I noticed the blood when I reached into my chalk bag before the big deadlift work set.  I was already intimidated by the weight I had put on the bar, 150 pounds, something I’d never done before. Seeing blood seeping from my pinkie nail bed and smeared on the finger turned anxiety into terror. It didn’t hurt, you see. I licked the blood, like a berserker tastes blood to run fearless into battle. It didn’t make me fearless. 

I gripped the bar and pulled. It went up. I made the lift. It went down. The released breath I’d held in the Vaslava maneuver came out as a whispered “Jesus Christ”. For all my recent Mars worship, I still revert to ancestral forms of blasphemy in times of stress. I thought about taking the weight down back down to what I’d pulled comfortably last week. My finger was bleeding and I didn’t feel it. What other important pain was adrenaline hiding from me? 

I almost didn’t finish that set at 150. Between almost didn’t and almost did there is no space at all in the bleeding moment, but afterwards, there is a chasm. 

It was not easier the second time I pulled. When the weight went down I felt a little light headed. There was a tension like tears at the back of my throat. The third time was not easier, either. While I’d done the lift twice already, I also knew I’d be getting exhausted with each repetition. It only got easier on the last rep, because I wanted to check 150 off in the logbook, to say to myself and to others, I did it. 

I didn’t laugh at the end of the set like I normally do when I set a new personal record. I racked my weights. I put the bar away. I stripped. I rushed to the shower. I did these things because these are the things one does. I felt no pain. 

The water ran over me. I haven’t felt this beat up since I got the shit kicked out of me in the Thunderdome in 2007, I thought. Even my hands shook in the same exhausted way.

* * *

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“I feel no pain,” I said to the gloved medic examining my bloody nose after my five minutes in the Thunderdome. In as far as these things can be calculated, I had lost. It was only once I was on the ground, off the bungee cables, that I realized the crowd was deafening. It had been, a friend later told me, incredibly loud the whole time. They really like to see women fight. They really liked it when the other woman grabbed my braids.

“I feel no pain all. Nothing hurts,” I added. He sent me to the medical tent.

I nearly cried on my walk there, not because I was in pain, and not even really because I had found out that in the heat of battle I have hangups about playing dirty against someone else who plays dirty, but because I felt lonely. I am not the person I imagined myself to be before I entered the Thunderome. I am not a fighter. I am not vicious. I wanted so much to be vicious. I wanted to prove that in battle, even sort of a fake battle, a secret self, a fighter, would emerge from my quiet, cheerful self. I wanted someone else to tell me: you are badass.

* * *

The barbell lets me practice fear. I train my muscles and I train my mind. It has not yet gotten easier. Any time it gets easier, I add more weight.

The barbell gives me something the Thunderdome could not: an objective measure. Either I pick up the weight, or I don’t pick up the weight. The weight moves or the weight does not move. That’s it. 

It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. There is a checkmark in my logbook. Next time I face the weights, I will have that knowledge to arm me. I won’t fear them any less, but I will have the capacity to hold more fear and pull anyway.

The body loves progressive challenge. Incrementally increasing the challenge creates a space where we are always in the sweet spot of difficult but not impossible. Weightlifting is like progression raiding except instead of getting nerfed by 5% every few weeks, the boss gets harder to meet you at the place of challenge. More weights are always avaialble. The only person who can cheat you is yourself.

License to Lift

The orange notebook where I track
	repetitions of the stitches that I knit
		and repetitions of the big three

is my tiny passport into the country of Squat.
	The muscled border guards need only see
		numbers and hashmarks and the focused look
			on my reddening face.

“Excuse me
	Could I
		Get a spot?”

I mean, could a woman get
	a spot 'round here? A bit of space?
		A weightroom of one's own?
			A squat rack of one's own at least?

I know I don't look like the type
	but turn my hands over and you can read
		my palm, my past, the yellow calluses on the pads.

The natives
	are grunting
		but each day

I flash my orange passport
	and take my place
		under the Olympic bar

I drop 
	down
		with more plates
				on the bar
					each time

	My rainbow socks flash and I
get up again.

