Author: Michelle

This is a calling card

Maybe it will be a farewell note

The poison fountain pen now requires the antidote

And if I avert your gaze

And I should become a shrinking flower

Just punch me on the arm

This could be our finest hour

–Elvis Costello

It will come as a surprise to no one that I use the blog as a journal. Those who recognize themselves in it might wonder what is wrong with me sometimes. I wonder that about myself sometimes too, and this is part of what I do to figure it out. Writing helps me think.

The people who have gotten the worst of it here have somewhat ironically been the best sports about it. This has always fascinated me. I wonder if they just don’t read it? (They do) I wonder if they just don’t care what I say? (They probably do) Or if they know I am just trying to figure things out and are cutting me slack about the blog that they can’t manage in real life? (No idea, and that sentence doesn’t even make sense)

Of course if I meet new people and write about them, they never know. That is a whole lot easier because I don’t have to take their feelings into consideration. If I’m writing about a real person who might read what I write it is harder. It’s also hard to balance frankness and kindness. Maybe I’m dating someone new, and a past love might find that hard to read. Should I not write about it? Generally in the past I have, but I do try to consider the feelings of people who might be hurt by what I say.

I don’t think I have ever written something about someone that came as a shock to them. If I have and it was you, let me know.

Why can’t I just write my thoughts and feelings in a nice private notebook like a sane person? Because shut up. Or, to put it a little differently, because knowing that I will post something makes me think about things, or try to, in a way that is a little more organized. A little more dispassionate.

Even so, a lot of the things I write never get posted. They can’t be, they’re too naked. Too mean. Too personal. Too emotional. Too identifiable. Too something. Anyone who remembers that I have written about blow jobs and masturbation might wonder what I consider too personal to post. It’s like porn–I know it when I see it. Often it’s either too overtly mean or it would get them in some kind of trouble.

The more emotionally turbulent the times, the more I find I write things that can’t be posted. Like now. I probably abandon about 1/3 of my posts at the moment. Hey, job stress plus relationship stress plus future weight loss surgery which might be impacted by the reason behind the job stress equals one very emotional Scorpio woman. At least one person is really lucky I have scruples and judgment about this in spite of the stress. They can thank me later.

I end up reworking a lot of the unused pieces when the worst stress has passed. When things feel less personal, or maybe just when I have been able to work out my feelings a little better. Sometimes I use paragraphs or ideas somewhere else and delete the rest.

Does it help? It does. A lot. But sometimes before it helps, it hurts.

Change comes with introspection, and change is generally not much fun.

My introspection just gets published on the Internet for anyone in the world to read. Does that make it extroversion?

You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it’s our last
–the Pogues/Fairytale of New York

Being a person of the recently single variety, I logged into OKCupid a week or so ago to update my profile. I had totally forgotten that my profile references a time when Santa called me an ungrateful cunt. I had taken the train to Tacoma to see Ma and Little L, and Santa tumbled into the seat next to me.  He was quite intoxicated. He slurred that he could tell I’d been a very good little girl and asked me if I’d like a villa in Provence for Christmas. When I asked if maybe it could be in Tuscany instead, he called me an ungrateful cunt and went on his way.

Yes, I’m serious. Santa.

So that got me thinking about words, like everything does.

When is it OK to tolerate a slur?

Obviously, it’s not appropriate in everyday conversation. It’s definitely not ever OK to call someone a faggot, nigger or cunt.  Well, *almost*  never on that last one…I do have an exception or two there.  No, not if it’s Santa. Generally speaking, though, I think we’d all mostly agree that it’s not ever OK to call people that  sort of names. If we hear it, I’d like to think we’d call people on it.

But are there situations when it is  OK, or even desirable? Maybe when used in a song or a book in which the artist needs to depict the sort of people who do use this kind of language? Or on the news when reporting that people directed those words at someone?

The classic example is Tom Sawyer and the “n-word.” Or there’s the snippet of the song Fairytale of New York by the Pogues I’ve quoted at the top of this piece. It’s a great song, but it makes me twitch every time they get to that part. And it should. The people in the song are the kind of people you probably wouldn’t want to be around much. The kind of people who talk like that to each other. The kind of people who used to feel like the King and Queen of New York, but are now drug addicts or drunks who spend their holidays in the drunk tank reduced to screaming their hopelessness at each other. The use of the word faggot is appropriate to the atmosphere of the song, even though it’s a word I hate.

And how do you feel about referring to words like cunt or nigger as “the c-word” or “the n-word?”  I’ve alluded to this before, I think.  It  bothers me when people use euphemisms to describe slurs. It robs the words of the very thing that makes them so vile–their power to virtually punch someone in the gut.

For example when a couple of  assholes in a truck  drove past a child’s party waving a Confederate flag and yelling nigger out the window, should the reporters have used the word nigger in their reporting or should they have used “the n-word” instead? Most opted for “the n-word” which disappointed me.

In my opinion, the word should be reported as said. No one likes hearing a racial or sexual slur, but reducing a harsh word to a euphemism makes it seems less impactful. It diminishes the effect of what was actually said. If I read “they drove past a group of little girls and screamed the n-word at them” it doesn’t sound all that bad. We have to translate it in our heads, which distances us from the impact of the word.  If I read “they drove past a group of little girls and screamed nigger at them” then it sounds as bad as it is. It hits me harder. It makes me think “who in the HELL does that to little kids?”

Using a euphemism diminishes the harm done. And it a weird sort of way, it makes the word sort of an untouchable entity. It gives it more substance by making it into a sort of totem of power.

And maybe that makes the word a little bit stronger.