Masks, Lies & Audiotape

I was sitting on a bus in San Francisco wearing the face mask I purchased for the smoke days the fall before. It was February 2020, and I had heard in January about Covid-19 taking hold in China. My bus goes through Chinatown, and most people in Chinatown were already wearing masks, so I figured I’d follow suit. 

I am also a mother who bare-handed sneezed-out toddler boogers enough to know that claiming that a virus only spreads by touching something infected and then touching your face is illogical and highly unlikely.

 

So I put my mask on just before I got on the bus, and took it off when I got off.

 

Most people ignored me. Seeing odd things is not unusual in San Francisco, so a short, skinny, white woman with gray hair wearing a mask on a bus was unremarkable.

 

But on this particular day in February, as the directives from the White House insisted that the disease could not be transmitted in the air, someone on the bus took issue with my mask.

He was a younger, middle-aged, white man with tattoos and a skateboard, not the kind of guy you’d expect to make unsolicited comments on a stranger’s personal choices. He boarded the bus, took a look at me, and kindly told me I didn’t need to worry … the virus only spreads by direct contact. I didn’t need a mask. Just wash your hands and don’t touch your face. He said it as if he were gently scolding his grandmother (I am not that old, by the way, but I guess my gray hair evoked something in him).

 

I know better than to engage in substantive argumentation with strangers on public transportation, particularly as a woman being mansplained (yet again). So I shrugged, as if to say, “I’ll do me, you do you” and looked away. He repeated himself, more insistent. I shot him a look over my mask, then turned away again and ignored him. He felt compelled to say it again, to someone nearby, as if looking for support. The moment passed, and we all moved on with our lives.

 

This man clearly was listening to Trump and his enablers who, knowing full well that they were lying in a manner that would cost tens of thousands of lives, gave us all deadly and economically devastating misinformation for political gain.

 

In February 2020, Donald Trump admitted on the record, in a recorded conversation, that Covid-19 was far more deadly than seasonal flu AND airborne. At nearly the same moment, I was on the bus, months ahead of my time in my mask, being scolded and mansplained by someone who I choose to believe meant well but who was being fed a pack of deadly, inexcusable lies.

 

Wrap your head around that, then #VoteTHEMOut

Not Slacktivism: Why I Rainbowed My Facebook Profile Picture

I don’t know why anyone else rainbowed their Facebook profile photo, though plenty of folks have their theories, but I know why I rainbowed mine. Whenever there are instances like this – large or small – there is a funny moment as a user of social media when I must decide if I participate in what I know will ultimately be attacked as meaningless at best, or socially reprehensible at worst.

The slacktivist critique asserts that participating in these sorts of social media campaigns costs the participants nothing yet gives them the feeling that they have done something real in service of whatever the campaign is about. I had no illusion when I posted Daffy Duck as my profile picture a few years ago, ostensibly to raise awareness of child abuse, that I was actually participating in any sort of activism. Participating indeed cost me nothing more than a few minutes to find and post a picture, but it also gave me no false rush of activist glee.

In contrast, I rainbowed my Facebook profile picture because I wanted to identify myself as a visible supporter of the rights of LGBT people to marry whom they love, among other rights. It wasn’t an easy choice, and it also wasn’t one I was completely comfortable making. I was drawing attention to myself, of course, but it came from a desire to express in a clear and unequivocal form that I have decided that equality for LGBT people is a good and appropriate thing.

This is not a small deal for me. I wrote a blog post a few years ago outlining my journey to this point of view. Like many people who identify as Christian, I found this issue confusing and upsetting. I believe many people are struggling because of what they believe and have been told their religion teaches about the subject while earnestly desiring to be open and loving to their LGBT friends and family.

This is also not a small deal to some of the people who know me and love me, many of whom are my Facebook friends. I would imagine that a few of my family and friends were appalled when they saw my face smiling through a rainbow. They are part of the reason I did it. Being willing to put myself out there, even in this microscopic way, as a supporter of my friends and family who are LGBT, took a modicum of courage that I will not overstate, but I own. I can’t help thinking maybe my public declaration of my opinion in this way might have caused more than one person I know and love to wonder about their own position on the question, especially if they are as horrified by the Supreme Court ruling as many people are.