Another hashmark in the book.
	I've been around,
		and more important:
				I'll be back.

amaditalks:

On Tuesday, after liveblogging my read-through of Pennsylvania’s HB1077, the bill which would force unwanted endovaginal ultrasounds on most persons seeking an abortion in the state, I sent a scathing email to my state representative, Harry Readshaw, who is a co-sponsor of the bill. To be entirely fair, I dislike my representative a great deal. He’s nominally a democrat, yet he’s entirely anti-choice, he also introduced a copy of the Arizona “papers please” anti-immigrant bill in this legislative session. I don’t know why he calls himself a democrat, but he does, and I hold him accountable. I wrote:

Dear Representative Readshaw:

I know this message will fall on deaf ears as you’re firmly committed to destroying my constitutional right to control my reproductive life, nevertheless, this legislation that you are co-sponsoring is both onerous and offensive and I feel it my responsibility as your constituent to let you know that your support of this bill completely erodes any possibility of my continued support for you.

Fact: there is no evidence, from actual empirical studies, that ultrasounds change people’s minds when they’re seeking an abortion. All that these “educational” ultrasounds do is add unneeded time, expense and delay to the process and, as a consequence, increase the number of medical complications that arise. If the goal is to improve women’s health, this bill is already a failure on its face.

Fact: More than 60% of those seeking an abortion already have had at least one child. they know what pregnancy is, how it works, and what continuing an unwanted pregnancy would mean to their lives and the lives of their families. they don’t need counseling, waiting periods or extra ultrasounds to “know” as per this “right to know” concept.

Women do have independent intellect. We are able to come to decisions about important issues in our lives without being handheld or spoonfed information, and if there’s information that women want or need to know, we are capable of asking for ourselves.

The arrogant overriding of women’s agency and presumption of women’s ignorance inherent in this bill, from its very first line, and the “right to know” language makes me wonder: if women are so dreadfully incapable of independent decision making and learning, how on earth are they meant to parent the end results of the pregnancies that they’re being encouraged not to terminate? Or the children that they already have?

The illogical position that you are espousing by co-sponsoring and, I’m sure, ultimately voting for this repulsive piece of legislation speaks volumes about your inherent disdain and mistrust of women and bigotry against us. Given that, I’m not sure why you think that more than half of the electorate should support you, given that you’ve demonstrated time and again how little you think of us, our abilities and ultimately, our humanity.

Yeah, I was a little bit fired up, because this bill? Is ridiculous. (Yes, I also went to “women” rather than my normal gender neutral language. This dude is a Neanderthal, no way was he going to grasp the point of gender neutrality.)

Today, I received an oversized manilla envelope from Rep. Readshaw. Inside was a printout of HB 1077, a printout of some database’s information about me, indicating where I live, that I’m not the head of the household (why/how it knows this I do not know) and a few other things about me, like ethnicity, that no elected official should or needs to know. I’m going to have to get to the bottom of that.

Also included was a printout of my email, with the phrases “will fall on deaf ears” “destroying my constitutional right” and “my continued support for you” underlined in red ink. Apparently these phrases were exceptionally offensive? I don’t know.

And then there was the letter you see above. Handwritten by the representative himself, in all its chickenscratchy, grammatically questionable glory.

Let’s break it down together, shall we? First, note the black bar? That’s where the letter was addressed to me solely by my first name. (Government name, hence the censoring.) Not Ms. Lastname, not even Dear Firstname, just Firstname, as if he knows me and is writing to a friend. I don’t play that way. I gave him the respect of referring to him by title, he’ll do the same if he ever addresses me again.

He writes:

I know this message will fall on deaf ears but….. I do not choose to debate “intellect” vs. morals. As I believe morals should overwhelmingly be the favorite.

