The past few months have been pretty chaotic for me. I have been busy with my thesis, busy with work, busy with travel, busy with boys, busy with housemates, busy with housework. Busy with so many things that I have not had time to be still.
But this weekend, almost unexpectedly, I've found myself with nothing pressing to do. And it was lovely! I feel like a human again. And I'm sure that Stressed Out Future Joni will greatly appreciate the freezer full of veggie lasagne she now has!
My thesis is about applying Foucault's theory of ethics of the self to a particular concept: young people's negotiation of their love/sex relationships within the context of 'new media environments'. The lines between my thesis and my personal life - to borrow from that terrible song - are blurred. But unlike that awful song, it's kind of a wonderful thing.
I'll spare you a detailed explanation of the theory (if you wanna know about it, you can read my bloody thesis! Or the 3 volumes of Foucault's The History of Sexuality). Basically, ethics of the self is about developing a particular relationship with yourself. It is about critically engaging with social norms that tell us how to be, and with knowledge that claims to speak the 'truth' about who we are. It is about reflecting on who you are and who you want to be and why. It is about learning to find the boundaries, the limits, of your 'self' and exploring those edges. It is about growing and changing and challenging. But most of all, it is about care. Care for yourself and care for others.
It's been a really beautiful experience for me, doing a PhD on reflexive engagement with the 'self'. Because a PhD is a horrible thing to do, so caring for yourself while doing it is really important! I have learnt so much about myself in this process, and have grown and changed, and am really happy with the person that I have become (though I am not actually happy with my life right now, but, that is a different story).
If you were to read volumes 2 and 3 of The History of Sexuality you would find a rather lengthy explanation of various practices that the ancient Greeks and Romans engaged in as part of their self-crafting. The point of describing these, for Foucault, isn't to give us a 'how to' list, but to show how an active, reflexive engagement with one's 'self' can transform a person into something new. What the actual practices are is of secondary importance; it is what these practices do - what they produce - that matters most.
Finding balance in my life is something that I think I've always struggled with. Doing a PhD has made that struggle a lot harder. There have been times when it has broken me. I have had to stop working on my thesis, in the past, because if I didn't I would lose what little semblance of mental health I still had. I still struggle with finding balance, but I am a lot more aware of what I need to do to care for myself now - to prevent the balance from tipping too far into a place that is dangerous for my well-being.
This has meant learning things about myself and respecting those things. And some of those things have been unexpected. For instance, I've found that while I was working on writing my thesis I required a lot of external stimulation. I needed to maintain an active social life to balance out the intense thinking work I was doing. But as soon as I finished writing my first draft, I didn't want to see anybody! I needed to recharge, and being an introvert, that meant being away from other people.
I have learnt that it is really hard for me to live with other people. I am both more productive and happier when I am living on my own. It's not possible for me to live on my own right now, but this has become a priority for me - to have my own place by the time I turn 32. I'm also happier when I have an animal companion, so, along with my own apartment I will be getting my own cat. Though I'll feel bad about leaving my current feline companion... who spends more time with me than her owner!
Those are big things though, and care of the self can be about really simple things. Like having a weekend to do nothing. Or wearing nail polish. Or alphabetising my DVDs. There are a lot of little things that I have learnt to do to care for myself; I am not going to list them all here. The point is to figure out what those things are for yourself. What makes you happy? What makes you feel better when you're down? The point is to do those things for yourself. Because they are necessary and important! Because what is the point of going through life without enjoyment of it?
Monday, October 28, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
The Q in Alphabet Soup
Apparently yesterday (or today, depending on your time zone) was International Bisexuality Visibility Day. Personally, I'm not a fan of the term 'bisexual' and I cringe every time it's applied to me. It feels dated and incredibly limiting; 'bi' implies a duality and when it comes to gender and sexuality, there are a helluva lot more than two options! Also, I feel like it's an identity that has been co-opted by this fantasy whereby bisexual ladies (and their nubile friends) are seen as eagerly available to fulfill all your sexual desires.
I don't say this to be dissing on any bisexuals. If that's how you prefer to identify, that's up to you. I'd be interested in having a conversation about why bi, though, given that 'queer' and 'pansexual' are also well established options (though I have an uneasy relationship with pansexual too because I feel like it presents all sexual desire as being on an even field and is therefore quite reductionary of sexual desire).
I identify as queer. Queer is something of a catch-all phrase, though not in the way it is often used! While you can say that a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, etc identity is a 'queer' identity, each of these categories are identity categories onto themselves - and contain their own plethora of subcultures and ways of being which may or may not be 'queer'. What I'm trying to say is, these categories are overlapping, yes, but distinct. A lesbian is not necessarily queer. And yes, my eye does start to twitch every time I hear someone using the term queer interchangeably with other identity categories in the rainbow flavoured alphabet soup.
The reason that queer is a catch-all phrase, and why I identify with it so strongly, is because it is about a lot more than who you fuck. Sure, that's a part of it, but you can be staunchly heterosexual and still be queer. Queer is about critically engaging with the politics of gender, sexuality, and relationships. For a start. I'd say it's also about engaging with the politics of class and race, but as a middle class white woman whose academic focus has tended to be on other middle class white people, I'm going to leave that discussion for people who actually know what they're talking about. (Sometimes I feel like it's narcissistic to be so focused on deconstructing myself. But, firstly, it's my blog and I'll do what I want with it! And secondly, the only thing I can really claim to be an expert on is myself.)
So, to clarify, I feel that it is incorrect to identify as 'queer' on the sole basis of having sex with someone of the same gender as yourself. Being queer is about challenging 'normativity'. You know, that thing where women and men are supposed to like each other and get married (to each other) and be monogamous and have babies. And that thing where boys and girls look and act in certain ways, and those ways are different from one another. Or, you know, the idea that certain ways of doing or learning or creating are more valid or productive or useful than others.
The reason all this is on my mind as of late is because my life underwent a pretty big change a couple months ago, and it's taken me down a rather unexpected path. My girlfriend and I broke up, and I decided to start seeing men. It's...complicated and I don't fully understand how I went from being adamantly disinterested in men and happily committed to a beautiful woman to falling out of love with said woman and becoming happily uncommitted to some wonderful men. But it happened fast. Or, it didn't. At any rate, the turn around from being devastated about the breakup to being really fucking happy with my life happened incredibly fast.
Have I magically turned straight? No, definitely not. Am I still into women? Yes...no...I don't know. After a 7 year hiatus from men it's just feeling really nice to be in the company of men. This whole thing has left me with more questions than answers, but, for the most part I feel like the answers to the questions I've got are pretty much irrelevant. As long as the answer to the question "Am I happy?" is "Yes." Which it is.
Which is funny, because, for a long time I felt like I couldn't be happy with men. Because 7+ years ago I was really, very unhappy being with men. But... a lot has changed. What I realise now is that it wasn't men, as such, that I was unhappy with, but heteronormativity. The expectation that I would conform to particular ways of being gendered, sexual, and in a relationship did not sit easy for me. Especially in Calgary, which, in case you didn't know, is a very conservative place! Nonconformity isn't exactly encouraged in Calgary.
But, I've spent the better part of past decade gradually developing my queerness and now feel quite comfortable to be myself - in all my normative and non-normative glory - across all my relationships; be they with friends, family, colleagues, lovers, strangers, housemates, or service providers. My relationships with men now are quite different from before. For starters, they occur on my terms or they don't occur at all. I feel quite free, actually. Even more so than when I was just dating women. Because now, other person(s) consenting, I can have whatever kind of relationship I want with whomever I want. My reflections on queering relationships and the problem with monogamy are probably best left for another day though!
I will just say this: I really am happily uncommitted. And I really do feel free. I'm very nearly finished my PhD, and I have absolutely no idea what kind of a journey that's going to take me on. It was wonderful to have a partner for a good chunk of this last push to finish my thesis; I will forever be thankful to my ex for the support she gave me in what was a very difficult and trying period of my life. A lot of the happiness I feel now I owe to her - both for being with me and for breaking up with me. I want to be focused on myself now. I want to be able to pursue whatever interesting opportunities come my way in this next phase of my (professional) life, without having to negotiate that with another person. And I'm very thankful that I get to do that.
I don't say this to be dissing on any bisexuals. If that's how you prefer to identify, that's up to you. I'd be interested in having a conversation about why bi, though, given that 'queer' and 'pansexual' are also well established options (though I have an uneasy relationship with pansexual too because I feel like it presents all sexual desire as being on an even field and is therefore quite reductionary of sexual desire).