Another reason I did it is for my friends and family who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. I wanted them to know that I am willing to identify as one who cares about their struggle. It is easy simply to say that you are a supporter of equal rights when asked; it is another to demonstrate this support openly, and possibly to open yourself to censure from your friends and family who disagree. Again, I acknowledge that mine was a small gesture with comparatively small risk, but I believe it is important.

I would wager that there are probably many people who thought about rainbow-ing their profile photos but didn’t because they were afraid. They were not willing to risk identifying themselves publicly as a supporter in a political environment that is so acrimonious. I can’t say I blame them, and I certainly don’t fault them. I was, however, pretty surprised how many people “liked” my rainbowed profile photo, and I couldn’t help noticing how many of them had not, in fact, rainbowed their own profile photos.

It is terribly easy not to participate at moments like this. By rainbowing my profile photo, I opened myself up to being called silly at best, or, as one commentator asserts, a cultural appropriator who should probably be ashamed of herself. I was also undoubtedly called unflattering things by family and friends who disagree with the Supreme Court ruling. My point is that it would have been way easier for me to lie low on Facebook for a week until the news cycle moved on.

I considered this approach as I was grappling with my fear of rainbowing my profile photo. I don’t want to overstate this fear, as it is barely perceptible compared to that experienced by LGBT people on a regular basis, but it is real, and it was present for me. I can’t imagine how difficult and frightening it must be for them to declare who they are when they finally do, given the significant pause I experienced before identifying myself as a mere supporter.

Changing my profile photo cost me nearly nothing compared to the insult and degradation that my LGBT friends and family have endured, but it did cost me something. It cost me the comfortable neutrality that saying and doing nothing provides. It was about me for sure, but it was not, in fact, slacktivism. I believe my rainbow profile picture did cost me something, and it did actually do something to promote marriage equality among my family and friends – both for those who oppose it and for those who support it. So my rainbow profile picture will stay rainbow for a while, even if I am among those scolded and ridiculed for it.

Flipping It

I left a video message on Skype the other day. I was trying to Skype my husband, who was away on business, but he didn’t answer, and Skype very kindly asked if I wanted to leave a video message.

Sure enough, when I clicked on it, a window popped up, and suddenly I was face to face with myself, my webcam tracking my every movement. I clicked Record and did it in one take.

When I clicked Stop, however, Skype gave me the option to send the video, re-record, or cancel. That’s when it got interesting. At that moment, Skype flipped the image of my video so that now instead of looking at a mirror image – which Skype provides when you see yourself on the webcam – I was now seeing the properly “flipped” image of myself that everyone else sees. This image was familiar in the way images of myself in photographs are familiar, but also strange and unsettling because I’m not used to seeing that person. I can honestly say I don’t know her well.

This got me thinking about an evening a week or so ago when I went to an open mic. Lately I’ve been working up new arrangements of my original music and playing them out at open mics. I am a classically trained cellist, but I only picked up the guitar a few years ago, so playing guitar while I sing, especially when I’m nervous, is still a challenge. Long story short, I did not play as well as I had hoped that particular night and was pretty upset about it.

But the truth is, my playing that evening was probably fine. I am not the next American Idol (though someone once paid me a confusing compliment that if American Idol had been on 20 years earlier I’d have been a shoo-in), but I didn’t stink up the joint either. I was actually “very good,” as another performer accurately noted, but that evening, this was not enough for me. I was in full-on piss-all-over-myself mode, furious at my lack of professionalism, steel nerves, and general perfection. I even went so far as to inform my steering wheel on the way home that I was tired of SUCKING.

But the truth is, I didn’t suck.

Which brings me to my point. The view from here – inside my head, heart and body looking out – is very different from the one perceiving me as everyone but me perceives me. I literally can’t see myself directly in the same way others see me directly.

