The original post has garnered some generous attention from word lovers over the last sixteen months, resulting in gifts from contributors known and unknown.

Given the season, it seems timely to follow through as I originally indicated, with an updated list of terms submitted by readers — and an invitation to continue tossing your gems this way. Perhaps a more comprehensive list will encourage Mr. Lipton’s enthusiasm for a new edition of his fabulous book. …

Take a look at the collected results of our effort to date, below, and add your creations in the comments.

Christopher

An astonishment of great blue herons

Karen Cunagin

A flirt of butterflies

Elise

A gluttony of pigs

Hunt Gressitt

A burst of pimples
A pile of hemorrhoids
A smear of politicians
A line of writers
A pool of swimmers
A host of guests
An army of Marines (sorry, Steve)
A ruck of sacks
A gross of emesis
An assemblage of builders
A clique of noises
A gang of planks
A litter of gurneys
A Mound of candy bars
A class of elitists
A clutch of purses
A hunk of actors
A deficiency of imbeciles
A ball of dancers
A mope of melancholics
A clump of chumps
A slew of pitchers
A jack of asses

K-B Gressitt

A starburst of generals
An orgy of envy
A mass of bishops
An ecstasy of miracles
A scandal of penises
A smooch of teens
A swoon of romantics
An illiteracy of dunces
A bangle of bracelets
A fury of revenge
A gorging of gifts
A pomposity of the elite
A caterwaul of cats
An instigation of idiocies
A demagoguery of fundamentalists
A ridicule of reviewers
A slam of critics
A syncophancy of fans
An orient of sexualities
An assault of slurs

Scott Gressitt

An inkling of writers
A splinter of woodworkers
A kitchen of cabinetmakers
A smarm of salesman
A dash of gentlemen
A disobeyanse of sons
A duty of friends
A sparkle of dental techs
A smear of pap testers
A collage of artists
A noise of politicians
A shard of glassblowers
A cuteness of babies
A whine of children
An arrogance of lawyers
A knock of sheriffs
A ring of Avon ladies
A puke of partiers
A skin of nudists
A spray of hairdressers
A broom of street cleaners
A slew of hunting terms
A stretch of limos
A blare of fire trucks
A smidgeon of cooks
A trifle of young lovers
A heartbreak of teenagers
A flake of psoriasis patients
A powder of coke dealers
A line of coke dealers
A snort of coke dealers
A breath of dentists
A look of models
An act of thespians
A shiver of ice fisherman
A recovery of alcoholics
A screech of driving instructors
A whistle of traffic cops
A flap of hang gliders
A whisper of nuns
A murmur of taxpayers
An arrangement of florists
A setting of authors
A demeanor of judges
A beg of defendants
A denial of addicts
A cross of transvestites
A short of cash
A stack of tellers
A plot of writers
An axe of executioners
A superfluity of venerists

Kevin Langley

A pack of idiots

Dick Matheron and Bill Toone

A battery of Priii (from Toyota)

MJS

A chatter of wives
A brilliance of word wonks
A volume of wordsmiths
A vanity of wags

Sherry

A coven of crones

And, a merriment of mullings to you all!

Love,
K-B

From Heidi Lunabba’s Studio Vilgefortis

Some years ago, when my honey was scheduled to return from a stint in Iraq, a longtime friend suggested that I welcome him home with a Brazilian wax.

“A what?” I asked, and she proceeded to explain the painful process of denuding female genitalia. “What!? Eewww!” was my visceral response.

She insisted, extolling the virtues of hairlessness, which seemed rather minimalist: “Men love it,” she said.

I blurted out something along the lines of, “When men slather their nether regions with hot wax and rip all their pubic hair from the follicles, that’s when I’ll consider waxing to be anything other than a product of misogyny.”

She insisted still, explaining that at least some men did wax their nether regions, that many gays had been waxing for years and straight men were beginning to take it up.

