertainment for y’all. In the process of this assimilationist strategy we threw all the gender non-conforming and poly pansexuals and what all under the bus. And that naked man with the boa constrictor who appeared in all the San Francisco Pride parades at the time.<br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">Liberals embraced gay marriage as their virtue signaling token issue and haters targeted gay youth and gender non-conforming individuals. To assuage this wrong and the accompanying guilt of the assimilationist strategy the movement now feels that the time has come for the T in LGBTQ to be the focus of the times. And that California schools are to be apprised of all the various flavors of our rainbow down to our many sexual preferences and gender non-confirming presentations including the whole brain in wrong body thing to prevent further bullying of our people. As a result or maybe as a clever workaround to the ordinary vanilla male and female stereotypes being described in the process the number of those identifying as non-binary entering college has shot up along with the incidences of transitioning. While the number of out gay youth seem to be disappearing per the observations of my peers. Homophobia was clearly still at large.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">Last year to get a feel for this transgender era I took myself to the Trans March the weekend of Pride. I immediately noticed all the Toms—the Asian girls presenting as butch, arm in arm with their femme counterparts. And I was delighted to see Latina Toms too. I also photographed the proud shirtless transman showing off his bare flat chests for us. There were what I used to think of as drag queens—gay men with more style than could be contained in one gender to paraphrase a drag queen movie of the ‘90s. One in a wonder woman outfit. And lots with a more vintage slightly dowdy style I used to recognize as transvestites—straight men who like to dress as women (and were observed by gender scientists to be sexually aroused by this, but this autogynephelia is now considered a transphobic concept). There were also young children identifying as trans accompanied by their entire family. And a dour androgynous woman holding a flag I didn’t recognize striped in olive white and violet. It was the “gender queer” flag I was told upon inquiry with some annoyance. My favorite flag was a transgender flag with the words Trans Queer Witches Against Fascism scribed across it with a drawn glyph of pagan and gender symbols. Standing next to the flag was what I used to recognize as a lesbian with the fade haircut now popular with butch lesbians. On their shirt a button proclaiming the pronoun “he”. My photographs organized for you <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/albums/72157715480792847" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">The takeaway of my foray into this brave new queer world was that it was so splintered into factions that nobody would look anyone in the eye let alone smile. So much depended now on defending one’s identity. Because apparently it wouldn’t be apparent otherwise. The chalked messages on the sidewalk gave me a clue of the underlying pain. “I Am Trans Enough” and “Let People Be Themselves”. I realized that this movement both included me as an Asian Tom and rejected me as an American lesbian. It also empowered me to defend myself.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">The very definition of lesbian being oriented around being a woman and being attracted to women seems to defy the very existence of trans women whose vocal activists have mounted such an aggressive public attack on women who don’t want to sleep with persons who have penises that they sound exactly like men who tell lesbians they haven’t met the right man yet. (Not all trans people have genital surgery so they are stuck with the equipment they were born with as it shrinks or enlarges in response to the hormones they are taking.) No comparable attack seems to be aimed at straight women. Maybe their appetite for penises is too intimidating. heh. Plenty divorced their husbands who wanted them to be lesbians to support their late blooming transgender lives.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Meanwhile online lesbian-only space has been completely excommunicated from social media platforms. Even the ever tolerant kink community can no longer allow their members to express their particular preferences if it involves only natal born women. I have though found an online group that regularly shows me photos of cross dressing lesbians hosted by a clothing company offering clothes for women affecting masculine style. This fashion group called Butch Fashion, Style & Care was the perfect cover for natal born women only. Fashion serving as a cover for a persecuted minority. I was able to post my lesbian stories and photos there and</span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> occasionally</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> others would discuss the pros and cons of taking T (male hormones) or the best brand of binders to compress their chests into a male appearance. All closely moderated to stop any fights.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">The trans identity has benefited the community greatly to be sure; it created a political category for gender non-conforming people and thanks to recent Supreme Court ruling this category is now to be protected from job discrimination. This was huge in my mind because it finally allowed all cross dressing persons to have a place in American society.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">I do not however think it a good thing that people are being punished and prevented from simply stating a preference for natal born women. Being able to state our sexual preferences was the main point of the gay movement. Not to allow this is homophobic. But now the bigger activist epithet is that I am being transphobic. Well have at it then. I’ve devoted my entire life to being free to express myself without fear of reprisal either from losing my job or by besmirching my reputation only now to have my voice canceled by my own tribe.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">A society that cancels what people can say so punishingly is practicing a self imposed totalitarianism. It is a mob rule that is stoked for revolution, but has no skill set for the long slow work of diplomacy and coalition building. It is adolescent and punch drunk from unaccustomed power. Reminding me of revolutions that having thrown over a society devolve into corrupt governments with little vision.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">I have a long memory going back to a time that strived for freedom of expression and a live and let live openness to differences. One that allowed a certain curiosity to ask questions and a diplomacy in answering those questions. My values didn’t change; the world around me changed and my language dates me. I now regard anyone under 35 with suspicion. I feel like an old crank spouting insults.<br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">A</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">merican culture as many have pointed out denigrates and mothballs their elders. Another perk of going to Thailand was t</span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">hat</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> my status as an elder gave me a reverence that was palpable in the sky train station as I pulled out my senior card. It made me feel seen and respected.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">Now I am trapped here in this ridiculously shallow, polarized society that has so politicized everything that even wearing a mask in a health crisis is a political statement. But with little to lose I realized that I could afford to speak for the unfavorable positions as I saw them.<br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: arial; font-kerning: none;">I have long been of crone age, but maybe curmudgeon would be a better fit. heh.</span></p>AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-88146910153154122422020-06-21T22:52:00.001-07:002020-10-27T16:15:50.194-07:00Trans In Amandaland<div class="_5pbx userContent _3576" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-testid="post_message" id="js_8" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 6px;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG59iuvZ7rjMoxs-kr6Lvw2lVrxJrL6tEYgDOZJtt8kcNDJAceWRdI3npx0u5F_sUm2UltnWtuxoPeQlLiitYullsiTQCT9h5KdnIiCZi3vnb24kYn9iUSl7cp2aaP5jnFSIfhuQ/s1600/Fruit+of+the+Loom.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG59iuvZ7rjMoxs-kr6Lvw2lVrxJrL6tEYgDOZJtt8kcNDJAceWRdI3npx0u5F_sUm2UltnWtuxoPeQlLiitYullsiTQCT9h5KdnIiCZi3vnb24kYn9iUSl7cp2aaP5jnFSIfhuQ/s320/Fruit+of+the+Loom.jpg" width="240" /></a>This is as trans as it gets in Amandaland. This would usually be the opening weekend of Frameline, the LGBTQ film festival. So here’s a homemade queer image. It is a recreation of a scene from “Bound” which I saw at Frameline in 1996 with a sold out house. I also created it to hold down the space for a particular niche—that of the masculine woman. It is a niche I’ve been enjoying as a member of an FB group where proud butches come to show off their suits and their haircuts hosted by the Black lesbian owner of the clothing design company Haute Butch.</div>
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A niche that was nearly disappeared by the ultra femme representation in The L Word (which we consumed voraciously for its very hot depiction of glamorized lesbians in L.A played by straight women particularly Jennifer Beals). The reboot even more over the top femme glamorous even with addition of a trans man and soft butch wearing Tomboy X boy briefs. I have a stack of those briefs too, but they are not as real as my Fruit of the Loom traditional tightie whities. Real in the sense of honest to god cross dressing. Because there is power in that realness.</div>
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I also hold down this space because in a heteronormative, binary world the category has been eclipsed by the trans movement coming into its own and the pressure on non-gender conforming youth to go the trans route especially girls. Thank-you youtube. Because being neither here nor there is too ambiguous for a culture that demands hard line categorical definitions full of color coded pink and blue children’s toys. A culture that demands that either you’re a man or you’re a woman. Gender identity is a spectrum in my mind, not a box to check. And my belief in reincarnation allows for all kinds of overlap in personal gender issues as you go from one sex to another from life to life. That is the underlying explanation for my state of mind on the masculine nature of my self identification. And I wish to hold this ambiguous gender presentation as an option for queer youth.</div>
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Thailand which has become the sex change capital of the world has recently forbidden minors to undergo sex changes because too often the minors in question changed their minds. Hint hint. Minors are defined as age 21 if male and 18 if female.</div>
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In Asia the cross dressing person has long had a social position and a label. A category that is also represented in the Native American Two Spirit culture. And I would not be surprised if indigenous Africa also had such a category. This is the information I learned at probably six years old which informed me growing up, gave me a space to occupy and giving me maybe a 10-15 year head start in coming out over my American peers.</div>
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Western culture has always had non-gender conforming queer folk as well as oppressed gays and lesbian, but as the largely white gay community became more straight presenting assimilationist and more accepted by society, the rest of the community was pushed aside. Some reinvented themselves as trans with their own story of origin of being persons trapped in the wrong body. I’ve gotten into heaps of trouble with my own community in trying to make my case so this is completely my take. But over time the trans position itself became more receptive of gender as a spectrum of presentations (or maybe they were always that way). So I decided to stake my position within the trans community just to hold down my niche which has its own history and cultural representation even in the West. The butch lesbian manager in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel comes to mind here. As does a character in Orange Is The New Black.</div>
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And having created this political trans position as the T in the LGBT alphabet and having that category so recently legally recognized by the Supreme Court decision last week we gender queer people are now all protected ironically enough no matter where on the spectrum we fall or whom we love. We shall see anyway. Happy Pride.</div>
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AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-49961320613861076612020-06-02T22:06:00.000-07:002020-07-10T22:11:00.185-07:00Black Lives Matter — Redwood City CourthouseFollowing the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis on May 25th the citizens sprang into action with a march the following day. I saw that a close friend (a white woman and a community leader) who lived in Minneapolis had attended it. A week later rallies had erupted all over town and when I saw a man I knew from my karate class (a Black musician and teacher) posting about one that was happening that day in Redwood City I decided to go even though I still considered myself to be in quarantine. I just made sure to wear a mask. I didn't make a sign and it was too hot to wear black, but I took my camera and was ready to capture what signs I saw.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy3VGDDHfgzKucMKrcLpSaj54QJUBntHJPDlgkmgPJinSSpns7BZGpTsZBGMeQV7PR8BnNuznbeIEdr4ULt2i08edDA6lkAGsCnsYeQeIdpcV_NZN7txE509eOriOYUm5-Ysa3ZA/s1600/BLM+Crowd+Fox+Theater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy3VGDDHfgzKucMKrcLpSaj54QJUBntHJPDlgkmgPJinSSpns7BZGpTsZBGMeQV7PR8BnNuznbeIEdr4ULt2i08edDA6lkAGsCnsYeQeIdpcV_NZN7txE509eOriOYUm5-Ysa3ZA/s320/BLM+Crowd+Fox+Theater.jpg" width="320" /></a>The crowd was overwhelmingly white, all in masks and keeping a comfortable distance from each other. I was pleased that there was such a nice turnout by white citizens of all ages and quite a number of young people.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxiaeB1OOOUY96EizURpSmAnqTSZua_jWMtcSUz4dJQW8zG_LfnPJ4szmUtq8kkgHLlHOIKnF-3iAVIx11oyPDoCMvmlDtdhEuzsJM3m33ocrDn6bdtMymOTZc0HrDzuwg1kUfg/s1600/Kneeling+Protesters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxiaeB1OOOUY96EizURpSmAnqTSZua_jWMtcSUz4dJQW8zG_LfnPJ4szmUtq8kkgHLlHOIKnF-3iAVIx11oyPDoCMvmlDtdhEuzsJM3m33ocrDn6bdtMymOTZc0HrDzuwg1kUfg/s320/Kneeling+Protesters.jpg" width="240" /></a> The speakers who were Black were up on the courthouse steps obscured by the crowd. My karate friend was one of them, but I couldn't see anyone from where I stood. And it was hard to make out what was being said unless they shouted as they did during the kneeling and chanting of George Floyd's name.<br />
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At the back of the crowd I found a non-white contingent and was touched at their expressions of solidarity in their signs.<br />
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And I was especially pleased to see that an Asian man had given a lot of thought to his sign. "To my fellow Asian Americans" it said and then a quote from Desomond Tutu, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor". In his basket he had bottled water to give out to people. I was glad to see where I could fit in in this new-to-me terrain of protest.<br />
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There was a police presence, but not a hostile one. All the windows of businesses were boarded up because apparently from a statement on the flyer requesting that attendees not take out their anger on small businesses it was assumed that they would take out their anger by trashing large businesses.<br />
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On my way out I got a second alert on my phone that there was going to be a curfew for two days presumably to make sure that things didn't get out of control. It seemed like a good time to leave.<br />
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This post is backdated to reflect my post to Facebook.<br />
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AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-506145454447327632020-04-05T12:54:00.000-07:002020-04-05T20:37:31.450-07:00Is This The Apocalypse I’ve Been Waiting For?<br />
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<i><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I am used to writing from my own bubble attempting to entertain with my slightly absurd minimalist approach to life, but it’s hard to write anything now without a coronavirus context. We are all in this together and I am even more aware of how my writings might fit into the temperature of the times. I want to tell you about the</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> organic farming</span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> workshop I went to in Thailand</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">,</span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> but I’m compelled to insert my report between stories of the coronavirus like the sandwich of the day. But maybe my off continent, off kilter perspective has something useful to offer.</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> Or at least entertain. I hope you are all well and coping optimally.</span></i></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><b>Is This The Apocalypse I’ve Been Waiting For?</b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">We’ve never experienced anything quite like this in the U.S. So you too might have asked yourself some of the questions that crossed my mind as we went into this pandemic. Ok maybe not in such depth. You have probably not waited quite so eagerly as I have for the collapse of American civilization. (My obsession due largely to my disgust at our consumer excess and as a psychological gambit that allowed me to maintain my sanity while living in such a complex society.) As a long time collapsnik I’ve been reading and entertaining myself with various scenarios of societal and systems collapse. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">My tiny house design incorporating much of what I learned. Electric grid gone down? Solar on board with battery bank. Earthquake ready? Of course I’m a Californian. Contamination of our water supply—field grade Berkey water filter already long in use. Interruption of water supply? 330 gallon water catchment system installed. Air quality at unhealthy 2.5 PPM due to fires? Got my RZ N99 reusable mask in fetching fashion print. (All sold out now.)</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> Economic collapse? Expenses minimized and rent reduced to $500 and a work/trade agreement. Also debt free. Very important. </span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Go bag? Stocked. Nuclear attack? Saw the movie. Not worth prepping for. Unless to take the cyanide route. Pandemic? Hmmm. Too big to scale. Definitely not my apocalypse.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I sat back and watched feeling I had little to offer other than a sense of expectation born of all my study. But then came the Toilet Paper Apocalypse. No toilet paper to be had in seven counties. All hoarded away by the early rush. I did not care about toilet paper any more than my countrymen in Thailand who were not hoarding anything least of all toilet paper. So why this sudden need to stash away a year’s worth of this mundane commodity? </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Psychologists speculated. Toilet paper is a low risk buy when people want a sense of control. You know you’ll always need it so why not have more on hand? It’s less of an investment than 50 cans of tuna fish that you might end up throwing out. Then others see the empty shelves and jump in too thinking if everyone’s doing it it must be the right thing to do. Add to this a sense of consumer competition to spur on the hunt. Also the packages are big and give a sense of having come away with a big haul. Yes makes sense. But the explanation I liked best was offered by a shamanic counselor who explained that the instinctive center is located at the base of the spine very near the anus. When people are frightened their instinctive center opens up. And having to poop when you’re out and having to look for a bathroom causes anxiety. But once a bathroom is found that anxiety is relieved and prompts a victorious sense of accomplishment. Everything is under control and all potential mess properly wiped away. Toilet paper thus became the iconic purchase of uncertain times—the means by which people could gain control of the situation.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I started to tease people online about their tree consuming ways. Long time readers of my essays may remember that I had learned to dispense with toilet paper for pee by employing a squeezable plastic water bottle with a sport top to squirt water at my nether regions and drip drying afterwards. Any drips absorbed by my thick cotton underwear. I did not mind admitting this personal habit even though I did not seem to persuade anyone else to follow suit.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">As the Toilet Paper Apocalypse continued with more and more posts on the topic I became bolder and offered my experience with the ubiquitous bum gun installed all over Thailand and fitted next to the toilet. Basically a hand held trigger nozzle connected to the toilet water supply faucet and used to wash your bum. Called a shower bidet if you were to order one. The Thai ones look like the trigger spray attachment on a sink. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">A colleague posted a picture of a makeshift one made from a garden hose trigger nozzle as a joke. When another colleague commented that such a device would be a disaster spraying pathogens everywhere I pulled up a link to a traveler’s guide on how to finesse the use of a bum gun while in Thailand. Toilet paper in Thailand was largely used for drying off. The real action lay in actually washing with water. The Thais do not feel clean unless they can use water. Why push poop around with paper like polish on a piece of furniture. I mean really? Such an unhygienic habit.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Paper had only become a commodity under the influence of Westerners and global trade. In a land of hardwood teak and mahogany paper had long been a precious commodity. As a child I would see paper bags made from the pages of Western magazines. And it is still wise when going out, especially outside of Bangkok, to carry toilet paper with you or buy it from a vendor. From my readings on the history of toilets I had learned that toilet paper was not a commodity used by most of the world and felt justified. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">“Two thirds of the world don’t use toilet paper you tree consuming Western colonial imperialists,” I admonished in a comment. My educated friends thought this accusation of imperialism by toilet paper was hilarious. Nobody would take me seriously because American fecophobia was such an assumed premise thought to be shared the world over. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">“Don’t Americans know how to wash their bums?” I asked. Still no answer. Look I’m really not a backward third world person I wanted to say. I’m British and if you were confronted with mid-century British toilet paper as a child you would have a highly perverted view of toilet paper too I countered. As late as the ‘70s the British stocked their public toilets with single sheets of slick glassine paper that worked only to provide a barrier from moisture, was full of sharp edges and scraped away poo like a spatula. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">In a week Americans began to consider toilet paper alternatives. The bidet toilet add-on was selling out fast on Amazon and a</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> former</span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"> Peace Corps volunteer friend offered his experience being taught to use water in Africa by a fellow American accustomed to America’s cultural disgust to help them get over the hump of washing poop from their bums with bare hands. My friend showed a bottle top device that would convert a plastic water bottle into a squeezable bidet. This too had to be mail ordered. “A bowl of water will do,” I commented remembering the ornately worked silver bowls sitting next to the large earthenware pots of water in the bathrooms of my childhood.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">In 2001 when I learned about our sewer system in my construction technology class I was horrified that a first world system would actually allow poop to overflow their massive tanks given a good rainstorm. These liberated turds would then sail away into the bay. Why did anyone think it was a good idea to use good drinking water to give a turd a ride to a centralized plant anyway? Humanure was an organic and useful material in its proper context. With a centralized water treatment system chemicals have to be used to render the water safe for flushing out to the nearest water source. Such a river or lake was the same water source that would be siphoned up again for human use. And the sludge at the bottom of the tank that remained to be disposed of was toxic waste not because of the poop, but because it was now all mixed up wth industrial waste full of heavy metals and chemicals that companies are allowed to send down the same sewer system.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I was sure there would come a time when such a system would be severely compromised while environmentally such a centralized non-organic method was just wrong. So I devoted my life to the pursuit of a home with a composting toilet. My fascination blossoming at a recent workshop on effective microorganisms which included alternative technologies for poop disposal.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><b>Effective Microorganisms</b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">For my trip to Thailand in February my farm partner Clasina suggested we go to an organic farming workshop </span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">on </span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">effective microorganism technology. I was excited to attend this workshop because converting my composting toilet to an EM set-up had been a game changer for me. I also wanted to share my personal experience of the method and offered to give a powerpoint presentation to this august body.