Happy day
I am trying to cure myself of the need for cultural appropriation, but Lakshmi is too gorgeous not to post, especially on the first day in about a million years that I feel fully female and fully happy and fully myself.
Anyway, today was quite awesome. I checked my email this morning and found a reply from Skuld of HagRag. I'd emailed her a few days ago asking if she could send me some of her flyers to send out with my zine, since I'd mentioned HagRags in it, and in her reply she said A) sure, B) let's trade links too, and C) I'll trade you pads for 5 of each issue of your zine and make a pad/zine combo pack with a mermaid pad. THIS IS EXCITING. I lost a bunch of my liners in the laundry a while back and have been waiting and waiting for some spare cash to buy more pads, so I already have my pads all picked out :P I really envy this woman's enthusiasm and her ability to collaborate with anyone who has a website or does a zine... I can't wait to start sending out zines now :)
After that I didn't really have much to do, and I'd been thinking about learning about the fertility awareness method of birth control, so I wandered over to Borders with the idea of reading the first chapter or two of "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" (I'd already checked the library and it wasn't available). Turns out it was a much bigger book than I expected, and is really the kind of book you have to buy so you can refer back to it. But what I read totally made me want to try it. I'd been skeptical of FAM as a birth control method, not because I think it doesn't work but because I doubt my ability to keep all the signs I'm supposed to be watching straight in my head, plus I'm already going to be using condoms and Plan B, so it didn't seem like I could do much with the information since I'll be protected anyway. But I am completely won over. I don't think I would necessarily use the information about my body as a way to not get pregnant, since like I said, I don't trust myself, but it would be so awesome to know everything that's going on in my body, all the time, especially since I could never even predict my periods before I went on the pill. I also saw my first picture of a cervix (oozing cervical mucus, no less), which sounds totally gross, but I was pretty fascinated. Not that I wasn't body-positive before, but I think I have officially taken my last step towards being the kind of feminist who finds nothing more thrilling than a self-exam with a plastic speculum. LOL. Mock me if you want, but I think this is going to be a major change for the better in my life. I ordered the book for super cheap online (I think $12 including 1-3 day shipping; it's $24 at Borders), so I'm hoping it comes in time for me to start charting with my very first off-the-pill period.
It was gorgeous out today, so after Borders I took the bus out to Golden Gate Park. I meant to go to Stow Lake but totally missed my stop and ended up at the Strybing Arboretum instead, which I'm glad I did because it was absolutely gorgeous. I guess the idea is that they have plants from all over the world organized into different sections, which wasn't that exciting for me because I am not a plant person (except for flowers), but there were lawns and lakes and trees and a Japanese Moon Viewing Garden and it was just a beautiful day. There were a bunch of squirrels out and I saw a turtle swimming in the pond! I sat under the crabapple trees and read some more of Portrait in Sepia (I <33333 Isabel Allende) and it was very nice. I think I need to get out more.
So this next thing is going to sound weird coming from me. I've been an atheist my whole life. I had brief stints with Christianity and Wicca, but both were more than 7 years ago and neither was anything more than a kid going "let's play religion!"- more because rituals and stuff seemed cool to me than because of any kind of belief in a God. You hear people saying they became atheists because they saw suffering and it made them stop believing or something like that, but for me, I've never really felt it natural to believe in some big guy in the sky who doesn't want me to have premarital sex. I believe in miracles, love, beauty, goodness- basically everything that comes with religion, just without the religion. Yet the other day I was thinking- I was never interested in politics before just because I thought it was something for white men, but when I made it about women I became passionate about it, and what if the same is true for God? I realized that it always has been kind of natural for me to believe in a sort of female divinity... not in any way that's anything remotely like any religion that's popular today, but I guess as a kind of archetype or a presence. I kind of want to pursue the idea, mostly by reading (since that's pretty much my response to anything significant, lol).. I have no idea where it might take me, but I think I could potentially become a much less angry person if I follow up on it. I feel weird even talking about it in my LJ, I guess because it sounds so New Age-y and that's really not like me (even if I do read Tarot cards), but this is really what feels natural to me. Thankfully, though, somewhere along the way I lost my obsession with rituals and all the trappings of organized religion, so I doubt I'll engage in any "worship" that's more complicated than learning FAM or planting a vegetable garden.