This is obviously a reference to my amazing assertion that “women do have independent intellect.” He disdains that, clearly. And thinks that if we choose abortion, we’re immoral. And I, by extension, am immoral for my stance. The inference is pretty clear to me, how about you? So this is a moral issue, which says to me that it’s not a legal issue. If it’s about morality, that’s not for the state to legislate to me, it’s for me to determine a course of action about, perhaps with the people I trust to discuss moral issues with, and whose guidance I can trust.

Let’s move on, though, shall we?

This blew my socks off. The arrogance and ignorance you’re about to read from a sitting elected official is absolutely breathtaking.

There should be no need to consider “what continuing an unwanted pregnancy would mean to their lives.” This can be controlled by contraception. Why create and kill? Simply, do not create….. Be responsible!

Where do I start? Apparently in whatever fantasy land this man inhabits, everyone has access to contraceptives. We know this is false. We know that this is demonstrably false. Apparently in that same fantasy land, contraception is 100% effective in every case. We know that this is demonstrably false. Apparently in that same fantasy land there is no rape, no coercion, no sexual abuse, no domestic violence, no birth control sabotage. There should be no need to consider. Nothing to think about. Just move along, you irresponsible killer sluts.

How dare he? I’m seething here. Seething.

Seven cosponsors are women of HB1077 and I do not believe any of the cosponsors have a “disdain and mistrust of women or bigotry against them.”

Once again, he misuses quotes to try to paraphrase things I wrote in my email, and does dreadful things to proper English grammatical syntax. Also? I really don’t care what he believes, the evidence contradicts him. This bill says in the very first line that we are too ignorant to understand our own pregnancies. It’s disdainful, it’s brimming with mistrust of our knowledge and our ability to make decisions for ourselves, ask questions for ourselves or understand our needs and those of our families, and I’ll stand by bigotry every day. That’s what underpins this all. And yes, women can be bigoted against other women. I think we’ve all seen and experienced that. It’s evident on its face — if you’re willing to look.

You stated my position is “illogical” and your feeling is no doubt prompted by disagreement with my stance on the subject.

Really? Are you just now getting that, Harry? Also, note that word feeling I don’t have thoughts or positions or stances, I have feelings. Little hypersensitive woman that I am. Yeah, the tone is clear, isn’t it?

Now, prepare to be appalled, if you’re not already, because he’s about to cross a line so broad and so unbelievable it will take your breath away.

I have a daughter that is not biologically capable of having a child due to complications. She cannot bear a child and you want to kill them. She has also experienced 2 miscarriages. Sorry, I disagree with your convictions.

HE JUST DISCLOSED HIS DAUGHTER’S PRIVATE MEDICAL INFORMATION IN AN EFFORT TO JUSTIFY HIS SUPPORT OF THIS BILL AND GENERAL ANTI-CHOICE POSITION.

Sorry for shouting, no, actually, I’m not. I am beyond disbelief that he believes that this woman’s personal pain, her private information, her reproductive status is fair game to be bandied around like this, to be used to score political points, as a gotcha at me. She can’t have babies and I want to KILL THEM! What kind of person am I that I could possibly support other people having autonomy over their own reproduction when she doesn’t have any?

What kills me is that he doesn’t actually know whether I’m pro-choice. My email to him didn’t say. I’m opposed to forced endovaginal ultrasounds before abortions, that doesn’t mean that I necessarily like abortions. For the record, I don’t much care for them. I wish no one ever had to have one. But that isn’t reality. Even with ideal comprehensive sexual education, universal healthcare and unfettered contraceptive access there will still be pregnancies that cannot be sustained. That’s why I’m pro-choice because I recognize reality, and because it’s not my right to interfere in other people’s medical choices.

But it doesn’t matter to him. Anyone who has support for autonomy is some kind of horrible monster who’d kill the precious thing his daughter wants and can’t have.