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Upon arrival at the International Kyusei Nature Farming Center in Saraburi just an hour and a half from Bangkok we were duly impressed by this university level facility with its modern buildings and extensive campus. Clasina </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">was</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> particularly impressed by the sparkling clean bathrooms. The program was created in collaboration with the Japanese EM industry (so they would not be teaching us how to make EM ourselves, just how to use it as much as possible so they could sell product). Indeed the Japanese EM technology was being quietly introduced to all of Asia through such outreach while being offered to the public through spas, hotels and wellness centers with EM fertilized organic food, lush gardens and EM disinfectants and cleaners. It was through such a wellness center in Hawaii that a friend had heard about it. The same friend who insisted that I trade out my traditional composting toilet method for this superior (and faster) EM technology. Instead of waiting a year to season a humanure composting pile, the EM process only took 2 to 3 weeks to reach a pathogen free state.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">EM was a disinfectant we learned. It was spritzed into the air daily to fell harmful bacteria. It was made into non-toxic household cleaners and hand sanitizers. From the first day we were given our choice to use EM hand sanitizer or the usual alcohol based ones to fend off the virus.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">The center was part of the Asia Pacific Natural Agricultural Network and our workshop was attended by a huge group from Malaysia, but also Myanmar and Japan along with one other woman from South Africa and me the lone representative of the U.S. Lectures were given in English with detailed powerpoint presentations in the air conditioned fully technical lecture hall. In the afternoons we boarded a people carrier much like a an amusement park train to tour the working farm. Students showed us how mushrooms were cultivated and served vegetable roll snacks. We saw how biochar was infused with EM to make a more potent fertilizer. We toured the lush fields of vegetables and the chicken and pig houses. I was bowled over by the use of EM technology in animal husbandry. There was no odor at all not even in the pig pens. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">EM was also added to the animal feed as a probiotic supplement. The EM infused feed kept them healthier and they grew bigger than with conventional methods. Every time their pens were sluiced down the pigs came running to slurp up the EM infused waster. Their waste was washed away into large concrete pits where the mixture became fertilizer (just as my own poop did inside my three gallon bucket). What a game changer alternative. Imagine such a solution putting an end to those problematic lagoons of manure that stink for miles and sometimes blow up like a geyser or overflow into waterways choking fish with algae blooms. EM worked in the same way I understood my composting toilet to work. The effective microorganisms ate all the harmful bacteria and were then eaten themselves in a probiotic fermenting process that ate up all the pathogens. This process was given the Japanese word bokashi. “Bokashi!” we shouted in every group photo.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">We also saw how food scraps were treated with EM in 50 gallon drums from which the liquid was collected for use as a plant feed. This you can do at home too in smaller buckets. Hands-on demonstrations had us shoveling and mixing together ingredients so the EM infused bran could ferment the compost. The following day we returned to find that the piles were so hot they would turn our hands red and I wondered aloud if I could heat my tiny house with such piles or at least heat water. For fisheries EM could be made into softball size balls and thrown into the ponds to keep them clean. We had great fun seeing how far we could throw when we were all offered a turn. The EM balls reduced sludge at the bottom and had other applications including the clean up of latrines. In shrimp farming the shrimp poop is food for the microorganisms so EM made the water clear and cut down the stench. The meat of cows raised with EM technology was lower in fat and higher in vitamins.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">We concluded our workshop with a visit to a recycling plant in Bangkok. Here the use of EM cut down on the biggest neighborhood complaint—the smell. Plus they were able to make toilet cleaner and dishwashing products from fermented rice water and other captured waste products. No harsh chemicals were used at all in this recycling</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> and green waste</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> process</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">ing</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">. EM technology had also been introduced to the Thai military and was adopted as a method for large scale clean-ups. In the city it was offered as a drain cleaner in one of my friends apartment building. All of these projects had support from the Thai government which gave grants for outreach into the community to teach people how to make organic fertilizer from their kitchen waste. And because the late King Bhumipol had long been an advocate of a self sufficient economy and had been voicing his concerns about global warming since 1989, the reduction of carbon in the air through the use of EM technology and the concept of zero waste was considered a project of the King. This had enormous appeal for the Thais giving them not only a shared mission, but a way to further implement the King’s legacy for the good of the country.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In the evenings of our 4 day workshop participants representing EM companies made their presentations touting the benefits of their product while farmers showed their agricultural projects. I gave my tiny house presentation on the second night. I had rehearsed all my jokes and had enough pictures to show the whole tiny house trend to an audience unfamiliar with this American phenomena and its California origin.</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> They loved it.</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> Having sufficiently explained why such a house needed to process their own waste, they had no questions about my EM methods so I was clearly doing it right. But the look of incredulity on the face of a Japanese woman who represented a health supplement company told me how out there I was. None of these professional EM distributors had thought of such an application. They did not know about the pet waste disposal system I was able to purchase in the States and asked how much I had paid for the kit. ($100). Like any other first world society it had never occurred to them to dispense with the flush toilet. Nor were they about to. Some teased me about it later, but I was happy that I had earned my place in the EM technological revolution.</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> Pictures of the workshop on <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/albums/72157713765574353">my flickr site</a>. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It was in this context that I realized my aversion to toilet paper. As a connoisseur of composting toilets I was a compost purist. I did not like seeing toilet paper in my compost plus it would fill up the bucket faster though it was perfectly ok to add toilet paper to the mix. It would compost just as well. But why buy this chemically produced tree product at all given the Thai option of washing my bum while squatting over my poo bucket </span><span class="s4" style="font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">and </span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">gently pouring water from a bowl with my right hand. Getting poo on my hand (the left one as is traditional in bum washing countries) was not inherently dangerous. Or we wouldn’t allow babies to sit in soiled diapers. People do wash baby’s bums don’t they? How much had we just been taught that it was abhorrent to have contact with one’s own poo? And by whom? TP makers? Why would frugal Americans give up the pages of the Sears catalog for such a wasteful product? There was no real reason I concluded. Just an industrialized country’s status marker. I just wash my hands super well afterwards. More than I had ever bothered to before. More than most toilet paper using Americans given the reports of fecal matter on touch screens everywhere. heh. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;"><b>Lockdown</b></span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Returning to the states the virus was just making its appearance. On the day of <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/1/1933389/-California-s-SF-Bay-Area-nailed-coronavirus-response-everyone-should-heed-its-lessons?fbclid=IwAR04uzzKXwYKCrqM1tELQcLyyLhF3aMBP98jvEEPAdwgYjEvJn4FELXxusg">the Bay Area lockdown</a> I saw on TV at Catherine’s house the local mayors and health officers each taking their turn to voice their support of the decision. I was heartened by their concern for the people, for us. They were actually going to do this unprecedented move to protect us from the overwhelm the Italians were experiencing with their health care system. It was rare to experience such concern from local government. This was the town where the rich had their way and tech companies called the shots. The housing crisis and mobile homelessness in the RV population bearing witness to the priority to keep expanding jobs, but not housing.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">The Friday before the lockdown Catherine and I had gone out to dinner to celebrate her getting a job with a tech company in San Francisco. And now she was crazy busy on boarding on line with everyone else who was able to work from home. Such fortuitous timing</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> to at least have a job during this time. While I kept one shut-in weekly client</span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">. My mother and her partner Bill and my immediate circle were all ok too, but for those colleagues who faced economic devastation their stories foreshadow a vaster crisis that may very well not garner the same sympathy. As a nation we would far rather root for life over death than for equity for the poor. My thoughts went to every small businesses I relied on from acupuncture to karate</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> that were now closed</span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">. </span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Some with the most to lose financially were posting that the death statistics of COVID-19 were wrong, that the virus was overhyped and there was no reason for a shutdown of the economy. <a href="http://www.thecommentator.com/article/7649/prepare_for_the_mother_of_all_s_t_storms_if_sweden_pulls_this_off?fbclid=IwAR0Mo90UnAJ-GRyOvJQtrbjM4C916mlbxWgb5Vq3yHZ1Hukk0etbYfirPGI#.XokU8ez8j8M.facebook">Just look at Sweden.</a> Well we shall see if their argument holds. The virus was bringing forth everyone’s belief system like nothing else had. Low grade conspiracy theories (as opposed to those with a kernel of truth) were popping up all over. Humans live on stories. And would die by them too I could see. Witness misguided vigilante types buying out the supply of guns and ammo to protect themselves from the supposed government plot to control their freedoms. I made it my cor</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">o</span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">navirus job to challenge such stories as they crossed my feed and comforted myself with the relative calm of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-singapores-coronavirus-response-worked-and-what-we-can-all-learn-134024?fbclid=IwAR3ymDu5VhOV2FgLp9tg1UDKEy9ijLMIWa6IaRYmPz1isRR5ryY3WlVYqUA">Asia handling the virus </a>with a more prepared system of tracking and isolation that didn’t require a lock down. Plus </span><span style="background-color: white;">public education and free masks</span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">. The economic price of our lockdown would, </span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">however, </span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">have serious consequences. One that did not bode well and concerned me more than the virus.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">Having seen Thailand process through the currency collapse and economic fallout when the Asian Tiger countries went down in 1998 I am hopeful. I saw the seeds of self-sufficiency blossom during that time and can now participate in the positive movement towards a more sustainable and self-sufficient Thailand. And still more heartening I have seen people of my own wealth class change for the better. It was not the easiest of transitions given the contentious political unrest that happened along the way, but the lessons were learned. The vulnerable in society can no longer be ignored.</span></div>
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<span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">I returned to my tiny house for the duration of the lock down and felt blessed by the beauty of my location and the hiking trails that would take me high into the hills so I could clear my head. My studies of the collapse of society had prepared me for societal failure. Useful for witnessing Trump express the full GOP agenda of minimizing aid from the federal government and telling the states they were on their own. I was reminded of the balkanization of the Soviet Union into separate states that took place prior to the collapse of the USSR. </span><span style="background-color: white;">What kind of a United States will we become after this crisis?</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">That Asia could take this pandemic in stride made the virus here look like a mosquito felling a giant. I highly recommend the daily newsletter of <a href="https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/">Heather Cox Richardson</a> an American history professor deconstructing the news from a historical long view</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> saving me much time and </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial";">reassuring me with historical moments when the U.S. overcame similar crisis</span><span class="s2" style="background-color: white; font-kerning: none;">.</span><span class="s3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">I’m just glad I’m in California especially in the Bay Area where intellect is the dominant influence. Given the political leadership initiating the nation’s first lockdown, I can now envision our wealthy Bay Area community turning an eye towards the self sufficiency of our state for the safety of its people possibly even allowing taxes to be raised. Tech based companies are already <a href="https://benhamouglobalventures.com/news/a-post-covid-19-outlook-the-future-of-the-supply-chain/?fbclid=IwAR33nBEx8G-VBP21vnLoj5VH9V1f1r4k3rjKgTilWEpuoyXxG9Q8JexMfbk">moving towards securing their supply lines </a>in the event of global hotspots, with more technological eyes on those sources and more labor at home to manage home grown supplies. What technology that has come out of Silicon Valley of late has been all over the map in terms of having good and bad affects on society worldwide, exploiting addictive behavior and fanning consumer appetite. Perhaps we just needed a life threatening crisis to remind us to lean more towards security for all and be less about individual wealth accumulation. Just as the virus had given us a knife to cut away all the non-essentials we thought were so necessary to our lives so may it give us a mission. One closer to home. May it be so.</span>AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-18609153714838169632020-03-05T06:57:00.001-08:002020-03-05T08:25:25.331-08:00The Biden Factor<div class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<i>On Wednesday in the aftermath of Super Tuesday I posted this to my Facebook feed. I leave it here to mark my journey and my thoughts during these interesting times. </i></div>
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<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-black-vote/?fbclid=IwAR3FFmp945b1D7FDu-visxgA47D-w485x6QXfROxTsKVmXZmgCkXKi4Nqbg">This article </a>by a Black man covering justice issues for The Nation (a progressive weekly magazine) spoke to me of what it means to know your status and place in a society where “white will white”. It is a survival strategy born of long experience. It showed me how much privilege we stand on—we who would dream big and presume to change something as big as our government.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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There were some in my feed (of liberals) who sincerely think Bernie is the worse kind of change they can imagine; the people who are invested in the veracity of the establishment (and its wisdom of incremental change), but it is clear now that what most drove the wins for Biden was fear. A similar fear to knowing your place in the world and who actually runs things. It is the belief that we must join with those who run things in order to be safe from another term of Trump. This fear far out weighed the desire for good beneficial change.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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I was also struck by an underlying internalized doubt or out and out belief on the part of women that a woman isn’t really good enough. I voted for Elizabeth Warren even though I believed that this country would be too misogynistic to allow a woman to be president. I wanted the nation to hear what she had to say for as long as possible. (Bernie was not articulate enough for me though he had my vote last time.) I am also heartened that she is doing as well as she is. It speaks to how much a smart effective woman is already able to be heard despite the establishment media being determined to ignore her or give her credit. And this race is not over yet.</div>
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America has not yet dialed in what will be the enormous economic impact of the coronavirus. It is only just beginning to realize what the impact of base stupidity in a leader will have on the country when it comes to coping with the reality of people dying of such an uncontrollable contagion. A story that will fuel the media news even more than the shenanigans of Trump did during his rise (that helped bring him to power). When it becomes clear how dangerous such stupidity is in a leader I think we will see a shift from the fear of a Trump reelection to the realization that his reelection will be near impossible.<br />
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<span style="background-color: #f2f3f5; color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>8:30 am. update: Goodbye Elizabeth fierce defender of the people. May all that you have seeded by speaking with such intelligence, compassion and courage go forth and birth a nation with a thousand plans implemented in all the hopeful hamlets of its progressive reach. For now we are a nation who know what it is indeed possible to do. xoxo</i></span></div>
AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-89714214504061814922020-03-01T15:49:00.000-08:002020-03-25T16:51:09.054-07:00May You Live In Interesting Times<div class="yiv5030020321p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Not wishing to appear oblivious to the concerns of the coronavirus that has interwoven our global lives and been present in every country I walked upon, I start here at the intersection of my personal journey and the news of the day as it rose to meet me</i>. </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not to mention the political climate here in the States that has everyone abuzz with passionate intensity. It is indeed interesting times.</i></div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Keep </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">C</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">alm </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">nd </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">C</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">arry </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">O</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">n</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">“Will you be getting any </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">more </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">masks?” I asked the Asian cashier at Walgreens already wearing a mask, “I’m going to Thailand next week and my relatives want me to bring some.”</span></div>
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“You might want to cancel your trip,” he said.</div>
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“I went to Asia during Bird Flu and SARS and I’m going to go now,” I said getting annoyed. “It’s only a 2% death rate,” It<span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space"> </span>was late January and Santa Clara had just reported the first local case of 3 in the U.S. Thailand had 17 cases.</div>
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He told me a shipment was due in at 5 a.m. the next day and I should come early if I wanted a box. I did not wish to trouble myself for something so useless and was immediately annoyed at the level of panic the thought of this new pandemic was stirring.<span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Masks are useless anyway,” I told the clerk and stormed out.<span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">I was so mad I had to get a grip before I insulted more people after another relative messaged me to bring her a<span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space"> </span>box of 100 count 3M model </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">9001v masks</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Such a specific </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">req</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">uest made</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> it sound like a status item. They</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> were nicely designed</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> paper masks with valves</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">.</span><span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: "helvetica";"> </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">The price was rising as I searched for them</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> online</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">. I didn</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'t</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> order them as they were delayed in shipping and wouldn’t arrive in time. She expressed emoji despair and I expressed anger</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> at her hanging her hopes on masks</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">I knew </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">my best remedy was to respond in my own way with <a href="https://www.blogger.com/.%20http://amandakovattana.blogspot.com/2020/02/dear-thailand.html">a public post all my Thai contacts </a>could see. I</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> plann</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ed</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> a satirical piece on protective gear to post to Facebook. This required that I make another visit to Walgreens the next day to buy white cotton wound care gloves and a stop at Pet Smart to buy a cone of shame (to keep the wearer from touching their face). I was very pleased to see it came in 3 fashionable shades of transparent plastic and chose the fuchsia in a medium dog size. It took me another day to take pictures and write my post which I presented at dinner time just as my Thai contacts were at breakfast. My </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"D</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">ear Thailand</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> letter had my American friends rolling on the floor while my Thai friends acknowledged my polite assessment of their arising situation as a gesture of caring. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Well done I thought as the fine line between gentle parody and insult across cultural boundaries w</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">s one of my biggest ongoing challenges.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">I had booked my ticket four months before my trip and had gotten a decent price on my favorite airline; the one with the best food and a terrific offering of entertainment options in movies from all over the world. It routed through Taipei. I had in the past booked with the cheap Chinese airlines that had me layover in G</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">u</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">angzhou for hours so I was relieved that I had steered clear of those flights. They were likely cancelled now.</span><span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: "helvetica";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">My second clue that this story was going to be an international one was how quiet SFO was the night I left on February 4th. The line at baggage check was a shadow of the usual frenetic activity of Asian people struggling with oversize cardboard boxes and giant suitcases in their attempt to bring home all the tariff free goodies from the States. Security check was such a dream I forgot to collect my laptop and rushed back an hour later to get it. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">try</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ing</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> to prove to the security foreman that it was</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> indeed</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> my laptop I showe</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">d</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> him the picture of me dressed in a white hazmat suit striking a heroic pose with one foot on my duffel bag. He looked at me skeptically. He asked for something with my name on it. Luckily I found a downloaded copy of last years tax return.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Crowds keep me focused when traveling I realized and made a note to double check myself in this disorienting new environment of emptiness. It had its perks. I had a whole row of seats to myself on both flights. Taipei too was quiet with masked travelers who wore their masks quite carelessly I noted while I had </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">winter</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> gloves on and was became hyper aware of how much I was wanting to touch my face. But it was the emptiness of the Bangkok airport that shocked me most as I entered the huge hall for passport control. I snuck a picture of it during my short five minute wait for what would normally take over an hour to get through. Every Thai looking at that picture had the same thought. We are in for an economic meltdown (given the tourist industry that drives Thai economy). All tours from China had been stopped though individuals were still allowed in.</span><span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: "helvetica";"> </span></div>
