We went to see the new Ken Loach film, “Looking for Eric” last night. It was really good! You don’t need to be particularly aware of who Eric Cantona is/was to enjoy it but it helps for some of the nuances. Sometimes Loach’s films leave me feeling the message was more important than the characters, but certainly not this one. It was charmingly down to earth but whimsical and the people felt real. Film real to be sure, but still like possible people. Despite being relatively long we were surprised when it was suddenly over. Anyway, we liked it! Go see it if you were thinking you might!
Sometimes you come across something that explains a complex idea really well. This is one such thing, Story of Stuff. It’s partisan and US centric but it’s one of the most accessible explanations of how the consumer society model has created and perpetuates environmental damage and the economic exploitation of the third world and people in our own countries.
Of course it’s partisan, it’s rather hard to analyse why we live in societies driven by the need to consume without that becoming political. The underpinnings of any economic system are in themselves political and social. To change the system requires a change in how we think about and manage it.
Anyway, I am partisan about this. The environment and people’s rights are more important than any desire I might have to own new and fancy gadgets, or a car, or pretty much anything not crucial to a healthy life.
I just watched Ma Vie En Rose. I just finished crying after watching Ma Vie En Rose.
Sometimes, no matter how together I am, how much positivity I feel in my life, something will remind me that it’s built on a fundamental mismatch. That I’m making the best I can of a fairly crappy hand. Sometimes it’s more than a little reminder.
I have made peace with myself. I have come to an understanding with my body, with my dysphoria. I accept it, I own it. But… I still hate it. I don’t hate my body. I hate my discomfort with it. I hate that I have to deal with this feeling of wrongness.
Sometimes I can almost… almost forget it. Sometimes it rears up inside me to put a big black cloud over me. I wish it didn’t.
The child in the film decides that her second X chromosome got misplaced when she was born and it ended up in the rubbish bin, leaving her with a Y and so a male body. I wish I knew what had happened to my other X. Life would be a whole lot simpler if it had been aimed better.
I don’t believe in quick fixes. I don’t believe that I can be magicked ‘better’ – I’m not ill for a start. Just sometimes the thought of what I missed out on by being born transgendered – a ‘normal’ life and sense of self – makes me melancholic and a little self pitying. A yearning for my life to have been in pink from the start.
Found this via Vlaamse Genderkring. A really well done film by the main queer campaign group in Belgium, the Holebi Federatie (they ‘forgot’ to include us trans lot in the name, shame huh?) for teaching about trans issues in schools… well… you do need to understand Dutch to get it, but I liked it anyhow so I’m posting it.
