(*Byron would be so proud: my skull tea-light holder is next to my poetry books and the skull snowshaker is on top of my gay and lesbian poetry anthology)

..I've been writing for two weeks. Articles for the convention, articles for Vital Voice, an update of my resume, an e-mail and a thank you card to Kenn Altine, an e-mail to Keith Darce thanking him and asking for advice, cover letters for two editors at the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, a slashfic for the snape_after_dh comm, a revision of "Overkill" -- a slashfic I'm turning into an original story, a revision of chapter 1 of an eventual novel.

And possibly more. I'm 24 years old and I'm living as a writer. Just not *making a living* at it quite yet.

Here's a small sample of each piece mentioned above. Tell me what y'all think?
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From "Journalists get tips on covering emotional stories":

"We can't keep emotions out of our work," moderator Roger Simpson said during a sessiton titled "The Cost of Objectivity" on Friday. "What we need to do is learn how to deal with those emotions within our work."

The four-person panel discussed the emotional costs of remaining objective when reporting under extraordinary circumstances.

The panel was sponsored by CNN, which Simpson praised for their employee health plans, which include increased accessibility to mental health services.

Simpson, professor and founding director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington, talked about the expectations of journalists and the emotional effects of covering disasters, such as Sept. 11, the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina.

"There's a public assumption that journalists cover the story, go back to the office, get their next assignment and move on," he said. "That they're not affected by the work that they do."

--

From "Jeder Engel":

Creating form from will. Different from transfiguration, alchemy or any other wizarding practice in life, and yet not. The principles were essentially the same, but those things dealt with the diminuative, the miniature object, rather than the whole of the environment. One could pull their greatest joy from the few sense memories that had accompanied them on their cross over.

It also meant that, if one didn't maintain a clear head, they could sink themselves into a hell of their own making.

"I like the booth by the window, how about you?"

"Do I have a choice.."

"No."

--

From 'Letter to Lynn Cunningham':

Dear Ms. Cunningham:

I am writing to you at the suggestion of David Poller and Keith Darcé from the San Diego Union-Tribune, who told me you may have openings for entry-level reporters. I've been following the Times-Picayune with great interest, reading the online version, since the events of Hurricane Katrina. When I didn't know where my friend at Loyola was and cable news was reporting that women and babies were being raped in the Superdome, the Times-Picayune was the only news source I trusted to tell me the truth.

I've been very impressed with the paper's focus and clear investment in broad local coverage -- the fact that Karl Rove's resignation was on page 1 everywhere else in the country but only made page 9 of the Times-Picayune print edition blew me away. You are playing an essential role in re-building an American city. No other newspaper in the country is more relevant at this moment in time and I would love to be a part of it.

--

From 'E-mail to Kenn Altine:

Kenn,

Here is an updated copy of my resume with my six best clips, as promised. Thank you again for all of your advice. Beaumont looks like a beautiful city!

Sincerely,
Rebecca Perlow

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From "Unity, NGLJA partnership remains elusive":

..In 1998, Woods attended a meeting sponsored by the American Society of Newspaper Editors at the Freedom Forum Pacific Coast Center to discuss the 20th anniversary of the organization’s annual newsroom employment census and to discuss the failure to reach its original goal of minority percentages in the journalism industry being proportionate to the percentage of minorities nationwide. The presidents of the four Unity organizations, board members from the NLGJA, the Journalism and Women Symposium and “diversity leaders from across the country” attended the meeting.

One of the topics up for discussion was the possibility of expanding the ASNE newsroom census to include white women, and gay and lesbian journalists. The majority of the assembly dismissed the topic.

“ ‘Dismissed’ is the polite term. I think it was stomped on actually,” Woods said. “There were some strong advocates for it. But the answer back sounded a lot like the answer given to people of color some years ago: ‘This is not the time for it. It will dilute the effort.’ I found that answer to be very corrupt.”

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From "Overkill":

Unlike Dorian, Nick had grown up more of a provincial, middle upper-class hippie. Delusional vegetarian mama's boy prat whose own misspent youth was filled with antiwar and anti-Apartheid demonstrations and arrests for public nuisance. His mother had once chained herself and five-year-old "Richie" to Minister of Labour Ray Gunter's office building not in protest of the wage restraint or his handling of the seaman's strike, but of his department's poor track record of employing women and other minorities. He loved Donovan and T-Rex, John Lennon and the Moody Blues, sang "Crippled Inside" in the shower and hummed "Diamond Meadows" while he fried tomato slices and buttered toast.