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My girl cousin was on time to pick me up in her family size luxury SUV. She did not have a mask on. I asked her how she felt about the Wuhun virus. </div>
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“I don’t look at the news”, she said, “it has made me much happier”. </div>
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“Good for you,” I said. Being a mother of two preteen boys was challenging enough without adding to their lives the burden of the world filtered through an anxious mother. </div>
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“Do you have masks?” I asked. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">“We still have them from the last time,” she said referring to SARS and bird flu. No worries then for the wealthy. She more wanted to share with me her latest alternative health exploration and gave me her much rumpled copy of The Emotion Code. I handed over to her (once we arrived at my family compound) the magnetic bracelets she had mail ordered to my California address for me to bring. Magnets are the tool of choice for releasing stuck emotion according to this healing practice which used muscle testing to find the stuck emotion.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I was intrigued.</span></div>
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I also had for her a fishing vest for her eldest boy who had taken up skeet shooting. A development I found intriguing and creative for a boy who has no unscheduled time at all in this world where free play is an antiquated notion. Skeet shooting was offered in Bangkok in a controlled indoor environment park-like setting. All of middle and upper middle class Bangkok conduct their lives in indoor environments. That is how one lives in a city where the air quality is constantly in the red zone of unhealthy. This was what enraged me about the panic around masks. It was for the wrong reasons I wanted to shout.<span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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I had myself become an aficionado of non-disposable masks and had invested quite a bit of money into finding the best fitting, vented mask with replaceable 99micron filter (available in a wide array of fashionable colors and prints) designed by a contractor. These had become my most prized gear for woodworking sawdust, California fires and the smoke of the burning season in Asia known as PM 2.5 (parts per million sized at 2.5 microns).</div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">I duly checked that everyone on our household staff had masks. In Prayoon’s kitchen where I took my meals I saw a good quality </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3M </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">one in a storage box. No one was wearing them at home, but they had them for going out. Online my contacts were posting every update on the virus and China’s response including a video showing officials apparently shooting a man trying to escape the lockdown city.</span><span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: "helvetica";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Commuters on the BTS</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> (Bangkok Transit System)</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> were almost all wearing masks and I learned from a post by an expat culture watcher that there was a social context for masks. In Europe only those who are sick wear masks to protect others. In Asia masks are worn as an act of communal cooperation and solidarity </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">and because the government was telling them to</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">)</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I read m</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">ore discussion online about why masks don’t help.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">While traveling on the BTS with a mask wearing cousin (the one who wanted the 3M box of 100 count</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> 9001v</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">), I sneezed (due to change in air pressure) and she urged me to put my mask on. She was a doctor’s wife and was wearing the usual pleated ear loop masks so I put on mine </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">and she took a picture of us together to post to FB urging people to be safe for both virus and P</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">M</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> 2.5. Killing two birds with one stone and appeasing both our mask agendas.</span></div>
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Prayoon’s daughter Aun ever entrepreneurial was looking at home sewing masks to sell. At night they watched the news which would calmly update the number of cases along with instructions about washing hands, not sharing utensils when eating and using hand sanitizer now available at entrances to stores and just about everywhere including the subway stations. The news is controlled by the military government so was designed to keep everyone calm and informed. No amped up CNN style coverage here to instigate chaos and possible political unrest. There was good news too. On February 3rd Thai doctors successfully treated a Chinese patient in critical condition with a cocktail of HIV and flu meds. She recovered and was delisted as having the virus.<span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">This news was not part of your CNN coverage. One might well wonder why. Clearly the panic element of the news cycle had far to go to keep eyeballs. A cure would dampen this interest. And besides it wasn’t a white first world male doctor who came up with this treatment so was hardly viable. The best mention was a generic “some are trying various meds, but nothing has been corroborated”. I had blamed todays increased fear factor on social media, but it was more the fault of CNN that 24/7 pipeline in constant need of news fuel with which to douse the public with whatever would keep their attention</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and fear was the most addictive elixer</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">. (CNN coming on line in the late ‘80s was when parents started to put their kids on house arrest due to all the child abduction stories. We are just now beginning to come back from that with the “free range” child movement having to legislate the right to allow children to walk the streets without getting arrested.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">At the train station in Chiangmai arriving passengers on the sleeper train frequented by foreigners were greeted with welcoming smiles and hand sanitizer dispensing nurses, an infrared camera and a doctor. Once in the country side there were no masks at all. Time had stood still there. We went about our business. (Much to report in my next post on my adventures learning about a probiotic technology from Japan a</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nd</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> what a game changer it is</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> for animal husbandry, farming and garbage collecting</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">.) Two weeks passed and I was once again back at the near empty airport. It was eery. The hugeness of this shopping mall airport empty on a Friday afternoon. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">t felt like there had been a die off. Would this be the end of globalization I wondered? Perhaps all that frenetic travel before the virus was quite unnecessary.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And we could finally transform to a localized economy.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"> I could get used to this I thought.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-weight: 700;">May You Live In Interesting Times</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"><br /></span></div>
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Upon entering the U.S. there were so few returning residents that they switched us to the visitors side as a long line of travelers from Taiwan awaited processing on the other. Why would they want to visit Trump’s anti-foreigner, anti-everyone America I wondered? I guess they got tired of wearing masks. Heh. We had all been screened at every airport with infrared cameras before boarding (to spot a fever). It would be the only reassurance I could offer to my State side family that I had not brought back the dreaded bug.</div>
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The customs officer questioned me sternly about what I was doing on my trip and what I brought back. Air freshener and kitchen utensils I said. I forgot about the 3 bags of shrimp and chili flavored Lays potato chips. I didn’t want to mention my rattles because they had seeds in them. He let me pass.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">The America I returned to had shifted noticeably into a mood I hadn’t experienced—ever. A sort of collective holding of its breath as though awaiting disaster</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> yet the weather was lovely</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">. The streets seemed noticeably light in traffic, but the conversations both in person and online was a chaotic, noisy battle of wills. I was back to being mad again. Mad at the panic after traveling through the relatively calm territory of a people living with the epidemic. Mad at the political wrestling of the primaries and the arising horror of the “liberal” media to the specter of Bernie Sanders. The chaos of it made me wish to dispense with democracy altogether. Here in the land of “make your own reality” the battle was on for control as pundits tried desperately to mitigate the horror of an old man who represented so much change to a society so invested in incremental baby steps. Yet completely ignored the one woman who was speaking sense. I’d come home to vote for Elizabeth of the House of Warren, mother of dragons flaming Bloomberg right off his golden perch.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">My flashes of insight informed by having just returned from a country whose democracy had gone terribly wrong yet was still quite functional informed my commentary. I wondered if Americans would learn quickly enough how to handle the unrest I saw waiting to erupt. Democracy requires much of its constituents and there had always been smart, well informed politically savvy people who saw clearly what was happening, but the narrative would have to be well enough understood by those who were only reasonably and superficially informed. But here was a new challenge—the people I was used to taking my cues from—the informed classes of older white liberals who had always called the shots for us in the media and in our local leadership appeared to have overslept and missed the movement I’d been a part of and had been watching since the last election. It gave me the worse case of culture shock</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">. I sharpened my pen on </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Facebook </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">on every platform offered. Some would hear me and be so shocked it shut them up. Some in turn wanted to shout me down. I took solace in political satire—the territory of subversive, veiled opinions. It was best not to get too invested. And hold open for what could still arise in the unexpected—what unnoticed pangolin might MacGuffin us right off our righteous perches. The Black Swan of our time.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Anything could happen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">As a writer the famous Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times” is my version of “surf’s up” in my taste for adventure. Though I now felt that real change (in terms of how we choose to live preferably sustainably and in harmony with the earth) was coming from outside the U.S. this is where I’m planted and by rights should bloom</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and have bloomed</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">. I would be a witness either to its continuing collapse or to its passage through.</span><span class="yiv5030020321Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: "helvetica";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Meanwhile I checked online for cheap tickets to elsewhere. Those empty airports had been a tonic. And this was after all a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the world without either Americans or Chinese. Two classes of tourists so huge that without them the world would be empty and left to its own self</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. How cool was that? Perfectly normal things could happen. </span></div>
AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-10695895896817102202020-02-02T20:21:00.000-08:002020-02-06T20:37:42.464-08:00Dear Thailand<div style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13.3333px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZgCjcYT2sh8addpEQO5Hd5jYs5xOFYCj_M5aG7faFCaXs3dDFU6AnlA70FqA9HC7NLCPV8U41LBAszWEeSlDQa46zQW2Gwt7JcEJsQWnqhAUrtjBcn1vyHC_0oAXKiAr4xVOjQ/s1600/No+Masks+Sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1122" data-original-width="923" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZgCjcYT2sh8addpEQO5Hd5jYs5xOFYCj_M5aG7faFCaXs3dDFU6AnlA70FqA9HC7NLCPV8U41LBAszWEeSlDQa46zQW2Gwt7JcEJsQWnqhAUrtjBcn1vyHC_0oAXKiAr4xVOjQ/s320/No+Masks+Sign.jpg" width="263" /></a>I am very sorry I cannot bring you any masks ka. We are all sold out due to Pandemic Panic Syndrome. Our local area has one case. He is now resting quietly at home in Santa Clara after recent visit to Wuhan. I<span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">t is reported that he</span> is not very sick so likely won't die. His chances of dying are only 2% with this virus. Compare to Bird flu 39.90% and SARS 9.6%. </div>
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Please note <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/01/29/800531753/face-masks-what-doctors-say-about-their-role-in-containing-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR0NyyU84p0ChENq16xCRxO8bdJq1i2qzw4B5e1S7ziYiYSC1Egmp71DyJk">masks </a><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/01/29/800531753/face-masks-what-doctors-say-about-their-role-in-containing-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR0NyyU84p0ChENq16xCRxO8bdJq1i2qzw4B5e1S7ziYiYSC1Egmp71DyJk">are not effective protection</a>.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Not even the prestigious 3M brand respirator (made in China). Masks </span><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">work best when worn by sick people to prevent fluids spraying onto others. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Best protection is to wash your hands. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfzuv0F_Gl_yyjy7WQv0iVWdPte3xDszEQmtIYAY99Hq2XD5PbF8y0CleX0kWaEbN_76QD-nI8zWTEtq-A0g5CjBU7UNuuP2VEvNeqeVxlRm1Vivp4lD61scRPFrFn62wkji0DNA/s1600/Box+O%2527+Gloves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1231" data-original-width="1027" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfzuv0F_Gl_yyjy7WQv0iVWdPte3xDszEQmtIYAY99Hq2XD5PbF8y0CleX0kWaEbN_76QD-nI8zWTEtq-A0g5CjBU7UNuuP2VEvNeqeVxlRm1Vivp4lD61scRPFrFn62wkji0DNA/s200/Box+O%2527+Gloves.jpg" width="166" /></a><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I can also recommend a pair of gloves for the germs you might accidentally touch on the BTS, on public stairway banisters and doorknobs everywhere. I can get you two pair per box for only $6.49. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXGrA_k3cBNPdt_uC90DOzdTSU250iftx-vaqCjy-ESR-RBWbHGgmOqyp8F4w71pyGA7Y4TJtwtlzx42f5h3o-qXMSThScT_Ts2dGbb6R167O9jJKJy5VW0TZDTAc31CMpWOjUA/s1600/High+Fashion+Cone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1238" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXGrA_k3cBNPdt_uC90DOzdTSU250iftx-vaqCjy-ESR-RBWbHGgmOqyp8F4w71pyGA7Y4TJtwtlzx42f5h3o-qXMSThScT_Ts2dGbb6R167O9jJKJy5VW0TZDTAc31CMpWOjUA/s320/High+Fashion+Cone.jpg" width="247" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt;">And to prevent putting your hands to your mouth may I recommend this high fashion cone. Medium size will fit most humans. $19.29, but very satisfying and will increase your personal space to large American size. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGxoEBLhOmTvNZlIMJiTUASbwsKfmmmjNHrnnHKeuXIYWpf7eD5kfFQBDkFWoxVxmfCsuLlJbDkJ1DjB3NIh1nsuc6IE7gEb5JKXUrUHbx5qNfAXfVcrP-T10fhsTc_8aTlMtrSw/s1600/Face+Shield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1411" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGxoEBLhOmTvNZlIMJiTUASbwsKfmmmjNHrnnHKeuXIYWpf7eD5kfFQBDkFWoxVxmfCsuLlJbDkJ1DjB3NIh1nsuc6IE7gEb5JKXUrUHbx5qNfAXfVcrP-T10fhsTc_8aTlMtrSw/s200/Face+Shield.jpg" width="176" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">For prevention of the human spit to landing on face I recommend 100% polycarbonate face shield with flip up visor for only $3.99. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikV7vdYEM9oRv6z20b5a7vAMIxNIubkJ2Aixkxu2X7r2DGwpMJJHvBQzzVuSafcR8WzAGmUKRV-aq_D4m841eDPtye4W3fqTiJ1WVoLyNatELvp194bTxDEhgrx6CkXuAW5lpXUw/s1600/Tyvek+Suit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikV7vdYEM9oRv6z20b5a7vAMIxNIubkJ2Aixkxu2X7r2DGwpMJJHvBQzzVuSafcR8WzAGmUKRV-aq_D4m841eDPtye4W3fqTiJ1WVoLyNatELvp194bTxDEhgrx6CkXuAW5lpXUw/s320/Tyvek+Suit.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;">I can also provide full coverage Tyvek suit with hood. Please place your orders by midnight Sunday 2/2/2020 San Francisco time ka. </span><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">3 p.m. Monday 3/2/2563 </span><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Bangkok time.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div>
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AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-50731038004665842642019-11-06T19:20:00.000-08:002019-11-10T09:03:37.181-08:00Tiny House On The Move<style type="text/css">
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Early in the summer my landlady Marianna told me about her idea to move across the bay to a condo. A condo would be more manageable than the upkeep of a house and yard full of fruit trees. She wanted to rent out the house if the bank would give her another loan to buy the condo. That didn’t work out. I had wanted to buy her house myself. Not so much for the house which was just a two bedroom, but for the yard which was large and wonderfully wild. If I owned the house it would insure that I would always have a place to park the tiny house with an income to offset my costs. So was my reasoning.</div>
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I was grateful to Marianna for taking me in those first three years in such a prime location for it had given me time to figure out how to live in my house while allowing me to be close to clients and have the support of Catherine’s house nearby. She had also provided WiFi, water and power.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<b>The Search</b></div>
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While I was in Thailand she sold the house. She had gotten overwhelmed by the condition of it and wanted a quick out, selling the house for cash to investors. We would have the end of the year to move. She delivered the news with a plate of brownies I could not think of eating as I fought off waves of panic. She listened sympathetically to me vent.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Just then my friend Karla called me to invite me on a museum date. When I told her of my news she suggested I contact her daughter who lived on a big property in Petaluma. Why not I thought and felt better. At least I had one offer. It was two and a half hours away, but the immediate Bay Area had not become any more tiny-house friendly in the three years I had been living in my tiny. In fact because there were now 300 RVs parked on the streets all over Mountain View and Palo Alto, residents had become even more resistant to any live aboard house on wheels. The long resistance to increased density in these suburbs had now bloomed into the most obscene housing crisis in the nation even as the cities allowed Google and Facebook to add hundreds of thousands of jobs. We would never catch up.</div>
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I drove to Petaluma and persuaded Catherine to consider it too, but she wasn’t ready and I couldn’t do it alone. I perused craigslist and drove across the bay to Castro Valley to see a backyard. The town was still legitimately in the Bay Area and the space offered was a big grassy back yard, but the commute traffic over the bridges was sure to be punishing and he wanted $1000 in rent plus utilities. Closer to home the offers were $1000 for ugly concrete yards. One offer was a dilapidated abandoned house renting the driveway for that amount. This so disgusted me I didn’t even contact the owner though the site was only a mile from Catherine’s. It was on the busy Edgewood road approach to 280 and didn’t even have a lockable gate. A week later the price dropped to $750 and a small newish RV trailer was soon parked there.</div>
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I put an add on craigslist myself which drew two offers one in Moss Beach and one in Half Moon Bay. The man in Moss Beach was put off by my composting toilet possibly offending his renters since I would be burying the contents or seasoning it in a bin on site depending on my method. The Half Moon Bay property was a commercial yard zoned for agricultural use supporting gardeners and nursery operations. My status would be as a caretaker assisting the man already there. I was quite excited about this possibility as it had an amazing open space behind it overlooking the ocean, but the owner got cold feet about allowing someone else to live there. The county watched commercial properties very closely and he was already housing people in RVs on a property hidden inland that was a commercial landfill.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<b>My Appearance On TV</b></div>
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<span class="s1">Ironically during my state of near homelessness my blog was discovered by organizers of The Tiny Living Festival and I was asked to speak at their California venue as a bonafide tiny house dweller. Capitalizing on my expertise as a professional organizer my topic was ostensibly about how to downsize your stuff to fit into a tiny house. But I made it more a message about how tiny houses are an adjustment to the extravagance of the MacMansion era. A project worth doing to live a simpler life so we're not hogging so much energy and resources.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">In conjunction with my involvement with the festival I was also interviewed for an appearance on the 11 o'clock news for their program Project Home which addresses the housing crisis on a weekly basis. The show gave a brief tour of how I lived in the tiny house and allowed me to stealthily impart a message of eco living while asking my opinion about tiny houses as a solution for the homeless. No the tiny house is not a way to appease our guilt by putting societies most destitute in substandard housing (but by all means allow it and <a href="https://www.squareonevillages.org/">do it right</a> in community with social services). It’s heaps better than nothing of course. </span><span class="s2">People are going to live in this area whether there is housing or not. Many in their cars. I managed to impart an answer without proselytizing and</span><span class="s1"> was pleased with how well I came across. <a href="https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/10/14/tiny-homes-a-movement-or-a-solution-to-homelessness/?fbclid=IwAR3qyJ_Xxhq-8OtpbbSMoxQcFYAK9y2Hs1YrVTFO1u7rVKi_ea3wUoArD9Y">You can see for yourself on the programs website.</a></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>A New Town To Consider</b></div>
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Another friend suggested I try to stay on the property I was on so I approached the real estate agent about having me be there to keep an eye out while the property was remodeled. It was not ideal, but I was at the end of my rope and posted my plight to Facebook showing myself gardening the median strip which had won me the approval of the neighborhood. I was staying positive by positioning myself as an asset to override the downer energy of the current housing crisis. I mean why should I be given space when so many were in need? It was a struggle to see myself as uniquely worthy and wanted. I needed to find my own Brigadoon I told my writing group.</div>
