One of my worky-work bosses, the one who is immensely and impressively organized (and who shares my tastes in music to a large extent!) has been promoted and is leaving, though not leaving the organization as a whole. I am a bit nervous about the aftermath!
Indispensable? It seemed like he was, but of course that's very rarely thoroughly true. And it seemed like having a laptop was indispensable and it kind of is!!! But, not, of course. As the Doobie Brothers' album title states, "What once were vices are now habits." Which is to say that I had to return my new-to-me netbook, to hopefully get an actually functioning one. And I haven't collapsed, but certainly am pining. Grrr.
*Warning: fetish-related and writing-related babble ahead. Also, may be tiresome to people of color, (and possibly others) and probably inappropriate offloading of white guilt, if you [the theoretical person of color] choose to continue to read. Though I would note that race is not the fetishy fascination here.*
I started writing a science fiction m-preg (aka male pregnancy) epic. Once I regain a computer, and can more readily continue, I plan to post it incrementally on a site that caters to that predilection, though I haven't decided which. One could also call it a functional hermaphrodite epic, but I think m-preg is appropriate as the lead character retains a male, and a boy's and eventually man's identity, though he's rather shaken.
I'm a bit torn about the characters, and my responsibilities as a writer, a white person writing, specifically.
Peggy Shaw (a WOW Cafe founder, hot butch, and big queer theater name) opines that she can only write about what she knows, racially in particular. I think I recall her saying in a show that she was thrilled when her child had a child with an African American person as "Now I can do a show about race!" Hee. Someone like
Alison Bechdel, another white dyke, has created works that have my pretty much very highest respect and enjoyment. (Well, I do feel some angles on polyamory and trans stuff and depression have been not-perfect from my point of view... but overall darned well politically niftyier than most anyone else!) She deliberately has created characters from a great many racial and social backgrounds. She said something like "Research a lot, and be prepared to be wrong," when creating characters of color.
Being wrong is a very scary thing for me, probably for her, and I so admire her willingness to risk it. Buuuut, well, am I overthinking it rather? We're talking about porn here. Though, as Moira Cutler's character Maurice said in The Asshole Differential, "Even sweaty wankers appreciate a story!"
I've chosen to center upon a boy named Abdul. Partially cause as a kid I kind of wanted the name Abdul Asquilith. I have no idea where the Asquilith part came from, I'm pretty sure it's not an actual name for anybody anywhere. Buuuut I find I'm giving him a middle-class white background, because that's what I know. Of course, some people of color do have that sort of background also.
Also because the name Abdul is apparently a slightly erroneous Black Muslim thing, as it means "Servant of". In most Islamic names Abdul is part of a phrase that ends in a name of God. But this name is sort of perfect because I have him serving, and serving everybody in a `save humanity' way, big time. Is it tactless to draw focus to a name that is, to my knowledge, frankly a lingual mistake made by black people? Er, kind of, I guess. Hmm.
I think I'll finally read The Autobiography of Malcom X (which I borrowed from my Plum years ago, actually) and then just plunge in and attempt to write with very little editing. It's set a few hundred years in the future, so that can explain a lot if I want it to. Hee. And I think I have absorbed a fair bit via my expensive education, and also through hanging out and viewing and helping create theater with highly politically conscious dykes and queers and trans-folks of various backgrounds.
This might be rather liberating, actually, as part of my creative paralysis in theater-making is due to indecision about whether and how to create characters of color. Indecision due to fear, as criticism in the aforementioned queer and dyke communities can be very, very harsh. And self criticism... errors of this kind - even the possibilities thereof - seem to make my heart speed up, my breath come short.
Buut, hey, the readers I've seen of mpreg stories seem to be frankly not very critical at all! It's a sort of unusual and under-served fetishy taste, and thus niceties of punctuation and grammar, much less politics and characterization, are sort of a luxury. Perfect practice ground! ;)
Yeah, I want to be seen as the decent white person, neither presuming or assuming. As Ashley Brockington memorably said while hosting Rivers of Honey, something like, "I don't want to see a white girl up front in an African dance class. I don't care if you've been studying 15 years, great! Just, not in the front!" Hee! Yeah! That. I think I get it.
Hoping to avoid insular clinging to what I know, without ever pretending that I come from anywhere else. Learning and interpreting into my own version of things, but without appropriating. I think some of my self-image is bound up in that ambition, that I fulfill that role. To some extent, yes, I want to be informed and decent about race for the sake of doing so, inherently. But also I want approval. But not too ardently! I'm not sure whether I actually don't seek Special recognition of people of color for my support, or whether I just don't appear to, even to myself.
Once, a performer, a black woman, was praising me and another person as an ally, and it felt weird... I sort of told her that she's not supposed to thank us for it. Er, is that telling a black person what to do and feel, which I really generally speaking shouldn't do? Heh. Well, as I write it out here, it sounds like that, yes. At the time I think my tone and words conveyed, and was taken as meaning, that it was `Special Thanks for deigning to help, Enlightened White Person' kind of thanks that weren't necessary or sought. Well, hopefully not noticeably sought. *wry smiley face here* I know enough, I think, to be aware that looking for a pat on the back just for acting as an adequate ally is rather obnoxious!