by Helio

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-16

  • Wow, @TBK365 this is totally the best compliment (as far as I'm concerned) we've ever gotten! Thanks! (I listen to NPR religiously) in reply to TBK365 #
  • @HiOhMegan That is excellent! Always a big accomplishment! in reply to HiOhMegan #
  • #Helping @maymaym plan out his @Sex20Con session. He's says #I #039;m amazing like that's a surprise! (#hubriswillbemydownfall) #
  • @Adisson89 Because there's only one Internet, and it's a proper noun. Give it it's due, like any other entity. in reply to Adisson89 #
  • What is it with the mid-day headaches? 3 and a half more hours at work, and all I want is to go home and crawl into bed. Yeesh. #
  • @KinkOnTap This from the country that banned small breasts? Australia really needs to get itself figured out! in reply to KinkOnTap #
  • @laken84 Such accurate language will scar him for life! (Go you) in reply to laken84 #
  • My one bottle of perfume fell onto my porcelain sink and shattered. Smelliest disaster ever. And now I have even less ability to be a lady. #
  • @maymaym Red-headedness is quite nice, but I have to say it's the big noses that absolutely slay me. Gives character I guess? #whyIlovesnape in reply to maymaym #
  • New post – A poem and a memory. http://bit.ly/99sfyd #
by Helio

Land’s End (July 25th, 2009)

All week you and I have wandered
In and out of misery
Through quarrels
And through ecstasy, through joy
Frustratingly familiar
This variance
And now we have wandered to
A place you have not been
Before
Someplace new, here at the
Salt blown edge of the world
And I’m glad you came here with me

I’m glad to see nasturtium
Blossom like flame on flame
In your hair
And yarrow
And fennel
Maybe later I will
Look up their meanings
When I am missing you
Again

And soon I will twine
Your hair with
Beach pea and
Primrose
And pick shells and stones
From a beach a continent
Away
And we will look then
A few more days into the future