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My plight prompted two friends in a mountain town on the ocean side of the Santa Cruz mountains to post my add request to their internal neighborhood lists. The town was 35 minutes drive from everything, but it was beautiful and the drive did not involve bridge traffic or much traffic at all. I got two responses immediately. The first response was from a family 10 minutes further down the road in farm country. A bit too far and too remote, but I entertained the idea until the second offer which was right down the street from my friends’ house. The homeowner left such a nice message that I warmed to him immediately and went to meet him.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Bob greeted me from his woodpile where he cut downed trees to heat his house. He was so chatty he made me feel at home right away. I took in his stylish slightly punk, silver grey haircut and tie died t-shirt. He needed help stacking wood now that his son was gone to college. And he had plenty of other unfinished projects too. His one and a half acre property was so big he had three different places where I could park. Across the street the resident lama and goat looked at us waiting for a treat of yard trimmings. I was warming to this rural town with its junked cars and casual live and let live combination of liberal mores and DIY rural sensibilities. It was horse country without the pretentiousness.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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I showed him my photo album of my tiny house and disclosed how my composting toilet worked. He did not seem put off by it since I wouldn’t be close enough to impact his garden. He asked $500 in rent with a work trade of 8 to 10 hours a month. I took a day to think about it because of the remote location and brought Catherine up to meet him. He showed us where the Mountain lion lived and where the vultures perched waiting for a carcass and the pile of rocks that was home to snakes. The mountain lion scared Catherine, but she could see that he was a generous and helpful man and I was going to say yes anyway. They still had the same ordinance as other towns that forbid people from living in RVs, but Bob had hosted people living in RVs before and he was willing to do the same for me on the condition that if there were any complaints I would move on.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghw3uPD4VOT07pACydU6nafth49a9wboLTYd7EkLf-uDRocHL-NhIr8elDIpakPmR8U6dYkEesLdEnw79Ys4EYcHpx5l4ZxOtBQ7PkGno1gHvYt5J8EKTF5FOPx-bZ8LRyx7Y6UQ/s1600/La+Honda+Bi-Plane+View.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghw3uPD4VOT07pACydU6nafth49a9wboLTYd7EkLf-uDRocHL-NhIr8elDIpakPmR8U6dYkEesLdEnw79Ys4EYcHpx5l4ZxOtBQ7PkGno1gHvYt5J8EKTF5FOPx-bZ8LRyx7Y6UQ/s320/La+Honda+Bi-Plane+View.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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He had lived here for 28 years clearing away junk discarded on the land by the previous owner whose son was in construction. There was still construction junk on the land which he had made into sculptures using a bathtub and toilet to fashion into the body of a bi-plane poised to take off into the hills. There was a drag racer made from corrugated tin and discarded truck tires. He also had a couple of rusted tin dinosaurs he was known to arrange in seasonal tableaux. He made metalwork sculptures that adorned his house. This artistic bent endeared me to him. His day job was as a physical therapist at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation where I had once worked myself and met four of my most pivotal friends. I counted the coincidence as a good sign.</div>
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I chose the upper pasture for my spot, paid my first and last and began work to level it and prepare it. I brought in a truck load of broken concrete I got free from a homeowner in Fremont who was busy jack hammering up the concrete that covered so much of his yard. I hired <span class="s4">my handy friend</span> Tim and it took us three work days and two truck loads of gravel plus more broken concrete to fashion my landing pad firmly enough so the gophers wouldn’t break through it.</div>
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<b>Going Solar</b></div>
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During this time the first mandatory blackout by PG & E occurred as fire season got underway. This prompted me to think of launching into solar especially since Bob’s property would require 250 feet of extension cords. The longest cord I could get was 100ft. Even I didn’t like the idea of joining up so many cords. As it turned out there was a man on craigslist selling a complete solar set-up that was just about the right size for a tiny house probably used for a grow house. I had experimented with a cheap system myself, enough to be familiar with the components and his were all very high grade. He was offering a battery pack too. All for $1400. It was a risk to buy used equipment just as it was to buy the tiny house off craigslist, but I was being pulled by the serendipity of it all. Bob approved my idea and showed me the south facing hillside where I could put solar panels right below the parking pad. It couldn’t be more ready for solar.</div>
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I had just exactly the right amount of cash on hand to finalize this deal on a bank holiday weekend. I drove all the way up to Richmond to get it. Having measured it out I knew I could just fit the solar panels in my Prius. Mike, the seller told me that two years ago he had used the system very briefly for a grow project involving hydroponics, but then had to move closer to the job market. I had guessed as much. Marijuana having not turned out to be so profitable once complete legalization increased the competition. He showed me how the components worked and how to hook them up.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNPoxD2Kf0LEDUBYCl_C2OnOC-nZnRDgKfKZYIxaed_L0Jer4c-pCjBDaJY2nTY63zNTiVY0Y5URsS8RAXKTEEKWnVqKQTVBHgO1wnlXHr3Hg2KxpLcVtu09_N1XooDyTQ0oCdVw/s1600/Solar+Panel+Loading.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1147" data-original-width="1600" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNPoxD2Kf0LEDUBYCl_C2OnOC-nZnRDgKfKZYIxaed_L0Jer4c-pCjBDaJY2nTY63zNTiVY0Y5URsS8RAXKTEEKWnVqKQTVBHgO1wnlXHr3Hg2KxpLcVtu09_N1XooDyTQ0oCdVw/s320/Solar+Panel+Loading.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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He was a serious man also living tiny in a backyard shed finished with sheet rock and furnished as a bedroom. After the transaction was complete I mentioned that my father had been an engineer and had taught me some things. He said his father had been in Vietnam in communications and had taught him a lot about components.</div>
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“If you father was in Vietnam he must have spent some time in Thailand,” I said.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Yes,” he said, “I am half Thai.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“So am I,” I said in surprise. I was so bowled over by this serendipitous revelation I took this whole transaction as a blessing possibly arranged by my father himself from his heavenly perch. Mike smiled for the first time and gave me the traditional greeting of a wai with the words Sawadii Kup. I returned the greeting overcome by my good luck and drove away with my new solar system tickled at how I was going to subvert the power company with all I needed fitting into a Prius.</div>
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Several you-tube tutorials later I was confident I could put the system together. I just needed a battery box. I dragged an old metal bathtub up to the site. It had been Bob’s before he remodeled. It was just big enough to hold all four of the golf cart batteries. And the hole where the stopper control was installed was perfect for the extension cords and the cable wires from the panels to enter into my ad hoc battery shed. <a href="https://tinyreddesk.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-leap-to-solar.html">I put it all together and had power</a>. Such a quantum leap in off-grid living yet so simple.</div>
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<b>Moving Day</b></div>
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<span class="s1">The day came to move. If my house was any larger I would have thought longer and harder about the actual moving of it. But I just strapped all the books down along with my desk and computer monitor, rented a truck and trusted that Tim who had moved it before would finesse it again. After working out all the details to get it pulled out, pull it out we did and safely towed it all the way to the coast of Half Moon Bay then south to approach my destination via a route less encumbered by low hanging branches and tight turns on narrow winding roads. All went well until we got to Bob’s property and the actual backing in of the house.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy6Jazt5CPK2r8mYq18YhnLB_v5t4v8h9ny08XcnSNfghyphenhyphenZQxDXkl4YVmp4ZbrkV-5THzyj8vAaSjAWZy-jTYpczYXhxypeiDvzDdIt9QsQHiIbIKQNtif4jnN9GvpFKmyS51JiQ/s1600/In+The+Ditch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy6Jazt5CPK2r8mYq18YhnLB_v5t4v8h9ny08XcnSNfghyphenhyphenZQxDXkl4YVmp4ZbrkV-5THzyj8vAaSjAWZy-jTYpczYXhxypeiDvzDdIt9QsQHiIbIKQNtif4jnN9GvpFKmyS51JiQ/s320/In+The+Ditch.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="s4">After an agonizing two hour attempt with the truck wheels spinning dry gopher chewed dirt I wanted to run around in circles shouting “Mayday Mayday”. Instead I sent a text to my now down-the-street long time friend Martine asking her to bring me a snack. Her appearance walking up the street offered me emotional support along with sustenance. </span>Bob showed up and started giving directions to no avail. The truck simply wasn’t up to it. So he fired up his 4 wheel drive which he had just to tow his tiny Airstream trailer. Meanwhile Tim pulled the tiny house out into the street again. By this time people were coming home from work at this busy intersection and some heavy equipment needed to get by so it was quite the scene before Bob was able to finally and expertly back the house onto its parking pad. I was so relieved even though inside it looked like an earthquake had hit.</div>
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Everything I had left to chance had slid off the counters onto the floor and one framed artwork had disassembled itself and broken the glass. Why hadn’t I been more diligent? I asked myself. Who knows? Sometimes you need things to fall apart completely just to show how near the edge your life has been teetering. The following two days I got the house level and stabilized with all four jacks firmly on the ground and set about organizing my outdoor space.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<b>The New Homestead</b></div>
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Ironically the house felt smaller in this big space, but once I had cooked a meal in it it was the same house it had always been only it wasn’t at all the same experience. It was so quiet and the light coming through the windows was different, sunnier and vacation like. The energy of this town was completely different from the traffic and freight train noise of my previous packed in neighborhood. It was a retreat place just as Bob said and most remained retreated in their houses. People who were drawn here had a sensibility different from the amenities-driven, competitive population in town. They were really nice Bob assured me. I was already seeing evidence of this. His local friends wanted to meet me the day of the move admiring the cleverness of the tiny house and welcoming me right away.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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My view took my eyes clear over the mountain ridge where I watched the sun set. This town was different too focusing more on the running of the town than any possible revenue. It had its own water from reservoirs up in the hills above. There were also lots of self organized town events involving food. I felt I had found a place that shared my values.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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After my first weekend sleeping in the tiny house in my new mountain home it felt dreamlike driving the beautiful road back into town. And once in the busy-ness of the town I felt different as if my identity had changed. I was now a country person. But there was another feeling too. I felt like I belonged somewhere, to a community and a geography that had embraced me and made me feel like family just for settling there. I felt blessed and lucky and hoped I’d be here awhile.</div>
AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-4249784509641622272019-08-02T17:58:00.000-07:002019-08-02T17:59:49.140-07:00A Lease of Affection<style type="text/css">
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<i>Further adventures with a tiny farm in Northern Thailand.</i></div>
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<b>A Pond To Begin With</b></div>
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In May Clasina and her husband Panya planned a three day weekend to Mae Taeng to oversee the work of a bulldozer man. With this act she had begun to realize our dream of a farmhouse, a pond and a food forest. She had researched extensively on youtube how to make a pond that would best support aquaculture providing shelter at the edges on narrow ledges (about 2 feet wide) for spawning fish, eels and frogs. All food sources of local people in the area. When I asked my cook in Bangkok if she had ever tried the regional frog dish, she said yes, but she really preferred chicken. Heh. The pond was the same size as the footprint of the house so was quite large and deep. I was overwhelmed by the size of it when I first saw it, but realized that once it was full of water it would be just right.</div>
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The digging of the pond also provided earth to level the slope to make a flat spot upon which we would build the house. Seeing that she would be short of soil she had even enlarged a pond on the next door neighbor’s land so as to be able to use that soil too. Clasina then invited our potential building teacher Maggie to visit the land. We had already interested many of our mud hut sisters in coming to help build it as soon as this coming winter, but Maggie pointed out that the land needed to settle for at least a season in order to create a firm base upon which to build. This I felt gave us a little breathing room, though Clasina had been eager to start.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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The farm project was a respite for me from American politics (as well as Brexit) and the precarious feeling of the social contract threatening to tear apart at the seams world wide. The Thai news cycle no longer covered such overseas drama. So as not to give the populace any ideas most likely. Thailand was not, however, going to escape the impact of climate change. Though I arrived in what should be the middle of monsoon season, the rains had been scarce this year. A true monsoon season would offer rain every day, but not a drop had I seen.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Thus having a pond was a good idea to lessen the impact of these periods of drought. It had been foremost on Clasina’s mind. Both ponds were filled by the aqueduct that ran between our lands bringing water direct from the reservoir upstream though government whimsy might close off the aqueduct for maintenance with little notice. The pond would build in resilience to our farm project.</div>
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These government built aqueducts fed much of the plots in the region. When the damn—the Mae Ngat dam— was built 30 years ago the displaced farmers were offered plots of land on the periphery of the Sri Lanna National Park. Our farm was one of these plots one kilometer away from the reservoir which was now also a vacation destination complete with floating bungalows. I felt privileged to have land on the edge of a national park. This as Clasina had pointed out would ensure there would be trees bordering our food forest to support our stewardship of the land.</div>
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<b>The Lease of Affection</b></div>
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As before our first stop was at the land office for one final formality which was to sign a lease. A lease is what gave Clasina legitimacy on the land—the right to work on it and live on it. A lease also protected me, as my friends and relatives immediately wanted to warn me. By Thai law a squatter who had managed to live on your land for ten years without a lease had earned the right to take possession of it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“But I want to leave it to her when I die,” I said.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Well don’t tell them that or you will end up dead,” they told me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Too late,” I said wondering what kind of narrative my Thai peers were living in that made them so distrustful.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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The government also wanted to get involved when a lease was signed for if there were payments to be made they wanted their cut. A lease of 30 years or more required government oversight. I preferred that the government not be involved so thought a 15 year lease would be adequate. Thirty years was, after all, the rest of my life. What if Clasina wasn’t able to develop the land as she hoped? Surely we needed to specify for such contingencies, but contingencies tended to spawn more contingencies. How complex would this lease need to be? All I wanted was to be included in the development decisions. I also did not want to be accountable for any business liabilities Clasina might create. I felt overwhelmed by such complexities.</div>
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The lease also had to be in Thai so we could not write our own; we would have to find one or hire a lawyer at some expense. My boy cousin had a banana farm that he leased out to tenant farmers so I asked for a copy of his lease. When Clasina got it translated she was taken aback. The lease gave the owner the power to evict the tenants with very little notice for almost no reason plus even the slightest improvements to the land had to be closely approved by the owner. That sounded like the feudal lord that my cousin would make himself out to be. It was how those of my class status operated. I agreed that it was too draconian for our purposes.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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So Clasina asked a business man she knew for advice and he offered a lease that was much more fair to both parties. It was a 30 year lease. A longer lease made her feel better about all the time she was going to be investing she told me. There had been cases of farmers putting in all the work to develop the property only to have the owner come in and say they were going to be evicted because the owner’s family now wanted to live on the land and were going to take it from there as far as farming it. It wasn’t me she was worried about, she told me, it was my relatives should I die and they came to claim my property. I could well see her point. This was exactly what happened to gay couples before marriage equality.</div>
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I agreed to the 30 year lease if she would figure out how to do all the paperwork to keep the government happy regarding taxes on payments that I was not even going to collect. What would such paperwork even look like?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Clasina decided to ask the land office for help with these questions. So on our last trip to Mae Taeng we were relieved to learn that the land office itself had a variety of leases we could use and she had taken them home to study in the interim.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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We also learned that the government did not require that payments be made for a lease to be viable. Such a lease was called a “lease of affection”. “Affection” being the closest word for translation that Clasina could come up with. I was comforted that such a patronage relationship was common in Thailand. That it was common for an owner to want a tenant to be able to make a living from the land while keeping it from being reclaimed by the jungle. This lease did indeed express the relationship I had in mind. I wanted no false intentions to stand in the way of the universe helping us with our farm project.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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I also worried about making a Thai will which would would require a lawyer to navigate. Could we just add a clause to the lease that would leave the land to her upon my passing?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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We told our story to a clerk and were handed up the chain of command until we got to the man who could answer this question. I had met him before when I came to buy the land. He pointed out that even if the land was left to Clasina she wouldn’t be able to take possession of it because she didn’t have a Thai I.D. card. This was a bureaucratic technicality that continued to frustrate Clasina since she had long ago had the right to one with her marriage to a Thai and was still waiting for her application to be processed. The man then suggested that we sign a lease that would give her the right to the land for her entire lifetime. We had now gone from a lease of affection to until death do us part. I was liking this. It was very Gay.</div>
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“What are you two to each other,” the man asked us.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFP_uVLMbK2PQ2H5hDtbZKrzZqwOw760qBH6e3z89D839mlx65WnMEfWMwVbxC3JSJ3HgLONT5iWmuJjkdchJgwXpeov0WWDYjyziLIEub6DnO0PpiFIGcL1rYasDWxUi-CkhYqQ/s1600/Land+Deeds+and+Lease.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFP_uVLMbK2PQ2H5hDtbZKrzZqwOw760qBH6e3z89D839mlx65WnMEfWMwVbxC3JSJ3HgLONT5iWmuJjkdchJgwXpeov0WWDYjyziLIEub6DnO0PpiFIGcL1rYasDWxUi-CkhYqQ/s320/Land+Deeds+and+Lease.jpg" width="320" /></a>“We are friends together,” I replied in Thai. This was indeed unusual I could see. Family being the usual basis of such patronage. He then asked me if I was single and if I had any children. Perhaps to make sure I had no one else who might object to me entering into such an agreement. Yes I was an unencumbered free agent creating a relationship not often seen outside of family. Not an unusual idea in my life thus far.</div>
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It did not take long for the lease to be prepared nor did it cost very much. Before I signed it he asked me to tell him what was now growing on the land just to confirm that I actually knew the land in question. Then he repeated the terms of the lease to make sure I knew what I was signing since it was clear I couldn’t read the document. And he explained that if we want to dissolve the lease we both had to come to this office to do so. Good enough. We signed all the signatures needed. As we walked out the door I told Clasina I felt like we should open a bottle of champagne.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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We went to use the bathroom around the corner of the building. When Clasina came out<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of the stall she wanted to give me a hug.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“I just wanted to acknowledge what a great opportunity this is,” she said hugging me warmly.</div>
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“I’m glad you’re up to it,” I said. For I did indeed feel fortunate to have found such a farm partner who was already putting heart and soul into this project while I did nothing more than watch (and give moral support). This entire process having firmed up our trust in each other.</div>
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<b>Farm Chores</b></div>
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My role as watcher and not yet a doer would be further enforced the next day when I twisted my ankle walking down the embankment of our new pond in my new rocker sole shoes prescribed by a doctor to cure my toe joint pain. A humiliating event in itself for a shoe maker. A pair of slip on shoes that I had made and worn all winter was I believe the cause of it. They were too loose around the ankle causing my toe to flex with every step to hold the shoe on. This leading to degeneration of the cartilage around the joint from the overwork. (Or it could just be aging, but I was loath to accept such a thing.) At any rate the doc had promised that if I kept the toe from flexing by wearing stiff soled lace up shoes it would heal so I had bought myself the recommended shoes and was dutifully wearing them when I decided to walk down the back of the embankment of our new pond. Which was steep and the ground did not give though it looked soft. And the shoes ran away with me and I tried to outrun them, but my left foot rolled outward. As I felt the pain of my ankle rolling over I fell to the other knee to save it and safely rolled onto my back.</div>
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By the time Clasina and the three men with us turned around to see what happened I was on my back like a bug with my feet waving in the air.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Well that’s quite a pose,” she said wising to save my pride. I lay there assessing the damage until one of the men came down to give me a hand and I gingerly stood up and determined that I had not broken my ankle and could walk.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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The reason for the three men was that one of them was a farm consultant for the making of Swales. Swales are a classic permaculture technique to direct water through the land by means of curved ditches. The man had come recommended by our friends at Pun Pun (center for self reliance) and another man had driven him to our farm by motorbike. The third man was the caretaker from the farm next door who was interested in all that was going on at ours and would also help out if paid. So all of us were standing on the embankment listening to the consultant talk about water moving through the pond into the field below via a pipe that Clasina had installed through the wall of the pond. After listening long enough to get the gist of it, I decided to walk down into the field below rather than make my way past everyone standing on the embankment. (Would that I had just been a little more patient or assertive, but such was my character.) By the end of the consultation Clasina had learned enough to confirm that her plans were sound and the consultant refused to take any money. He just wanted to know the outcome. Then off he went with his driver while Clasina went to get ice from the village restaurant to ice my now swollen ankle. (The ice helped considerably and I would recover in time to travel home a week later.)</div>