Now, I love this woman, and we’d had each other’s back through many a feminist action, so I typically lent credence to her sage advice, but this tidbit was nonplussing. We’d spent our adult lives challenging all the many things “men love” that are really shitty for women: men’s devotion to paying women less than they make, their persistent desire to control women’s reproduction, their fondness for dismissing women’s contributions as unworthy of note in news or historical text, their penchant for convincing women they’re inadequate in order to sell more crappola, their impassioned sense of entitlement to women’s bodies that results in harassment and rape and countless other abuses. I wondered if I’d tripped over the rare furrow in my friend’s feminist path, but she avowed that she loved it, too. I wondered still, but honored her choice, something we commonly did for each other.

More recently, this topic came up again at an erotic writing workshop I teach with a friend. Most of the women in the group went with the “Eewww” response, one said she partook of Brazilians because the result was sexy, and one of the men challenged any philosophical arguments, opting for the practical: He attributed the preference some males have for clear-cut female genitalia to a distaste for hair stuck in their teeth. This elicited a few blushes, a moment of consideration, and the inevitable nervous laughter, but no resolution. The workshop closed with an unresolved question: I still wondered why women did it — for men, for themselves, or was there indeed a more insidious reason for de-bushing one’s muff?

Just last week, I witnessed another discussion on the topic, rich with analysis and opinion, vociferous and eloquently nuanced, and I was reminded of my initial, visceral response to down-there depilation: “Eewww!” Albeit inarticulate, I think I’ll stick with it, because I don’t think women come of age believing they’ve just gotta harvest that blossoming crop of pubic hair. I suspect they are taught to dislike it by the media and by others — men and women — who’ve been similarly indoctrinated by the capitalist forces that benefit from such undermining lessons. Promoting the waxing of our crotchal areas in everything from fashion magazines to pornography (hmmm, not as much difference between the two as you might think) is just another way to keep women in a subordinate position — by telling us our pubic hair is a turnoff, by profiting from our insecurities, by infantilizing our genitalia. And I just can’t stop myself from wondering why anyone would prefer that a woman’s boinkal zone appear to be that of a prepubescent girl.

Thankfully, not everyone succumbs to the self-doubt that keeps capitalism churning. When I told my guy of the welcome home he would not receive, he said, “Yeah, that’s not appealing.”

Nice we agree on that, if not the war.

Love,
K-B

November 9, 2011, from Fallbrook’s Writers Read

Café des Artistes
103 S. Main Street, Fallbrook, CA
5:30 Doors open, supper menu available
6:00 Reading begins

In honor of our local veterans, San Diego-based writers Sue Diaz, author of Minefields of the Heart, and retired Navy Quaker Chaplin Cmdr. Sheri Snively, author of Heaven in the Midst of Hell, will read from their books, discuss their careers, and take questions from the audience.

Diaz, an award-winning journalist, will read from Minefields of the Heart: A Mother’s Stories of a Son at War. The book — a tender collection of wartime essays, a mother and son memoir, a letter full of love and compassion — is the result of Diaz’s unexpected march to war when her gentle son, Roman, enlisted in the Army in 2002 and was subsequently deployed to Iraq twice.

Snively’s book, Heaven in the Midst of Hell, was recognized with a forward by U.S. Marine General James N. Mattis, and Publisher’s Weekly wrote this about it: “Both text and photos convey the everyday details of life and death in the war zone: a menorah made of Coke cans, beanie babies piled on the bed of an Iraqi patient, smiling soldiers. Snively doesn’t offer a big-picture overview, but heaven and hell are in these personal details. From the perspective of a medical chaplain, the two sides are ‘life’ and ‘death’ rather than ‘us’ and ‘them.’”

The authors books will be available for sale and signing.

The featured authors will be preceded by open mic for poetry and prose.

For more information, contact Kit-Bacon at kbgressitt@gmail.com or 760-522-1064.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Warning: Adult content

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a designation first recognized in 1989. And it is still relevant. Despite the 1994 passage of the Violence Against Women Act. Despite the growing understanding that battering one’s partner is a crime, not spousal privilege. Despite the vast number of people who think they don’t know anyone who has been harmed by an intimate partner.

