vital functions

[kaberett]

Reading. The Will To Change, bell hooks: finished! I continued to find it a mix of "clear, uncompromising, nuanced articulation of the ways in which toxicpatriarchal masculinity operates and harms people, and the ways in which women* are complicit in that" and "baffling insistence that there exists as a useful concept a feminist masculinity, which mostly seems to translate to well-adjusted, psychologically healthy adult human". I was particularly taken with "the substitution of manhood for selfhood". I probably want to reread and take notes.

Slowly working my way through 5 Times the Raptors Tried to Kill Miriam, and 1 Time They Didn't. So far, it is very soothing.

Watching. The Spy Who Dumped Me, as a soothing rewatch.

Listening. So much TMA. Now up to episode 109 and plodding steadily along. Bought B-Sides the Point on Friday but have not yet scraped together the audio spoons to listen to it.

Growing. Sown this week: leeks; celeriac; a topping-up of the tomato cells as didn't hatch.

At home: things continue plodding along! I've begun carefully supplementing the nightshades with plant feed, now they've their first true leaves; half a tray of tomatoes germinated; the Comedy Onion continuing to put out determined wee shoots; the orchid has cheered up some since being moved to a position with a bit less light, which shouldn't actually surprise me but always somehow does. The walnut is sprouting forth enthusiastically; I think the oak might have taken sick but I don't quite have the brain to trouble-shoot it. Maybe if I'm feeling Competent it can have a little pesticide at some point this week.

At the plot: the garlic's doing well! The supermarket potatoes are sprouting, slightly to my astonishment! The broad beans aren't dead yet, and neither are the shallots! I've done a bunch of weeding! I have also, with the patience and physical assistance of Adam, got a skeleton fruit cage... mostly erected around the Ribes. It turns out that I should, alas, have measured all my dimensions: while there's space for sixteen feet of width at the front of the cage, where I kind of need sixteen feet of width because that's how much space the redcurrant and jostaberry take up together, at the back there's... about twelve foot, tops. To this I say, mostly, "whoops", and have revised my ambitions to the tune of, instead, a three-quarters-of-a-square cage. I need to head back out to the plot with a sledgehammer to finish driving the poles in, and I am waiting on delivery of the netting, but this is an infrastructure project that might yet work out, fingers crossed.

I have plans for so much weeding. And I am... most... of the way through fixing up the greenhouse, so that's nice.

Observing. Things I had not previously spotted actually successfully eating from the bird feeders: a wood pigeon! a magpie! Also the coaltits are back, and I have been enjoying the robin down the plot.

Playing. PoGo: notable catches include a 100% Sawk, a 100% Snubull, and a shiny Pikachu.

Horn: in addition to ongoing Making A Noise With My Face, I have been (re)reading the sections of The Big Book on maintenance and tuning, and in consequence spent some of today scrubbing the poor thing's innards. Adam, whose instruments have I think all been wood-based, watched me amble up to the kitchen sink with no small amount of horror and indeed revulsion (which is fairly similar to the expression string-players get when I cheerfully do routine maintenance involving a hammer, and to be honest I can't fault them for it). Is it sounding better? Maybe! Is the embouchure rejig an improvement? Definitely! -- tone at the top of my range has improved markedly. Still working on getting back to "clean" and also "smooth" but those are steadily improving too. Next up: a concerted effort at staccato.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

(hey you lost a </strike>)

[kaberett]

(it's okay I caught it while you were in the process of making this comment! <3)

[alexseanchai]

👍🏻

does / what does hooks say about feminist femininity, feminist androgyny, etc?

[kaberett]

dunno -- this book was focussed specifically on masculinity and is the first full work of hers I've read! ... and is also the only one my library has, so I'm going to have to source more of her writing some other way.

[rushthatspeaks]

Oof, the problem of feminist masculinity. It's a problem of particular interest to me because I identify, to some extent, as a man-- certainly more than I have ever identified as a woman, although for Reasons I will never be clearly settled in any single gender identification-- and it's like, I'd like to have something we can all agree on as masculinity without being a patriarchal dumbass, you know?

Have not read hooks on it, though I may look this book up as I am curious about what she has to say. So far the best model I have run across for a feminist masculinity is Daniel Lavery's suggestion of Gomez Addams: desperately in love with his spouse, an amazing and committed father and delightful sibling, and a person who clearly gets out of bed every single morning happy to be, specifically, a man. Occasionally swashbuckles, but not at anyone who has not been proven to deserve it thoroughly. It's the sunny joy he takes in the appurtenances of masculinity (I mean, he owns a smoking jacket) when and only when they do not hurt or bother anyone else, and the way he discards them when he sees that they do, that really work for me.

