free audiobooks, hippies!

Librivox, free audiobooks in the public domain recorded by the common people—If that’s not modern hippie commune material, I don’t know what is.

I’m currently listening to Fanny Hill: The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. It is something that we talked about in grad school, but I never got a chance to read. You know it is relevant to my interests.

The fun thing about the hippie commune recordings is that you have a wide variety of voices reading the books, even with the same book. For this book, the first reader is Chip, from Tampa. He sounds like he should be reading for MovieFone. What’s even better about this is that he has a really deep voice, and the book is written from the perspective of Fanny herself, so phrases like “my innocence” and “when I was a girl” are read by a guy you know is a bass in the barbershop quartet. The payoff is in part two, when a guy with a very sexy British accent picks up the reading. I’m not to part three, but I sampled it, and it is a woman. She sounds blond and bubbly. We’ll see how it works out.

And this is some pretty hot stuff, or I’m deprived or have a thing for archaic language. I may finally get my wish for a bizarre little kink.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20028

Outter...

I admit…I am a dating site outter. I cruise the online dating sites, looking for anyone I might know. I don’t see any different than going out to a bar to cruise guys…you just get to know who they and what their diet is before you every speak to them.
I get most uncomfortable when I run into ads from guys I work with or went to school with…that is very uncomfortable!
It is almost the same as outing a GAY but not as serious!

And the Ass Saw the Angel

I'm reading what I think is my favorite book in the entire world. Maybe.

It's And the Ass Saw the Angel by Nick Cave. It's dark, terribly disturbing and beautiful.

"Suddenly Mule stiffed and fell silent, as though ossified. The clouds of red dust engulfed the beast, then fell away and settled in veils at his feet. We stared at each other. Mule, it seemed, was cast in lead and draped in falling red veils. Dread crawled over Mule and sat like a king in all the places of his face. His lips curled back to reveal huge yellow teeth. He frothed. He foamed. His demented eyes egged in their orbits as if they were being laid. And all the while he goggled horribly, over mah shoulder, at it coming."

Where are they tonight

I read this article today, and I can't stop thinking about it. Prostitution was a mystery to me, something that I thought people did due to their drug addictions. But now I think about it completely differently, and I can't believe how rampant and unchecked it is. Here's the article How Prostitution Works. It opened my eyes to so many things, and made me think.

One thing that occurred to me after reading this article is how glamorized pimps are in mainstream society right now. Sexual inequality is extremely pronounced in prostitution. The women are victims of violence...if it was your mother or sister, wouldn't you be angry? And the men who commit the violence are glorified by society.

Another issue it brought up is that it seems like when someone robs a bank or kidnaps a person or a vehicle or whatever, the crime is acknowledged by the cops and the newspaper. The criminals are sought and punished. So why is prostitution so rampant and it seems....acceptable? Why does the law not do more to aggressively address prostitution, and why are there not aggressive ad campaigns to illicit compassion for the victims of prostitution? Why is there not education in the mainstream about what's really going on?

I think the law doesn't do more against prostitution because the women aren't like me or you reporting a stolen car. I'm an educated white middle-class women, and that somehow gives me rights that aren't given to prostitutes.

I thought also of the women's self-esteem. How could they ever think that they'd be able to merge with a society that thinks so poorly of them? Their self-esteems are broken, but how could they attempt to reach out to society for support and protection, when society rejects them and views them as garbage?

And abuse: especially if you're raised in an abusive home, that's your world. Why should you expect anything different from the real world? You don't know anything different, so you're more likely to accept the abuse. That's why I like YWCA's slogan: Eliminating Racism, Empowering Women. I feel like empowerment comes about through building self-esteem. I want to see these women rehabilitated and recovered enough to say, "Oh, fuck no!" when it comes to abusive relationships.

And one final thought, I think building self-esteem for women and respect from men begins when they're boys and girls. I know schools can't always nurture this, but maybe other programs for outreach. I think girls need to know that even if they get shit at home, they don't have to put up with shit from the rest of the world.