Because they are wrong. National Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM) is still relevant because at least one in four women in the United States — LBTQ or straight — will be assaulted some time in her life.

Name four women you know. One of them likely was, is being, or will be punched, kicked, strangled, burned, stabbed, raped — physically harmed by an intimate.

That’s startling, isn’t it. That’s why this month is a welcome opportunity to focus on raising awareness of the ongoing severity of the problem and on educating people to help prevent domestic violence.

And how did The Koala welcome the month? Tabloid owner George Lee Liddle III, of San Diego, released the latest issue of The Koala at Cal State University San Marcos (CSUSM), bearing the message that rape, violence, racism, homophobia, sodomy of minors and forced pornography are laughable entertainment.

Liddle and the students he manages at the three San Diego County public universities where The Koala is distributed call the tabloid satire, but their content makes clear that the publisher, writers and editors of The Koala don’t know satire from scripture. What they are doing is not funny; it fails as satire; it has no redeeming features. What they are doing is purveying violence, prejudice and hate. These predominantly white heterosexual men use these forms of violence to attract attention to The Koala and then giggle at the fear and outrage, the humiliation and damage that it causes. And they elicit these reactions from their victims with such content as the following (with The Koala‘s errors intact):

Top Five Phrases Never Heard at CSUSM 4. I’ve never been raped before

Women secretly want to be raped

Why do Mexicans classify themselves as people? THEY ARE A FUCKING SWARM OF BROWN SHIT.

Dear koala, Does drugging and raping my roommate make me gay?

Top Ten Advantages To Dating An Underage Girl: 4. They don’t know yet that ass to mouth isn’t acceptable; 6. If you knock her teeth out, they grow back

Top Five Signs Your Girlfriend is Dead: 2. She stopped struggling under the rope

… [W]hen you’re done appeasing our each and every obnoxious and whimsical demand, we’re still gonna fuck the old broad sweeping the stairs.

I couldn’t tell if the fishy smell was escaping fromt the fridge or if all these beautiful azian women had some of the stankiest pussys ever

To black guys: make your cocks smaller please.

To all the fat bitches out there: Suck a fart out of my ass, choke on it and die.

Dilcie, go to the top of the parking structure and jump…

And, in the recent CSUSM issue, Liddle published an image of a female student leader who was running for Homecoming King, Photoshopped into a pornographic scene, with the following headline and copy:

Please ask and do tell … and take pictures

Remember those fantasies of Homecoming you had back in high school? Imagining what it would be like to have a “lezzed-out” homecoming court. Wishing that the Jock who won the title of King were actually an exotic and stunning babe that could scissor the shit out of the queen?

In our rapidly changing times this dream has now become a reality. Thanks to the courageous and open-minded women who are running to be the Queen of King [student’s name redacted], we can all look forward to a Royal Fisting. The question remains, which princess will become the lucky Queen?

This is the product Liddle publishes and promotes on public university campuses, a product funded by commercial advertisers — and supported as a sanctioned student organization at University of California San Diego (UCSD).

And this is, statistics being what they are, what the 1,500 female students at CSUSM, the 3,675 at UCSD, and the 4,350 at SDSU who have been, are, or will be victims of domestic violence are subjected to each time The Koala is distributed.

Outrageous, eh? Are you outraged enough to do something about it?

Many of us at CSUSM are, and we are planning some actions that will protect First Amendment rights while attempting to protect students, faculty and staff from The Koala’s hate.

If you’d like to join us, visit www.CallOutTheKoala.com and subscribe to receive our updates or click the Call Out The Koala Facebook page Like button.

In the meantime, call The Koala advertisers and encourage them to stop funding hate. If you live in the same legislative district as UCSD, call your state legislators and ask them to help UCSD find a way to stop lending public support to a hate tabloid passing as a student organization.