I identify as queer. Queer is something of a catch-all phrase, though not in the way it is often used! While you can say that a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, etc identity is a 'queer' identity, each of these categories are identity categories onto themselves - and contain their own plethora of subcultures and ways of being which may or may not be 'queer'. What I'm trying to say is, these categories are overlapping, yes, but distinct. A lesbian is not necessarily queer. And yes, my eye does start to twitch every time I hear someone using the term queer interchangeably with other identity categories in the rainbow flavoured alphabet soup.
The reason that queer is a catch-all phrase, and why I identify with it so strongly, is because it is about a lot more than who you fuck. Sure, that's a part of it, but you can be staunchly heterosexual and still be queer. Queer is about critically engaging with the politics of gender, sexuality, and relationships. For a start. I'd say it's also about engaging with the politics of class and race, but as a middle class white woman whose academic focus has tended to be on other middle class white people, I'm going to leave that discussion for people who actually know what they're talking about. (Sometimes I feel like it's narcissistic to be so focused on deconstructing myself. But, firstly, it's my blog and I'll do what I want with it! And secondly, the only thing I can really claim to be an expert on is myself.)
So, to clarify, I feel that it is incorrect to identify as 'queer' on the sole basis of having sex with someone of the same gender as yourself. Being queer is about challenging 'normativity'. You know, that thing where women and men are supposed to like each other and get married (to each other) and be monogamous and have babies. And that thing where boys and girls look and act in certain ways, and those ways are different from one another. Or, you know, the idea that certain ways of doing or learning or creating are more valid or productive or useful than others.
The reason all this is on my mind as of late is because my life underwent a pretty big change a couple months ago, and it's taken me down a rather unexpected path. My girlfriend and I broke up, and I decided to start seeing men. It's...complicated and I don't fully understand how I went from being adamantly disinterested in men and happily committed to a beautiful woman to falling out of love with said woman and becoming happily uncommitted to some wonderful men. But it happened fast. Or, it didn't. At any rate, the turn around from being devastated about the breakup to being really fucking happy with my life happened incredibly fast.
Have I magically turned straight? No, definitely not. Am I still into women? Yes...no...I don't know. After a 7 year hiatus from men it's just feeling really nice to be in the company of men. This whole thing has left me with more questions than answers, but, for the most part I feel like the answers to the questions I've got are pretty much irrelevant. As long as the answer to the question "Am I happy?" is "Yes." Which it is.
Which is funny, because, for a long time I felt like I couldn't be happy with men. Because 7+ years ago I was really, very unhappy being with men. But... a lot has changed. What I realise now is that it wasn't men, as such, that I was unhappy with, but heteronormativity. The expectation that I would conform to particular ways of being gendered, sexual, and in a relationship did not sit easy for me. Especially in Calgary, which, in case you didn't know, is a very conservative place! Nonconformity isn't exactly encouraged in Calgary.
But, I've spent the better part of past decade gradually developing my queerness and now feel quite comfortable to be myself - in all my normative and non-normative glory - across all my relationships; be they with friends, family, colleagues, lovers, strangers, housemates, or service providers. My relationships with men now are quite different from before. For starters, they occur on my terms or they don't occur at all. I feel quite free, actually. Even more so than when I was just dating women. Because now, other person(s) consenting, I can have whatever kind of relationship I want with whomever I want. My reflections on queering relationships and the problem with monogamy are probably best left for another day though!
I will just say this: I really am happily uncommitted. And I really do feel free. I'm very nearly finished my PhD, and I have absolutely no idea what kind of a journey that's going to take me on. It was wonderful to have a partner for a good chunk of this last push to finish my thesis; I will forever be thankful to my ex for the support she gave me in what was a very difficult and trying period of my life. A lot of the happiness I feel now I owe to her - both for being with me and for breaking up with me. I want to be focused on myself now. I want to be able to pursue whatever interesting opportunities come my way in this next phase of my (professional) life, without having to negotiate that with another person. And I'm very thankful that I get to do that.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Life After Thesis
For the past 5 years I've been working on my PhD, which culminates in the writing of an 80,000-100,000 word thesis. A couple of weeks ago I finished writing my thesis. It weighs in (with references and appendices) at just under 92,000 words.
Now, my PhD is by no means complete! The thesis is written, but now my supervisors are reading it and they will give me feedback on what I need to do to improve it. Then I'll do that, send it off to an editor to deal with all the finicky stuff, and submit. Then it gets sent to my examiners who read it and make their comments/suggestions and decide if it passes with major, minor, or no revisions (technically they can say it doesn't pass, but that almost never happens). THEN I have to respond to the comments the examiners make, and once that is satisfactorily completed, I can submit my hard bound thesis to the university and apply to graduate. And then, when I walk across the stage in my funny hat and get my physical degree, you'll all have to call me Dr Joni FOREVER!!! MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
As many of you are aware, the writing of said thesis has left me a tad ... preoccupied. (Other acceptable descriptions include: single-minded, self-centred, miserable, unpleasant company, nonsensical, or bat shit crazy.) It's consumed a lot of my energy, especially in the final pushes to finish it. I haven't had a lot of mental energy to expend upon other things, but, like the Joni Mitchell song says, "you don't know what you've got til it's gone." I thought I was leading a pretty balanced life, until I finished writing my thesis! Suddenly, I had all sorts of anxious mental energy and no outlet to pour it into. I was looking around at my life wildly going "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!?!?!?"
Fortunately for me, in a moment of desperation when I thought my thesis would never end I'd booked myself a week long holiday to Sydney. I turned a corner with the writing process a couple days after booking my flights, and having that upcoming holiday spurred me on to get everything finished so I wouldn't have to have the thesisbeast hanging over my head while I was away. The other benefit of this was, after handing off my thesis I had nothing to do but be anxious about everything. So getting out of town for awhile was a good move. If I'd been in Melbourne I probably would have spiraled into a bad state of mental health. Instead, having nothing in particular to do in a city where I wouldn't have anything in particular to do anyways was a great distraction from the newly formed void in my life. I had quite a lovely time roaming the streets of Sydney, sipping their (inferior) coffee in their very cute cafes, reading books about futuristic dystopias (by far my favourite genre).
When I got back to Melbourne though, I had to face the fact that I didn't have much of anything to do with myself. I mean, I have things. I'm about to start a new job, I've got friends to catch up with, I've got my girlfriend, there's revision work I can do on my thesis, as well as writing articles for publication. But I could also just sit in a corner and stare at a wall and drool all over myself. The pressure to produce something is gone.
Another smart move: I made an appointment to see a counsellor once I got back from Sydney. She said a couple of things that really resonated with me: 1) After working so hard for so long on a single project, letting it go is hard to do and involves some grieving. 2) The thesis becomes such a priority that everything else just gets pushed aside. Now that I'm not working on it, all those things I've pushed aside are popping back up and demanding my attention. And they are not necessarily things I want to give attention to!
I've got some issues to work through, and I've got the support to do that. I find that having my experiences validated actually goes a long way towards relieving my anxiety, so I'm feeling much better than I was about a week ago!
It hasn't been all bad, the stuff that's popped up and demanded my attention. In fact, a lot of it has been exciting and fun! For starters, I thought I was making a lot of time for my relationship with Foxy, but now there's just a whole different quality to that time. And that's been amazing! I'm really pumped to be able to catch up with all my friends again, I've just been hesitating because I'm also aware that I still don't actually have any money. Fortunately, this is now a temporary problem.
One of the things I'm really excited about is that I've actually started to pay attention to my physical body again. I've acquired more than a few PhD injuries over the past few years and now I am starting on the path to recovery. I've got a new program at the gym to help my injuries recover, Brunswick Baths has FINALLY reopened their indoor pool (which is good enough, since I've got a shoulder injury that makes swimming in a 50m pool difficult), I'm doing Pilates, Hubby is going to set me up with a personalised yoga program (since a wrist injury has written me off from my former yoga classes), and tomorrow I'm getting a remedial massage to sort out the rather intense muscle cramping in my legs.
I've started making food for myself again too. Food that involves more than carbs, sugar, and cheese. Food that is actually kinda delicious. I'm remembering flavours and creativity, and that cooking can be enjoyable.