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On the final day of our stay Clasina wanted to plant three coconut trees on the banks of the pond. (She and Panya had already planted several banana trees below the embankment of the pond.) She put on her farmers overalls which she had had custom tailored as there were none to be found to fit her. I was impressed by this sartorial commitment and had made note of them when I first worked with her at the adobe building workshop. She completed the outfit with a pair of blue boots and an elegant straw hat with black hatband she had bought at the train station. While she was off buying the plants and a piece of pipe to extend the pond outlet, I finished a drawing of the proposed house which she had urged me to do so I could draw my own room on our floor plan and add my ideas for the kitchen. Then she came back to get me so I could document her planting of the trees. Once at the farm I grabbed a bamboo pole to help me walk. (I used this pole all the way to Bangkok noting that it seemed to stigmatize me as an upcountry peasant, but I was not one to care.)</div>
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I made my way to the shade of the remaining Longan fruit tree on the bank of the pond. After planting the trees Clasina then went to the water’s edge halfway inside the pond’s cavity to fetch some water. As I watched her attempt to fill a plastic bag with water and turn around to leave she fell upon her hands for her feet wouldn’t move. She was firmly stuck in the mud and laughing at her predicament. The only way she could free herself was by leaving the boots in the mud which she did. I made my way down to look and it was clear that the boots were indeed stuck. The two boot tops looking like the nostrils of a pig emerging from the mud.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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The next attempt to install a pipe to extend the pond outlet to the surface (so we could fill the pond) didn’t go much better and the pipe slipped into the depths of the pond.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Well at least no one will attempt to steal it,” Clasina said and we called it a day leaving pipe and boots where the pond had claimed them. Nothing could be done until a future trip.</div>
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<b>A Name For The Farm</b></div>
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A few days later back in Bangkok Clasina came to visit me resting my ankle up on a pillow. She wanted to settle on the name for our farm. We had been searching for one since the day we bought the farm and though several sounded feasible they didn’t really stick or some like “Food Forest Farm”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and nearly everything else so obvious was taken. Clasina suggested Green Joy Farms and I offered Wild Sprout Farms and those both sounded good at first, but didn’t past muster with others and didn’t translate well to Thai.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Maybe we should have a competition to name the farm,” Clasina suggested.</div>
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“Then people will just want to call it the Amanda and Clasina farm,” I said which made me think of our recent adventures and an idea struck me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“I know, we can call it Lost Boots Farm.” We both burst out laughing. Certainly no one would have that name already. Plus it was an intriguing name that promised a story behind it. Objects were popular and boots were an easy concept to grasp. We decided to try it out. A notable graphic designer on my FB feed gave it a heart. It was also the first name that Panya responded favorably to she reported. The word for boots was the same in Thai and this somehow incorporated a Thai English sensibility. Thai people like being able to recognize English words. I could see it had a lot of energy behind it which was important for further inspiration. Clasina asked if I was ok with it. Of course I was ok with it. I had thought of it after all. I also liked my other suggestions, but it didn’t really matter as long as the name had staying power. Soon Clasina had a subtitle “Feel the earth under your feet”. “That’s especially for you,” she said. Now we had a message too.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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The night before I left a storm with thunder and lightening brought rain and filled the air with freshness. Rain in Thai culture is considered a blessing and I did indeed feel blessed.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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(Pictures of our adventures on the farm posted at <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/"><span class="s1">https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/</span></a>.)</div>
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<br />AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-44946891159785502442019-05-17T09:30:00.000-07:002019-05-20T10:22:50.742-07:00International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia<style type="text/css">
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Remarks for #IDAHOT #IDAHOBIT</div>
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This portrait from the early ‘90s is a rare capture of my butch lesbian persona. Thank-you <a href="http://www.warrenhukill.com/">Warren Hukill</a>. I would show this side of me more often, but the butch lesbian isn’t given a rightful place in Western (European) society; too challenging to the status quo of male power with such a solid example of female autonomy. It is a persona I mute here in the American suburbs because I can. I am privileged with such flexibility. I mute it so people can better relate to me and offer me a friendly reception that doesn’t have to focus on what they perceive to be my sexual orientation. (Instead they focus on how to handle my racial presentation.)</div>
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I also mute it to keep the discomfort of straight and straight passing women in my company to a minimum. And I play with the edge of this acceptance constantly. I believe I have these borders dialed in so I can gauge exactly where they are. You likely do too, but not so consciously. I know this because in the past when I asked the question “How do you feel when you are mistaken for a lesbian?” I got the most revealing responses from an adamant “I’m never mistaken for a lesbian” (from a woman with dyke haircut #1) to “I would be less suspected if you hadn’t just come out in the local newspaper. I am after all the one in this office with short hair who plays sports.”</div>
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What to me is annoying homophobia (as opposed to dangerous) is the fear of guilt by association. The internalized homophobia of those who fear being seen with me. That to be seen with a butch lesbian is to cast doubt on one’s own status as straight. I am pleased (no utterly delighted) to report though that I have more recently met straight woman who were proud to be mistaken for lesbians whether in my company or not. Because after all what could be cooler than the autonomy, strength and beauty of two women together?</div>
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This entry was greatly informed by my reading of the book <i>Transgender Warriors: Making History From Joan of Arc to Ru Paul </i>by Leslie Feinberg which I review on my <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/47091583764/">flickr book review platform here.</a><br />
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After posting my butch picture and the above short entry to FB, Warren tagged me in another image from that era that I'd never seen before or even have any memory of making. Warren preferred his female nudes to display breasts so that's what he printed, but I had chosen to suppress mine with a clasped hands pose that reflects my boy spirit.<br />
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The most striking feature about the photo though is that face and those eyes— the beauty of that face cannot be denied. I recognized this beauty at the time to be a gift especially of my Thai heritage. I had in my '20s played it butch with short haircuts but because I lived in the States it just wasn't butch enough in the sense it would have been recognized in Thailand in the Tom world. In the States it just read as American lesbian which was a ghetto that couldn't accommodate my multi-ethnicity at the time so in order to claim the Thai part of me I grew my hair long and lived with a femme presentation.<br />
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And attracted bi identified women who were attracted to exotic beauty (as opposed to lesbians searching for someone they could relate to inside the lesbian culture.) I could relate to being bisexual because it shared similar border crossing territory of being bicultural so I could make it work.<br />
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But now I am single and intending to remain so which opens up more territory to explore as a person with a visual message to impart rather than as a woman wishing to attract another. I do not have to stay within the boundaries demarcated by someone else's idea of attractive. My territory has become more geographically determined by the local on-the-street vibe and global on social media with our image making tools.AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-40978181918724021192019-05-13T10:38:00.003-07:002019-05-20T10:26:16.704-07:00Celebrating This Body Of 61 Years<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="3eql5" data-offset-key="9gl50-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span data-offset-key="9gl50-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I posted this story to FaceBook earlier this month and it received more attention than almost any other post to date. Women rarely celebrate their body in quite this way. At least not very often given women's battle with body image. It was my version of Gloria Steinem's "this is what 50 looks like". (Gloria who is now 85. Long may she reign.) I also wanted people to know that I did not come by this body without attention to its maintenance and a fitness regime. My friends often assume I have an Asian genetic advantage for thinness and natural fitness. This has not proven to be true among my own Asian family members. I also hoped that my story would inspire others to take care of their "earth suit" as one of my mud hut sisters put it as well as staking out ground for a non-medicalized body as much as I can which is to say free from pharmaceuticals. And finally it is a post to celebrate a butch presentation and a female persona that does not connect with the male gaze or any other gaze as I look heavenward for my inspiration. A tripod self portrait.</i></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9gl50-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">On my birthday I did this photo shoot to celebrate this amazing body of 61 years. I'd show more, but my channel is PG. heh. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's my story: When I was in my '20s I hadn't taken up any form of exercise or sport. I was a proud slacker and only cared about getting to the movies on time. When I was late to a movie and had to run for it I would end up in my seat breathing hard and sometimes coughing. I thought I must be seriously out of shape. So me and my movie buddy took up running the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_trail" style="font-family: inherit;">Parcourse</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> which was a new thing then. An </span><a href="https://www.fittrail.com/20station.html" style="font-family: inherit;">outdoor running circuit </a><span style="font-family: inherit;">with stations for doing push-ups et al. They were installed in communities all over. We picked the one that went around Lake Lagunita at Stanford. This improved my stamina and I was proud to increase my reps of push-ups and pull-ups.</span></div>
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A few years in I attended a celebration at the International House at Stanford where it was Asian night and the entertainment was a man and woman from China in silk costume doing martial arts. I fell in love and that's when I started looking for a kung fu class. Once there the movements were so similar to Thai dance that I felt at home, plus it brought back all those kung fu movies I had watched as a child and yes the TV series Kung Fu. The horse stance fixed my bum knee that still bothered me from a ski incident and the exercise improved my lung power further.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Fast forward a few decades later and I am late for a train. Now I have the power to run for it, but I still landed in my seat breathing so hard I was coughing for a good few minutes so I asked my family doctor what I should do. She had me breath a full lung full of air into a measuring device and said I only had a third of my lung capacity, did my parents smoke when I was a kid? Yes my father did from the time he was 12 to the time I was 12. Well there you go, she said, that's why I tell parents not to smoke around their kids. I was so mad at my father. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"I could have been a contender," I said. Then I thought what am I complaining about? I'm already up for my black belt. And I am injury free because I couldn't quite push myself hard enough to seriously compete because I'd end up coughing. The doc told me I had exercise induced asthma and gave me an inhaler to use before exercising. Well that's not going to help if I'm late for the train I thought. I tried it a couple of times and refused to use it. What was the point? Why become dependent on this device and whatever chemicals was in it when I already had what lung power I needed? The doc agreed that exercise itself had helped. Ok then. I don't need to go further than what my lungs are capable of. And it is still my lungs that are happiest when out on the mat being stretched to their capacity. I was now too old to be a contender, but I am still kicking.</span></div>
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AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-63019013975149924852019-03-27T15:18:00.002-07:002020-02-12T06:55:38.052-08:00Of Visionary Women<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">My report of the next leg of my farm making adventure in Northern Thailand as it unfolded with all its gifts and surprises during my recent trip earlier this year.</span></i></span></div>
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<b>Mae Taeng Province</b></div>
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The district of Mae Taeng is still largely undiscovered being but a stop between Chiang Mai (the Northern capital of Thailand) and the mountains of great beauty at Chiang Dao. Getting off on the side of the road here feels like the middle of nowhere. That’s what I like about it. The existential-ness of it. You have to have a reason to stop here. Nobody is going to crowd you with a ready made program of must see attractions. So our first questions to each other was how to get there—rent a car, rely on public transport, ride motorcycles or start building a network based on our needs. The train station in Chiang Man took care of our immediate needs to get breakfast and buy clothing for the cooler weather which Clasina set about to do at the shop adjoining the restaurant. And soon I too found items to round out my wardrobe—a jacket, pants with cargo pockets, a shirt to shield from the suns rays. Then we looked around for a taxi truck willing to drive us out to Mae Taeng for not too much money which we soon found.</div>
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And as there wasn’t really a town center or landmark destination we just got off at the one place we already knew—the government land transfer office. Clasina and I were on our next leg of our farm adventure together—the matter of a lease that would allow Clasina the legal right to develop the land while maintaining my legal right to own it. So we stopped in at the land transfer office to see if they could help us pick such a lease. The woman at the desk who was very helpful and had various leases we could use remembered my name from seeing it on the documents I had signed last time I was there. She had wondered if it was the name of a flower. It means to be loved I told her and then I thought to ask Clasina what her name meant. “The shining one,” she said, “one who would be a leader.” That was very promising for our joint adventure I thought.</div>
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Now that I had more time to get to know her I asked Clasina how she came to be in Thailand. It wasn’t exactly a plan she revealed. After Apartheid ended in South Africa the laws were changed to favor the hiring of black South Africans to government positions in all but 5% of jobs and virtually all other industries followed suit. Only family run businesses held any future for young people who were not Black. Clasina explored a number of overseas options including living in a kibbutz in Israel and going to England for training in food services. While in England she tired of the winter climate and asked a travel agent where she could go that was warm. Two options were suggested—Mexico or Thailand and it cost less money to get to Thailand so there she went.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Before this trip I had listened to Trevor Noah read his book <i>Born A Crime</i> which told me everything I needed to know about Apartheid plus had a lot to offer me in terms of cross cultural navigation. Apartheid wasn’t exactly a history one could be proud of as a white South African and what came after sank into corruption and mismanagement. Clasina hadn’t wanted to stay, she said, because it was too sad. Her parents though remained in South Africa.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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The Thai government isn’t exactly pro welcoming either; they sometimes harass her to test if her marriage to a Thai was bonafide. They found it suspect that she and her husband Ya hadn’t wanted to have any children. She is still awaiting the Thai I.D. card that would grant her land owning rights. I had the necessary Thai I.D. card for land owning while Clasina had fifteen years of experience living in Bangkok and navigating life in Thailand that I was missing not to mention that she was so outgoing she would talk to anybody. She knew how to talk to people here in the North I realized. My high society manners and formality did not play well here. People addressed each other with homey familiarity using terms to designate family.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Hey uncle” or “hey mother” Clasina would call out in Thai if she needed directions or information while I was left to wonder how to determine who to call what being so old as I was. The farm family we had bought the land from saw me as aloof and snobbish I felt as I waited an introduction or some clue to gather my words together. No introductions were made as everyone already knew each other. I would have to create a more outgoing persona to navigate this I concluded.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Xij-sFUeTMHn_4baBbxea8vPwe0Z3te2HxSEMkRmTPlbATASFItQ4ffeRkgxXIz3DFLCfIp2tKRkPjE8hrXqnBW4HHjwq_C_ff5L86vPFo8yfaQgndx1sPm32fMBUvq0rF7naQ/s1600/Motorcycle+w-+Sidecar+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Xij-sFUeTMHn_4baBbxea8vPwe0Z3te2HxSEMkRmTPlbATASFItQ4ffeRkgxXIz3DFLCfIp2tKRkPjE8hrXqnBW4HHjwq_C_ff5L86vPFo8yfaQgndx1sPm32fMBUvq0rF7naQ/s320/Motorcycle+w-+Sidecar+II.jpg" width="320" /></a>Clasina had already booked our accommodations for the night at a guest house quite close to our farm and made friends with the Thai lady who had created the pleasant compound of guest houses. Clasina also had the phone number of a man with a motorcycle with side car to take us there. We had a hot drink while waiting and a local woman dressed for work in Western clothes asked to take our picture. The sight of a blond caucasian woman was still quite rare here. Soon our uncle with the motorcycle side car was there to take us to the guest house where we got comfortable at our little house on the corner of a rice field. Someone loaned us a motorcycle and so it began this building of a network. We were soon at our farm snacking on string beans from last year’s crop.</div>
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<b>An English Woman’s Vision</b></div>
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“You must meet Maggie,” Clasina told me and rang her to ask when we could come. Maggie turned out to be an energetic English woman who had settled in Chiang Dao where she had built herself a charming cluster of guest houses with her own hands. She came to pick us up at the bus station in Chiang Dao an hour an a half by pick up truck from Mae Taeng. Maggie had lived in Thailand for 40 years and now at 73 was looking to sell her <a href="https://www.chiangdao-roundhouses.com/">Chiang Dao guest house</a> which had taken her 7 years to build. She didn’t have quite the energy for the work of a B & B now she said and would go on to build her final home down the road a piece as a co housing endeavor with friends. She was asking 8 million baht for this property—$250,000. That didn’t seem like much compared to California prices. What a gem of a property just to have as a home base. Perhaps money would fall in my lap I joked to Clasina.</div>
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The hand made buildings were round and as soon as I looked at the original one that had not been plastered over I recognized the technique from one developed at the Cal Earth Institute in Southern California which I had opportunity to visit when I managed rental property in San Bernardino. And indeed Maggie had hired a teacher who had studied at that institute to come to Thailand to show her how it was done.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Built with sand bags filled with earth this technique didn’t quite breath well enough in the tropics so Maggie had devised a method of her own filling the sandbags with rice chafe and tying them to a metal structure made from rebar bent into a dome shape. The entire structure was then plastered with mud. This seemed to suffice until over the years the dome roofs started to crack in the monsoon season so she was in the process of putting roofs of thatched coconut fronds on all the buildings as if to give them hats. She now had a charming group of round thatched roof huts scattered up the hillside facing a spectacular view of Chiang Dao. During the high season a steady traffic of travelers seeking a unique experience kept her fully booked.</div>
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I liked Maggie immediately. She had missionary parents and had grown up in India. When she told me she had come to Bangkok in the ‘60s I realized we wouldn’t have to dig far to find a connection as that was the decade of my childhood in Thailand. She said she had come at the invitation of her aunt to help out with a school for the children of expats and that the aunt who had helped start this kindergarten had gone on to open a school for older children called Mrs. Clayton’s school.</div>
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“I went there,” I nearly shouted. All sorts of memories flooded my brain as I told her how Mrs. Clayton’s school was my first introduction to the West via British culture. I was struck by the serendipitous coincidence of this connection and saw also a kindred spirit. She reminded me of another English woman who had long been a model for me.</div>
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“Have you ever been to Cornwall?” I asked her. She had. “Did you visit the Minack Theater,” I asked. She had. The Minack Theater was built by a single woman with a wheel barrow and the help of her gardener as she toiled up the side of the cliff with bags of cement. She had built it for her grandchildren to stage plays during their summer holidays. The result was an outdoor theater with a spectacular backdrop of the open ocean. I took in this site when I was 18 and the story of this one woman vision stayed with me for life. It is still in use as a theater today and is a much loved local feature. Maggie said she had been much influenced by this visionary woman just as I had been. She was such a model of what could be done with simple hand tools, some day to day determination and a vision. I recognized in Maggie’s round houses a similar visionary spirit.</div>
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As we were talking a Japanese man and his wife came down the path in full admiration of what she had created here. He said he lived in Portland, Oregon and was himself a designer of gardens for he had designed the Japanese garden in Portland. Indeed I had visited this very Japanese gardens on several occasions. That park was no small feat, covering many acres and was striking in attention to detail. How strange to now meet the designer in Thailand. That he was now admiring the efforts of my new best friend spoke volumes. It reminded me that places like people can be a magnet for like minded spirits as though we were connected by Ley lines to the high energy spots around the globe.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Clasina was meanwhile taking in our shared conversation and would later ask me what I thought about building our first structure in the style of Maggie’s round house and asking her to be our teacher for the build. Why not? Clasina had been sending me drawings of what she wanted in a farmhouse and they had all included a round tower as an anchor. She had also taken a workshop from Maggie already. Maggie said yes.</div>
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The guest house we stayed in was spacious with its high dome ceiling. The round building had character and a great deal of charm. Maggie had also designed wonderful outdoor bathrooms for each one. Her own bathroom had a mosaic tiled bathtub and a squat toilet—a white porcelain one set into the earthen red floor. Clasina tried out the tub laying in it and posing for a picture while I remarked on the toilet style being my favorite. Maggie proclaimed the virtue of the squat toilet for digestive health. She then demonstrated squatting over it and popped up and down with such ease that it was clear that this activity had also kept her spry. Clearly a woman after my own heart. We in the West now know how this position aids in elimination due to the cleverly marketed Squatty Potty, but this work-around would never come close to the benefit of so much squatting.</div>
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I told Maggie I would help her get the word out about her property, yet I could see it would call for a very unique and specialized buyer. If I were to devote myself to just one location this one would certainly be spectacular. To see more of my pictures of the Chiang Dao mountain and round houses click <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/40111537023/in/photostream/">here</a> and continue to the right.</div>