Whatever you do…

Do something. In the face of hatred, apathy will be interpreted as acceptance — by the perpetrators, the public and, worse, the victims. Decent people must take action; if we don’t, hate persists.

—   Southern Poverty Law Center

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at East County Magazine and  San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

]]> http://www.kbgressitt.com/2011/09/14/culture/be-humble/feed/ 3 http://www.kbgressitt.com/2011/09/11/culture/fear-no-evil/ http://www.kbgressitt.com/2011/09/11/culture/fear-no-evil/#comments Sun, 11 Sep 2011 07:01:05 +0000 kbgressitt http://www.kbgressitt.com/?p=9262

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

As I sat in a college classroom Thursday afternoon, the power went out and we swiftly determined we were in the throes of a regional electrical power failure. My first thought was to check for students in the elevators. My second thought was of the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks and the possibility that the blackout was somehow related.

Actually, I’m being too charitable: My second thought was that the blackout could be the result of a terrorist attack, and when I couldn’t reach my daughter by cell phone, I had a fleeting moment of private panic.

My third thought was a multitude of things. I was angry that my own nation responded to the ravages of a small group of devastatingly lucky mad men with a devastatingly prolonged war and a culture of fear that would lead anyone to consider terrorism when simple corporate stupidity was a more likely cause of the electrical grid failure. I was angry with myself for passively complying with that fearful thinking. I was angry that the years and days leading up to today have been an exercise in institutionalized fear mongering and its internalization, as we have continually revisited the horrors of the attacks, glutted the irresolvable question of whether Osama Bin Laden has won despite that he now sleeps with the proverbial fishes, and chewed the cud of dread with the same fervor engendered by reality television — as though fear, normalized by our response to September 11, has become a national pastime.

And, I am angry because all the fear we have conjured has not made our country safe. National security is a misnomer, a fantasy even. No nation is safe, no nation is free from external or internal threat, no nation can secure its borders. Any nation can, however, encourage its populace to embrace fear or encourage its populace to open its arms to tolerance and democracy.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush and the majority of Congress responded to September 11 with the Patriot Act and new legal interpretations that violate our rights to privacy, free speech and due process; that entrench government secrecy and unconstitutional surveillance powers, the bane of democracy; that lead with fear.

In poignant contrast, Norway Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg responded to the July terrorist attacks on his nation with this: “We will not be intimidated or threatened by these attacks. The aim of such attacks is to spread fear and panic. We will not let that happen. … The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation.”

Some in the United States will refuse the comparison, dismissing Norway for its relative size, but Stoltenberg might understand better than Bush the notion that, no matter its size, a nation cannot be secure if the least of its people is not secure.

This thought gained clarity as we sat in our slowly warming classroom Thursday and talked about human security, personal security. We spoke of not feeling safe on the way to the campus parking lots in the dark. We spoke of being accosted on city sidewalks by men who felt entitled to do so simply because we are female. We spoke of feeling threatened in a group of men who might respond hostilely should we reveal our sexuality. We spoke of being targets of violence, by virtue of our gender — and that many men could not understand that, by virtue of being the privileged gender.

One vibrant young Black woman answered an assignment with this:

Where do you feel a lack of security? “Everywhere.”

What threatens your sense of security? “Men, white, police.”

What changes might give you more of a sense of security? “Having uncomfortable conversations.”

How brave she is to indeed have that conversation, no matter the discomfort — unlike our leaders, who have shown us that the most effective way to perpetuate the world’s evils is to fear them, to “spread fear and panic,” as we have done since September 11, 2001.

That vibrant young woman in my class is my new hero. The next time there’s a power failure, my first thought will be to check for folks in the elevators. My second thought will be that the utility-industrial complex has cut corners somewhere and screwed up again. And my third thought will be to have an uncomfortable conversation.