Here are a couple of interviews with prostitutes in OKC. They're difficult to watch, but they made me angry about the situation of girls and women all over the world.

Yvonne
Mary

My New Favorite Song

Stay warm inside

I keep thinking about what a strange time we're living in. Not that I expected to go through life without experiencing any of the insanity that my grandparents did during the great depression and two World Wars. Or maybe I did...maybe I thought the security of my childhood would extend into forever. Grandpa had fought the demons with his heroic strength and fearlessness to sit back in his old age and provide security and tenderness to his grandchildren. As a side note, it seems that without him, my security in unconditional love is lamentably uncertain.

Earlier, I was washing some laundry in the kitchen sink and reflecting with a heavy heart on the most recent events in India. I wondered if a war is beginning to brew between Pakistan and India. I read on CNN today about Rwanda, and have a helpless understanding that the violence (poverty and AIDS) in Africa is far from being over. There's the report I heard about on NPR that within five years there's certain to be another terrorist attack in the West. And then our own individual, but nationally collective, spiral into economic crisis.

When I was a child I believed in something good and redeeming. That hope could come even in the darkness moments. But at thirty-one I realize that I don't believe in anything any more. After so many years of awakening to the willingness of human beings to inflict pain or death on others, I don't believe that there's a light at the end of anyone's tunnel.

So what keeps me going without a secure personal foundation of love, a sense of home to return to, uncertain beliefs for anything beyond this world, hope for peace and compassion to prevail over violence and apathy?

I think there's an answer. I think there's potential for compassion and love everywhere. Each of us just has to chose it. I think there's hope and disappointment, pain and delight in every human experience. I do believe in one thing that's eternal: the capacity of the human spirit to love, to give selflessly, to make decisions that will affect others in positive ways, and even throw some creativity out into the world. The answer's in that feeling we get when we go out of the way to help a patron find a picture of their great-grandfather, or bring some magazines by a friend's house when she's laid up with a broken leg. Or I don't know...like making enough soup to share with friends.

And for our own pockets of personal experience, I believe it's how we use the opportunity in each moment...or the more positive moments...to enjoy the simple things that emerge from daily existence and activity. As I rinsed my laundry in the sink, I took advantage of that time to reflect: many people are hurting in this world right now, tomorrow it could be me. But for now, I'm going to enjoy this music...this moment, the textures and smells and colors, and the quiet of the night.

it's like that disco song, but much sadder.

I’m leaving. Yeah, we’ve played these games before, though it’s usually you doing the leaving. I don’t understand how things have gotten to the way they are now, but the situation is intolerable, so the only choice I have is to go. It’s either live in pain for sixty years, or go and make them mine, whether they turn out good or bad.

You treat me badly. You’ve treated me badly for years. You ignore me, punish me with silence, critique everything from my choice in entertainment to friends to my technique in bed. You dislike my ambition, my love for education. You have convinced me to change for you without asking. I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I’m doing all the things for a guy that I said I’ve never do: change my personality and my behaviors, and put off my dreams, and sacrifice what is important to me.

You’ve ignored my needs; I have sex only when I force the issue, which is usually about once every three months. Yet, I find you in front of the computer about 2-3 nights a week. I don’t remember the last time you kissed me. That is the part that I’m most ashamed of. You may act like it is me avoiding the physical affection in our relationship, but you describe the sensation of me touching you as “weird.” I can put my arms around you and you remain motionless. I’ve dealt with that for a long time.

So why have I stayed? You are a good father. I come home at night, and the kids are happy. I like seeing them happy. I love sharing the kids with someone who loves them the same way I love them. I promised myself as a child of 13 that I’d never put my kids through a divorce. It complicates everyone’s lives, and there are all kinds of difficult considerations: living arrangements, money, emotional health and security for the kids.

But I finally have reached that place my mother must have reached when I was 13. I can’t do it anymore. If I stay, it’s a death sentence. So I’ll go. And I’ll most likely be happy again, but it will take years to undo the damage.