Sunday, January 27, 2013

Gualala, Atlanta, and the Flu



Celebrating MLK in a little house by Gualala, CA turned out to be most excellent, if only I hadn't gotten the flu the same Friday we drove up. Bear and I feasted on pork ribs, the best mac n' cheese I've had recently, and yet the worst corn muffin ever at Bones Roadhouse. Between all the body aching, fevering, and phlegming, I was still able to get in a ton of board games. I swear I still get anxious just thinking about Ticket to Ride: Must finish my train route before bitches get in the way! 

Our one physical activity was a short walk along the coastline by the Sea Ranch Lodge, where we saw the sun fall into the ocean. And then there was drinking. After twenty-six years in California, it still hasn't stopped being amazing every time I go to the Pacific Ocean and just watch the waves wash in.

View from my room
On day three of The Flu and Me, I spend it frantically making widgets at the office. It's funny how the chocolate conveyor belt doesn't stop moving when you're sick or when you're about to head out of town. Nothing to do but fill your pockets and stuff your mouth. I loaded up on drogas and hopped on a plane to Creating Change in Atlanta, GA. People had warned me about how young the crowd is, but I didn't realize it until I got there and the wave of excited 19-year-olds swept over everything. It certainly isn't a bad thing, considering how much energy was infused into any and all just by the sheer spunkiness they were giving off. More power to the young folk for being so engaged. I know I certainly wasn't.

I went to a screening of God Loves Uganda, meet a ton of activists, and then between conference events, I made enough time to hit up the High Museum of Art and the Georgia Aquarium.





Food options were surprisingly limited, considering how Atlanta is a major city. I really didn't feel like having food court vittles every day AND I was sick, so definitely subsisted on apple sauce, prunes, and cereal for a few meals. I'm sure the hotel maids did not approve of my ice bucket contraption to keep the milk from spoiling. The Sweet Auburn Curb Market was awesome though, and I'm glad I made a trip there for lunch a few times.

Why does the Coke Museum cost $30?




Who knew piranhas were so  pretty?
 Since Atlanta was flooded with the rainbow contingent, there were more than a few gay men discussing their love of furry lean boys in front of the otter tank. That and woof-ing at the actual otters. Otters were displeased.

Otters are adorable!
And I still have the tail end of the flu. Ick.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Someone has to pay for the Revolution

Embarcadero an hour before sunrise
The South African time difference meant that we were at work at 6:40 am to interview a client, scurrying around in the darkness because the ACLU building's lights don't work before the ass crack of dawn. If it had been an episode of the X-Files, Eugene Tooms would have waited until I got settled in with my tea and Skype before consuming livers. Yesterday was the four-month mark since starting at ORAM, and I'm still excited to go to work every day, which either means it's a great gig, or I have a dopamine irregularity/mood disorder.

Public interest lawyering really can be all kinds of awesome, and it's funny to think that it could all have been very different if the economy hadn't swirled into the toilet. As in some poor law firm may have been deceived sufficiently or had just enough free associate spaces to say, "Sure, we'll take an extra weirdo."

Fresh out of a Labor Union Summer with the AFL-CIO, I had put myself through at least fifty on-campus screener interviews and a dozen callback ones. At most of these talks, they'd flip through my resume of public interest red flags and ask me to defend why I'd spent my summer with a labor union, why I feel like the firm's pro bono program would be enough to "satiate my public interest spirit" (direct quote). Sometimes, I'd run into someone who would proactively defend why they were now second-year associates. My favorite line was an assertion that "someone has to pay for the Revolution." Not that I have anything against firm life, but somehow it just didn't work out (Firms, it's not you, it's me.). Throughout it, I did my usual Try-Hard Bear thing: I hustled myself through Lavender Law's OCI, followed up on any and all personal connections, etc. In the end, I didn't get a single offer, and I scrambled to chase the public interest jobs that I should have been hunting down in the first place. Stormy times indeed.

This is certainly the gray matter doing its sneaky thing by smoothing out all the inconsistencies along the way, but it seems to have worked out so far. Where I end up next is thankfully a question I can delay for a while, and it's a relief to be off of the usual schedule where as soon as you land a one-year fellowship, you're already casting your resume back into the great dark seas.

YOLO artwork

Lois the Pie Queen
 Finally made it to Lois the Pie Queen for breakfast. I don't know why you would have fried chicken for breakfast, but it happened, and now I wonder why we don't usually have it. We got seated under the YOLO collage, and I again wondered why I haven't already moved to Oakland.