by Helio

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-09

  • Morning. Missed signals all over the place last night, leaves me feeling sickish with waiting. The best laid plans and all that. No blame. #
  • @HiOhMegan That would be brilliant! I work till 5:30. in reply to HiOhMegan #
  • @HiOhMegan Perfect! in reply to HiOhMegan #
  • Here's a neat thought: as sexuality evolves, you can #GAIN #virginities, as new acts/partners take on meaning & import. #rethinkingvirginity #
  • #Rethinkingvirginity asks: Why do we talk of "losing" virginity"? Who pays it so little attention? Possibly better: #change "#letgo, #drop #
  • #RethinkingVirginity points out: US has only 2 options of sex-ed. "Abstinence Only" & "Comprehensive." Should be called "#Abstinence #Plus " #
  • But the idea that if you teach anything beyond abstinence you're providing "comprehensive" information is bullshit. #RethinkingVirginity #
  • There should #always be room for #abstinence as a #choice #never #enforcement of it as a #norm #RethinkingVirginity #
  • Why is #abstinence couched in the #negative Either sex is bad, or from the other side abstinence itself is. Strange. #RethinkingVirginity #
  • "It's a fallacy to think that given an abundance of information young people will get confused" #Youth have brains too! #RethinkingVirginity #
  • Finding myself amazed & awed that we've reached the point of saying "opposite gender, so to speak." #postpostpostgender #RethinkingVirginity #
  • If virginity is transformative sexual experience, I think I lost mine a year ago finding #denial as a #core #desire. 5 yrs post intercourse. #
  • Waiting for the #SexPanic #Panel to start. Tackling sexuality, education, free speach & censorship. So excited! #
  • #Sex Panic Panelist & @BrownSHEEC chair @pledgemistress tells us abt college #sex #weeks across the country. #Health & #safety a priority. #
  • #SexPanic Panelist @ReidAboutSex explains that when #New #Yorkers pay for #hugs the Apocalypse is nigh. His #cuddle #parties lead to #doom #
  • Panelist @ReidAboutSex reminds us that while #college #sexed may not meet everyone's #interests that's a reason to #broaden it, not end it. #
  • #SexPanic Panelist & Brown University administrator explains how the U works w students to create great programing w/out content restriction #
  • #SexPanic Panelis @hiohmegan tells us that most of her job as a sex #educator is making people #feel #better about their #bodies & #desires #
  • 'Just because I talk about something does not mean I'm telling people to go out & do it!' says @hiohmegan. Sad that needs saying! #SexPanic #
  • Now @maymaym talks. Gonna watch not tweet. Watch it yourselves. #sexpanic #
  • Moderator asks what the #limits should be when #talking about #sex Hmm. #sexpanic #
  • Panelist @ReidAboutSex opines that the edgiest #sex #discussion occurs between sex educators too cut off from other social spaces. #sexpanic #
  • Panelist @pledgemistress asks – how will you know where your line is if you don't know what you're drawing it between? #sexpanic #education #
  • Panelist @maymaym reminds us we have many rights, but the right to live unoffended is not among them. #sexpanic #
  • Question: 'How have you dealt with it when people attack the way you educate?' @hiohmegan: 'Freak out.: Good 1st step! Then, talk. #sexpanic #
  • Conversation is engendered when people don't feel judged for difference, @ReidAboutSex tells us. But how do you ensure THAT? #sexpanic #
  • Amazing how quickly fear spreads – as it turns to hate and anger, it even spreads to the people we're being told to be afraid of. #sexpanic #
  • Question: 'What's the difference between what's offensive & what's harmful, esp. when #hate #speach is involved?' #sexpanic #
  • Perhaps a distinction between offense & harm lies in the direction. It's one thing to make a general statement, another to harass. #sexpanic #
  • Realizing I need to start listening to more #Grateful #Dead, stat. Missing Uncle John's Band. Also, time has slowed. 5 days ago was forever. #
  • @sarahdopp @jamesbcarp D'awwwwww…. you guys… (cc @maymaym) #
  • @bewareleopard Sending love for you!! Hope all is well! in reply to bewareleopard #
  • What's red on top, white below, and unutterably adorable? @maymaym, that's what. #
  • Kid at library just asked me about my #birth #control pills. I explained they were to #prevent #parasites. I only speak the #truth #
  • So tired. So Horny. Yawning fit to suck all oxygen in 2 mile radius in to help support my brain. Can I do the next four hours? Sure I can! #
  • Morning. Pouring. Thunder. Screw whatever I had planned, today is a stay-in kinda day. #
by Helio

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-02

by Helio

Sandwiches

The sandwich is a many splendored thing, and one that is too rarely given the respect that it deserves. Its origin is shrouded in the myth of a gambling aristocrat; its family tree branches every which way from melts and burgers, submarines and crustless white-bread things, to tea sandwiches and open-faced concoctions and the Atkins-fueled excuse for a true sandwich, the low-carb wrap.

A long time ago, in a summer which is dogeared in my brain as one of culinary bliss, I ate sandwiches every day. It was a sandwich on a crusty roll or piece of baguette, made with a hard, peppery, all-beef salami (my partner at the time still aspired to keep kosher), with romaine lettuce and mayonnaise. (It evolved from a favorite snack of mine when I was in middle school, a sandwich of low-quality hard salami on Pepperidge Farm white bread.) This may be my favorite sandwich – it is certainly the sandwich that is most dear to my heart.

Other sandwiches reign supreme in different times of day or year. Although I eschew the traditional butter for more flavorful mayonnaise, cucumber sandwiches on white bread make me a happy girl with tea and gingerbread and friends-of-the-female-persuasion on a Sunday afternoon. In the summer when it is bright and hot, a tomato grown by somebody I love, sliced thin on a flavorful bread, again with mayo (or else the tomato will make the bread soggy). After a night of debauchery, at about 1:00 in the afternoon having woken not before 11:00 am, a burger with mayo (always, always with the mayo) ketchup, pickles, tomato and lettuce, extra-crispy french-fries and coffee are just the thing for me. I love veggie subs and cheese steaks and interesting combinations of cheeses and cold cuts and vegetables. I love grilled cheese with tomato soup. Or with out it, really. The BLT is a masterpiece, and the addition of avocado simply dreamy.