What he doesn’t know, couldn’t know, in his fantasy land of assumptions and presumptions, is that I too am actually incapable of having much-wanted children. (I’ll give benefit of the doubt that his daughter actually is, that he’s not making that up to justify himself.) And yet, despite the fact that being pregnant would make me incredibly happy, and won’t ever happen, I still recognize that my desire to be pregnant is not universal and I cannot expect other people to continue pregnancies that they do not want, cannot afford, cannot physically or emotionally sustain, just because of my feelings about pregnancy for me. I am not other people. I cannot expect them to live their lives as I would. That’s kind of the cornerstone of what liberty is, isn’t it?

Let’s press on, before I get all maudlin all over this thing.

As of this date, you are the only person other than 2 medical doctors that have contacted me in the negative.

Huh, doctors are opposed to a broadly invasive and overreaching bill that directly interferes with patient care and injects politics into treatment rooms. Is that surprising? Is that extraordinary? I don’t think so. And when this thing blows up, as Texas should have and Virginia has, and it will, I think that this number will change. And now, I’m going to do my best to be sure of it.

One last note, remember when I said that in the envelope with the letter was a printout of some database’s information about me? Check out the last line again:

Congratulations on your voting record it is very good!

I’m going to presume that there is some database that shows how many times I’ve voted since I registered in 1991. (The answer is “twice a year, every year, or 42 times thus far.) But why is he looking that up before sending me a letter in response to me writing to him? Why is it germane? Why is it his business? Why is it legal? Do I not get a letter if I don’t vote or vote often enough for his tastes? I’m going to be looking into this too, I assure you.

Now, the question is: what to do about this. First, I’m definitely writing him back, and calling. I have a few words to say, the first of which will be don’t you ever call me by first name again. Start with basic respect and work from there.

Other than that? I’m not sure. I’m still seething. I’ve been essentially called an immoral baby killer here, by my elected representative, and he’s disclosed information about his daughter that is reprehensible. There should be some consequences for this.

I’d say that you should all email Representative Readshaw and let him know what you think of his letter, but he only accepts email from constituents. But if anyone is inclined to send him postal mail

Representative Harry A. Readshaw
1917 Brownsville Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15210

or
Room 122 Irvis Office Building
House Box 202020
Harrisburg, PA 17120-2020

If you’re inclined to call or fax:

Call: 412-881-4208 or 717-783-0411
Fax: 412-886-2077 or 717-705-2007

If you have other suggestions for responses, please share. I don’t think that this should go unaddressed.

This is my quick translation of the traditional Polish pączki recipe from Kuchnia Poska just in time for Fat Tuesday. I advise you to read the whole recipe before you begin and to think over it carefully. This is an old style of recipe which elides a great deal and assumes you know what you are doing. You can see it by the way the quantities are given.

10 dekagrams* baker’s yeast
1 kilogram wheat flour
1/2 liter milk
6 egg yolks
1 egg
10-15 dekagrams sugar
vanilla to taste
juice of one lemon
zest of one lemon
salt to taste
1 shot of clear spirits (eg vodka, Everclear)
5-6 tablespoons oil or 10 dekagrams butter
40 dekagrams marmalade for filling
1 kilogram oil or lard for frying*
10 dekagrams powdered sugar with vanilla*
 

Make a solution of crushed baker’s yeast, 1 tablespoon sugar, 20 dekagrams flour, and milk. Let stand in a warm place to rise.

Beat the yolks, egg, and sugar, then sift in the remaining flour. Add the risen solution, vanilla, lemon juice, zest, milk, pinch of salt, and spirits.

Knead the dough until it is smooth, lustrous, doesn’t stick to your hands, and small bubbles form on its surface. Add the oil or soft butter bit by bit and knead the dough for a short while more. The dough should not be too dense. Scrape the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl, smooth out the dough, and leave it in a warm place to rise for 10 to 15 minutes. When the dough rises, begin frying it immediately.

Method I. Using a tablespoon scoop small portions of the dough from the mixing bowl (ideally weighing 4 dekagrams each). With fingers moistened with melted fat shape in your palm small rounds, and place in the center 1/2 a teaspoon marmalade or filling of your choice. Seal them carefully, forming a sphere. Place them sealed side down on a flour dusted board and cover them with a cloth.