Especially when the BART stations get all glamm'd up:


After I took this shot, other BART denizens also whipped out their phones to take the same. It's disappointing to climb up into Oakland and expect Sapphire City, but I met some fun people to climb with at Great Western Power Station.


And to wrap up, here's a picture of Dinga with no context. 
Whatever you may be thinking about, he disapproves of it.

Monday, January 7, 2013

Refugees: Too gay or not gay enough

Refugee determinations can depend entirely on a refugee telling intensely personal stories to a stranger behind a desk and being believed. In gay/lesbian cases, the credibility assessments are particularly tough calls, and asylum seekers are too often caught between being too gay or not gay enough.

And yes, this is what we deal with all the time at work: convincing people in power that their gaydar is not up to par and/or offensive.

Not gay enough.
Not that we want gay identity to be swallowed up into sexual identity, but even sex tapes have not been enough to substantiate a claim: "In one extraordinary case, the Canadian tribunal actually viewed a sex tape of the applicant and held that it did not involve his claimed partner because the perfunctory nature of the sex, lack of smiling and conversation led them to conclude that ‘The sex acts appear so mechanical it looks more like an encounter between a “John” and a male prostitute, rather than two men very much in love with each other’" (quoted from Jenni Millbank's awesome article).

There was even a movement toward hooking up gay folk's genitalia to machines and playing them porn. Full disclosure here is that I helped do the research for the published report.


Anyone who works in the field can rattle off any number of ridiculous examples of these gaydar stereotypes, but here are some that stand out for me. Many are laughable, but the main thing to keep in mind is that this isn't just a silly OkCupid "Are YOU gay enough to be a refugee?" quiz, but that people who don't pass muster on these arbitrary Western pop culture-oriented questions are sent right back to their countries, where they are horrifically abused and/or executed. Sorry, #debbiedowner.

  • Reading Oscar Wilde and André Gide: A senior caseworker in the UK looked at whether asylum seekers had explored "their sexuality in a cultural context . . . reading Oscar Wilde perhaps, films and music."
  • Enjoying Greco-Roman wrestling
  • Appreciating Madonna and Bette Midler
  • Plucking your eyebrows
  • Dressing as a woman
  • Knowing the layout of the local gay clubs or bathhouse: In one case, the applicant was asked whether or not they had been to a local gay bathhouse and then questioned as to which side the towels were on. The big twist is that the bathhouse does not provide a towel service. Gotcha there, Mister Refugee!
  • Being sexually promiscuous
  • Drinking Bailey's Irish Cream: In Cameroon, a judge handed out five year prison sentences in November 2011 to two "obviously effeminate" men for having this "typically feminine drink" (many a straight college boy has had this in a hip flask or as an initial foray into the world of Drink, so who are we kidding?). The convictions were overturned today on appeal (not a refugee case, I know, but since it happened today, I couldn't help but mention it).
    "Typically feminine drink"
On the other hand, one of my favorite quotes from a 2010 British case (abandoning the requirement of discretion in LGBT cases, at least in the UK) is summarized in the following:


Thank you, Lord Rodger.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

No fat pots, no femme kettles.


My Ego Blimp lofts that much higher when someone asks me to spot them at the gym. What I hear them saying is: "Due to your obvious ability to also heft things, I have chosen you to save me from a skullcrushing injury of my own doing." As an ENFJ, I'm told that I cannot resist helping people.

It's just an interesting exchange to have with someone in a place where you're otherwise expected to pretend that no one else exists. Everyone may be rocking out to the same Rihanna song through their earbuds, but you're really not supposed to interact. Oh, unless you're werqing out at the Castro gym, in which case I've never met so many people who maintain inappropriate eye contact (see: eye-fucking). And wink. Aren't we all not supposed to start winking until we're in our 40s and want to be sketchtastic?

But to return to the events at hand. The boy who asks me for a spot subsequently plops down next to me after I become a sweaty mess on the treadmill. My gaydar starts sounding klaxons as I stretch and he just sits there smiling at me.

But then he opens with, "I'm not usually into Asians, but you're cute if you want to hang out sometime." And then he winks. 

As the Samantha Jones gay from Hunting Season put it, "My dick might be a little racist, but I'm not." Let's ignore the winking, and focus on the part where I'm supposed to feel special for standing out among my yellow people. "Thanks?" and an incredulous headtilt are all I manage to put together before I gather up my stuff and head for the shower. It just throws my Sunday off a tad to get a bizarro compliment, ya know?