But the sandwich that fills my thoughts today, that blocks me from other lunch choices and that, through being just-a-bit-too-pricey, has completely undone my grocery shopping plans, forcing me to curtail those ventures till I wind up eating nothing for dinner but handfuls of almonds and grapes (delicious! nutritious! remarkably filling!) That sandwich is one sold at the Seven Stars Bakery here in Providence, and it is divine. It is made with fresh mozzarella from a local creamery, arugula, roasted red pepper and olive tapenade on a section of baguette. With a mug of sweet iced-coffee with coffee ice cubes, it is a little bit of heaven, to be slowly enjoyed over an Agatha Christie mystery in the middle of my day – every day.

I can’t afford it, but I can’t stop myself.

Sandwiches will do that to a girl.

by Helio

Femquake: Because Brains and Boobs Go Together

Smart & Sexy

Look at her being sexy, even in that big 'ole sweater ...

I have trouble with dichotomies. I really do. For instance, there’s this dichotomy between being smart and being sexy. As though if you value the one, you can’t value the other.

And it’s bullshit.
My entire life, I’ve known I was smart. I’ve done a pretty good job of making sure everybody around me knows it, too. I read obsessively, I’m snobbish about food and literature, I’m completely out of the pop culture look, but will always catch a reference to “The Song of Roland” – I’m an overeducated geek, no doubt about it. And I base a lot of my self image and self esteem on that knowledge.
I have not known for my entire life – or even since I began caring about such things – that I was sexy. That I, in fact, am sexy. There are days, even now, when I don’t know it.
But I’m not blind, you see, and I am lucky. I look at myself and I see – firm, high breasts, small waist, flaring hips, round bottom. I see long legs and smooth skin, a good complexion, dark eye-lashes framing big brown eyes, a small, upturned nose, naturally shiny hair with just a little bit of wave to it. If you put together all the pieces you get sexy, right?
So what, I thought, was wrong with me?! I should be sexy, I should be physically desirable, but nobody seems to be desiring me – so somehow, something must be broken.
I’m too smart.
A woman can only be valued for her brains or her body. Never both.
And it’s better, apparently, to be desired for your brains. That’s what it is – you say, I love you for your brain. Your mind. You say it as a joke to your sexy girlfriend, like saying you only read Playboy for the articles, like it’s demeaning that her body turns you on.
Again, I say, bullshit.
I know that I’m smart, and it’s important to me that my friends, my partners, and the world at large understands that. It’s important that they notice my accomplishments, the quality of my writing, my skill at solving problems. It’s ALSO important to me that I look good, and that my friends, my partners, and those guys who catcall on the street, notice that too.
I do put some effort into looking good, you know. And I don’t find it demeaning (nor should you find it threatening) to have that noticed. I don’t feel that my worth as a woman is threatened by men who find me attractive – I think it’s heightened. Because I am STILL SMART. Being sexy doesn’t take away from that, it adds to it. It gives me another thing to base my self esteem, my self image on. It gives me a reason to pick out my clothes with a bit of care, to think about what message my appearance sends, to make sure my hygiene is good.
Having grown up feeling smart but not sexy, I have never, ever felt threatened or lessened or maligned because of someones positive comments about my body. I have felt disbelieving. I have felt I was receiving charity. I have felt, even in the face of strong empirical evidence to the contrary, that my lovers were telling me I was beautiful just to placate me.
It took a man who was stunned by my intelligence first, but who nevertheless dropped his jaw when I removed my clothing, to make me believe, really, that I was sexy, in addition to, because of, but also separate from, being smart.
My being a wonderful, desirable, complete person will not cause earthquakes. It may overthrow some social orders, it make confuse some people, but no heavenly power will punish me or the world at large for it. I can be what I am.
And it matters to me that if you want me to like you, and if you like me, you acknowledge all of what I am.
I am smart. I am sexy. They both count, and no matter who you are, neither should make you feel threatened or fearful.
I’d much rather you whistled at me as I walk past than ever be afraid of me.

If this post rings true with you, go to www.femquake.com and join in!

by Helio

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-04-18

by Helio

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-04-11

by Helio

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-04-04