Two years younger than him, Dorian always thought the younger man resembled a malnourished fawn. Pale and spotty with hair that stuck to his forehead and the back of his neck in sweet auburn waves. Eyes the color of ripe gooseberries, scrawny with ragged bones and flesh alternately pulled taut and left sagging in all the wrong places. Once, while messing around on the large single they shared in the flat, he'd slapped his flatmate's compact arse to feel the rough impact of bones against his palm and to watch the ripple effect spread to his beer paunch.

--

From "Working Title: Suzi Quatro Was Here":

He'd bleached his hair once when he was sixteen, using real bleach (no poofy commercial colouring) mixed with ten or so packets of Nutrisweet imitation sugar to relieve the sting. When his hair began to split and break, feathering out like a long-haired persian, Georgia had shorn it off close to his reddened scalp while "Lilac Wine" played on the turntable in the living room.

Every guardian Zan had ever known had changed their name at least once. Georgia had been married more than once. The number of husbands was rumoured to be between three (Deidre's guess) and seven (Daz's). Zan himself knew of only two -- she'd kept Nigel's name and Simon's collection of blues records.

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From "Medical providers catching onto GLBT issues":

..Last year, the issue got national coverage when Kissimmee, Fla. resident Jamie Beiler was issued a packet of anti-gay literature by her physician’s office. Under the advice of the Southern Legal Counsel, she pulled her medical files from the office only to find a note on her chart reporting ‘scripture references were given regarding homosexuality and lesbianism.’

“That is more common than most of us would like to believe,” Catherine Williamson, family nurse practitioner at Southampton Health Care, said. “It’s not just a matter of feared discrimination. If gays and lesbians end up in a doctor’s office where they feel they are the novelty or are treated like they are some oddity, they may not be discriminated against but they don’t have an educated health care provider who can best approach their health concerns.”

Overt homophobia isn’t the only factor. Questions by physicians and health care providers that may not be homophobic, but assume their patient is heterosexual, can leave the patient with the tremendous responsibility of researching and asking specific questions regarding their own health and well-being.<.i>

Protesters Disrupt Historic Reading of Senate Prayer By Hindu

I'm so relieved that, finally, after more than four years of collusion between the American government and American journalism (approx. from Sept 11, 2001 to August 29, 2005), we appear to finally be getting undiluted, uncensored access to the full breadth and spectrum of newsworthy national and international events regarding all groups -- including so-called "minority" groups such as the GLBT community, non-Christian religous groups, etc.

So... Why did I have to go to The Guardian (a British newspaper) to read this? Why do I have to rely on the international media to tell me about shit that happens in *my own fucking country*?

There was TONS of American news coverage when Senator Keith Ellison was sworn in using a copy of the Koran when *no one* protested. Why no coverage for a Hindu prayer (Hinduism, an even older religion) requested by Senate majority leader Harry Reid when it IS protested?

Is the copy not as good? Last I checked, "fundamentalist morons with a bug up their ass" was *always* good copy. Is it becauses the religion isn't as well known in the States? The only Hindu practicing person I can name apart from my sister is Apu from "The Simpsons." Is it because there's no such thing as "Hindu extremism?" You don't hear about a lot of Hindu suicide bombers killing people.

Who knows. I did a Google search of "Senate Hindu protest." Several blogs popped up, the United Press International wire service, The Washington Post was the most well-known media source to cover the incident. Yet it wasn't the Number One result on the page.

That honor went to Al Jazeera English. How fucking embarrasing for us.

White House Criticizes Clintons on Libby

"I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said.

Hey, Snow. What's Kentuckian for "crap journalist?"

Files Unearthed on Petagon "Gay Bomb"

What the *fuck* is wrong with the people that run the US military? Do they have that "Middle-Aged White Man" disease the curia in the Vatican has? That mindset of being the cultural majority and everyone else being subordinate to them?