I've also started to consider aesthetics again. Towards the end of the writing process, I rarely looked at myself in the mirror, or brushed my hair, or put much consideration into what my outfit as a whole looked like (all that mattered was if it felt comfortable to sit at a computer for 12 hours in). I'm remembering makeup and starting to wear it again. I've come to really like the way I look without makeup, but I stopped wearing it because it was just a hassle to not be able to rub my computer-bleary eyes, and because I only ever saw the same 10 people anyways and they didn't care. I've started to take pride in my appearance again and the difference is noticeable! I've made friends with nail polish as a fashion accessory, instead of just as a nail-biting deterrent.
Now that the thesis is not front and centre in my life, I'm starting to focus on myself again, or still, but in a different way! In a way that encompasses others. My life is about to begin a new era, so as I make the transition from 'PhD Candidate' to 'PhD', I am using this time to get back in touch with myself and the things that make me happy. Instead of spinning my wheels and worrying about what will be around the next bend, I am preparing myself to be the best version of myself so that I can meet whatever new found challenges await me head on. And look good doing it!
Now, my PhD is by no means complete! The thesis is written, but now my supervisors are reading it and they will give me feedback on what I need to do to improve it. Then I'll do that, send it off to an editor to deal with all the finicky stuff, and submit. Then it gets sent to my examiners who read it and make their comments/suggestions and decide if it passes with major, minor, or no revisions (technically they can say it doesn't pass, but that almost never happens). THEN I have to respond to the comments the examiners make, and once that is satisfactorily completed, I can submit my hard bound thesis to the university and apply to graduate. And then, when I walk across the stage in my funny hat and get my physical degree, you'll all have to call me Dr Joni FOREVER!!! MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
As many of you are aware, the writing of said thesis has left me a tad ... preoccupied. (Other acceptable descriptions include: single-minded, self-centred, miserable, unpleasant company, nonsensical, or bat shit crazy.) It's consumed a lot of my energy, especially in the final pushes to finish it. I haven't had a lot of mental energy to expend upon other things, but, like the Joni Mitchell song says, "you don't know what you've got til it's gone." I thought I was leading a pretty balanced life, until I finished writing my thesis! Suddenly, I had all sorts of anxious mental energy and no outlet to pour it into. I was looking around at my life wildly going "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!?!?!?"
Fortunately for me, in a moment of desperation when I thought my thesis would never end I'd booked myself a week long holiday to Sydney. I turned a corner with the writing process a couple days after booking my flights, and having that upcoming holiday spurred me on to get everything finished so I wouldn't have to have the thesisbeast hanging over my head while I was away. The other benefit of this was, after handing off my thesis I had nothing to do but be anxious about everything. So getting out of town for awhile was a good move. If I'd been in Melbourne I probably would have spiraled into a bad state of mental health. Instead, having nothing in particular to do in a city where I wouldn't have anything in particular to do anyways was a great distraction from the newly formed void in my life. I had quite a lovely time roaming the streets of Sydney, sipping their (inferior) coffee in their very cute cafes, reading books about futuristic dystopias (by far my favourite genre).
When I got back to Melbourne though, I had to face the fact that I didn't have much of anything to do with myself. I mean, I have things. I'm about to start a new job, I've got friends to catch up with, I've got my girlfriend, there's revision work I can do on my thesis, as well as writing articles for publication. But I could also just sit in a corner and stare at a wall and drool all over myself. The pressure to produce something is gone.
Another smart move: I made an appointment to see a counsellor once I got back from Sydney. She said a couple of things that really resonated with me: 1) After working so hard for so long on a single project, letting it go is hard to do and involves some grieving. 2) The thesis becomes such a priority that everything else just gets pushed aside. Now that I'm not working on it, all those things I've pushed aside are popping back up and demanding my attention. And they are not necessarily things I want to give attention to!
I've got some issues to work through, and I've got the support to do that. I find that having my experiences validated actually goes a long way towards relieving my anxiety, so I'm feeling much better than I was about a week ago!
It hasn't been all bad, the stuff that's popped up and demanded my attention. In fact, a lot of it has been exciting and fun! For starters, I thought I was making a lot of time for my relationship with Foxy, but now there's just a whole different quality to that time. And that's been amazing! I'm really pumped to be able to catch up with all my friends again, I've just been hesitating because I'm also aware that I still don't actually have any money. Fortunately, this is now a temporary problem.
One of the things I'm really excited about is that I've actually started to pay attention to my physical body again. I've acquired more than a few PhD injuries over the past few years and now I am starting on the path to recovery. I've got a new program at the gym to help my injuries recover, Brunswick Baths has FINALLY reopened their indoor pool (which is good enough, since I've got a shoulder injury that makes swimming in a 50m pool difficult), I'm doing Pilates, Hubby is going to set me up with a personalised yoga program (since a wrist injury has written me off from my former yoga classes), and tomorrow I'm getting a remedial massage to sort out the rather intense muscle cramping in my legs.
I've started making food for myself again too. Food that involves more than carbs, sugar, and cheese. Food that is actually kinda delicious. I'm remembering flavours and creativity, and that cooking can be enjoyable.
I've also started to consider aesthetics again. Towards the end of the writing process, I rarely looked at myself in the mirror, or brushed my hair, or put much consideration into what my outfit as a whole looked like (all that mattered was if it felt comfortable to sit at a computer for 12 hours in). I'm remembering makeup and starting to wear it again. I've come to really like the way I look without makeup, but I stopped wearing it because it was just a hassle to not be able to rub my computer-bleary eyes, and because I only ever saw the same 10 people anyways and they didn't care. I've started to take pride in my appearance again and the difference is noticeable! I've made friends with nail polish as a fashion accessory, instead of just as a nail-biting deterrent.
Now that the thesis is not front and centre in my life, I'm starting to focus on myself again, or still, but in a different way! In a way that encompasses others. My life is about to begin a new era, so as I make the transition from 'PhD Candidate' to 'PhD', I am using this time to get back in touch with myself and the things that make me happy. Instead of spinning my wheels and worrying about what will be around the next bend, I am preparing myself to be the best version of myself so that I can meet whatever new found challenges await me head on. And look good doing it!
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Why I Don't Support Marriage Equality
If you're looking at my blog, you've probably encountered the recent sea of red marriage equality pictures on Facebook. Maybe you've even joined in yourself, changing your profile picture to some version of this:
Perhaps you've noticed my hostility to these 'marriage equality' campaigns over the years. I figured it's about time that I addressed why I do not support this movement, and why I think you should be critical of it too.
I am not a supporter of marriage, gay or straight. Its basis - women as the property of men - is extremely misogynistic and has never been effectively critiqued and reworked on a societal level. Sure, my father can't exchange me to a man of his choosing for a predetermined number of goats anymore, but that is not really a challenge to the underlying gendered bias of marriage. Although individual couples may be much better able to negotiate the terms of the gendered roles of their relationships than in the past, the cultural 'script' of what it means to be married - that is, the picture we immediately get when we think of a married couple - continues to be one where the man is the head of the household, and the woman takes care of the kids. Until we have a non-gendered cultural/societal understanding of the roles within a marriage, there is nothing 'equal' about it!
Same-sex marriage is not inherently more progressive than heterosexual marriage. Our understanding of 'married couple' is shaped by assumptions that the relationship consists of two people who engage in particular gendered behaviours; whether or not their genitals match up with these roles is pretty much irrelevant. I suspect that same-sex marriage actually promotes a more conservative understanding of same-sex relationships than currently exists. Instead of opening up the possibility to reconsider how gendered roles are negotiated within heterosexual relationships, I suspect same-sex couples will instead be bombarded with more questions of the "So, which one of you is the man?" variety.
Gaining the 'privilege' of entering into a heterosexual institution also means playing by their rules. Hinging civil rights onto marriage further exasperates inequalities. There are many valid reasons not to want to get married, regardless of who you don't want to get married to. I worry that when equal rights are attached to marriage, unmarried same-sex couples who try to fight against discrimination will be left with little other recourse than to marry. For instance, parenting rights. Many heterosexual couples have kids without getting married and the father is still recognised as the legal co-parent. I think that as a society it would be easy for us to just expect that same-sex couples would get married in order to access rights that are granted to heterosexuals simply for being heterosexual. This is because underlying issues of homophobia are not being addressed by the marriage equality movement.