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While we were in Chiang Dao we only had to go down the road a bit to visit the women’s build in progress that week. The same event where Clasina and I had met last year, but at another location where I had built a house the year before. I had timed our visit to Mae Taeng to coincide with the build so we could visit with our mud hut teachers and a couple of friends I had made at previous builds.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Melissa” I called out as soon as I spotted my friend from Portland. She looked up ready to take orders, then saw it was me and gave me a mud specked hug. She was already acquainted with Clasina from my FB posts. As I told her of our plans to build a house she was all in and said she had a list of friends who wanted to come to Thailand specifically to take part in a build. Another woman, Robyn, who had been there last year with us had come again and brought a friend to this build too. She also said she had people she could bring.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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This was all unfolding so easily I wondered if we could pull it together by next January to accommodate such a team. We would need bricks to be made, a place to house people with a dining area and kitchen. The building site would have to be prepared and a cement foundation poured to ward against termites. Clasina certainly seemed eager to begin. When we got back to Mae Taeng we talked to our new friend at the guest house near our farm to see how many people she could accommodate. Sixteen she said if we bunked 3 to a house. Ten more beds would be good for a full team. But she did have a lovely dining pavilion and had once been a cook. So far so good. We had our network. It was almost as if everything we had done on this trip was designed to set in motion the building of our house.</div>
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We finished off our trip with another reunion with three mud hut sisters who were attending a four day music festival where they had helped prepare the site by building bamboo structures and sculptures. Attended by young people from all over the world it was a celebration of community that is now a global phenomenon. This built environment providing space for workshops, yoga, natural healing, Thai massage and numerous food booths of international variety while the river running through the park offered a refreshing place to hang out. We slept in rented tents and wandered from booth to booth. At a Ayurveda healing booth a young Indian woman offered to read my fortune with a set of cards each with a photo of an object. I wasn’t sure I needed a reading from such a loosely structured deck, but I consented and drew five cards. One was of a teddy bear, one of a child holding the hand of an adult. I forget what the others were.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“These three cards indicate that you are entering a time that will fulfill a childhood dream,” she said. That might well be true I thought and nodded in agreement. “You won’t have to do anything. Just let it come,” she concluded. This was even better. “You have something to teach,” she continued. Yes I was all about teaching stuff. My head was a fact collecting synthesizing machine. “Something from your own life experience; about relationships,” she finished. What? What did I know about relationships? She looked up at me as if she herself would like to learn from me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“I am writing a book,” I offered “about living sustainably.” She smiled encouragingly. “I can make shoes,” I said showing her my Celtic sandals laced up my calf. She was duly impressed and asked me to come by again, then gave me a hug.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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This easy connection with so many women builders and visionaries was exactly what I was hoping for when I opened the door to this farming adventure with Clasina. I had led a life of long projects considering it had taken ten years to write my first book. I knew well that the journey had to be the fun of it, had to sustain you and teach you your craft. But now I had a partnership and a community. This was new. I felt lucky. I wouldn’t have to do it all.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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<br />AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-51522330227394244092019-01-25T14:35:00.000-08:002019-03-27T14:37:11.301-07:00Flashback Friday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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While in Thailand I felt compelled to post this picture to remind me of the lineage that is lodged in the memory of this land that I called home. The photo was taken in the garden during a visit I made back in 1977. My boy cousin Thop sitting between my grandmother and his mother (my Aunty Ah Pahdt). Thop still lives here with his family as does Aun daughter of Prayoon the little girl in the lower left hand corner who is now the family cook. She was at the time of this picture the playmate of my girl cousin Pong on the right. Pong lives nearby at her in-laws household.<br />
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My grandmother bought this property in the 1930s and built her house here which still stands. She was born into the social class of Bangkok now known as Hi-So short for the English phrase ‘high society’. She spent her life working in jobs befitting her station. At one time for the prime minister in the capacity of receiving and taking care of foreign visitors i.e. Ladybird Johnson and the President. Also Queen Elizabeth and later Neil Armstrong.<br />
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She was a devout Buddhist and a philanthropist. She passed along to me her frugal values of living simply. Her original house was never remodeled, just added onto. She had only one child, a son she sent to college in England where he earned a Ph.D in engineering. She raised and educated Ah Pahdt (my father's half sister of another mother) who at the time of this picture was managing director of the alumium blind company started by my grandmother's second husband. It's complex this family you don't need to tell me. heh.<br />
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My grandmother's baby sister my Aunty Lily who also lived here was once the managing director of the Bangkok franchise of Polish Ocean Lines which was her husband’s business passed to her at his death. Aunty Lily had her own stylish 60s era house on their parent’s original land (now sold to Bayer Aspirin for its Bangkok headquarters). Aunty Lily lost her wealth to an embezzling manager in the company. Thus my grandmother invited her to come and live on our compound along with her loyal maid Weil and her family.<br />
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My grandmother housed the staff, invited them to bring their boyfriends/husbands and sometimes their elderly mothers to live here and helped educate their children. Prayoon's sister Saiyud also lived here while attending college and did my grandmother's bookkeeping.<br />
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My grandmother was a great lady in everyone's eyes and her memory remains vivid in all our minds. Late in life she received the title of Khun Ying from the late King Bhumibol.<br />
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I am the offspring of a college romance and shotgun marriage to an English lass majoring in psychology. I am called a Look Klueng, a child who is half—half Thai. I was brought back to this household when I was three until my mother migrated us to California when I was ten. My father would further complicate this family by marrying twice more.<br />
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At the time of this picture I am still in college and had the choice as I always had of where I would make my home. I was my grandmother’s only grandchild and she loved me to death. A bit too much for my independent spirit and I squirmed away for many years.<br />
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I would spend my queer life wandering around explaining myself to everyone who asked because in the West people did ask incessantly until I finally published my memoir “Diamonds In My Pocket”. The book also served to explain myself to myself and make me into a whole person.<br />
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I took this photo with my father's vintage Leica on a tripod using a long squeeze bulb gripped in my left hand. This technology already trailing edge as is my habit. We are assembled here on the wall bordering the patio of my grandmother's house.AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-75963298659966324362018-10-20T07:22:00.003-07:002019-02-07T17:50:21.529-08:00In Sight Of Land<style type="text/css">
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>I have waited a few months to give my report on my trip to secure a tiny farm in Northern Thailand back in July. Things had happened to me prior to that that words were failing me to contain or resolve. Somehow all available words I might have to discuss this event had been co-opted to serve a purpose that was no longer serving me. So in the end I had to wrestle the words back and make them do my bidding. I could not make it go away otherwise. A retreat from Trump's America certainly helped to clear my head. I offer that respite first.</i></span><br />
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<span class="s1">I sat down at the counter of the land transfer office to write my name carefully in Thai script conscious that the government was now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/22/thailand-army-chief-announces-military-coup">under authoritarian rule</a> since democratic elections had been shelved for some 4 years now. Massive protests had forced a corrupt prime minister to step down resulting in a power vacuum that justified a military takeover. During that time the country had been polarized into the Red shirts of the northern rural areas and the Yellow shirts of the urban population of Bangkok. When asked to come to some kind of agreement in order for governance to proceed each side insisted that only their way would do and refused to allow the other any concession. And everyone basically gave a sigh of relief when the military stepped in. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">All the officers at this Northern station had on yellow shirts as if the Yellow shirts had won, but I learned later it was because it was the King’s birthday month and his birthday was on a Monday which in Thai tradition bore the color yellow. Thai culture could be so whimsical in its cultural expression I mused. At least I knew what the colors of the days were from having gone to Thai kindergarten. I was not wearing a yellow shirt. I had on a long sleeve maroon shirt which I hoped would not mean anything. Or if it did would be in my favor.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Take your time,” she said. I had not expected kindness and warmed to it. We were far from Bangkok in this pleasant rural province of Mae Taeng where I was buying a farm. Behind me in the waiting area sat my farm partner Clasina holding the hand of the farmer’s daughter whom she had befriended on a previous visit. We had not sat together in case her fair haired foreign presence complicated this matter of land ownership. The old farmer himself had already been to the counter with his grandson to verify his ownership of the land I was buying.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">After I had signed my form I was sent to the next officer, a man higher up the chain looking perky in his bright yellow polo shirt as if he were on vacation. He looked over the information on my form. A copy of my Thai I.D. card stapled to it showing me in a striped black shirt worn last year during the year of mourning for the beloved late King Bhumibol. Looking at it gave me a sense of continuity with my Thai heritage. The year of mourning had done much to unify the country.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Or do you go go/come come,” he said using that cute all inclusive Thai phrase for so many of us now with a foot in the West.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Yes,” I said nervously, but my answer seemed not to matter too much. He was not looking to strip me of my identity as the officer in Bangkok had who demanded that I produce my parents’ marriage license to prove I was indeed legitimately Thai. He verbally had me confirm my age and address and reaching the bottom of the form signed it. I was done. Grandson and I then paid our share of the transfer tax and I gave him the check for the balance of the money for the land. He did not even open the envelope to look at the check. Then we all got back into his white taxi truck which he drove as an additional source of income. I joined him in the front cab as befitting my status as investor and elder while the others rode in the back. Grandson seemed subdued though he had been quite chatty driving in. Selling land was a big deal for a farmer I suspected.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“How long does it take you to plant the rice seedlings”, I asked him for Clasina had given permission to the family to sow another season of rice on our land since we would not be using it anytime soon.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“One day with ten people,” he said, “then we help to plant rice on each of their farms.” I was floored. Wow. It was still here this barn raising Amish style community work force. Each villager beholden to each other trading their produce and time not for money, but for reciprocal gifts. How secure that would make me feel to have such a community. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">He asked me if I was going to farm organically. And I realized that he saw our venture as a form of technological advancement. The next big thing. Otherwise why would I bother with such an investment. I said yes though it was more complicated than that, but I did not have the words for food forest even though this was now a trend in Thailand, a style of agriculture that the late King had promoted. And not one that had profit as an end goal.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“No,” he said, “it is more expensive and we do not have a market. But you know more people,” he added implying that we would find markets he didn’t have access to. I did not ask how it was that organic farming was more expensive. I wasn’t sure I had enough Thai to understand the answer. I could see he had some regrets about having to relinquish his land as if he had somehow failed and now his son had gone to computer school and his daughter to some other career. At least the land had not been in the family for generations. I would feel bad about that.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Our farm was originally government land, part of the national forest that had been portioned out after the dam was built. Given to the farmers who had been displaced by the government built damn. The reservoir now feeding all the farm plots with cement lined ditches that bordered each plot. The stipulation of the two deeds that now bore my name was that the land could not be used for commercial purposes other than farming. Though we were permitted to build whatever housing we needed. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I had seen it for the first time the day we arrived. Clasina and I had traveled up from Bangkok on the newly updated express sleeper train full as usual of European travelers. We were met at the Chiang Mai station the next morning by a fellow mud hut sister Jesse a Canadian expat, with whom I had built a house three years ago. She had met Clasina already as she had come by to visit our mud hut build back in January. She had listened with interest as Clasina talked about a farm she was looking at buying. When I told Jesse of our plans to collaborate in buying this land she was happy to have us stay at her house. She too had bought a rice farm paddy and put on it a refurbished traditional wooden Thai house. Jesse was the perfect person to midwife our farm project. She had familiarity with the process and asked good questions.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">It was Jesse who drove us to the farm for my first viewing with me in the back of her little white pick-up feeling very farmer like sitting with a bale of hay. We turned off the highway and a dirt road brought us to the farm entrance marked by the opening in the barbed wire fencing. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Welcome home,” Clasina told me as she gave me a hand to help me out of the truck. Home. So many meanings that had for me.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">As Clasina pointed out the markers at the corner of the rice paddy field below the road the plot seemed smaller than I had imagined until we actually walked it. For our purposes it would be fine. Across the road was the orchard dotted with lychee trees. It was on a slight incline which would be perfect for a homestead. In the distance were the mountains that Clasina had wanted when she was looking for land. They were covered in forests and were sensuous and green reminding me of Hawaii which was ironic in itself since the last time I had looked at land for a homestead was with a lover living in Hawaii. Lucky that romance didn’t work out and I had come home instead and had this chance to secure a foothold in the land of my childhood. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Once the deed was done this new status of owning land slowly began to fill me with a sense of a future and kinship in Thailand. I had feared that once the elders in my family had died I would have no reason to come to Thailand. Owning land was a way to make my childhood home meaningful again. It also gave me new friends.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Clasina and I had not run out of things to talk about on the train coming up and we hadn’t even touched on what kind of farm we wanted. She was so cheerful and easy going we traveled well together. With Jesse the three of us shared a congenial time delighting in each others company and lots of girl talk. Jesse in turn introduced me to other permaculture farmers — a young man from Brazil who was co-teaching a class with her, a Frenchman who had settled in Thailand with his Thai wife. I shared with them my tiny house story augmented by a Powerpoint presentation I had put together to share at my last mud hut build. There was an ease here that was restorative in the way these expats shared their perspectives. People yielded conversational ground to each other. I was pleasantly surprised. The conversational style in the US was becoming decidedly unyielding. I sorely needed this respite, for I was now living in a society that was becoming increasingly difficult for me to navigate.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Back in the U.S. a nation under a President intent on fomenting a form of white tribal nationalism I knew I would not have an easy time of it and had taken steps to buffer myself from his enraging rhetoric. Meanwhile on the Left I was trying to keep up with what was considered respectful use of another culture’s teachings or group’s symbols and what was a disrespectful appropriation that projected a hurtful stereotype. I enjoyed appropriation of all sorts of cultural dress and symbols for my own amusement just to keep people guessing my mixed race heritage. Plus I am practicing shamanism a spiritual path that may or may not be a cultural appropriation depending on what words you use to describe your spirit guides. People were so busy correcting each other that it was harder to find common ground as less ground was given and less benefit of the doubt offered. We were overcorrecting in a divisive and distracting way I felt. This self censoring restricted creative thought and the imagination when we could be creating a culture we could all inhabit.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Shortly after my 60th birthday I decided to travel to Minneapolis to visit a dear friend I hadn’t seen in five years. She was a tenured professor deeply involved with issues of climate change as part of her work as an artist. So we had much in common to discuss. I had offered to give a talk on the eco aspects of tiny house living to a group she promised would love to hear all about my composting toilet and waste water gardening. And because of our fascination with multicultural influences I added to my talk additional personal information about my background, my privileged upbringing in Thailand and my LGBT coming of age in the US just to showcase the many intersections of subcultures in my life that might have led to my choosing an off grid lifestyle. Being presented as an eco hero already set me up for judgement, but these additional details broadened this potential in untested ways I felt, but I trusted my host.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">She also told me how adept the students had become in staking out their own personal identity politics. So much so that it seemed every week a student would be “triggered” by something she said and would vocally reprimand her for using a colloquial term or presentation they found offensive. It was almost a competitive thing with these students since even the mild mannered ones were just as apt to jump on this band wagon. This detail of her teaching life annoyed me intensely as it seemed to be giving students so much power over how information was delivered to them. Weren’t teachers to be respected rather than constantly corrected?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">And just as I was wondering what this must be like for my friend I was given a dose of it myself. After I gave my talk to a very polite and attentive all white audience who did not laugh nearly enough for my taste, we went to dinner where my friend picked up a message from her assistant, a grad student, reprimanding her for being so insensitive as to allow me to wear an outfit bearing a symbol that was extremely offensive to her particular minority group. And she was right. In this region it was an offensive symbol. One I had sewed onto the back of my outfit (a printed logo) </span>in an ironic moment over a decade ago. I had completely forgotten about it and was chagrined to be the cause of my friend’s attack. It took us all evening to discuss the possible ramifications for what most would consider a rather insignificant offense. After which I concluded that she was working in a hostile environment that was becoming increasingly stressful to her whether she acknowledged it or not. And now was causing me distress.</div>
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<span class="s1">When I got home I spent an hour writing an apology to the offended grad student choosing my words with careful humility hoping for some lenience owing to my being a stranger in a strange land and a guest. She gave me no such mercy, but was quick to give me a label that categorized me and my “people” as ones who would do harm — in effect an enemy. I had never heard this term of hers before and was undone by how it cast me into a ready made narrative. I felt as if my American citizenship had been revoked. She then added that unless I cured myself of my ignorance of the significance of this symbol I was aligning myself with white supremacists. This being now the label for racists with the added implication of intention to maintain white rule. This was a patently ridiculous claim, but the damage was already done. My sense of who I was in this country was scrambled and few hearing the details of this event could help me so intent were they on explaining to me why this person would be so “triggered” (which is why I have purposefully left out the details here. I am extricating this story as one would a splinter. In the hopes of healing). </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Upon my return to treatment my acupuncturist was alarmed by my emotional and physical condition. Not only was I leaking energy at a faster rate than he could restore it, but my confidence in my own narrative was decimated. I didn’t trust that I could convince anyone of anything I had to say or that I even had the right to say it. If students could reprimand professors with no accountability as to the appropriateness of their complaint I had no ground to stand on, no support from these peers.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I was angry, but I also understood the territory. Raising consciousness about racial bias was not a bad thing. It was progress. And though I was not granted forgiveness so I could be made whole again, I forgave my young assailant for her youth having wielded such weighty accusations at my elders myself when I was a student. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Plus this was not the first time I had been taken down by someone speaking for a minority people in America for when you are the “model minority” you are by your very success in navigating these complex race lines demonstrating that race doesn’t matter in the land of “equal opportunity”. You have “assimilated” and made it work for you. And by your example you have made race a non issue in the eyes of white people. Yet institutionalized racism continues. You are just the exception that proves the rule. I accepted this lesson as graciously as I could. I also understood that while we might be categorized under the same People of Color umbrella, we were not necessarily friends. This made me wary. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">It’s true that as a model minority I am already ahead of the game arriving with a full set of tools and advantages. Immigration laws screen immigrants from overseas culling for the best and brightest just as my parents with their higher degrees were only allowed entry because jobs were already offered to them. The tension of being at the intersection of such class advantages paired with the presence of racial bias in America from the age of ten has shaped me and made me something of an expert on racial narratives. Not to mention being queer and female on top of it. But the Trump era has upped the ante some and racism is now being discussed much more frequently by white allies intent on raising the alarm about the agenda of “white supremacists”. Within these discussions is the hope of eradicating such an agenda. While my non-white contacts were just as apt to post blisteringly anti-white alliance statements. This just increased the tension without offering any possibility of a unifying cause. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">In Thailand nobody talked about politics even the expats and nobody asked me what all was going on in the U.S.. While I was enjoying this much needed respite within the peaceful sphere of a news media controlled military dictatorship I had to wonder if I was still up for Democracy. Was not the end result always going to be controlled by wealth stealing the show while infighting fractured the Left? I felt relieved to be in a country where I did not have to work so hard to navigate competing versions of reality. I could mind my own business relieved of responsibility for any outcomes whatsoever. The televised news was so innocuous it was not worth discussing being mostly reports about government sponsored programs around the country doing good for the people. And a good half hour spent on the selection of the day’s lottery numbers. Was this so bad? Much harder to watch democracy self-corrupt and be powerless to stop it.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Still I had to return. And in returning I would have to have a strategy. So I had armed myself with the recent book </span></div>