Heat the cooking oil. Check that the oil is hot enough. Clean the flour off of the fully risen pączki using a brush. Place them into the hot oil with their top side down. Cover with a lid and fry. Pączki should freely float. When they turn golden on the bottom, turn them over with a fork, and finish frying uncovered. Place fried pączki onto paper and to drain the fat. While they are hot place the pączki on a platter side by side and sprinkle them with powdered sugar. Once they are completely cooled, pączki can be stacked.

Method II. After kneading the dough, cover, and leave in a warm place to rise. When the volume of the dough doubles, place sections onto a board covered in flour, and gently roll out into a thickness of 1.5 to 2 cm. Divide the rolled out dough into 2 sections. Into one section trace circles using a form with a 4cm diameter. In the centers of the circles put a bit of marmalade or other filling. Cut the other section into circles using the same form, and put them on top of the circles with marmalade. Pinch carefully around the edges to seal, then use the form to cut out the circles. Place the pączki on a floured board to rise. Once they have risen, fry them as in Method I.

My notes: One dekagram, sometimes spelled decagram, is 10 grams. If you don’t have baker’s yeast, active dry yeast should work fine as long as you calculate the proportions accurately. 

You don’t necessarily need this much cooking fat, as you can fry them in smaller batches. They also don’t need to be entirely covered in fat. It works just fine as long as half each pączek is submerged in hot oil.

I’m not sure why the cookbook insists on vanilla powdered sugar. My family always used plain powdered sugar.

There is a third and considerably easier method for filling that bakeries use. Fry the pączki without any filling. Then, using a pastry bag and a sharp tip, squeeze the filling into each pączek.

“Would you still love me if I wrote you bad songs?” one of your legion asked me once, theoretically, I suppose. Well, theoretically speaking—

No.

Wait, actually, I guess I could.  Especially if I met you at a party where I was really drunk and you didn’t mention that you’re in a band.  Of course eventually I might let it slip that I write poetry and am learning to play the guitar, because I am dumb like that, and then you would get all excited and tell me you’re in a band.

I would probably ask you would kind of band, and you’d say “rock band”—unless you have some pretentious label that sounds cooler, which is fine.  I’m obviously all for the pretentious if it’s done artfully enough.

But sooner or later the moment would come when you’d give me a burned CD of your band’s music, or maybe even a mix.  Perhaps you’d be coy and say that your band is at its best live and would ask me to refrain from listening to recordings of your music.  Somehow, I’d fall in love with you anyway.  Love is mysterious and who knows why, but let’s say I would.

Then, after weeks of anticipation on your part, and weeks of busy indifference on mine, that fateful weekday in a dive bar would come when you would be the headline bar.  Since you really wanted me to have the real [insert your band name here] experience, you wouldn’t let me hang out while you set up.  Oh no!  You’d put me on your comp list and tell me to come at 10pm.

I’d show up and the bouncer would say I’m not on the damned list, or else I’d be there but my name would be all misspelled and he wouldn’t believe I’m me.  It would be one of those low-level developmentally challenged bouncers who takes things mighty literally.  He’d refuse to even call you over to prove my identity.  I’d end up having to pay the $5 cover while secretly wondering if this wasn’t a deliberate scheme of yours based on some asshat speed seduction technique. 

I’d come over to say hello to you on stage, and you, in full rock star mode, would give me one of your drink tickets.  I’d debate whether I should tell you of the comp-list debacle but refrain.

Then I’d go over to the bar and try to order a Guinness, only to find out that the drink tickets are good for well drinks and beer on tap, which the Guinness is not.  WTF?  Well, whatever.  I settle for a Miller High Life.  It’s free beer after all.  Then I realize, hey waitaminute.  It’s not really free beer! I paid the freaking cover!  Suddenly the cheap beer just doesn’t taste as good and the seeds of resentment are planted in my ungrateful soul.

At least I’m in a cozy dive bar.  Ritzy bars always make me feel out of place.  Give me sticky tables and dirty couches any day. 

