Volunteering

I have just finished some training that I am doing for a volunteer program that I will be involved in soon and I am feeling pretty drained. I doesn’t help that I drank too much coffee and now I can’t sleep. Coffee and allecto are not usually allowed to keep each other company because it makes her hyper… and also seems to make her talk about herself in the third person! Disturbing.

I don’t think I’d be feeling as drained as I am if I hadn’t had a run in with a man who was also doing the program. See… I am a separatist for very good reasons. Men make my blood boil. I would have really, really enjoyed my day if it hadn’t been for this one overbearing, dominating oaf of a man. Blargh.

But I shouldn’t let this one fuckwit ruin what was otherwise a really great day. I met lots of women who were bloody awesome. I’m really looking forward to keeping in contact with them. I don’t think I have connected so well to so many women in real life for a very long time. And besides I think I scared the oaf so much that he will leave me alone next time.

I am feeling really positive about this program. I think it will be really good… not just for myself, but for other women and girls too. It is very exciting and I have not done anything like it before. Sorry, I can’t give details because the program is pretty sensitive… but yeah. Just wanted to share. It has given me heaps to think about.

Aussie Rad Fems ROCK!!!

I don’t really think much of the online Australian feminist networks (with the exception of Coalition for a Feminist Agenda). I think they are really great for the liberal feminists and of course anything that gets women working together and talking together is fantastic but there are many things about those spaces that is alienating to someone like me. The heteronormativity and lesbophobia of those spaces is quite obvious… but there is also the radfemphobia which I always find more than a little aggravating. But that is fine. I am perfectly capable of figuring out whether I will be welcome or not and modifying my browsing habits and links list accordingly. But it has in the past left me feeling a little isolated.

This state of affairs has changed quite dramatically in the last couple of months with some really awesome Aussie radical feminists adding their voices to the feminist blogging world. It has been so amazingly refreshing to read the voices of my Australian sisters, women with radical perspectives with women’s liberation set firmly in their sights. I am definitely feeling like I have a home here. Not that there is anything wrong with my international sisters. I love them too!!!

The internet is such a strange place, projects start up and vanish so quickly. Feminists do everything they do out of a love for themselves and of womenkind but sometimes our energy wanes. Real life intrudes. Obviously, my poor blog gets neglected far too often. Hopefully, now that winter has ended I will feel alive enough to start writing again. I miss writing. I miss this blog.

Anyways, here is a list of my Aussie sisters:

Rain
Feminamist
miss Andrea
redmegaera
Celly
Linda Radfem
Hell
Jo

Now all we need to do is keep blogging!!!

As an aside does anyone else miss The Carnival of Radical Feminists? I really do. I think we need to bring it back and make it monthy again.

Oh, and I turned 28 at the end of last month so I’ll have to change my info.

That Girl

Something I wrote the other day on the train. I’m having a great deal of difficulty doing any creative writing at the moment. This is the first poem I’ve written in months.

That Girl

sometimes I forget about that girl
who molded her body,
like it was clay
molded her figure
around and
into his palm
sweat-soaked
fear pooling
deep
body
fear

sometimes I forget about
that girl
putting on her face
a different one
for each day
to mark her presence

sometimes I forget

that girl who
hitches up that skirt
curves her ass
just that way
to fit into his eyes
knee-high boots
squirming on the dance floor

“smack my bitch up’
‘superman dat ho’

and sometimes I am that girl
soaking it up
bleeding bits of myself
on the dance floor
and they watch
and they watch
and they watch
and they watch

sometimes I forget
but mostly I remember

sometimes I wonder where
she’s gone to
where she got to
seeing slivers
of other girls
catching the corner of my eye
and I think she’s gone
far away

but mostly
I feel her inside me
that girl
she jab me fierce
watching men
watching her
she is in me still
watching men
watching other girls

skin tight jeans
dark lined eyes
and a smile to say she don’t give a shit

that girl
she in me now
curve of her ass
my body
her body
fits into her own hands
and she comes
when I come
and here she is
smiling now
and giving him/they/them
the fucking finger

Blogging Anniversary

Well, it has been a year since I have been in my new home, here at wordpress. It has been a pretty eventful year for my blogging career what with the Whedonites and the MRAs all descending on my little blog like flies to honey. Thanks to their wonderful linkage skills I’ve had close to 100 000 hits this year. :p

But it has been a really wonderful year as well. I’ve met so many wonderful, inspiring women. You internet sisters enrich my life. Thanks for all of your wonderful support, love and enthusiasm. I have learnt so much from the comments that you have made here. I have learnt so much from reading the writing of the women on my blogroll… and elsewhere. You have all touched me and changed me, in so many different, brilliant ways.

So here is to another year of radical lesbian feminism allecto style. Here is to another year of change. Because I am young and foolish enough to believe and dream that a woman-centred, matrifocal world is possible. If only here, in the beautiful, lushious radical feminist blogosphere. And I am going to do my best to keep those dreams alive.

Sing Revolution

This is me singing a song I wrote called Revolution. I wrote it a couple of years ago after a friend was raped.

Family, life, conference, birthday, stuff

Hey all,

I blogged a while back about the Radical Feminist discussion board that I was invited to help moderate. I’m not too sure if many women saw the post. Anyway, the forum is a great radical, women-only space. You can find it here. Quite a few women have joined up recently so we may actually get some discussions going. If you are already joined up, yay! Come over and start some discussions. If not, come over, join up and introduce yourself. 🙂

In other news, I’m leaving for the conference soon and won’t be blogging again till I get back. I realise that I have not been around much this month, sorry for that. I’ll try to post more next month. I’m halfway through my Objects in Space post. I’m sure my Whedonites are all waiting with bated breath. 😉

I’ll also try to do some blogging about the conference, although if it is as amazing and thought-prvoking as the last conference, that will be very hard. It is always so hard to pin down the feeling and energy of things in writing. And there is so much of that caught up in being with other feminists, and being in the company of women. I tried to write about Townsville and only managed one pitiful post. 😦 I’ll try to do better this time.

We met the woman who will be looking after our cats and she was very nice. I’m glad it will be a woman. I don’t think I’d trust a man. I’m sure our cats will be well cared for while Dissenter and I are away. Although I am sure they will miss us.

It will be my birthday just before the conference and I will be home with my family for that. I’m really looking forward to it. I haven’t spent my birthday with my family since I left home 9 years ago. 😦 I’m hoping all of my siblings will come to dinner but I have let T (second sibling: sister, she is the white sheep of our family) know that her partner (D) is not welcome. She understood but she might not come out of loyalty to him.

Last year on Precious’ (fourth sibling: sister) 17th birthday D sexually assaulted one of her friends. D is the same age as me and a complete fucking creep. I hate that T is with the scumbag. There is nothing that I can do about it though, but he sure as fuck isn’t invited to my birthday.

T has also invited me to some party she is having with her friends. I said I’d think about it, but told her that she would have to tell her male friends to stay away from me. On further thought though, after hearing some stuff from Dragort (first sibling: sister) about T’s friends, I don’t think I’ll be going.

Besides E’s (third sibling: brother) cat Shadow has just died and he is taking it really hard. He has locked himself in his room and he isn’t really talking to anyone. So I feel I should spend some extra time with him. I don’t really know what to say to him though. He had Shadow for 8 years and she saw him through some really fucking awful times. I can imagine how he feels. My mum said that when my cat died when I was 17 I was really angry and I took it out on everyone. But E is just really depressed.

So that my news.