Marriage equality will not end homophobia; after all, interracial marriage did not end racism. Instead, it creates a hierarchy of relationship types whereby being married is privileged over all other relationships and other relationship configurations are dismissed as not possibly being as committed/serious/caring. I'm sure we're all familiar with some of the abominations of heterosexual celebrity marriages, so I probably don't need to spend a lot of time talking about how ridiculous it is to assume that marriage is the best possible type of relationship to be in. Heterosexual couples already have to deal with the pressure of marriage privilege when they choose not to marry. Same-sex marriage will only make the marriage monster a bigger, badder, harder to resist machine of cultural conformity.
Because same-sex attracted people have been excluded from the tradition of marriage, we have had to come up with other ways of being in relationships. This has meant creating new ways of making commitments to one another, and finding new reasons to stay together when things get tough. Marriage presents itself as a 'one size fits all' kind of relationship, but we've got stockades full of evidence that shows it does not. The marriage equality movement is closing the queer community off from having those discussions. Our voices are silenced and we are made to feel guilty for not jumping on the bandwagon.
Same-sex marriage is being heralded as a band-aid that will fix all our gay issues. I keep hearing that once our relationships are recognised as 'legitimate', we will be much better able to fight for issues like queer suicide and homophobic bullying. I hear this from intelligent, critical thinking people who should know better. If we have to get married for our relationships to be seen as legitimate, that is NOT acceptance! That is barely even tolerance. In many ways I think that allowing same-sex marriage will make it harder to fight against homophobia and what it produces. It shifts the attitude to "We gave you marriage, what are you still complaining about?" It makes it harder to point to the systemic discrimination that lead to things like higher rates of depression and suicide amongst the queer community. "Give it time, it takes time for the benefits of marriage equality to trickle down." I don't see how anyone can think that is 'good enough'.
Queer relationships are legitimate, diverse, alternative models to the heteronorm. I refuse to belong to a movement that tells me what I have is not worth valuing and asks me to conform to someone else's values. Marriage equality denies the good things about different types of queer relationships and tells us we'd be so much better off if we aspired to be like heterosexuals.
Remember second wave feminism? Where women were told they should strive to be like men and that would be super awesome? Remember what that produced? It created an even greater devaluation of traditional femininity, making it harder to engage men in feminism because asking them to step into the home was asking them to voluntarily become social outcasts.
I think the marriage equality movement, like second wave feminism, started out with good intentions. But it has been co-opted by conservative values and it's time we let it go and moved on to something new. Something that recognises the value within different types of relationships and doesn't place one type above all others. I don't want to take the marriage model away as a type of relationship that people engage in. What I want is for the marriage model to be recognised as one of many different, legitimate types of relationship models that some people engage in. And I think that's something that we can achieve, if we start to think critically about what marriage equality will actually produce.
Same-sex marriage is not inherently more progressive than heterosexual marriage. Our understanding of 'married couple' is shaped by assumptions that the relationship consists of two people who engage in particular gendered behaviours; whether or not their genitals match up with these roles is pretty much irrelevant. I suspect that same-sex marriage actually promotes a more conservative understanding of same-sex relationships than currently exists. Instead of opening up the possibility to reconsider how gendered roles are negotiated within heterosexual relationships, I suspect same-sex couples will instead be bombarded with more questions of the "So, which one of you is the man?" variety.
Gaining the 'privilege' of entering into a heterosexual institution also means playing by their rules. Hinging civil rights onto marriage further exasperates inequalities. There are many valid reasons not to want to get married, regardless of who you don't want to get married to. I worry that when equal rights are attached to marriage, unmarried same-sex couples who try to fight against discrimination will be left with little other recourse than to marry. For instance, parenting rights. Many heterosexual couples have kids without getting married and the father is still recognised as the legal co-parent. I think that as a society it would be easy for us to just expect that same-sex couples would get married in order to access rights that are granted to heterosexuals simply for being heterosexual. This is because underlying issues of homophobia are not being addressed by the marriage equality movement.
Marriage equality will not end homophobia; after all, interracial marriage did not end racism. Instead, it creates a hierarchy of relationship types whereby being married is privileged over all other relationships and other relationship configurations are dismissed as not possibly being as committed/serious/caring. I'm sure we're all familiar with some of the abominations of heterosexual celebrity marriages, so I probably don't need to spend a lot of time talking about how ridiculous it is to assume that marriage is the best possible type of relationship to be in. Heterosexual couples already have to deal with the pressure of marriage privilege when they choose not to marry. Same-sex marriage will only make the marriage monster a bigger, badder, harder to resist machine of cultural conformity.
Because same-sex attracted people have been excluded from the tradition of marriage, we have had to come up with other ways of being in relationships. This has meant creating new ways of making commitments to one another, and finding new reasons to stay together when things get tough. Marriage presents itself as a 'one size fits all' kind of relationship, but we've got stockades full of evidence that shows it does not. The marriage equality movement is closing the queer community off from having those discussions. Our voices are silenced and we are made to feel guilty for not jumping on the bandwagon.
Same-sex marriage is being heralded as a band-aid that will fix all our gay issues. I keep hearing that once our relationships are recognised as 'legitimate', we will be much better able to fight for issues like queer suicide and homophobic bullying. I hear this from intelligent, critical thinking people who should know better. If we have to get married for our relationships to be seen as legitimate, that is NOT acceptance! That is barely even tolerance. In many ways I think that allowing same-sex marriage will make it harder to fight against homophobia and what it produces. It shifts the attitude to "We gave you marriage, what are you still complaining about?" It makes it harder to point to the systemic discrimination that lead to things like higher rates of depression and suicide amongst the queer community. "Give it time, it takes time for the benefits of marriage equality to trickle down." I don't see how anyone can think that is 'good enough'.
Queer relationships are legitimate, diverse, alternative models to the heteronorm. I refuse to belong to a movement that tells me what I have is not worth valuing and asks me to conform to someone else's values. Marriage equality denies the good things about different types of queer relationships and tells us we'd be so much better off if we aspired to be like heterosexuals.
Remember second wave feminism? Where women were told they should strive to be like men and that would be super awesome? Remember what that produced? It created an even greater devaluation of traditional femininity, making it harder to engage men in feminism because asking them to step into the home was asking them to voluntarily become social outcasts.
I think the marriage equality movement, like second wave feminism, started out with good intentions. But it has been co-opted by conservative values and it's time we let it go and moved on to something new. Something that recognises the value within different types of relationships and doesn't place one type above all others. I don't want to take the marriage model away as a type of relationship that people engage in. What I want is for the marriage model to be recognised as one of many different, legitimate types of relationship models that some people engage in. And I think that's something that we can achieve, if we start to think critically about what marriage equality will actually produce.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Aussie Camping Adventure
In the five years I've been living in Australia I've come a long way in creating myself as an Australian. But there was one thing missing: an Aussie camping trip! For the past few years I have been longing to sleep in a tent and roast marshmallows over a camp fire. Unfortunately for me, I haven't had particularly camping inclined friends. So while I've gone on a few road trips now, they've always involved staying in buildings with electricity, plumbing, and beds.
Fortunately for me, I met my girlfriend, hence forth referred to as 'Foxy'. Foxy loves road trips and camping, so when I told her I was serious about wanting to go camping over brunch one morning, within 2 hours we had our trip planned and booked! Since I can't even remember the last time I went camping we decided to go to a caravan park instead of just rocking up to the bush like she's used to. At the recommendation of some of my friends, we settled on Cumberland river on the Great Ocean Road.
The thing about camping is, you need a car. While Foxy has a car, she doesn't have her licence. And while I have my licence, I've hardly driven in the past 5 years, had never driven in Melbourne, and had quite limited experience driving on the left. Look, we did alright! Both the people and the car made it there and back without injury, bar a few frazzled nerves. Let's just say, driving at night is much harder than I remember it. Driving down the Great Ocean Road at night is terrifying. I'm glad that most of the driving we did was during the bright, sunny, clear-skied day!
We hit the road late Friday morning and headed off for what was both my first Aussie camping adventure and me and Foxy's first weekend away together. The drive down the Great Ocean Road is truly beautiful, and it is actually a fun drive too - if you like windy roads. By the time we left on Sunday I was really enjoying making my way around those tight bends. I'm not going to lie, I really do enjoy driving and it was damn good to be behind the wheel of a car again! Even if I was pretty nervous.