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/41863026900/in/dateposted/">Democracy In Chains by Nancy MacLean</a>, something meaty to read while waiting in government offices. I felt that if I could just understand how democracy in the U.S. had been compromised I would have a firmer handle on how to engage in correcting this course and reclaim democracy. The book delivered. The history in it describing the last 50 years gave me the information to see that what was at the core of this mess was a class war being wielded by a white elite informed by a history of slavery. The intent being to take back power for the wealthy and reduce the power of the majority even further. The men responsible had worked tirelessly and persistently to manifest this agenda through controlling discourse in universities, in the news media and in the mouths of politicians. There was no real promise of equality or even a patriarchal promise to do what’s best for all the people. There was just the dangling carrot of opportunity. A premise further fueled by capitalism. This class war was so pervasive and subversive that everyone who has a chance to be upwardly mobile will likely betray those falling behind including those in their own identity group.<br />
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<span class="s1">The history I absorbed confirmed for me that this was an old battle we could fight with an old school economic social justice approach. It was enough to give me confidence to return yet the struggle of living in Trump’s America would still get to me. The separation of children from parents at the border, white women calling the cops on innocent black people, the enraging Kavanaugh hearings. And every time I thought we might have a movement that would allow coalitions to form I saw bridges burned down by divisiveness. The Left scrambled by an impulse to persecute its own. Feminism being sacrificed just as it was getting a fresh reboot because another group’s issues seemed more just. Coalition building not on the table while everyone reviewed their privilege and challenged each others internalized biases. My dearest friends were enraging me with counter productive approaches. My favorite optimistic writers showed signs of despair. Would America save itself? Would young people vote? I had no confidence in the outcome. Now that I understood the coup that had taken place even before Trump I knew where I stood. But this knowledge did not empower me it just made me feel more helpless. How long before others would see it?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I had been swimming while drowning for a long time. I had sighted land in a far away country that gave me solace. But here in what had been my home for 50 years I was gasping for air. Rage draining my energy. And then more rage at not being able to recover. I told people I was being treated for exhaustion as though it were an ongoing condition. Every time I thought I had my old self back someone would ask me to take sides and the energy would drain out again. I clearly needed a different philosophical interface. I did not want to just retreat from all discourse.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I would rebrand myself as a white supremacist. Not the violent exterminating kind of course, but the culturally appropriating idea bagger of all that humanity had to offer kind. </span>Just as the English language has managed to absorb foreign words and chew down foreign concepts into their deconstructed parts I would unapologetically (with the Queen's English of my birth country) consume all ideas for my own purposes. Move chameleon like amongst every group, scarf up whatever doctrine was being served up, witness it and move on before the group think could get me. Democracy may in the end fail the U.S. but it won’t be the end of human society or even human goodness. I had seen that much.<br />
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<br />AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-55114769570462037582018-06-04T07:46:00.000-07:002020-02-12T07:09:00.908-08:00Return To Pun Pun<style type="text/css">
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><i>My report on this year’s adobe building workshop in Thailand reveals what appears to have been a blueprint for my current life and leads me into another adventure.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>Return to Pun Pun</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">In 2008 I had been hungry to find a Thailand I knew my relatives couldn’t show me. One that more matched my values than the proliferation of shopping malls that Bangkok was becoming. So I joined a tour and embarked on a road trip to the north eastern provinces in the back of a truck farmer style, sleeping in rustic home built huts and using squat toilets exclusively. <a href="http://amandakovattana.blogspot.com/search?q=pun+pun">The tour was of organic farms</a> that practiced sustainable methods and the new earthen buildings known as Baan Din (House of Earth).</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The leaders of the tour were Jo Jandai the founder of the adobe building movement in Thailand and his American wife Peggy plus their son Tan who was maybe five at the time. The final destination was Pun Pun a small farm in the hills where Jo and Peggy had created an educational center to teach the skills of sustainable living. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">In this first phase of Pun Pun the people they attracted had built all manner of natural structures so that it had a whimsical rainbow festival feel to it. One man from Holland had built a circular house on stilts that was open from the waist up. Another from the States was in the midst of setting up a giant filtering system made from stacks of concrete culverts filled with sand, gravel and charcoal. He lived in a tiny adobe house with a roof thatched with coconut fronds. It was big enough for a desk and a loft bed. I recognized it as all I would need myself. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Other innovations I was introduced to at Pun Pun included toilets that flushed with water into a compost pit, a pee toilet to collect urine for use as a nitrogen source in the garden, soap making, oyster mushroom cultivation and the fermenting of fruit waste to make effective microorganisms for what I didn’t quite understand. Several of these ideas I would later incorporate into my tiny house (including the microorganisms which I now knew to call Bokashi).</span></div>
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<span class="s1">At the last build I had attended two years ago our yoga teacher announced one morning that she had just drank her own pee. I looked at her curiously as the remembrance of the taste crossed her face with an expression that told me it was not altogether pleasant but doable. Jo had been teaching about drinking your own pee as a remedy when you were sick and to recapture substances the body made such as melatonin. Well, if Jo was doing it there must be some merit to it I thought. On this trip I would learn that pee could also be used to treat cuts and skin abrasions too. Urea is, after all, an ingredient in plenty of high end body lotions. I tucked all this away in my alternative medicine chest. So much did I trust all that I learned through Pun Pun. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Since that first trip with Pun Pun I tried to make it to the women's build every year as an investment into what I called my mud hut sisters network. Anyone who would come all the way to Chiang Mai to build a house from mud was my kind of person. At the last build I had made enough friends to visit from California to Portland. Others had become my circle of friends in Bangkok. Last year I connected with two who came to the Bay Area from Australia and China respectively. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">It was an hour and a half’s ride from the city of Chiengmai to Pun Pun by taxi truck. As we pulled up I spotted a gathering of patrons hanging out at what looked like a coffee shop. Was Pun Pun now a resort I wondered? The coffee shop was indeed a new enterprise since I’d been there and it gave the farm a destination feel to it. Inside there were baked goods, herbal farm products, bars of scented soaps and books many of them by Jo—his personal story about returning to his family farm and learning to build with adobe, his experience as a father and even his love life. Too bad all were in Thai. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">A quick look around showed me that almost none of the original buildings were left. They had been replaced after being eaten by termites. Much had been learned in the process and the new buildings had a more permanent and finished look. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">It was unusually cold out. So cold that we were all bundled up in coats and hats as though we were at the arctic and there had also been unseasonal storms. Climate change was afoot. At a nearby mud pit at the end of our tour of the farm we were persuaded to doff our coats and shoes and start stomping the mud. When everyone was in I felt the fun had finally begun. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I put my arms around the shoulders of women on either side of me and started chanting monosyllables as a spontaneous expression of group bonding. Nobody joined in though it made Ailsa the 10 year old girl resident of Pun Pun look up at me curiously. We had met before. She was a mirror for me sharing with me similar skin tone, dark hair and Asian features. We had worked together two years ago when she joined us for her first build gamely lugging bricks and climbing scaffolding for the entire ten days. Her Scottish mother Lisa was one of our instructors. Her father was from Burma. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The continuity of seeing her tugged at me. I was ten years old when I left Thailand and so much that I called home, but couldn’t put into words. My memories were somehow embodied in the mud. Mud that in my childhood the local children had taught me to roll into marble size balls with which to play games squatting on our heels on the hard packed dirt. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>A House To Build</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The house we were set to build this year was a few kilometers down the road from Pun Pun at a site that would be the next phase of their educational center. Peggy’s brother had already built the first adobe structure which could be seen from the road waiting a final coat of plaster and earth based paint. The house we were building was behind it deeper into the compound. It would be Peggy and Jo’s house away from the bustle of the Pun Pun farm. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">We could see it as we approached. The concrete foundation perched on the edge of a large pond. There were pilings in the water where a pier would be built. It would be two stories high and had a compact footprint with a covered outdoor barbecue area. There were also iron beams instead of wood ones since wood now cost the same as iron. One of the reclaimed doors had a window put into it an unusual feature in Thailand. The house itself had a modern look to it.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">After brief instruction our team set to carrying buckets of mud from the mud pit. We then formed a long line to pass the dried bricks that had already been made — with a mixture of mud and rice husk poured into wooden forms. I loved this brick passing line that would only really work if you had a large group of people. It embodied the sense of community I was after. Withe bricks stacked inside we began building the walls in earnest.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>The Cat Lady’s Story</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">A few days into the build just as we were coming to the top of the walls, we finished up early so we could drive to the Cat Lady’s house. This was a woman who lived in an adobe house a team had helped her build in a little village between two rice fields. We sat on the lawn in her vegetable garden as she told us how everyone thought she was crazy to leave Bangkok and come out here to live. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">“If I hadn’t left Bangkok I would have died,” she said dramatically. I could understand where she was coming from. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">She had bought herself a little plot of land just off the road in this village. The house was outfitted with a large outdoor cat cage of cyclone fencing connected to the house with a cat run alongside the top of the wall that let the cats in through the bathroom window. Next to the house a large outdoor kitchen with wood slat walls sat next to the house and behind it the garage. At the bottom of the garden was a guest house; those relatives who had thought she was crazy now liked to visit, but she didn’t want them in the house stepping on the cats’ tails.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">As she told her story she mentioned that city people under 50 years of age were the most afraid of the country. This detail stuck in my mind for it put words to my own despair that the younger generations of my Bangkok family no longer valued the natural environment or even connected with it so enclosed were they in cars and air-conditioning. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I asked the Cat Lady how she got the idea to come to the country. She said it was through her government job that she was sent out to the country and she could see for herself that the people enjoyed a better quality of life. Her story was both inspiring and odd so focused was it on the cats who were famous and had a following on Facebook. It was a rich lady’s story I sensed since she likely had investments that had allowed her to buy the farm. She grew food just for herself and any visitors. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">“They should have told us how the guest house could be an income,” said Clasina who would later become a pivotal figure in my story. We were riding home in the back of one of the pick-ups together. I too had ideas on how to improve her homestead. She had talked of wanting to improve the fertility of her soil yet she was flushing away a perfectly good source of nutrients that could have been had with a composting toilet.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“She’s just a crazy cat lady,” I said, “she didn’t need an income.” And like most urbanites the world over she likely had never considered digging her composted poop into the garden that would then grow food. Even Jo said people just couldn’t seem to get their minds around it and Pun Pun put their composted poop on fruit trees only.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The cat lady’s observation of Bangkok people haunted me. I was left asking myself why were city people afraid of the country? I knew it had to do with the rapid growth of Bangkok since the ’80s. It was true that we who were over 50 grew up in a Bangkok that still had a relationship with nature living in houses that were not air conditioned with large gardens to play in. Plus TV was only broadcast in the evenings and of course there were no smart phone driven media and games. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Now city people flocked to the indoor shopping malls and spent their leisure time inside these hyper stimulating artificial environments to get away from the heat and polluted air. With food courts and entertainment the malls contained everything they could want. In 2017 the photo site Instagram reported that out of the the entire world the location where people uploaded the most pictures that year was from the Siam Paragon mall. People taking selfies with the latest status car or some perky pop art display I guessed.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I could see the allure of these entertaining malls, but going into one made me feel like I was in an aquarium with limited air in my tank so much did I want to get away from the materialistic displays.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The two children who lived at my old house were rarely outside even when their cousins came over to play; they preferred playing games on the large screen TV. How could I relate to children who did not play outside? An entire generation lost to artificial indoor environments I lamented.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">When I talked to Peggy about it she confirmed that when Bangkok children came to Pun Pun they were afraid of everything and were also clumsy, falling a lot on the unpaved ground; they were so unused to walking on natural terrain. And I could see she didn’t like to say it, but they were also already trained to feel the entitlement of their class and so refused to do things they thought beneath them like washing their own dishes. This annoyed me even more so much did it resonate from my observations.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">My dismay sapped my strength and I looked for support. I had on the first day introduced myself to Robyn from Australia who was older than me (by a large margin she said). At the end of a day of building I saw her sitting on the sidelines and I joined her. “Tired”, she asked me. I told her of my despair at my family making me tired. How I didn’t understand their motives. She sympathized and waited until I offered a strategy to cope with it encouraging me in this positive direction. I felt fortified just from being understood.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Robyn had come to the build with a younger woman she referred to as her daughter which further intrigued me when I met Meredith with her butch haircut. Later I would learn that they were not actually blood related which made me curious how Robyn constructed her world. She referred to a partner too disabled to travel. During our chats she told me about her chosen family of daughters in various countries. I was intrigued by this concept. How did one acquire daughters in this manner? Was there a formal bonding ritual? But I did not have the words to ask her at the time. Just the glimmer of an idea that you could create a chosen family.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I took refuge in life at Pun Pun. There were many working volunteers to talk to who came from all over the world with similar desires to heal the earth. I tried out the solar shower and favored the squat toilets in their own adobe building in a central location. (Throne toilets were now offered on the other side.) The guest houses did not have toilets so it was a bit of a walk in the middle of the night. I found I did not need my flashlight as there were floodlights shining from various buildings. The paths were well worn and packed down under my sandals. There was only one part of it that was completely in the dark as it crossed a road. As I walked into the dark part I had the strange sensation that my feet could see. This made me curiously happy. For to be so sure footed was a comforting feeling as one gets older. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The small children who lived at Pun Pun were also sure footed and agile. They enjoyed a free range existence with few toys. They picked up tools as toddlers and learned to use them as they wandered into our work area. They participated in projects and were sweet to each other. It comforted me a great deal to see teenage boys helping out. Tan now taller than his parents was quiet, confident and free from that cockiness and attitude that marked teen boys I knew in the West. He recognized me and we just smiled at each other across the dining hall too shy to speak. On an outing to visit other adobe buildings I was touched to see Ailsa holding the hand of her big brother Jack who towered over her. I could not remember seeing even one example of such sibling affection in the US.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">We took our shoes off Thai style as we entered the guest houses and the dining hall. The tables we ate at were low to the ground so we could sit on floor cushions thus avoiding the need for chairs. This spared us the noise of them scraping on the floor. There were a couple of picnic tables with benches at one end for those not able to sit on the floor. This furniture free life agreed with me, with my childhood sitting on the polished wood floors of Thai homes. </span></div>
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My study of biomechanics and how the body needs a variety of movement had long shown me that you pay a price for the use of furniture with the diminishment of range of motion which led to diminishment of function of the joints. The Asian squat long seen as somehow primitive and feral had been exonerated by biomechanists as vital for proper elimination. The creative marketing of the Squatty Potty having driven this point home on Facebook. </div>
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<span class="s1">There were no comfy chairs in this low furniture life. The beds were hard too being nothing more than a 3 inch chip foam block. (Chip foam is what we put under carpets.) This hardness was better for the body I had read <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119282/">in a medical article</a>. For while sleeping the body moves in such a way as to adjust itself, realigning bones back to their optimum position. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">And then I remembered how I had trained my feet to see. After reading <a href="https://nutritiousmovement.com/blog/">Katy Bowman’s</a> book on foot health I had laid a path of loose river rocks outside my tiny house so I could force the bones in my feet to be pushed around as she recommended. The path also allowed me to walk to my freezer in stocking feet. Six months of this had given my feet new found skills evaluating unstable ground. This was what had given me the sensation of innate knowledge, of “seeing”. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Shoes, especially well padded shoes with all kinds of support, robbed the feet of the opportunity to gain muscle strength. Too ironic that the more we have sought comfort the worse off we made ourselves. Still I piled on three blankets to ward off the cold temperatures of this climate change era. When my roommate from Taiwan asked why there was no glass in the windows in the hall where we did yoga I told her no one thought it would ever be this cold in Thailand. So we wore our jackets to yoga.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">My reading on health had further taken me on a tour of our personal micro biome. How the bacteria inside our guts provided services — everything from synthesizing melatonin to affecting our moods. These beneficial and some not so beneficial bacteria lived in the colon. One of the residents who had also just discovered the microbiome herself showed me a root vegetable she had bought in the village called the Yacon which would make it all the way through our digestive system to the colon. We were certainly enjoying such fibrous foods with the vegetable focused meals that came out of the semi outdoor kitchen. Meals made from scratch much of it from the garden. Not a tin can could be seen in this kitchen. My body responded to this non-material, non-artificial environment. If my relatives could not appreciate this it was their loss.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">One morning I woke up feeling renewed and happy. Pun Pun had worked its magic on me. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b>A Farm Of Our Own</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1">On the last day I said goodbye to Ailsa, not knowing when I’d make it back again or if I was up to another build so tired had I felt. And perhaps the builds didn’t need me anymore now that they were so well attended. The movement to teach sustainable living techniques had matured since Pun Pun established itself. Now there were some 80 such groups and outfits teaching permaculture farming and natural building methods in Thailand alone. The movement was maturing and the participants reflected this change.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Unlike those who attended in previous years looking for something different to do these woman struck me as serious about actually building a house for themselves. Yilin my roommate from Taiwan had moved to an island resort she had loved as a child and had run tours both on bicycles and by kayak. She was now looking for ways to help the locals make a living that would preserve their way of life. Two Thai cousins already had a garden and were interested in permaculture. Syri, a Japanese woman who had trained as a chef, had her grandparents farm to return to. A young Thai woman grew micro greens on her balcony in Bangkok and sold them at a farmer’s market. And then there was Clasina, a South African woman (married to a Thai) actively looking for land to make a food forest. I had enjoyed her enthusiasm and bubbly spirit.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">When I got back to Bangkok my cousin was eager to meet with me</span><span class="s1"> to make me an offer for my share of a piece of land the family owned where we had had a factory to assemble Venetian blinds. Her offer was enough to warrant my attention, though my stepmother believed it could sell for eight times that value. But all over Bangkok family land lay locked up in such disputes and what good was that? I didn’t want to be similarly waylaid. So I accepted the offer and she<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>took me to the bank and gave me an envelope of cash so I could feel my money she said and get used to this new wealth. It did stir in me many new thoughts. I had no real need for things, but with this new wealth I had enough to buy land, not in Bangkok of course but outside of the city, a farm even. And then bam it hit me I already knew someone with just such a plan.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I messaged Clasina asking how much was this farm. I hadn’t been paying attention, but she had indeed been looking at a farm she wanted to buy. She sent me a picture of it. There were mountains in the background as she wanted and in the foreground a banana tree and a structure with a corrugated tin roof. The tin roof was my personal symbol of Thailand before globalization. I had used this same material in my tiny house to remind me of this humble past. It captured something this picture; something I longed for. In American dollars it was a mere $64,000; it had sounded so out of reach in Thai baht at 2 million.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">How perfect that Clasina lived near my family home in Bangkok. She tutored English for a living and was planning to eventually live on such a farm having collected a garden full of potted fruit trees. I couldn’t yet move to Thailand for some time if indeed that was my future, but I could have the fun of planning it with her and returning to work on it. It would give me a reason to visit and keep up my family ties and network of friends in Thailand. My family and friends grasped this immediately and supported the plan.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1">In short order Clasina and I were discussing land deeds and survey maps through Facebook messenger. I committed to returning in July to buy it. I was overjoyed to have a farm with so many friends already living in the area. My mud hut sisters network was entering a new dimension of possibilities. Some wanted to come and do a build with us even. I was excited by all the new things I would learn and do. My mind expanded to take in this new reality and was nurtured by it. My world so much larger now and made more whole.</span></div>