It's not like I don't understand to an extent the racial dynamics that lead to such statements making sense as compliments in someone's head. It's also true that I'm not as sticky as population distributions (2008 peek at racial diversity in Gaylandia or 2010 SF census data) would suggest for true equal opportunity "everything under the rainbow" dating. So yes, I'm contributing to the sense that there are waves of gaysians washing up through the Golden Gate Bridge onto "masc. only" coastlines. I'm a pot and you're a kettle and we're sitting in a glass house neighborhood.

General breakdown of SF
(As a disclaimer, Hunting Season is an atrocious show, and I would recommend you watch The Outs instead if you're in the mood to watch gay New Yorkers having first world problems.)


Thursday, January 3, 2013

Hovmästarsås sounds like an honorary title.


So  much gravlax at the belated ORAM holiday party yesterday. One of the board members is a super foodie, so she cured a whole salmon's worth of briny, dill-y, caper-y fish, with a little tub of hovmästarsås (I have no idea how to pronounce this fancy pants word, but all it means is dill and mustard united in sanctified matrimony) and little breads. And there was goat cheese souffle (making it with croissants is honestly sinful) and some of the best custard cake I've ever had. The cook was amused at the fact that immediately after greeting her, I brought up how I still remember her awesome Japanese guacamole from two years ago. 

How some people have the ability to host Martha Stewart Living-worthy dinner parties is beyond me. I've been trying to get back into the habit of cooking more for myself, even though this whole hummus and deli meat sandwich thing for lunch and sometimes dinner makes me feel all kinds of healthy. That and letting myself have buckets and buckets of oatmeal with honey drizzles all day. 

A few glasses of tokay and La Fin du Monde later, they sent us on our way with gift baggies of Ansel Adams postcards and a bottle of rosé. I also snagged a hunk of cheese to gnaw and nibble on later.

The gym was a disaster as expected during the fresh nubbins of the new year. Sweaty clusters of people lying on the ground in the free weights area, surrounded by at least three sets of weights, a big towel, food & drink (I love Orangina as much as the next person, but while on a treadmill?). 

Ladies & gentlemen, why do you make it your living room for two weeks of the year and then sheepishly disappear for good by late January? 

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

NYE 2012: And so we beat on, boats and such.

The eves of new years are all about pacing yourself as you roam from party to party, and we had ourselves in a happy cloud of buzz by the time it was 9 pm. First stop in the Mission was about the cinnamon rolls (hi, Ax!) and the triple berry concoctions. Second stop was thematically the Future, so people with tinfoil caps, buttons, ties, and I found myself in an itsy bitsy Bernal Heights room wearing Google Glass and taking pictures/video with my mind (and voice activation).With an hour to spare,  we mingle with Jay Gatsbys and Daisy Buchanans, champagne flutes in hand, before being the only ones to snatch gobs of chocolate cake with our grimy fingers after the fireworks go off in the distance.

Why yes, I do believe the cake is celebrating the end of 1922.
Stumbled down the hill towards MUNI, and we waited in Castro station with a third of San Francisco. An overly friendly man and I chatted before the L rolled in, and I turned down his offer to come over and cuddle when I got off at Powell. Somehow my Game is strongest on public transportation. And on Supershuttle (if I get a third number from another Supershuttle denizen...).

How do I build on this minor and tragic superpower?


#nosegue

Beyond the bucket list of fun and annoyingly self-improving things I want to do that I track on Wunderlist 2 (why is there a sequel?), here are some arbitrary resolutions for my 2013:

1) Climb a V6.
My bum right shoulder has kept me wallowing in the V3/V4 pool for a frustratingly long time, so I'm going to religiously strengthen my shoulders/back. Hopefully by the end of 2013, I'll send at least a V5.

2) Read another 52 books.
In 2012, I managed to read 56 books, though they were all fiction except for one background text on refugee law to prep for starting my job with ORAM. Through the Internet tubes, I've found that there is a subgroup of people who read at least 104 books a year. Now that is insane.

3) Camp and hike more.
I now own a three-person tent and a decent backpacking sack, so why not rally some scrappy friends to charge into the shrubbery for some actual backpacking (see: not carcamping)?

4) Take art and language classes again.
I miss drawing, painting, and making ceramic ashtrays, so I'm considering figure drawing class or the Friday drop-in free sessions at SFAI (if anyone wants to join me, please speak up!). I should work on my French and/or learn Mandarin. Language learning geekfests are something I don't have much of any more, and that should change.

5) Date...better.
In the past year, I've come to a clearer understanding of what I want, what I need, and what I should reasonably be asked to put up with. I know what measures of security and affection I can offer someone, and I like to think that it is not too granular a pile. We all deserve to feel like we're enough.

I'll leave it at that and see what 2013 yowls about and drags in from the wild wild wilderness.