We got to the campground in the afternoon, and were very pleased to discover that not only did our campsite have a beautiful view, but it was also probably the shadiest site in the campground. Foxy got the tent up, with me attempting to be helpful. She'd picked us up a 6 person tent, so we had heaps of room (relatively speaking), and I've got a nifty air mattress, so we were pretty darn comfortable! Once we'd gotten ourselves set up, we cracked open a couple beers and enjoyed the serenity. At least until we discovered that we were camping next to a large group of dads with a disproportionate number of daughters, all under the age of 7. The dad two sites over from us was particularly crap, as were his bratty daughters who kept wandering into our campsite to play and then looked at us like wtf were we doing there... *shutter*
After we had gotten ourselves settled we popped over across the road for some quality beach time. The beach was good! The sand was soft and not too hot, the waves were crashing in impressively, there were neat rocks to explore on, and we were right where the river met the ocean. That evening we drove into nearby Lorne for dinner, followed by ice cream. Then it was back to the campground for our first night in the tent.
We lucked out and got really amazing weather. The nights were cool but not too cold, the mornings were slightly overcast with a cool breeze, but then the sun would break through the clouds and the rest of the day would be sunny and just hot enough to be enjoyable summer weather. We weren't the only ones who fluked out on the good weather though! It turns out Saturday afternoon we had front row seats to a wedding! As many of you know, I'm not exactly a fan of weddings. But I enjoyed this one. Everyone was really friendly and relaxed. We had a chat with the groom and the uncle as they set up the decorations for the ceremony in the morning and they were really lovely and encouraged us to come watch the wedding (the uncle referred to children as short monsters, instantly winning us over).
The campground is on a bushwalking trail to some waterfalls. I think there's a few different falls you can go to, depending on how far you want to hike. We decided to check out Cumberland Falls, which was approximately a 9km return trip. Planning to have a swim in the rock pools and a picnic lunch, we packed up my backpack with supplies and headed off. This bushwalk involved a fair bit of river hopping, which I was quite happy about as I enjoy scampering over rocks. Foxy was less keen on that part of it, but by the time we came back she was making her way across the rocks like a champ!
We had been left with the impression that the trail was fairly easy and well marked. For the most part that was true, but there were certainly a few places where we had no idea where the trail was, and the bit right before the falls involved more intense rock clambering that we'd signed on for. In the end, we didn't have a picnic or go for a swim, so the pack was a bit of a nuisance. But now we know for next time.
I'd been going on about how I wanted to see some Australian wildlife, and may or may not have said "This trip won't be complete unless I see a marsupial." (Which we did - we saw some kangaroos while driving into Lorne.) On the hike we came across heaps of lizards. I am a fan of reptiles, so I was pretty happy about that. Although, this being Australia, I was a bit disappointed that the lizards weren't gigantic. So after one of our river crossings on the way back, when I saw a large reptilian head on the other side of some rocks, I was pretty keen to get up close and personal with a big ass lizard!
IT WAS NOT A LIZARD!!! I stepped over the rock and found myself standing right beside an impressively sized snake. Now, I like snakes, a lot. But as Foxy put it, "The 5th most poisonous snake in Australia will still kill you."
I quickly backed up to the other side of the rocks while calling out "SNAKE! It's a snake!" With Foxy behind me going "Get back! Get back!" For its part, the snake slithered off back into the bush where it was safe from pestering humans trodding on it. All it wanted was to sun itself on the nice, warm rocks.
There were some people coming up the track, so I thought I'd be useful and yelled out that there was a snake up ahead. Apparently this was not a helpful thing to do. When they reached us - a group of barefooted, bare chested men and teenage boys - we informed them that there had been a snake and it had gone back into the bush.
One of the boys asked what it looked like and Foxy said "It was black with a yellow belly."
"Ah, a yellow-bellied black snake." The boy replied.
Classic Australiana.
Relaying this story to Hubby, he informed me that there is no such thing as a yellow-bellied black snake. With a bit of Googling I discovered that what we stumbled across was actually a tiger snake which is one of the most venomous snakes in the world. Well then!
Our walk went quite quickly after that and we found ourselves back at our campsite in no time. We got stuck into our lunch and watched as the wedding got into full swing. We'd been informed that the bridal car was something to watch out for, and sure enough, they rocked up in a baby blue combie. We both quite enjoyed watching the wedding from our campsite, not only because of the wedding, but because all these other people came and stood beside our campsite to watch from what could be considered a respectful distance. And while they stood around and had a geeze, we got to hear all the goss about the couple and about the campground. For two people who love people watching, this was the perfect way to spend the afternoon!
Once the wedding had cleared off we headed back over to the beach to get in a bit of an ocean swim. The waves were crashing and the rip was pulling and it was just so damn refreshing! We had a bit of a play in the rocks again and then headed back to the campground for a shower before driving back into Lorne for dinner.
And then, after dinner, we came back to our campsite for a special treat. S'MORES!!!!! Honestly, this was the real reason I wanted to go camping. I hadn't had s'mores in years, and it had been even longer since I'd had them the traditional way: marshmallows roasted in a camp fire. I'd brought graham crackers and jet puffed marshmallows back from Canada on my last trip out there and had been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to get myself around a camp fire to bust them out.
We were at a bit of a disadvantage with roasting the marshmallows as we didn't have a proper stick to put them on and were using bamboo skewers instead. This meant that we had to be pretty close to the fire, which meant we got faces full of smoke. So there were none of the golden brown artisan marshmallows of my youth, but we made due. I was very happy to get to share the wonderous glory of s'mores with Foxy. You can't get graham crackers in Australia, so they're not really a thing here. It would be a source of much sadness for them, if only they knew what they were missing out on.
Once we had stuffed ourselves with s'mores it was off to bed, where sleep was interrupted by obnoxious teenage boys and a coughing/crying baby. Sunday morning we were greeted with the familiar sounds of shrieking children, signalling that it was time for us to get up and pack up the campsite and make our way back to Melbourne. We made a good team getting everything sorted and it wasn't long before we were ready to hit the road again. We stopped in Lorne one last time for brunch (at the most Melbourne-esque cafe we could find) and then joined the scores of weekend holidayers making their way back to the city. I was a much more confident driver by this point, and the drive home was pretty uneventful, the highlight being us taking a more direct route than suggested by the GPS and listening to her mispronounced 'recalculating'.
All in all, my first Aussie camping adventure was a big success! I got to drive, I saw some marsupials, I slept in a tent, I didn't get eaten alive by bugs (though I did coat myself in a fair bit of DEET), I had a close encounter with a snake, I got to make motherfucking S'MORES!, I built a camp fire, I swam in the ocean, I went on a bushwalk, and most importantly, I got to spend an amazing weekend away with Foxy. I can't wait to do it all again!
Fortunately for me, I met my girlfriend, hence forth referred to as 'Foxy'. Foxy loves road trips and camping, so when I told her I was serious about wanting to go camping over brunch one morning, within 2 hours we had our trip planned and booked! Since I can't even remember the last time I went camping we decided to go to a caravan park instead of just rocking up to the bush like she's used to. At the recommendation of some of my friends, we settled on Cumberland river on the Great Ocean Road.
The thing about camping is, you need a car. While Foxy has a car, she doesn't have her licence. And while I have my licence, I've hardly driven in the past 5 years, had never driven in Melbourne, and had quite limited experience driving on the left. Look, we did alright! Both the people and the car made it there and back without injury, bar a few frazzled nerves. Let's just say, driving at night is much harder than I remember it. Driving down the Great Ocean Road at night is terrifying. I'm glad that most of the driving we did was during the bright, sunny, clear-skied day!