Love,
K-B

Take Action: Reform the Patriot Act

Read more: Let’s Cancel 9/11 by Tom Engelhardt

Crossposted at the Ocean Beach Rag and San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

We were on a quest for the perfect loveseat, my daughter and I. Clean enough that you don’t mind touching skin to upholstery and just enough wear so a little spilled tea won’t break your heart. Kate and I were clear on our priorities, and, as luck would have it — or was it something more intentional? — we found a treasure at our favorite Fallbrook thrift store, a nice church-sponsored place that seeks charity and justice, values we share. Well, minus the dogma. And the misogyny. We’re also passionately opposed to that celibacy thing.

Nonetheless, our quest was fulfilled — until we stumbled into one of those moments that stay with you a lifetime, a moment that surely is meant to instruct, but still we struggle to define the lesson.

“You have to write about it,” Kate said.

But how do I write about something that made my daughter weep? Oh, a part of me wants to, but is it the right part, the part that hopes to leave the path we travel a little sweeter smelling than we find it or the part that is not yet ready to let go the stinky rage at injustice?

When we first moved to Fallbrook the Friendly Village, Kate and I would cheer every time we passed a Black person in town — our little two fan wave, tempered by seatbelts but with unfettered enthusiasm for a more diverse team — it was that rare. And Fallbrook was that hostile to the occasional African-American military family who blundered into town and to the Latino laborers who kept the place running, while white folk spouted such grocery line chatter as, “Well, you know I’m not a racist, but…” And that’s just it: That was 20-some years ago, and we like to think Fallbrook has become more enlightened.

Yes, that’s what we like to think, and maybe it has. But, as we approached the thrift store counter to purchase our treasure of a loveseat, we stumbled on a throwback, a troglodyte freshly unearthed from his subterranean anachronism of bigotry and igno—

Oops. That would be the enraged part of me. Let me try that again.

As we stood in line to buy the loveseat, the white, middle-aged gentleman behind the counter, whose mission is “to grow spiritually by offering person-to-person service to those who are needy and suffering,” was telling the Spanish-speaking woman before him that what she had was a blouse and a sweater, not two blouses. The woman’s daughters explained that both items were on the blouse rack.

“I don’t care where you found it,” the white, middle-aged gentleman said in a voice with slightly elevated volume — say, on a scale of 1 to 10, 5 being conversation level, he was at a 6. “This one’s a sweater, not a blouse,” and he poked at the thing I’d have called neither a blouse nor a sweater, but, rather, a shirt. But I live in sweats and blue jeans, so what do I know. Not much, except that the white, middle-aged gentleman then picked up the subject garment, waved it in front of the woman and said,  “Suéter, not blusa. See?” and the woman’s shoulders turned inward as her head bowed. “Sué–ter!” he said at about volume 7.

I looked into my dear one’s eyes and said, “I’m sorry, Sweetie, but I cannot buy anything here,” and she agreed as we turned to go.

But then the white, middle-aged gentleman thrust the thing into the woman’s face, repeating, “Sué–ter! Sué–ter! Sué–ter!”

She shrank with each thrust of the shirt, farther into that place of oppression women know so well, particularly women of color. Oh, she had tried — and her daughters had tried — to gently disagree with the white, middle-aged gentleman, but this is what their efforts had wrought: the verbal assault of a privileged white male belittling those he would serve as they attempted a trivial purchase gone utterly wrong — and growing more intensely so. So utterly wrong and so increasingly intense, that I could not be still.

“Excuse me,” I said to the white, middle-aged gentleman, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you are behaving so dishonorably.”

“To who?” he asked as though he didn’t know but delivered at maybe a 7.5, which suggested he did.

Kate, my dear one, responded with, “To humanity.”

I would have taken a moment to savor the blended pride and sorrow, but for the ensuing assault now aimed at us, the clincher being, “Who are you?” spewed at about volume 8. “You’re not my priest!”

“No, but you need one,” I retorted, devoid of charity. “This is a Christian business. If there is a god, god is love. But you are serving hate,” which sent him into another tirade and escorted Kate and me right out the door.