Think about that for a second: we all go through our entire lives never having physically seen our own faces without some form of mediation like a mirror or a photographic device. Isn’t that enough to convince a person that perhaps our own judgments of ourselves from within are … well … limited at best?

Hang onto that thought for a moment, then consider my judging myself by my mirror image. This person who shows up in the mirror every day – and on Skype only during the recording process – is a stranger to everyone but me. I am the only one who sees her regularly, yet she is often the one on whom I base my judgments about myself, my worth, my abilities, and my talents, not to mention my looks.

As I considered these things, I realized how truly logically perverse it is to judge myself only from either the limited vantage point I have from inside my head, or from my mirror image. No one else sees or knows those two points of view, because they don’t correspond to anyone’s direct perception of me. The view from inside my head may be direct and real for me, but it’s limited. My mirror image, on the other hand, is neither direct nor real for anyone, because it’s not how I directly perceive myself, nor how anyone else directly perceives me.

Now I am not necessarily suggesting that others can see me better than I can see myself, but I’m willing more and more to entertain the thought. At minimum, I have grown more and more suspicious of my judgments about myself, particularly the harsh ones, as they come from a very limited perspective – the inside of my head, or from the indirect, inverted image I see in the mirror.

So it is with my music. I record my practice sessions regularly, and even though I shudder every time I set up the microphone, I am constantly stunned by how NOT CRAPPY I sound on playback. Again, I’m no American Idol, but I’m also never as horrendous as I perceive my talents to be at the moment I exercise them.

And so it is with life. I’m never as bad as I think I am. I don’t see me like everyone else sees me, because it is literally physically impossible to see myself as directly as they do.

This of course raises the deeper question of why I bother with any of this – why the obsession with judging myself? I think it’s natural to want to know how I’m doing, but on what criteria do I accept these judgments? Looking only to myself is suspect. Looking to others is also suspect, as their perspective on me is colored by their own wishes, desires, and suspicions.

I know the answer: I need to seek my value in the eyes of my higher power, but I still don’t know how to do that. Or rather, I still have not weaned myself from reliance on the opinions of mortals. It’s not that those opinions aren’t valuable; sometimes they are. It’s that they don’t satisfy, because no matter how sincerely anyone tells me they like my music, for example, I don’t really believe them, because I wonder if they're just trying to be nice.

Perhaps it is the discouraging words I have received from others that cause words of encouragement to bounce off. But that also suggests that I really should be relying on something else – or someone else, like a higher power – for a true understanding of my self worth rather than deferring to these nasty remnants of opinion that have taken up residence in my heart.

“So what is YOUR course going to be about?”

“So what is YOUR course going to be about?” she asked, the edges of her voice tinged with the manic, insecure enthusiasm I remembered among my fellow hyperactive humanities students in graduate school.

I blinked, not because I did not understand, but because I understood the question as well as the expected response, and I wished not to participate. Instead, I feigned ignorance.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, my course is going to be about race, class, and gender. What is your theme going to be?”

We were discussing our prospective syllabi for an introductory university-level writing class at a community college where 80% of the incoming freshmen test into the developmental level in writing – in other words, they lack the writing skills even to place into the intro level class we both were about to teach.

I blinked again.

“Um. My course is going to be about writing,” I said, with a little jiggle of my head and a goofy smile as if to say, “isn’t that nutty?”

I jiggled my head to blunt the point I was making. Now, two years later, I probably wouldn’t bother.

I am not a decades-long veteran of college teaching, so I probably have no right to speak on this subject. I’m also not a scholar of writing pedagogy, and I haven’t read a book about it for at least 20 years. I’ve stumbled across things about writing pedagogy over the two years since I’ve been back in a college classroom after a 15-year hiatus from teaching, and I read them with some interest, but I don’t spend my time reading about teaching writing.

When I decided to return to teaching, I did spend several days in the stacks of bookstores at the many universities and colleges near me, just to see what was out there in the way of writing textbooks. My summary of the 15 years I was away: not much has changed, except the textbooks have gotten a hell of a lot more expensive.