We hit the road late Friday morning and headed off for what was both my first Aussie camping adventure and me and Foxy's first weekend away together. The drive down the Great Ocean Road is truly beautiful, and it is actually a fun drive too - if you like windy roads. By the time we left on Sunday I was really enjoying making my way around those tight bends. I'm not going to lie, I really do enjoy driving and it was damn good to be behind the wheel of a car again! Even if I was pretty nervous.
 |
| Great shark! On the Great Ocean Road. |
We got to the campground in the afternoon, and were very pleased to discover that not only did our campsite have a beautiful view, but it was also probably the shadiest site in the campground. Foxy got the tent up, with me attempting to be helpful. She'd picked us up a 6 person tent, so we had heaps of room (relatively speaking), and I've got a nifty air mattress, so we were pretty darn comfortable! Once we'd gotten ourselves set up, we cracked open a couple beers and enjoyed the serenity. At least until we discovered that we were camping next to a large group of dads with a disproportionate number of daughters, all under the age of 7. The dad two sites over from us was particularly crap, as were his bratty daughters who kept wandering into our campsite to play and then looked at us like wtf were we doing there... *shutter*
 |
| Tent up = beer o'clock! |
After we had gotten ourselves settled we popped over across the road for some quality beach time. The beach was good! The sand was soft and not too hot, the waves were crashing in impressively, there were neat rocks to explore on, and we were right where the river met the ocean. That evening we drove into nearby Lorne for dinner, followed by ice cream. Then it was back to the campground for our first night in the tent.
 |
| Beach time! |
We lucked out and got really amazing weather. The nights were cool but not too cold, the mornings were slightly overcast with a cool breeze, but then the sun would break through the clouds and the rest of the day would be sunny and just hot enough to be enjoyable summer weather. We weren't the only ones who fluked out on the good weather though! It turns out Saturday afternoon we had front row seats to a wedding! As many of you know, I'm not exactly a fan of weddings. But I enjoyed this one. Everyone was really friendly and relaxed. We had a chat with the groom and the uncle as they set up the decorations for the ceremony in the morning and they were really lovely and encouraged us to come watch the wedding (the uncle referred to children as short monsters, instantly winning us over).
 |
| How's the serenity? |
The campground is on a bushwalking trail to some waterfalls. I think there's a few different falls you can go to, depending on how far you want to hike. We decided to check out Cumberland Falls, which was approximately a 9km return trip. Planning to have a swim in the rock pools and a picnic lunch, we packed up my backpack with supplies and headed off. This bushwalk involved a fair bit of river hopping, which I was quite happy about as I enjoy scampering over rocks. Foxy was less keen on that part of it, but by the time we came back she was making her way across the rocks like a champ!
We had been left with the impression that the trail was fairly easy and well marked. For the most part that was true, but there were certainly a few places where we had no idea where the trail was, and the bit right before the falls involved more intense rock clambering that we'd signed on for. In the end, we didn't have a picnic or go for a swim, so the pack was a bit of a nuisance. But now we know for next time.
 |
| Cumberland Falls |
I'd been going on about how I wanted to see some Australian wildlife, and may or may not have said "This trip won't be complete unless I see a marsupial." (Which we did - we saw some kangaroos while driving into Lorne.) On the hike we came across heaps of lizards. I am a fan of reptiles, so I was pretty happy about that. Although, this being Australia, I was a bit disappointed that the lizards weren't gigantic. So after one of our river crossings on the way back, when I saw a large reptilian head on the other side of some rocks, I was pretty keen to get up close and personal with a big ass lizard!
IT WAS NOT A LIZARD!!! I stepped over the rock and found myself standing right beside an impressively sized snake. Now, I like snakes, a lot. But as Foxy put it, "The 5th most poisonous snake in Australia will still kill you."
I quickly backed up to the other side of the rocks while calling out "SNAKE! It's a snake!" With Foxy behind me going "Get back! Get back!" For its part, the snake slithered off back into the bush where it was safe from pestering humans trodding on it. All it wanted was to sun itself on the nice, warm rocks.
There were some people coming up the track, so I thought I'd be useful and yelled out that there was a snake up ahead. Apparently this was not a helpful thing to do. When they reached us - a group of barefooted, bare chested men and teenage boys - we informed them that there had been a snake and it had gone back into the bush.
One of the boys asked what it looked like and Foxy said "It was black with a yellow belly."
"Ah, a yellow-bellied black snake." The boy replied.
Classic Australiana.
Relaying this story to Hubby, he informed me that there is no such thing as a yellow-bellied black snake. With a bit of Googling I discovered that what we stumbled across was actually a tiger snake which is one of the most venomous snakes in the world. Well then!
Our walk went quite quickly after that and we found ourselves back at our campsite in no time. We got stuck into our lunch and watched as the wedding got into full swing. We'd been informed that the bridal car was something to watch out for, and sure enough, they rocked up in a baby blue combie. We both quite enjoyed watching the wedding from our campsite, not only because of the wedding, but because all these other people came and stood beside our campsite to watch from what could be considered a respectful distance. And while they stood around and had a geeze, we got to hear all the goss about the couple and about the campground. For two people who love people watching, this was the perfect way to spend the afternoon!
 |
| The Bridal Combie |
Once the wedding had cleared off we headed back over to the beach to get in a bit of an ocean swim. The waves were crashing and the rip was pulling and it was just so damn refreshing! We had a bit of a play in the rocks again and then headed back to the campground for a shower before driving back into Lorne for dinner.
And then, after dinner, we came back to our campsite for a special treat. S'MORES!!!!! Honestly, this was the real reason I wanted to go camping. I hadn't had s'mores in years, and it had been even longer since I'd had them the traditional way: marshmallows roasted in a camp fire. I'd brought graham crackers and jet puffed marshmallows back from Canada on my last trip out there and had been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to get myself around a camp fire to bust them out.
We were at a bit of a disadvantage with roasting the marshmallows as we didn't have a proper stick to put them on and were using bamboo skewers instead. This meant that we had to be pretty close to the fire, which meant we got faces full of smoke. So there were none of the golden brown artisan marshmallows of my youth, but we made due. I was very happy to get to share the wonderous glory of s'mores with Foxy. You can't get graham crackers in Australia, so they're not really a thing here. It would be a source of much sadness for them, if only they knew what they were missing out on.
 |
| S'MORES!!!!! |
Once we had stuffed ourselves with s'mores it was off to bed, where sleep was interrupted by obnoxious teenage boys and a coughing/crying baby. Sunday morning we were greeted with the familiar sounds of shrieking children, signalling that it was time for us to get up and pack up the campsite and make our way back to Melbourne. We made a good team getting everything sorted and it wasn't long before we were ready to hit the road again. We stopped in Lorne one last time for brunch (at the most Melbourne-esque cafe we could find) and then joined the scores of weekend holidayers making their way back to the city. I was a much more confident driver by this point, and the drive home was pretty uneventful, the highlight being us taking a more direct route than suggested by the GPS and listening to her mispronounced 'recalculating'.
All in all, my first Aussie camping adventure was a big success! I got to drive, I saw some marsupials, I slept in a tent, I didn't get eaten alive by bugs (though I did coat myself in a fair bit of DEET), I had a close encounter with a snake, I got to make motherfucking S'MORES!, I built a camp fire, I swam in the ocean, I went on a bushwalk, and most importantly, I got to spend an amazing weekend away with Foxy. I can't wait to do it all again!
Monday, December 10, 2012
A Place To Call Homo
Often when I write one of these blogs I save it to do a final read over later before publishing. Well! Nearly a month ago I wrote a blog about the stress of house hunting, but as November was the most insanely busy month of my life, by the time I could get back to it we'd already found a place and I had to start packing. And now that I finally am getting back to it, we're all moved in and I've handed over the keys to my old apartment!
So, let me catch you up...
Early on in our friendship, Trouble and I started tossing around the idea of getting a place together. Every now and then we'd look into it, but after a few days of excitement we'd drop our new play thing and get back to our lives. I had decided a while ago that I'd move house at/towards the end of my PhD, and when I chose my last flatmate, a major draw was that she only wanted temporary accommodation. Her boyfriend is overseas, and when he returns they'll be getting a place together. I decided that I would stay on here until he came back, and then find somewhere cheaper to live. Before I left for Canada we talked about when that might be and agreed to move at the start of December.
My plan was to just find a room in an existing share house and sell off all my excess furniture, but of course I let Trouble know that I'd soon be looking for a new place to live. Well! The stars had finally aligned! She was ready to move on from her place too. We started checking out different places online and getting a sense of what we both wanted from our new home (something which has been remarkably easy since we agree on pretty much everything). We're both over the moon about finally getting a place together to make our own little queer, sex positive, clothing optional, clean and tidy, haven!
The original plan was to find a decently sized 3 bedroom house in the inner west, because, such things exist both in abundance and for very cheap. While we've both been really excited about the move, the idea of changing suburbs caused us a fair amount of anxiety. My life is very firmly established in Brunswick; I regularly spend my weekend catching up with people on a whim, something that is easy to do given that almost all my friends live within 3 km of me. Plus I've got my gym, my yoga instructor, my Pilates studio... But a new suburb would invite new adventures, and Trouble was quite keen on moving out west.
I swear to Swimming Pool, it was the moment that I'd finally made peace with the idea of leaving Brunswick that Trouble said to me SHE was really anxious about leaving Brunswick and would much prefer to stay! Well, fuck! Cue the search for an affordable 3 bedroom house in the Brunswick area...