We found our way to the car. Kate wept at the grotesquery of prejudice and privilege. I sat stunned by the man’s wrath and my idiocy. When the woman and her daughters emerged from the store, I apologized for further embarrassing them. The woman let me hug her, and her daughters said they are treated like that pretty regularly in Fallbrook the Friendly Village.

We parted ways, and I wondered if I had done the right thing, while Kate wondered at humankind: “I don’t care what people think and feel about certain races, sexual orientations, political alignments — but be human to your fellow humans!”

Now, we continue our quest for the perfect loveseat. We hope our paths cross charity and justice. And we remain uncertain what lesson is to be learned from our moment with the white, middle-aged gentleman who is so certain of the difference between a blusa and a suéter.

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at the Ocean Beach Rag,  The Progressive Post and San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

Thrift store image by Vista Vision via a Creative Commons license.

2011 San Diego Poetry Annual Launch Reading

August 10, 2011

Café des Artistes
103 S. Main Street, Fallbrook, CA

5:30 Doors open, supper menu available
6:00 The Poets of the 2011 San Diego Poetry Annual, followed by open mic

Now in its fifth year of publication, the 2010-2011 San Diego Poetry Annual features the work of English and Spanish language poets from throughout San Diego County, including 235 poems by 154 poets, including featured poet Steve Kowit and Marge Piercy.

Published by author Bill Harding, the 2010-2011 Annual was edited by Brandon Cesmat, Olga Garcia, Edith Jonsson-Devillers, Seretta Martin, Robt O’Sullivan Schleith, Terrence Spohn, Megan Webster and Jon Wesick.

The Annual is now part of the permanent collections of every college and university library in San Diego County, the San Diego City and County library systems, and the libraries of independent cities from Oceanside to Chula Vista, El Cajon to Escondido.

Copies of the Annual will be available for sale and signing by the poets reading on the 10^th. Come celebrate the region’s talent with us!

For more information, contact Kit-Bacon at kbgressitt@gmail.com or 760-522-1064.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

When I last worked a corporate job, I wished for a wife.

Now, as I study the shifting distribution of labor between females and males, I feel a little guilty about that. And as I find I have the time to offer to take the week’s suits to the dry cleaners, I’m no longer concerned about gender implications. And as I see the burgeoning acceptance of same-sex marriage and the trend from women referring to their “wives” to women referring to their wives, I wonder how the definitions and demarcations of women’s work and men’s work might change in the next few generations.

Back then, though, I really wanted a wife.

Oh, I had a perfectly good husband. He would welcome me at the door with a smartly shaken martini as I dragged myself in when most folks were contentedly farting in front of prime time TV, trot me back out to the car to take me to dinner, and offer up a quick boink before we crashed for the night.

While that was quite lovely — and loving — what he didn’t know was, well, there was a whole lot he didn’t know. Because I didn’t tell him.

I didn’t tell him that I would have loved to crawl into the womb of my home with a bowl of pasta and a foot rub.

I didn’t tell him that I would then have noticed the fur balls and felt compelled to gather them up before settling back into the loveseat and pasta.

I didn’t tell him that his inevitable suggestion that I leave the fur balls for the housekeeper would have angered and then saddened me.

I didn’t tell him that scooping them up himself was an option.

I didn’t tell him that dining out and housekeepers and smartly shaken martinis helped perpetuate a job I hated; a job that built a pool and remodeled a kitchen and took us around the world and paid for the college fund and rescued family members and kept us in the style to which we had happily become accustomed; a job that sucked big, hairy elephant schlongs.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell him I hated the job quite that much.

I hated it, because I spent 10 or 12 hours a day with a tribe of white, middle-aged men, in a culture in which the thought that Hurricane Katrina did a much-needed cleansing of New Orleans was actually uttered — and got a laugh. A culture in which the suggestion that a particular employee would not be able to do her public relations job if she gained any more weight, was met with concurring nods and silence. A culture where forwarding twat jokes at executive team meetings, from one Blackberry to another, was SOP, while Christian computer screensavers and the CEO’s scripture-of-the-day emails fronted for their sins.