I am puzzled and impatient with the way college writing courses are taught by many instructors. These instructors load up their courses with “themes” that in themselves are admirable, and certainly important, but do not serve the needs of their students. Students of writing need to study writing: to focus their attention on the craft, techniques, and strategies for framing a written argument. Overlaying a theme on a developmental or introductory writing course is like insisting that students sew a wedding gown when they have never cut out a pattern or operated a sewing machine. Handling complicated and multi-faceted concepts like racism, for example, is difficult if not impossible when students have never been invited nor trained into the pleasures of deeper, analytical writing, and even less so when they are still struggling to slow down their thinking enough to write a complete sentence, thereby to frame a complete thought.

One of my former students once said that my courses should be called “The Philosophy of Writing,” and I took that as a compliment. I believe writing – the craft, art, technique, and purpose of writing – should be the focus of writing courses. Readings should either be about writing itself, or used as examples of writing techniques. In the latter case, the class discussion should focus on the content only to the degree that it informs the study of how the writer has put the argument together.

Please understand I am not talking about literature courses, or what most of us think about when we think of “English class.” Reading fiction or non-fiction and then writing about its contents is certainly the business of literature classes, but should not, in my opinion, be the business of writing classes.

The drive for a “theme” for a writing course implies that writing itself is somehow not sufficient as a subject of study. I’m guessing some instructors would argue that reading about writing or reading to discern the rhetorical strategy of the writer would not engage students enough. This is not my experience. On the contrary, I find that students respond not only enthusiastically, but also with palpable relief when they are finally given the chance to focus on the craft of writing. They know that being able to write well, with clarity and confidence, will carry them through not just their college studies, but also their lives.

Achieving this level of writing proficiency is often derailed by the need among students, many of whom may not yet have sufficient writing experience, to feign proficiency in discussing the complex themes imposed on their introductory writing courses by their instructors. Forcing students to wrestle with these complex themes before they have the writing tools that will enable them to think them through is not only counterproductive, but also, I would argue, lazy on the part of instructors, and possibly even discriminatory.

In any case, themed college writing courses don’t serve the task to which I believe we are called as writing instructors: convincing students who believe they can't write – because they lack the technical skills and knowledge, and/or because they believe they have nothing of value to say – that they can learn to write well … and that they should, because if *they* don't learn to articulate themselves, someone else will do it for them, and will probably get it wrong.

Ik wil trouwen

On a somewhat chilly and typically damp day in Brussels, Belgium fifteen or so years ago, I struggled to push my toddler son’s stroller over the large cobblestones near the Grande Place, just as I was struggling to figure out how to occupy him for the hour or so until my husband would join us. As I rounded a corner near our hotel, I noticed what looked like a parade forming up the street near the top of a small hill and thought, what good fortune! Nothing like a parade to entertain a toddler!

The sidewalk was mercifully smooth on the uphill slope. As I found a perfect spot on a corner, I noticed that there were strangely few people there to watch the parade. Counting myself lucky, I positioned my son for maximum visibility, then crouched down beside him to share my excitement at what we were about to share together.

What appeared shortly thereafter was not what I expected. Men in very little clothing and enormous, vibrant feathers strutted down the street, accompanied by men and a few women clad in black leather and a lot of hardware. They were having a perfectly fabulous time, and seemed delighted that my son and I were there to watch. I realized quickly what I had stumbled into, and while I confess that I was little relieved that my son was too young to ask any questions later, I was pleased to experience something far more topical than some random, centuries-old parade near a European town square.

After all, just a few short years earlier, I had penned and saw published a letter to the editor of the International Herald Tribune that argued cogently and passionately for the right of gay couples to adopt children. My letter was a response to an opinion piece I had seen a few weeks earlier arguing against it, and I carefully and succinctly took that opinion piece apart, point by point. Apparently the editors found my argument convincing since they printed it. I was very proud.

Yet even as I stood in my progressive self-satisfaction on a street corner that chilly day in Brussels, I saw a sign among the revelers that carried a message I had never before considered: Ik wil trouwen.

I don’t know why, but it had never occurred to me that gay people would want to marry.