While such houses are abundant out west, they are almost non-existent in Brunswick. Comparatively, they are smaller and more rent than what we would get out west. Of course, that is because even though TuPac claims the west side is the best side, Brunswicked is where it's at! In our search, we came across 3 houses that were only marginally over our budget. The first one we'd found out about too late, the second one was only a block up the street from my apartment, and the third one practically shared a wall with my new girlfriend's house - and she was furious we were even considering it!
When we inspected the second house, Trouble was quite taken with it. I thought it was shabby, run down, and too small and was less than thrilled about it, even though I love the location. Well, it turns out that Joni doesn't know everything! It took us a week to get our application together, but almost as soon as we'd sent it in, the real estate agent rang me up to see if we were still interested. We were approved so fast that I didn't even have a chance to get crazily stressed out about where we would live! We didn't even get around to applying for anywhere else.
We picked up the keys on Dec 1st, which just so happened to be Trouble and I's 1 year friendiversary, and have spent the past 9 days getting ourselves settled into the space. While it is an old house and a bit shabby, it's amazing how the space has transformed once we got our stuff into it! It goes to show that a bit of personality goes a long way! The front bedrooms had really hideous blue feature walls and Trouble suggested we paint them a light grey. I didn't have the time to paint, but she sorted it all out and now the rooms look fantastic!
I've got a bigger room than I had, and as we've got more space in the house, I'm also able to keep less stuff in my bedroom, making the space much more open than I'm used to. I'm resisting the urge to fill it back up with furniture, though the urge is strong! We have a really cute front courtyard, and a bright, jungly rear courtyard with a really productive fig tree. We have a kitchen with enough space to eat in, a separate lounge, and, possibly my favourite bit, a long corridor with 3 rooms: the toilet, the bath/shower, and the laundry room! The house is bright and welcoming but is also quite private. It's much more spacious than I thought it would be. We're still figuring out how best to use the space, but it's gotten to the more finicky stuff like: where best to keep the cleaning supplies and our toiletries.
There is more furniture to get. Trouble and I both need a swag of things from IKEA for our rooms, plus we could do with a few things from Bunnings. We've got to sort out a bigger fridge than the one I have at some point, and get a household internet connection established. We also need some couches for the front, since it's just the perfect space for sipping beers in the evening sun! And we'll get stuff up on the walls, give the house our special blend of pizzazz.
Now, it is a 3 bedroom house, and that means we're looking for a third to join our crew! We've decided that we want to spend December getting ourselves established into the house first, and then January we both have people visiting, so we're not in a big rush to find the third person. There's been some interest and Trouble and I are in talks about what exactly we want in a third housemate, and happily are thus far very much on the same page. Hopefully finding our third will be just as painless as finding our new house was!
For all my initial reluctance about this place, now that I'm in the space, I'm absolutely loving it! I had no sadness about handing in the keys to my old apartment, and I thought that I would. It was actually a big relief when I finished cleaning it and knew I didn't need to go back again. That's probably helped by the fact that it's been on the market for sale and having people through for inspections has been really annoying.
I'm really excited about starting this new chapter of my life. I'm excited for summer, for getting the house set up, for attempting to garden, for Trouble getting us a juicer (!!!), for my family coming to visit, for choosing our third, for finishing my thesis (eventually), for making preserves from the various fruit trees, for just about everything in my life right now really!
So, let me catch you up...
Early on in our friendship, Trouble and I started tossing around the idea of getting a place together. Every now and then we'd look into it, but after a few days of excitement we'd drop our new play thing and get back to our lives. I had decided a while ago that I'd move house at/towards the end of my PhD, and when I chose my last flatmate, a major draw was that she only wanted temporary accommodation. Her boyfriend is overseas, and when he returns they'll be getting a place together. I decided that I would stay on here until he came back, and then find somewhere cheaper to live. Before I left for Canada we talked about when that might be and agreed to move at the start of December.
My plan was to just find a room in an existing share house and sell off all my excess furniture, but of course I let Trouble know that I'd soon be looking for a new place to live. Well! The stars had finally aligned! She was ready to move on from her place too. We started checking out different places online and getting a sense of what we both wanted from our new home (something which has been remarkably easy since we agree on pretty much everything). We're both over the moon about finally getting a place together to make our own little queer, sex positive, clothing optional, clean and tidy, haven!
The original plan was to find a decently sized 3 bedroom house in the inner west, because, such things exist both in abundance and for very cheap. While we've both been really excited about the move, the idea of changing suburbs caused us a fair amount of anxiety. My life is very firmly established in Brunswick; I regularly spend my weekend catching up with people on a whim, something that is easy to do given that almost all my friends live within 3 km of me. Plus I've got my gym, my yoga instructor, my Pilates studio... But a new suburb would invite new adventures, and Trouble was quite keen on moving out west.
I swear to Swimming Pool, it was the moment that I'd finally made peace with the idea of leaving Brunswick that Trouble said to me SHE was really anxious about leaving Brunswick and would much prefer to stay! Well, fuck! Cue the search for an affordable 3 bedroom house in the Brunswick area...
While such houses are abundant out west, they are almost non-existent in Brunswick. Comparatively, they are smaller and more rent than what we would get out west. Of course, that is because even though TuPac claims the west side is the best side, Brunswicked is where it's at! In our search, we came across 3 houses that were only marginally over our budget. The first one we'd found out about too late, the second one was only a block up the street from my apartment, and the third one practically shared a wall with my new girlfriend's house - and she was furious we were even considering it!
When we inspected the second house, Trouble was quite taken with it. I thought it was shabby, run down, and too small and was less than thrilled about it, even though I love the location. Well, it turns out that Joni doesn't know everything! It took us a week to get our application together, but almost as soon as we'd sent it in, the real estate agent rang me up to see if we were still interested. We were approved so fast that I didn't even have a chance to get crazily stressed out about where we would live! We didn't even get around to applying for anywhere else.
We picked up the keys on Dec 1st, which just so happened to be Trouble and I's 1 year friendiversary, and have spent the past 9 days getting ourselves settled into the space. While it is an old house and a bit shabby, it's amazing how the space has transformed once we got our stuff into it! It goes to show that a bit of personality goes a long way! The front bedrooms had really hideous blue feature walls and Trouble suggested we paint them a light grey. I didn't have the time to paint, but she sorted it all out and now the rooms look fantastic!
I've got a bigger room than I had, and as we've got more space in the house, I'm also able to keep less stuff in my bedroom, making the space much more open than I'm used to. I'm resisting the urge to fill it back up with furniture, though the urge is strong! We have a really cute front courtyard, and a bright, jungly rear courtyard with a really productive fig tree. We have a kitchen with enough space to eat in, a separate lounge, and, possibly my favourite bit, a long corridor with 3 rooms: the toilet, the bath/shower, and the laundry room! The house is bright and welcoming but is also quite private. It's much more spacious than I thought it would be. We're still figuring out how best to use the space, but it's gotten to the more finicky stuff like: where best to keep the cleaning supplies and our toiletries.
There is more furniture to get. Trouble and I both need a swag of things from IKEA for our rooms, plus we could do with a few things from Bunnings. We've got to sort out a bigger fridge than the one I have at some point, and get a household internet connection established. We also need some couches for the front, since it's just the perfect space for sipping beers in the evening sun! And we'll get stuff up on the walls, give the house our special blend of pizzazz.
Now, it is a 3 bedroom house, and that means we're looking for a third to join our crew! We've decided that we want to spend December getting ourselves established into the house first, and then January we both have people visiting, so we're not in a big rush to find the third person. There's been some interest and Trouble and I are in talks about what exactly we want in a third housemate, and happily are thus far very much on the same page. Hopefully finding our third will be just as painless as finding our new house was!
For all my initial reluctance about this place, now that I'm in the space, I'm absolutely loving it! I had no sadness about handing in the keys to my old apartment, and I thought that I would. It was actually a big relief when I finished cleaning it and knew I didn't need to go back again. That's probably helped by the fact that it's been on the market for sale and having people through for inspections has been really annoying.
I'm really excited about starting this new chapter of my life. I'm excited for summer, for getting the house set up, for attempting to garden, for Trouble getting us a juicer (!!!), for my family coming to visit, for choosing our third, for finishing my thesis (eventually), for making preserves from the various fruit trees, for just about everything in my life right now really!