I settle into a pleasant dark corner on a couch that used to be orange once, I think.  I tuck my feet under my butt, lean on the arm rest, and drink the beer as quickly as I can to properly prepare my blood-alcohol-level for rocking out.

You step in front of the microphone.  It screeches as you try to dramatically remove it from the mic stand.  Was that on purpose to make you seem rough and wild?  You introduce [insert your band name here] and enjoin everyone in the bar to prepare him or herself to rock because this will be one wild show.  I look around and it mostly looks like people who’ve come here after work to drink their worries away—I’m not sure that anyone is actually ready to rock.  I try to finish my beer since—did I mention this before?  —I hate rock and roll.  I would say scrap the whole thing if it were not for the Velvet Underground. 

I prepare to rock, in as far as a lady who is not from this country and lives in a hole in the ground, pop-culturally speaking, is able to.

One, Two, Three, Four!

And you suck.  Oh my God, does [insert your band name here] suck. 

I’m glad I’m in the dark corner because you can’t see me cringing.  After about three songs I get up and order several Tequila shots.  After all, it’s not just some crappy bar band I don’t care about.  It’s the crappy bar band of the man I love!  You can’t possibly imagine how uncomfortable I feel.

After I’ve returned to me seat with another crappy beer to chase down the tequila, I feel that the situation has become vaguely tolerable.  And then it turns out I was wrong.

You’ve been giving cute intros in between songs all along so it takes me a moment to process that this one is different.

Wait, no, you’re not actually trying to pronounce my name?  I guess that does sound like my name if you squint and turn your head sideways.

You what?  You want me to come on stage.  Oh no.  No way.  No fucking way man!

You’re coming here?  You’re getting off stage and actually dragging me there with you?

Can I at least take my beer?

You make me stand next to you on the “stage” while you sing a song ostensibly dedicated to me.  Thank the pain of its badness reaches me only dimly, through a dull haze of alcoholic anesthesia.

You’ve stuck to the radio-play formula and your song is hardly more than 3 minutes long after which I’m allowed to return to my seat on the dirty couch.  If I were you though, I wouldn’t have asked that question.  I mean the question “Would you still love me if I wrote you bad songs” because I’m forced to consider it seriously now.

I do still love you, but I have to admit that my love is mixed with pity and contempt.

It’s cute that you have a rock band that you’re passionate about.  It’s cute any time someone is passionate about something, even if it’s kind of bad.  But at the same time, your complete lack of ability to see how awful you are is pitiable.

Depending on a number of factors I might love you for months or even years after hearing your terrible songs.  My contempt and pity will only grow, but as H.L. Mencken wisely points out, contempt is the feeling a woman must have for a man to marry him, and so we’ll probably get married and heck, even have a couple of kids.

I’ll still love you and rock band will still suck.  Over time I won’t love you any more, but we’ll stay married because of the kids, who I will love.

When we’re both in our 40s your rock band will get picked up by a major label and you’ll be surrounded by groupies who love you and think your music is pure sex.  Kids these days! I’ll say.  You’ll insist you have no interest in the fresh 18-year old bodies they throw at you, but you’re only human and eventually you’ll hook up with one or a dozen of them. 

One day I’ll discover I have crabs and you’ll be forced to admit your infidelity.  Not only that, your love for the other woman, a 22 year old brunette with oatmeal for brains. 

Since by that point my love will have turned entirely to contempt, we’ll part on pretty good terms.  I mean, I don’t care if you sleep with your groupies.  Good luck to you.  The kids are in college and they’ll be just fine.  Especially since you’re now rich enough to afford the very best in psychotherapy for them.

The only point of contention will be the money.  Your lawyers are going to do their best to screw me out of it, but guess who was smart enough to sing a pre-nup about you making it big and not having to share the earnings with your ex-wife?  No, not you! You were a dumb romantic and now you’ll have to give me money for the rest of my life.

Sweet!