I was startled. Stunned, even.

I still don’t know why I was so surprised, especially for a woman who was perfectly ready to argue for gay rights in areas that others thought should belong only to mixed gender couples. It probably had something to do with my religious upbringing, even though at that point I was not a practicing Christian.

Now I am a Christian, and I have been following what has been taking place on this question in the United Methodist Church. I have read my cousin Kevin Higgs’ book Hospitality to Strangers: Theology and Homosexuality. I’ve read what Bishop Melvin Talbert has to say on the subject. I realize that my denomination – Presbyterian Church USA – also fails to acknowledge gay marriage. I confess that I straddled this issue in my head for years since that day in Brussels: on one side, my gay friends and their unions that are no better or worse, and certainly no less sacred than my own, and on the other the supposedly Biblical teachings of my religion on the subject.

I read the Bible cover to cover when I gave my life to Christ as an adult to make sure I knew what I was getting into. I've read the parts about women, slavery, and homosexuality that I don't understand, and that don't seem to gel with who Christ is. So I kept straddling. I was probably worried about not being a good Christian, even as I spoke words of encouragement to my gay friends.

But over time my ambivalence has drained away. Maybe it was watching most of my college students look at those who do not embrace gay marriage as if they had just crawled out from under a rock. Perhaps it was seeing a fairly famous and talented friend perform career suicide by leaving her stance concerning gay marriage ambiguous at best, and by tangling it all up with Christianity.

In any case, I am straddling no longer. I don’t know or care anymore if it’s Biblical. I am simply a loving person who wants folks to be able to love those they love fully in the presence of God. I don’t think Christ would stand with those who hate. It’s just not in His nature.

On that damp corner in Brussels, with my toddler son staring in fascination, I had never considered gay marriage, and was certainly not ready to embrace it. Now I embrace it fully.

Cartoon Backlash

The backlash against the Facebook “change your profile picture to a cartoon character to promote awareness of violence against children” was so predictable I could almost have dictated it word for word when I first was urged online to seek out a picture of Daffy Duck. I knew very well that posting a picture of the famed utterer of “that’s despicable” would do nothing in the real world to alter the plight of children who are suffering, yet – I bit. A friend – both FB and real world – whom I respect even pointed out online that this was too fun to pass up, and I couldn’t argue with that. So I joined the myriad of people on Google searching for pictures of their long lost cartoon friends, found one, and posted it.

Not three days later, this same friend posted a new blog entry about how shallow and meaningless it was for all of us to do this, how it didn’t really change anything, but maybe it did raise a little consciousness, but omigosh are we just a bunch of useless cogs being led by the nose through meaningless socially conscious cyber drivel. Even though I knew well before Daffy’s grumpy face adorned my FB profile that I would eventually get slapped for participating, I was a little stung that the very person whose counsel had convinced me to play was the one piping up to tell me how pointless my online exercise was. As if I didn’t know.

Whatever. But it does add fodder to my thinking about Facebook. I like Facebook. A lot. But long ago I made some personal rules about posting a status: they must never mention food, and they must never include a complaint. I decided that I would try mainly to post things that would make people laugh.

The exception is self-promotion, of course. I am doing tons of interesting things — tons! — and some of them require donations and admission charges. So I, like so many on Facebook, shamelessly used it as a placard for my personal self interest, either direct (“come to my concert”) or indirect (“visit this online auction benefitting my children’s school”). I try to keep this to a minimum, but it's hard.

That said, I think Facebook is at its best when it is used for connecting with people you probably wouldn’t otherwise, like my bucketloads of cousins, aunts and uncles in Alabama whom I, as a Californian, have not otherwise connected with beyond a Christmas card in 20 years.

And seeing what cartoon character my friends post is interesting, because the point of social media is to tell the world a little about yourself, and this was a harmless, fun, and warm way to do that.