Friday, November 9, 2012
Remembering Professor Smith
Earlier this week one of my colleagues at ARCSHS passed away. He had been seriously ill for some time, but his death was still a surprise to us all. Although I wasn't particularly close with Anthony, I've been quite affected by his death - more so than I thought I would be - and I want to take a few moments to reflect upon what he meant to me.
I moved to Australia nearly 5 years ago to do my PhD. I didn't choose Australia for the sun or the beaches, I didn't choose Melbourne for the culture or the shopping. I came here because I wanted to be a part of a truly amazing organisation: The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society. It is because of Anthony Smith that ARCSHS exists.
Anthony and I didn't have a lot to do with each other; I know him more through his interactions with my friends than through my own interactions with him. Although ARCSHS has evolved into a lively, social centre, Anthony was well known for being something of a hermit, hiding out in his office whilst everyone else gathered for cake, only to appear at the last moment to snag a piece and disappear off again. Most of my interactions with him have been passing him as he had a smoke out the front of the building while I made my way into the office. It was a sad realisation when I came in this morning to know I won't be passing him by anymore; him looking away to avoid idle chitchat, me looking away to avoid being called out at rocking up to uni at 11am.
Another thing that Anthony was known for was his rather fearless ability to stand up for what he believed in and tell anyone stupid enough to stand in his way exactly where they could go! While I'd always known that side of him existed, it wasn't until last year when ARCSHS was faced with sever budget and staff cuts (due to the incompetence of people entirely outside of ARCSHS) that I actually saw him in action. For a man who was otherwise so quiet, when he was passionate about something, he sure could roar! I don't think I realised how much he really cared about all of us at ARCSHS until witnessing that showdown! It should come as no surprise that I admire a person who can not only call someone an idiot to their face, but go into painstaking details as to why they are an idiot, all whilst having abuse hurled back at them. I do enjoy the 'head on' approach to confrontation!!
The one professional interaction I did have with Anthony is something I will always remember, as it was a formative experience for me as an academic. I was just a year into my PhD and had to present and defend my research proposal to everyone at ARCSHS. After I'd finished my presentation and the floor was opened up for questions, Anthony came out swinging! It very well might have been the first time I'd ever heard him speak - certainly it was the first time he'd ever spoken to me. He was critical of my research design and although the experience was confrontational, I handled it professionally and took his criticisms as a challenge to push myself to do better. And I've been thankful for his criticisms every day since! Because of him I completely revised my research design and have produced an innovative piece of research that I am very proud of.
ARCSHS is a very supportive, non competitive environment. Although we all work across quite a wide range of fields and projects, we work together to strengthen each other. I've always felt like I can approach anyone here to bounce ideas off of - whether they are engaged with my work or not. And I have enjoyed having others approach me to do the same. We are all very lucky at ARCSHS; this is not the norm for academic environments. Academia involves people working really hard to put together their ideas and knowledge to present to others, for others to engage with critically. Even at its best, this experience can be quite confronting and feel like a personal attack. It's not a field for the faint of heart! Anthony's challenge to my work was the moment that I knew I could hack it as an academic.
Pretty much anyone who has had the opportunity to be a part of ARCSHS will tell you that it is much more than a work place; it's a community. And for many of us, it's family. My first couple of years here, I didn't know many people outside of ARCSHS. My friends and family were a long ways away, but whenever I came into ARCSHS I felt like I was at home. The people here, the culture of the centre, made me feel not like I'd left home, but like I'd come home. None of that would have been possible without Anthony Smith and I will always remember him for that.
Over the years I've slowly managed to coax Anthony in the occasional jovial interaction, as we passed each other in the stairwell, in the kitchen, or in the corridor. And last year I finally got to engage with him one-on-one! We were hosting our Christmas party in Flagstaff Gardens, and this involved transporting rather a lot of food and beverages from our office to the park - a short distance away. Somehow Anthony and I found ourselves co-carting an impressive array of salads over the bumpy terrain of Franklin St, across the chaos of William St, and through the twists and turns of Flagstaff Gardens. I don't remember what we talked about during this at most 5 minute voyage, but I do remember that I relished every moment of getting him to engage in a social situation that called for idle chitchat!
While it is very sad to lose someone who has made such incredible contributions to the fields of sexual health and sexuality studies more broadly, it is a privilege to be able to continue his legacy onwards. Every day I feel honoured and proud to be a part of ARCSHS. My thoughts and sympathies go out to Anthony's partner, family, friends, colleagues, and students.
I moved to Australia nearly 5 years ago to do my PhD. I didn't choose Australia for the sun or the beaches, I didn't choose Melbourne for the culture or the shopping. I came here because I wanted to be a part of a truly amazing organisation: The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society. It is because of Anthony Smith that ARCSHS exists.
Anthony and I didn't have a lot to do with each other; I know him more through his interactions with my friends than through my own interactions with him. Although ARCSHS has evolved into a lively, social centre, Anthony was well known for being something of a hermit, hiding out in his office whilst everyone else gathered for cake, only to appear at the last moment to snag a piece and disappear off again. Most of my interactions with him have been passing him as he had a smoke out the front of the building while I made my way into the office. It was a sad realisation when I came in this morning to know I won't be passing him by anymore; him looking away to avoid idle chitchat, me looking away to avoid being called out at rocking up to uni at 11am.
Another thing that Anthony was known for was his rather fearless ability to stand up for what he believed in and tell anyone stupid enough to stand in his way exactly where they could go! While I'd always known that side of him existed, it wasn't until last year when ARCSHS was faced with sever budget and staff cuts (due to the incompetence of people entirely outside of ARCSHS) that I actually saw him in action. For a man who was otherwise so quiet, when he was passionate about something, he sure could roar! I don't think I realised how much he really cared about all of us at ARCSHS until witnessing that showdown! It should come as no surprise that I admire a person who can not only call someone an idiot to their face, but go into painstaking details as to why they are an idiot, all whilst having abuse hurled back at them. I do enjoy the 'head on' approach to confrontation!!
The one professional interaction I did have with Anthony is something I will always remember, as it was a formative experience for me as an academic. I was just a year into my PhD and had to present and defend my research proposal to everyone at ARCSHS. After I'd finished my presentation and the floor was opened up for questions, Anthony came out swinging! It very well might have been the first time I'd ever heard him speak - certainly it was the first time he'd ever spoken to me. He was critical of my research design and although the experience was confrontational, I handled it professionally and took his criticisms as a challenge to push myself to do better. And I've been thankful for his criticisms every day since! Because of him I completely revised my research design and have produced an innovative piece of research that I am very proud of.
ARCSHS is a very supportive, non competitive environment. Although we all work across quite a wide range of fields and projects, we work together to strengthen each other. I've always felt like I can approach anyone here to bounce ideas off of - whether they are engaged with my work or not. And I have enjoyed having others approach me to do the same. We are all very lucky at ARCSHS; this is not the norm for academic environments. Academia involves people working really hard to put together their ideas and knowledge to present to others, for others to engage with critically. Even at its best, this experience can be quite confronting and feel like a personal attack. It's not a field for the faint of heart! Anthony's challenge to my work was the moment that I knew I could hack it as an academic.
Pretty much anyone who has had the opportunity to be a part of ARCSHS will tell you that it is much more than a work place; it's a community. And for many of us, it's family. My first couple of years here, I didn't know many people outside of ARCSHS. My friends and family were a long ways away, but whenever I came into ARCSHS I felt like I was at home. The people here, the culture of the centre, made me feel not like I'd left home, but like I'd come home. None of that would have been possible without Anthony Smith and I will always remember him for that.
Over the years I've slowly managed to coax Anthony in the occasional jovial interaction, as we passed each other in the stairwell, in the kitchen, or in the corridor. And last year I finally got to engage with him one-on-one! We were hosting our Christmas party in Flagstaff Gardens, and this involved transporting rather a lot of food and beverages from our office to the park - a short distance away. Somehow Anthony and I found ourselves co-carting an impressive array of salads over the bumpy terrain of Franklin St, across the chaos of William St, and through the twists and turns of Flagstaff Gardens. I don't remember what we talked about during this at most 5 minute voyage, but I do remember that I relished every moment of getting him to engage in a social situation that called for idle chitchat!
While it is very sad to lose someone who has made such incredible contributions to the fields of sexual health and sexuality studies more broadly, it is a privilege to be able to continue his legacy onwards. Every day I feel honoured and proud to be a part of ARCSHS. My thoughts and sympathies go out to Anthony's partner, family, friends, colleagues, and students.
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