Poland Targets "Gay" Teletubbies

(I knew there was another reason Bush loved Poland so much)

Gay Activists Beaten and Arrested in Russia

Pakistani Pair Pleads to Live Together

Makes me almost happy to be American. Almost:

Lesbian Files Complaint Against Doctor for Prescribing Unwanted Anti-Gay "Treatment"

Cambridge's Trans Mayor is a UK First

Well at least the Brits are civilized. Oh but wait:

Homophobic Twats F**K Off

Hmmm, around the world in one homophobic *whoosh* over breakfast (which was, btw, a Starbuck's mocha coffee, a bottle of water and a Soyjoy berry bar -- boy, I've come a long way from Mountain Dew and Camel Turkish Royals).

It doesn't make me nauseous. Just more determined.

Afterellen.com's Interview with Kristiana Loken

"For many, many years I struggled with even just choosing a gender. I'd be in a relationship with one, and I'd want to be in a relationship with another one — I mean as far as gender went, and it was really confusing for me until I accepted the fact that I'm simply attracted to a person and loving them on that level, and gender really becomes secondary.

"I think the bisexual community is really a difficult niche, because you're not really taken seriously by either the straight community or the gay community, so it's hard to find that acceptance. But I guess I would just say: Be confident with just being able to love who you choose, whether it's a man or a woman, and know that that's OK."

I love this woman. And I also love that she was interviewed by the site's managing editor, Malinda Lo, and not the EIC Sarah Warn.

I attended a panel discussion with both of them in Miami last September and immediately developed a crush on Warn... until I read her writing and got the niggling feeling that she was a) slightly biphobic and b) MORE than a little transphobic. She's used the term "straight bisexual" to refer to women who are attracted to both genders but -- for a variety of reasons -- have only dated men (the context is not positive, these "SB's" according to Warn are an annoyance that further render the "real" bisexual women even more invisible), and once referred to the Zoe/Bianca storyline (a trans/lesbian romance) on AMC as part of the soap's continued effort of "screwing lesbians over for eight years in a row!"

"Phobic" is maybe not the best term for Warn's approach to some subjects, but she has her own set of definitions of what's acceptable for bisexual women and transgender people, fictional and non-fictional, and they are a great deal more narrow and divisive than what I find comfortable.

Neither of which I get coming from Lo's articles, which always seem more -- purposely avoiding the term "fair and balanced" -- equitable. She's a lesbian writer who works for a lesbian website and admits to knowing "maybe two" straight people in her life. But she also criticized "The L Word's" writing team for dropping the ball on Moira/Max's transition storyline and it's "vanishing bisexual" storylines in spite of having *two* openly bisexual regular characters.

.. the catch is you have to surf on over to my music blog and read my album review to get them.

"Zits and Tits: Virgin and the Sex Pistols Beat a Dead Horse"

As usual, I'm a feedback slut -- tell me what you think :P

..but I am writing a reply to a Dan Savage column.

For those of you who don't know, Dan Savage is a syndicated sex columnist, author, political activist, gay man with a husband and five-year-old kid, all around good guy. This is the man who started the contest that turned "Santorum" into a dirty sex term (when you Google this word, the first site that pops up gives you the definition, not the former Republican senator's page..) and licked all the doorknobs at Gary Bauer's campaign headquarters the week he had the stomach flu.

Last week, Dan wrote a column around a letter from a woman asking him if he'd heard about a book by a woman named Joan Sewell called I'd Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love my Low Libido. This woman and women who praise her book say that there is no such thing as women who want to have sex constantly. That women who have low libidos are, in fact, the norm and husbands and wives need to work out sexual "contracts they both can live with."

One reviewer of the book described a relationship she'd observed from her own life in her review: a lesbian couple suffering from lesbian bed death who's weekly ritual of ordering pizza and eating Doritos was "better than sex" in their mind.. And the reviewer's as well..

The whole story just made my skin crawl. Particularly the "conflicting libidos" sexual contracts between committed couples.. That line in particular sent my mind into a dark downward spin.

Dan's already been glued to the wall with backlash letters from "lusty ladies" who all want to fuck or get fucked ten times a day. But I decided to write my own response anyway:

( This Girl Hates Chocolate..and I'll tell you why )