I just went to my first drag show

I just went to my first drag show. I was on a research trip – no joke. Last fall I joined a “school of rock” band, and I’m the lead singer, which, as a classically trained cellist and a recovering church backup vocalist, has been a wrenching, exhilarating, and illuminating stretch for my musical self concept. So I am sincere when I say I was on a research trip, because while I was dinged at my church more than once for moving too much on the platform when I sang, my band teacher tells me I need to loosen up. So I went where I thought my concept of loose might reach a whole new dimension.

I met the cast before the show, briefly. My introduction was cut short by a performer’s Yorkshire terrier who threatened to rip my head (OK, ankle) off if I came any further into the dressing room. The irony hit me as I made my way back down the stairs that this dog considered me unacceptably strange – me, in my conservative pants and professional blouse – in a shared dressing room for half dressed drag queens.

There were four entertainers. I say entertainers because of the four, only one – the show’s hostess – actually sang. The rest lip synced. This bothered me for a moment until I realized that this is why I had come – for a study of stage presence. Of delivery. Of attitude. Panache. Chutzpah. Call it what you will. I am seeking to understand and emulate that special je ne sais quoi that separates folks whose nervous, self-conscious demeanor screams that they are not at home on stage from those who seem most alive – most real – on the platform. The drag queens were exactly what I needed, because most of them weren’t even singing. Their performances were in the most pure terms spectacles, something to behold. The dresses and makeup were stunning displays of artistry, and the efforts to shape their bodies to appear feminine were extreme. As I watched, I came face to face with the fact that most often the most effort – in costuming, makeup, body sculpting and seamless lip-syncing – almost always produced the best result. In other words, the greatest artifice appeared the most authentic. The more fabricated they were, the more genuinely feminine they appeared. Add to this the gesture, attitude and gyrations of a singing diva, and a few performances seemed sublimely real.

That’s a lot for a former church girl backup singer to swallow for all sorts of reasons. But that’s a subject for another blog entry someday. Maybe.

I was told that a drag queen had recently landed a reality TV show, and in response had spent $30,000 on her teeth and undergone a second boob job to make them even bigger. I was told that she exercises daily, and that no matter what she wears when she arrives on the platform, she always ends her performances in a bikini. The illusion is apparently so perfect that heterosexual men find themselves aroused. I’m told she is obsessed with her body. After a brief moment of awareness of the irony of such artifice going into a reality TV show, I stood for another brief moment in high indignation, even horror, at the lengths to which a man would go to appear to be what is my birthright – feminine.

Yet another moment later I remembered a trip to a cosmetic surgeon I took about a year ago. I went ostensibly to see if he could find a medically necessary reason to work on my rather generous nose. I have always said that it doesn’t seem fair that someone with such a big nose should have so much trouble breathing through it, and I wanted an insurance-funded reason for a nose job so I could get the cute nose I’d always wanted and not feel guilty about it – oh, and be able to breathe through it properly. I have also considered laser hair removal, and dermabrasion for the sun-damaged skin on my face. All of this was my reaction to turning 40 a few years ago, and my realization that although my identity had always been as the youngest in any room – first as a child, then as an adult – that identity was wearing thin. I no longer looked (nor was) the part. And it occurred to me, even as I contemplated a photo of this TV-blessed drag queen in a bikini, that I am really not a lot different than she is; it is just a matter of degree and of execution.

I didn’t go through with the nose job. I also didn’t do the laser hair removal or the dermabrasion for the same reason I once let my leg and underarm hair grow to its full potential; I no longer wished to be disgusted by anything short of excrement that my body might naturally produce. I am now committed to taking care of myself, but otherwise relaxing as gracefully as possible into the accumulation of years and their toll on my physique.

But the impulse and often the gesture still lies in me: to appear what I am not. I do it in ways both physical and non-physical. If I really am honest, I have to admit I dissimulate much of my day, and often wish I could pull it off more convincingly. I am not what I seem. Or at the very least I am often trying hard to present something that is not necessarily my reality.

The ironic flip side of this coin is that by acting “as if,” I can in fact become much of what I want to become: emotionally sober, patient, more loving, and even altruistic, among many other things. Maybe even a convincing lead singer. I just need to sing well enough, act the part, and get the costume together to match. And now I have a little better clue how to go about it.