Then I’ll realized that heterosexuality was just a passing, experimental phase of my life and  live with my lesbian lover and her pit bulls in Noe Valley.  We’ll go to wine tastings and Long Now Foundation talks.  Our kids will be torn whether it’s more uncomfortable to have a rock star dad or a frumpy lesbian mom.  Your dad sleeps with people your own age or your momma wear combat boots (and sleeps with a woman her own age)? 

Anyway, maybe you’d be better off dating someone who doesn’t hate rock music.

joyeux-noelle:

I worry, sometimes.

I identify as female. I do my best to present online as female. (As usual, I have NO IDEA how well I succeed.)

But I have 32 years of being a white male behind me, and in public, in person, I still pass as male. Sometimes I don’t shave for a couple days and the beard…

sweetupndown:

you thought I didn’t really notice. But I did. I wanted to high-five you.

Yesterday I had a pair of brothers in my store. One was maybe between 15-17. He was a wrestler at the local high school. Kind of tall, stocky and handsome. He had a younger brother, who was maybe about 10-12 years old. The…

When you’re a woman gamer, it’s hard not to feel like an anomaly. Even though there actually are a lot of us, we’re represented as a minority. Both in the official imagery of games (and their marketing), and in the surrounding gamer culture, we get the message that this space isn’t really for us. When things get shitty, or even just sort of odd and uncomfortable, we wonder “is it me? or is something really amiss?” 

One can get a little crazy thinking like that, and thinking like that is definitely encouraged by the little corner of the Patriarchy that is gamer culture. You, gamer gal*, must adjust to this world, and if this world is intolerable to you, then the problem is you.

There’s only one antidote to that kind of gaslighting: connecting with other women who share your experiences. Then you get to see that no, it isn’t you, you special snowflake with your personality flaws that you must fix via the self improvement megacorporate insecurity generating complex (happy New Year folks!), it’s actually a whole friggin’ system of culture wide oppression playing itself out in our corner of the world where we play video games and do nerd things. On the one hand, dang, what a bummer. Even our escapism is poisoned with Patriarchy. On the other hand, hey, we’re not crazy!

In 2011 I found, frankly to my complete surprise, a whole community of feminist gamers and nerds on Twitter. Until I started blogging and tweeting about feminism and gaming, I had no idea there were so many of us. There’s also a surprisingly large community of women and men who have shown themselves to be allies of feminist thought, even though they aren’t ready to join us in the glorious revolution quite yet.

When I started blogging about gaming and feminism this year, I felt alone. I could think of one feminist gamer in my community. Thanks to the Twitter community, I now know and interact with at least a dozen, and I know there are many, many more. I’ve gone from feeling like an anomaly, to feeling like I’m part of a movement, or at least a supportive group of like minded individuals. We can, and do, disagree, but not in a way that undermines our lived experience. (At least, I hope if I ever write something that makes someone feel I’m undermining their lived experience, they’ll call me on it)

Finding the feminist gamers on Twitter is one of the best things of 2011. I’m so glad to have you as my Internet Friends. You inspire me; you make me examine and often revise my ideas; you make me feel like I’m not alone. Even this post was inspired by Twitter conversations in the last few days. Happy New Year, and thank you for being awesome.

* It is the official postion of Games and Trips to adopt the term “gamer gal” to identify women-identified gamers as a compromise term between the problematically infantalizing yet alluringly allitrative “gamer girl” and the tin-tongued if accurately seriouscat “woman gamer” as our commitment on the editorial board to truth is equalled by our commitment to elegance of expression. 

Just as Communist wealth redistribution schemes take wealth from those who have more and redistribute it across society so everyone has an equal share, so does Spirit Link Totem take health and redistributes it evenly among your party or raid so everyone has an equal share. Thus, it is fair to say that Spirit Link Totem is Communist.

To remind everyone of the glorious power of Spirit Link Totem, I use the following macro to announce to my raid when I drop it:

/cast Spirit Link Totem
/yell FROM EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR ABILITY TO EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR  NEED

Go therefore, and do you likewise.