<br />AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-33214810392372604662018-05-05T21:28:00.000-07:002018-06-05T15:17:35.416-07:00Hello Sixty!<style type="text/css">
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<i>Having made it this far I am given to indulge myself on this most auspicious of birthdays with a brief account of how I got here in such a self-congratulatory mood.</i></div>
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<b>To Begin With</b></div>
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When I was a child I had the hands of a much older person. The palms were so hard and dry that other kids didn’t want to play games with me that involved swinging from hand to hand. They didn’t want to grab my hand because it creeped them out. The lines of my palms were so clearly lined they were of interest to palm readers, most of whom told me I would have a long life. This being Thailand there was a lot more status and respect given to those who were old. In fact you didn’t really have the status of an adult until you were sixty. Sixty being the fifth cycle of the Chinese astrological calendar. I looked forward to turning 60 as the marker of when I would finally have a say in things Just as people listened to my grandmother because she was the family elder. No one dared to openly defy her.</div>
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My hands continued to remind me of my destiny as I traveled to the West where the messages about being old were embodied in the Beatles song —will you still need me, will you still feed me…when I’m 64. What a brutal culture this was though fresh and exciting for the young.</div>
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My hands aged faster than the rest of me. The backs of my hands were wrinkled and the flesh underneath scrawny. It fascinated my lover to lay these hands against my full young breasts and photograph this contrast as if these were the hands of an old woman fondling the body of a younger one.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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My love of old movies gave me my first role model of aging in Fred Astaire. When I read that he could dance and rehearse longer than performers half his age, I was heartened to know that being physically fit didn’t quit if you didn’t. While searching for what he had to say about aging I see that he sums it up nicely.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>“Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it you have to start young.” Yes indeed the problem with aging is that we spend too much time youthing. Fifty is the new 30. Staying up until all hours, working a fifty hour week, running marathons on the weekend and making love as if our vitality depended on it should all be possible by sheer force of mind. After all we’re as young as we feel, no? Not to mention we need to look like we’re thirty just to stay visible. Pass the youthing cream please.</div>
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My young parents were role models of fitness playing tennis every weekend. They brought home the Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Plan For Physical Fitness book that was popular at the time. Hardly more than a pamphlet it offered 5 exercises and a chart on how many reps to do given age and gender. My father demonstrated them. I insisted on doing the boys exercises because, being already a feminist at age 15, I thought the book was adhering to cultural gender biases. My father did not object. Thus I learned to do a real push-up instead of the half baked one.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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None of us kept up these exercise, once we had proved we could do them. But a little later when I felt I had lapsed into a non fit state sitting in a darkened movie theater catching my breath after I had run just a block to make it to the opening credits, I thought to get some exercise into my life. Something called the Parcourse had been installed in various parts of town. I loved this adult playground idea. So that’s where I took up my free fitness regime jogging from station to station to do my push-ups and pull-iups.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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My favorite parcourse was on the Stanford campus so I could pretend I was a student there and feel smart at the same time. I also joined the students who marched in the Take Back The Night march and was angered by the vulnerability of women as a target for night time assault. And when I attended a kung fu performance at the International House on campus I was so smitten by this fighting dance form I decided to take up martial arts. Thus killing two birds with one stone <span class="s1">—</span> learning to defend myself and perform a skill from my Asian heritage.</div>
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In my thirties a book came out that was full of glamour photos of buff aging athletes. Called “Growing Old Is Not For Sissies”. Just to look at the cover was enough to assure an entire generation that to age was to prevail. And with Jane Fonda at the helm having launched the home exercise video market there was no excuse. The Boomer generation would beat this thing called aging. But still that didn’t quite do it for me. I had not finished my quest. There were other aspects of aging that couldn’t seem to be bucked with exercise.</div>
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<b>While Waiting</b></div>
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As a young person I was noticeably hard of hearing from the age of ten when I was first tested. So I knew that some features of aging were not just age related. My hearing loss was some kind of congenital problem or genetic thing for my great Auntie Jessie was quite deaf early in life. In my late twenties I got hearing aids and here again was a talisman of old age. Maybe I had to be old first before I could be young like Merlin living backwards.</div>
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At a spontaneous walk-in reading in the town of Mt. Shasta, a psychic told me I would achieve success when I was 50. Hmmm. Nothing to do but wait. Meanwhile I could tell my story for I was tired of explaining myself, the whole multi-culti, mixed race thing. I would write it down which then prompted me to find a writing class so I could figure out how to construct a narrative. Being a writer was also an actual profession I could claim befitting my station in life (the one that expected a profession of me). I told my mother I was writing a book. For 20 years I worked on this book. I had time after all.</div>
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While still in my thirties I learned that the brain did not stop growing. It was in fact flexible and plastic that way. I was thrilled with this as I felt I had never been quite smart enough to keep up with my peers most of whom were long into advanced degrees and professions; this would give me a chance to catch up. I talked about it on the way to an end of year lunch with a group from the Stanford Psych Department where I was working at the time. Being only a staff member I was hoping to impress the learned people with their PhDs and research papers.</div>
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“So I figured I could grow my brain enough to become a doctor,” I said after summing up my discovery.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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“Yes, only by that time you’ll realize you didn’t want to become one after all,” said one of the learned woman smiling at me. I laughed for it was true I didn’t want to become a doctor of any sort for I did not want to be indoctrinated by an institution. I had found them to be limiting and authoritarian. I just needed permission not to bother with a degree (apart from the low status commercial art degree I got at a state school so my parents wouldn’t completely give up on me).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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I would forage for my knowledge at the public library and fend for myself like Truffaut’s The Wild Child a film that fascinated my therapist mother. What I would become was on its own schedule I felt. And I did by the age of 50 publish my book, but it brought me neither fame nor wealth nor an appearance on Oprah, but reading from it at the book party my writer’s group hosted for me was the happiest day of my life. It was huge this milestone and I sold copies to all my friends and colleagues until I was satisfied that I had gone with it as far as I could go and I was likely going to have to grow old to get on with it.</div>
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<b>Aging In America</b></div>
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I continued asking around to get to the bottom of aging in America and how to go about aging successfully. No one had any real advice despite the insistence that aging could somehow be avoided. Fifty being the new 30 after all. There were clues from women I admired. One colleague a generation senior to me made a point of keeping up with new technology where I was more likely to resist kicking and screaming and hang onto traditional analog ways.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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When I asked her how she came to have such an open mind to technology, she told me of her exposure to the innovators of her day. If a speaker was in town she invited them to dinner because being a mom with young children at home she couldn’t attend their lectures. This being the birth of Silicon Valley conversations that transpired at her dinner table gave her a jump start on how to receive the future. She was thus prompted to learn and incorporate these new technologies into her life as she went along. This conversation changed my idea of the attitude one should take as an elder. Keeping up with emerging discoveries and innovations with the long view perspective of time was a good mission for an elder I decided.</div>
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I asked my chiropractor what caused all the aches and pains of old age for I feared arthritis. He said they were mostly accumulations of injuries that had never quite healed. So that’s what old age looked like I thought. You were a walking collection of past injuries. I took note to get myself tuned up for the slightest pain or out of whack joint. I’m in his office every month now. When I asked why people seemed to have more joint problems than ever he said he believed that increased use of vegetable oils was the culprit due to oxidation producing the free radicals that led to inflammation. I read <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/7805842330/">“Good Calories, Bad Calories”</a> and learned that cholesterol was what the body used to patch up that inflammation. And soon after we saw the return of saturated fats and I laid it on thick with the butter and eggs even bacon.</div>
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Another colleague also contributed to my picture of aging by proudly telling the story of her mother who was so against sugar she scraped the icing off the doughnuts she brought home for the kids. When the paramedics came to get her at the end of her long life (in her own home) they noted how unusual it was that she did not have a bedside full of prescription drugs. So that’s what old age looked like in America I thought and took note to stay away from prescription drugs (and avoid sugar).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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My chosen career as a professional organizer also had an impact. How could it not? So often was I called in to help clients with a backlog of unsorted paper, memorabilia and accumulations of stuff. This window into the lives of ordinary people often took place after some kind of crisis. Usually one that disabled normal tidying up procedures (if there ever was any). Had I not seen it for myself I would have blithely hung onto everything too.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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People somehow think that their sunset years will be filled with time. Extra time to go through papers and stuff after a lifetime of procrastination; unfinished projects they’ll have time to finish one day, memorabilia they’ll want to revisit, organize and put into albums. But no, it turns out people have less time as faster and faster they try to cram in more on their already overextended schedule trying to get in that last bid for success, that last dream, that last love relationship before time runs out.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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Crisis is what drives people to deal with stuff so they throw it into a storage unit for a future that likely won’t match the contents. Possibly a future less friendly than the current one. Better to sell the most valuable items and buy something useful I reasoned when I learned to e-bay. Like solar panels, a hand crank clothes washer, empty five gallons buckets and a bag of sawdust…</div>
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One more thing I am grateful to have learned from my profession and that is to choose words carefully and speak using nonjudgmental adjectives framing things in the most optimum positive perspective so as not to humiliate the client with their own mess. (And no I never use the word “mess”.) I was also mindful of how I described things less I betray values other than the ones held by the client. An energy worker would say this strategy allowed me to vibrate on their same vibration and thus more effectively help them. As a side benefit this stance allowed me lots of room to observe people in their natural habitat allowing them to play out all the scripts from the playbook of their life so I could step aside before I got run over.</div>
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<b>Don’t Go Down Fighting</b></div>
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There was one remaining bugaboo of aging that concerned me. My maternal grandmother had had dementia; my mother was spooked by this and feared that it was hereditary so I too saw it as a possible future. I read “The Nun’s Study” and other emerging research. I adopted tactics to keep my memory fresh and my brain agile. There was no point in reading books to learn new things if I didn’t remember the things I learned I reasoned so for every non-fiction book I read I wrote a summation of all the new knowledge I’d gained and posted it to my <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/albums/72057594058670187">Flickr account</a> along with a picture of the book. Thus I created a very handy, searchable, visually-cued library for myself which became quite useful in heated online arguments as I sharpened my sword on unsuspecting commenters on Facebook.</div>
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This however may be my downfall for as I am beginning to realize with the help of my acupuncturist, it takes way too much energy to fuel the brain with such emotional vigor. This hyper vigilance on top of my usual stage fright and performance anxiety didn’t let me rest. I was on all the time. Throw a year of family drama on top of that and I was so drained from all that unfolded I was likely on my way to adrenal failure of some sort. I did not come this far just to fight I realized.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div>
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I looked for ways to lay down my sword. Use some of those non-violent communication strategies one can’t seem to avoid learning as a leftie in California. My liver was much happier if I told stories of personal process and didn’t stew on frustrating, unresolvable problems my doc counseled me. I had to come up with ways to break the log jam of my brain. Breath deeply three times. Think of empty space. Try not to forget what I was doing after the first breath. Count to a hundred so slowly I near let a thought slip in, then catch myself. Expend energy miserly while on this thin ice. Nurture the root energy back. Slowly, slowly I was recovering.</div>
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<b>Hello Sixty</b></div>
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And now finally (trying not to get too excited) I am so ecstatic. I have arrived at last and in better shape than expected. Not dead yet. No chronic pains, no prescription drugs, able to fall expertly owing to 30 years of being thrown to the mat in karate. And having insured my bowel health by maintaining my Asian squat I am good to go. Heh. I am ready now my lovelies. Ready for my third chapter, ready for my mission, ready for whatever I have come here to do. Vibrating my frequency, calling to me my destiny…</div>
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XO,</div>
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Amanda</div>
<br />AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-55201348186813646762018-02-02T06:05:00.000-08:002018-02-12T07:03:39.283-08:00 The Man From Kuwait<style type="text/css">
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<span class="s1"><i>The day before yesterday I returned from my final trip to Bangkok in this triptych of family land transfer events—first the funeral, then the court appearance (where I made my request to become my grandmother's executor) and now the stepping into ownership.</i></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><i>I was personally moved forward so profoundly by the role I was able to play that it felt as if I was being propelled by a global energy shift. I am not given to sharing new age analysis, but a youtube astrologer’s forecast was sent my way by a pivotal friend I made on the trip. You can watch it yourself<span class="Apple-converted-space"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSkqIRiXwbw&feature=youtu.be">here</a></span> if you are so inclined and would welcome a positive spin on things (plus tips on how to navigate the potential shadow side).</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>It so captured my take on how I was experiencing the shift from 2017 to 2018 on an emotional level that it inspired me to write the story below about talking to strangers as I moved through the world on my international travels. I posted it to FaceBook where it was warmly received so I thought I would share it here as a sample of my experience.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Love,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Amanda</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The Man From Kuwait</span></div>
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<span class="s2"><i>I have a story to share from my travels yesterday that expresses the serendipitous experiences I’m enjoying as a solo traveler. So am taking advantage of my awake jet lagged state to write it up.</i></span></div>
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<span class="s2">I was standing in line at passport control in the departures terminal of Bangkok’s international airport. It was going to be a long wait and I was looking around for a possible conversation to pass the time before opening my book. The hall was filled with Asian people and a few sunburned Europeans. Next to me I spy a man in a t-shirt printed with rows of tiny flags of the world. At the top I can see half the wording —CAL Fullerton. I check out the wearer — a black man likely an American around my age staring into the middle distance. His energy is calm and neutral so I decide to risk speaking to him in English.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2">“Did you go to CAL Fullerton?” I ask him pointing to his shirt. It takes him a second to tune me in.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“What’s that?” he asks and I repeat the question.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Oh no my daughter went there,” he said smiling understanding now that I am making conversation (so rare these days). So we soon find out that we’re both going back home to California and he introduces me to his Thai wife who speaks little English so remains focused on the line ahead. He asks me enough questions to find out where I went to college, calculates how old I am (same age as his wife who is from Northern Thailand so I get that she’s from a poor farming family). They’ve had a long journey he says. He asks me if I have children and I tell him about the dogs I share with my ex. “A man I assume,” he says meaning he wouldn’t assume that at all, but he’s given me an opening. I take it. Then he is telling me that he sees a lot of lesbian couples traveling the world these days and was wondering what was up in my community. Not that I had a clue, but I am amused by his curiosity. So we speculate about the travel habits of “my community” before going onto what I do for a living and how he could definitely use a professional organizer. I laugh and give him my business card though he lives in LA.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">By this time we have exchanged names. He is named after Ted Williams the baseball player he tells me. Then I notice that the man behind me is leaning forward as if he wants to join the conversation. So I give him my attention and ask if he wants something. He gestures to his ear and I think he might be deaf and half expect him to pull out one of those deaf alphabet cards. Black hair with a beard and light skin, Middle Eastern I’m thinking. He is also stooped over slightly and seems to have a bit of palsy. Ted picks up on his gestures.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“Oh you’re enjoying listening to our conversation,” he says. The Kuwaiti man nods vigorously and gestures for us to continue. At which point I realize that we have become live entertainment as I note the glances of a young blond woman who is not smiling.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“Where are you from?,” my new friend asks the Middle Eastern man.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">He pulls out his passport and points to the gold print on the blue cover.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2">“Oh Kuwait,” Ted reads and our new friend shakes hands with both of us. Then Ted tells me how he went to fight in Kuwait and noticed that the country was so rich he was asking himself why we were fighting for them when we could be helping some poor country. And the Kuwaiti man turns to him and says “thank-you I love you” and moves to give Ted a hug which he accepts with good humor and continues with his memories of how he really enjoyed being mistaken for a Saudi when he was in Saudi Arabia.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“You Korean?” the Kuwaiti man says to me suddenly.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“Me? No I’m Thai—half Thai and half…” at which point I pull my American passport up from the shirt pocket of my crisply laundered white travel shirt. At the words “I’m Thai,” I feel the attention of the Asian people now that I’m suddenly not a tourist.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="s2">Then a voice calls to us from the next line. “That man is going to be late for his plane” he says and gestures at the clock and our line where Ted’s wife is up next.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“Oh you’re looking out for a fellow traveller,” says Ted, “that is good of you.” I notice that this speaker is also an African American man wearing a tourist t-shirt with a heart in the wording.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“Oh he can go ahead of us,” Ted realizes. Then he takes our Kuwaiti friend by the arm and speaks to his wife who lets the man by. By this time both lines of people are watching and there is a little murmur of appreciation of this act.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“You are an Angel that’s what you are,” says Ted to the black man as if the presence of divinity has just manifested into the room. “And you are an Angel too,” he says turning to me. I smile at his acknowledgement of my part in this story and for a moment I am proud to be an American for we have just displayed the positive side of American public friendliness and a sharing of our personal lives which often seems embarrassingly exposing of ourselves through the eyes of Europeans not to mention the Asian brand of privacy.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">As I move through passport control into the terminal I note that the Kuwaiti man has joined a group holding a placard marked Dubai and I feel good about having entered a world full of Angels looking out for each other.</span></div>
<br />AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11162359.post-25806649418701123732018-01-05T06:01:00.000-08:002018-02-12T06:18:54.435-08:00Year In ReviewA huge part of my year was taken up in correspondence while I evaluated my life and my future through the eyes of a potential new partner. I buried this personal story within the context of my tiny house on my tiny house blog. The lessons learned would turn out to be pivotal for my life going forward so I am leaving this signpost to it here back dated to correspond to the timeline. <a href="http://tinyreddesk.blogspot.com/2018/01/tiny-house-living-one-year-later.html">Tiny House Living One Year Later</a>AKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12924051726529380446noreply@blogger.com0