Life is good. Really, it's difficult to post at those times. Almost like I might accidentally break the spell.

I've had this pain in my lower abdomen for days now. It's not very strong - else I would have rushed to a doctor - but something inside me is tender and I flinch as I move around. It's been three days now and I think it's getting worse. It's definitely not getting better.

I suppose I better let someone look at it. :(

Sometimes it's so hard to stay on target and I really am not sure what makes the difference between "focused and functional" and "dithering like an idiot until it's too late to do anything at all" other than whether at the end of the day I have something to show for myself.

So why don't I just do this butt-in-chair thing where I sit down for two hours a day and all the rest, it would fit in around that, I know it would.

But no, I do day after day of not doing that and then going into a panic and a day of creating BUT that day, that day is 6 hours max of really getting it down and if I did it every three days that would be fine but I don't.

I have nothing - NOTHING - to submit at the moment and it's freaking me out.

"People said the American public would elect a black President when pigs fly. And what happened right after Obama took office? Swine flu."

I don't seem to be able to go to the local bar and having a drink without getting drunk.

I think it's to do with people buying rounds: if it is in front of me, I drink it. In a restaurant or at home, it's less likely that there is constantly a fresh drink in front of me.

I don't want to stop meeting people there so I am going to need to unlearn this behaviour, fast.

I don't know if I can really explain this.

First, you need to know that I was a teenager in Los Angeles in the 1980s. As a white female, I was afraid of the police and pissed off at the city and both scared and envious of the gangs. My mom worked in Compton, we lived on the other side of the county where she could get me into a "good" school (it wasn't quite all white but I could have counted the black kids in my year without resorting to toes) and the music, well. I mean, I listened to white kid music - heavy metal and "classic" rock - and I was terrifically snobby about dance music and KROQ and the music they played in clubs - although secretly half my problem was that I just couldn't dance. The music on the street, though, that was different. It came from groups of kids - blacks and filipinos and mexicans but they weren't "gangs", they were just hanging out. I knew some of them but it wouldn't have been cool to walk up and join them when they were listening to music and dancing. They had what I guess were boom boxes, though I don't remember them being called that then. The music put our heavy metal to shame: it was angry and provocative and in your face. It was "not ours" - we might drunkenly, in whispers admit to liking one or two songs but you couldn't join those groups or start rapping along, god forbid. But the music, the words, they were real and powerful and I remember wishing it was possible just to get it on cassette so I could sit and listen without it meaning anything. Without it being about me being white and a girl and not knowing how to act or what to say to make sure I wasn't appropriating or condescending or whatever.

Anyway.

Today nihilistic_kid posted a cover of Straight Outta Compton by Nina Gordon.

If you'd told me that I really had to hear this track where some blonde pretty white girl had covered an 80s rap song, I would have told you to fuck off and come back when you had some real music to share. It just sounds horrific.

But you know, I love this. I love the way she's covered it and the upbeat middle-class tone and taking those lyrics and not softening a single sound. I've been passing it around my friends and they are pretty much looking at me blankly and I'm not sure how to explain it. I love the way she's turned it into a folk song, making it a part of a shared history. I can see why real NWA fans might feel slighted or that she's trivialised it. But I think she's slapping down the attitude that these words, this music, these happenings are not right for "real" music.

No, I can't explain it and the more I try, the worse I sound. I'll shut up now.

But listen:




YouTube - Straight Outta Compton - Nina Gordon

I have canceled today. You will find me playing computer games instead. Feel free to join me.

If you are going to use a public voting system, make sure it works.

If you can't make sure it works, don't use it for serious decisions. Choosing a winner on a system that can be fiddled is fine if it's just for fun. It's less impressive for professionals.

When someone points out how it's been manipulated and you agree and say you can't clean the data, that's a bad moment.

I really can't believe that you would simply use that system for final ranking anyway. For gods sake, take your own decision. Or pull names out of a hat. But choosing a winner based on a scoring system that you know include single people voting over a hundred times to rank things up or down? WTF?

Things have been so quiet lately, it's making me nervous. Is it bad if I'm expecting a meltdown simply because there hasn't been anything wrong lately?

It's been tranquil. Calm. Even throughout the craziness of another crazy girl - he was so much more careful. He acknowledged her craziness ("The one good thing about this is that if Emma came back you'd probably welcome her with open arms") and made a point of spending time with me and focusing.

He also broke rules that I know he would hold me to - and the problem there is that I'm not seeing anyone else, not bringing people home, not pushing limits at all. So I say this and he says, no don't be silly, I wouldn't care.

Because he's forgotten.

I wish I liked people more. It's very hard to learn to be poly when you are isolationist.