No, I didn’t tell him quite how much I hated it. How I hated the sight of the boardroom table and reclining upholstered chairs. How I hated the smell of the place. How I hated the tribe’s privileged touch as they thumbed through reports, most often prepared for them by absent women. How I hated the lot of them, and how I began to hate my husband, simply because he was one of them, a white, middle-aged male. Nope, I didn’t tell him that.

And I didn’t tell him that I hated myself even more, for working in such a belittling, patriarchal, misogynistic environment.

And then I left.

And then I didn’t hate anyone anymore.

And then I began to forget why I wanted a wife when I had a perfectly good husband.

Except … although I’m ashamed to admit it, on occasion I still wish for a wife, the comforts of the feminine giver of care, a consoling bosom in which to bury my troubled brow, the smell of baking shortbread I didn’t knead myself, a void of fur balls in the living room.

Do you suppose that makes me a sexist pig?

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

You know that thing we used to have to do at the end of summer, the thing that whopped you upside the head with the brutal inevitability that vacation was over, that tar-bubble popping adventures and rhubarb-sucking loll-abouts were done, done and gone with the finality of a bee between your naked foot and the clover that enticed the insect to its death and you, to your hopping pain? You know, that “What I did for summer vacation” short essay assignment that taunted you from the dusty cool of the blackboard and picked at the mosquito bites oozing down your leg, making them itch all over again — as though defining your youthful joys would pack them away and yank from more distant springtime memories some mythically compliant learning mode?

Yep, that. I really hated that. Yet that’s what I wish I had to do right now. Being over and done with my summer vacation would be far preferable to what I’m actually doing right in the middle of it — studying families and gender and theater and social taboos.

What the hell was I thinking!

Well, what I was thinking was that it would be really cool to cram a cacaload of courses into a five-week intensive session. What I was not thinking about were the emotional repercussions of such an academic extravagance.

I was not thinking about our national descent into the ignominious status of having the highest poverty rates in the Western industrialized world, until I read a chapter from Sharon Hays’ Flat Broke With Children about a punitive welfare system designed to avoid making welfare payments; a system eager to drop families from its rolls and into economic oblivion when mothers are too sick to work or have chronically-ill or disabled family members to care for or they can’t keep jobs in a heartless economy; a system rich in self-righteous moralizing that calls denying aid to the impoverished success.

And now California will add to the rosters of the economically disappeared as mothers and children try to make sense of the 8-percent cut to their welfare-to-work checks, passed by the state legislature in last week’s budget bill. What do you suppose these mothers and children will do to fill the gap between the whopping $700 per month they used to receive and the new rate for a family of three — $640?

Neither was I thinking about the intimate pain of The Laramie Projec, until the play unfolded the linens of the town where Matthew Shepard was beaten and left in the darkness of homophobia to die; or the ambivalence of Matt’s fellow college student who played a gay man in Angels In America, yet mimicked the script of his church and parents that “Homosexuality is wrong”; or the 10-years-later perspective of the same young man, still ambivalent.

And now San Diego has a beating victim of its own, but this victim is homeless and gay, not a middle-class college student and gay. Will anyone write a play about Jason “Cowboy” Huggins, bashed in the head with a rock and not expected to live?

Nor was I thinking about wartime rape, until Lynn Nottage’s Ruined played unrelenting scenes of battling Congolese factions making war between women’s legs — with penises, sticks, gun barrels, bayonets, broken bottles…

And now, despite the United Nations’ 2008 resolution declaring rape a weapon of war, the ruination continues in the Democratic Republic of Congo — and the United States of America, where 3,158 incidents of sexual assault in the military were reported in 2010.

And I think I’ll stop there.

Perhaps the season’s joys can be salvaged. Maybe not. Maybe they shouldn’t be. But I could sure use a little break, a wee respite to suck sun-warmed sour from the neighbor’s purloined rhubarb or pop roadside tar bubbles in the summer’s shimmering heat.

Love,
K-B

Crossposted by the Ocean Beach Rag and San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.