That said, it's difficult to take him as a role model as a person who has never, ever wanted to own a smoking jacket, if you see what I mean...

[cynthia1960]

It indeed would be good to have a formulation for masculinity that doesn't involve being a patriarchal dumbass.

[recessional]

The problem it runs into is the problem with defining any gender category firmly which is . . . . nobody actually agrees, 100%, on what gender actually is.

I mean Gomez Addams is an amazing role model: but basically every single one of those things except specifically identifying as a man . . . also apply to me! Who is definitely not, in any way, a man.

I would also occasionally swashbuckle, would be desperately in love with (and prone to dramatic gestures with) any spouse I had, am devoted sibling and would be a devoted parent etc etc etc.

I would actually even own a smoking jacket!

But none of those things can be said to be "masculine", inherently.


You'd have the same difficulty trying to define "feminist femininity", though. Because I guarantee there are a crapload of things that one would dump into "feminine" that I am not (while of course also having some things I both would hold onto unto the death and . . . . to which I can point to equivalences in men I know).

Which is where we end up back with our host at " . . .that's . . . just being a balanced and adult human being?"

[sporky_rat]

I love how we all recognize Gomez Addams as an excellent role model.

[rushthatspeaks]

It's specifically the zest which Gomez Addams has for being a man that I'm pointing out, the joie de vivre with which he approaches it that nonetheless doesn't partake in power-tripping or in too many innate beliefs about what being a man and a father and husband entails. The way Lavery puts it is that you can picture Gomez Addams getting out of bed in the morning and saying to himself, "Gosh, what a great day to be a man!" and it's completely in character and you don't want to throw things at him for it. Masculinity as enjoyable process/actions, rather than as burden, duty, or standard of proof.

[kaberett]

I appreciate this comment and have been chewing on it but am not sure I have much to add, or much of a... visceral grasp of what it means to be delighted about doing all this stuff WHILE A DUDE. At least some of that is probably just "I am too None Of The Above, Redo From Start, +++???+++ for this entire concept", but there we go. <3

[polyfrazzlemented]

My tentative understanding about what masculinity and femininity "are" is that humans are innately inclined to sort themselves and each other into two or more gender categories, but that the content of those categories is largely culturally mediated. I also think that gender identities are not the same thing as social systems of oppression based on them, although they're highly intertwined.

So I think it's entirely reasonable to try to create better models of what a man is, because I don't think that the existence of people who identify as men is going to go away. But it's probably more important to emphasize that "Humans Are From Earth" (I've fantasized about writing an answer to the "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" books called that) and that everyone needs to develop into a well-adjusted, psychologically healthy adult.

[serpentrose]

I approve of that book idea.
Also am wondering what (metaphorical) planets various nontraditional gender identities would be from.

[azurelunatic]

(haunk)

[brainwane]

I also had a soothing rewatch of The Spy Who Dumped Me within about the last week! Glad you enjoyed it too!

[kaberett]

It is extremely soothing. A suggested/requested this one, but bless them, I am so fond of their faces.

[tree_and_leaf]

Jostaberries are great!

[kaberett]

Aren't they!!! I'm mostly suspicious of blackcurrants but this I... actually... like??? I will just pick them in great handfuls and Eat Them with enthusiasm??? it is very disconcerting and I'd never met the concept of them prior to allotment, but I am delighted by them.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yeah, I learned about them by the simple dint of inheriting a bush in the garden that produced these fruits that looked like small purple gooseberries, while obviously not being gooseberries, which is good because I have yet to succeed in stopping my actual gooseberries getting rust.

They're so good! Why don't more people know about them?

[vass]

Adam, whose instruments have I think all been wood-based, watched me amble up to the kitchen sink with no small amount of horror and indeed revulsion (which is fairly similar to the expression string-players get when I cheerfully do routine maintenance involving a hammer, and to be honest I can't fault them for it)

People who've never learned a brass instrument even briefly get all squeamish if you even say the words "empty my spit valve". It's funny.

[kaberett]

YES ISN'T IT

[fyreharper]

I likewise made the O_O face at the thought of running water through one’s musical instrument (harps being likewise wood-based and not fond of water... except the carbon fiber ones, but the people tend to add the built-in lights and pickups and it’s back to No... BUT ANYWAY)

Doesn’t horn have all those twisty bits though? How do you not get random blebs of water stuck in it somewhere? Or does that not really end up being a problem?

[kaberett]

It does have twisty bits BUT lots of the twisty bits pull out, so that (1) you can tune the durned thing and (2) you can empty the condensation out of it! So what happens is you remove the very first slide, and then just run water through the first short length of tubing. :)

[fyreharper]

Ah, yes okay that makes sense!