Do I have what is required to start a cult?

     Robin and I have hit a patch of rough financial waters. I don't say this for sympathy or to elicit an outpouring of funds.

In fact, if funds were sent, I would have strong ethical problems with that.

     If you want to help us through these times, prayers and meditative energies on 1) better approaches to money 2) more constructive money management and 3) an improvement in overall financial stability through health care system improvement and employment satisfaction and improvement would all be more helpful and welcome.

     Because I am me though, and creative daydreaming is a coping mechanism I have employed since a child, the following conversation began in my head and heart.

I should start a cult.



Qualifications needed:

• Charisma: Check
• Capacity for Violence: Yes, but squeamish
• Capacity for Evil disguised as Good: Some
• Capacity for Control (of others): Oh, yes
• Capacity for Sexual Conquest: Oh, hrmmmmm....no, I am a bottom...that might not work. 
• Mythology for Cult to follow: Well, I have the whole gender thing down...that might work
• Ability to "Preach It": Check
• Followers: Hrmmmmmm
• Abilty to serve koolaid: Yes
• Ability to poison the koolaid: Technically yes, heartwise....no
• Ability to evade the IRS: ?

OK, that might not be quantitative enough....what if we rate ourselves on a likert scale?

-2 = Not at all like me
-1= Somewhat no like me
0= Neutral
1= Somewhat like me
2=Very Much Like Me

Let's look at the list again.

• Charisma: 2
• Capacity for Violence: 1
• Capacity for Evil disguised as good : 1
• Capacity for Control (of others): 2
• Capacity for Sexual Conquest: -2
• Mythology for Cult to follow: 1
• Ability to "Preach It": 2
• Ability to gather Followers: 2
• Abilty to serve koolaid: 2
• Ability to poison the koolaid: 0
• Ability to evade the IRS: -2

Score: 9
Score analysis:
11 = all "1" would be someone who could start a cult, but would need to work in cult administration for someone else to hone skills
16 = less than half at "2" and the rest "1". Could begin a cult but would need to hire others to help.
22 = 2 on every question. Could start their own cult.

So, I guess the results is that I could not start a cult....however, I wonder....maybe I could start a series of "gender exploration centers" or "gender think tanks" or "gender therapy retreats".....those would require koolaid and physical exercise, without the poison, IRS problems, or hard evil stuff....I could probably do that.

I wonder if there are any "Can you be a cult leader" out on the internet.

Hello Quizzy:
http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-could-you-be-a-cult-leader-test1
(results below)

OK Cupid
http://www.okcupid.com/quizzy/results?quizzyid=3172643289695300545&userid=0

Is Parenthood a Mirror?

     So, I need to ask the question this morning of whether having kids allows us as people to see our foibles and our strengths reflected back at us?

• While we watch our kids struggle with their life challenges, do we perhaps better understand our own improvements that need to be made in endeavors on the path? 
• Further, do our kids, in being wholly different beings than us perhaps show us, at times alternative ways of doing things? 
• Do we get to see the active experiment of doing things another way that sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails? 
• Or, do we see our kids also fall into a rut of engrooved processing with the same results but no way of knowing how to stop the insanity to do something different? 
• Do we then in our grandchildren see yet another approach worthy of study?

Yeah, deep thoughts....they get me in trouble all the time.

On the lighter side, I wonder if our canine or feline children also reflect these aspects to our mind.

So, I brought my youngest to work today. Right now she is whining because she wants me to let her explore the building on her own...I was thinking about what I see in my dogters as I drove to work today.

In Ginger, my eldest, I see my enjoyment of life and chillin. Just lay back, let someone rub your tummy and cuddle with those you love. In her though I also see my fierceness. Don't you freakin dare come into my yard...don't you get up in my space. And, if you do, once I smell your hand I will probably wag my tail and say "let's play" or "RUB MY TUMMY"

In my middle child I see the "gotta solve problems" "gotta fix whats wrong" "gotta make the peace" aspect of myself. Even if Robin and I are play arguing, Onyx is there trying to give kisses to console, trying to make everything calm....when sometimes the "fight" is really what is needed to get to the other side of the conflict, of the pain, of the sticking point. My middle child is also goofy and likes to smile....something I do ....but too often only privately.

And my youngest child, a Dragon Princess like her Mommy. She wants to run, to explore, to tackle the world. And yet, when the world boldly says "OK, here I am....what you going to do tough girl" she turns tail and yelps menacingly out of fear....out of not knowing what to do, of perhaps some element of jealousy that others can and do and that she might be left out.

And so, once again, I reveal too much...perhaps.
Let's try something different though, I may react out of times out of emotion like the youngest, but let's take the calmness of the middle child and say "OK, I own it. I am here smiling"

And, I need to get back to work.....
Some pics though to wrap up this entry...

Ginger - eldest

Onyx - middle

Cinnamon - youngest

Cinnamon - peeking under my desk

My 12 step recovery away from "Cis"

     I learned many important facts in New York. One of these was market testing on the word cisgender and its failure and confusion for many people. In the learning, I was given a cool swashbuckling verbal engarde to use in its place - emphasis on transgender individuals being individuals who are hard working, intelligent, and resilient citizens. Concentrate on the message and stab instead of shielding with a cis-napkin and assertion of cis-privilege (we all have a problem with privilege, the point is to look at privilege....not modifying the term for whatever reason).
     But, as a chemistry major "Cis" has been a drug that is going to take 12 steps to kick. So bear with me as I walk through some of them.

I. The syllogistic rubric.
I am not transgender
I act like my sex dictates I should act
The term cis is latin for "same side as"
My sex is "same side" of my gender
I am cisgender.

Dissection:
I am not transgender? Yes, hon....you are.
The wisdom of Foucault showed us that the discursive explosion of the Victorian era labeled everything of a "sexual" nature and attached a value label to it. Then power structures reified the use of said toe tags and approved or disapproved of behaviour that allowed for better efficiency in power continuity and control itself. What it overlooked....all those sales tags with words were owned and still are truly owned by each and every one of us, we just don't like to look at it. We are complex, kinky, gender fluid, non-monotonous golems. We are not globs of muggle...we are each enchanted wizards crystals proliferating light and wonder of so many hues, shades, vibrancy, and sounds. Each of us, depending on context, disobeys the gender norms...even our heroine Martha Stewart (ummmm, going to jail is not ladylike...nor is insider trading).

I act like my sex dictates I should act.
Your sex dictates nothing, and culture is too screwed up to give you a real answer to how you should be. Culture is not only written by the more privileged, it is too damn infinite and changeable to really assign any authority to it in regard to how you act. Am I saying Butler is wrong? Butler is not "wrong", but she is not "right". Butler is Butler learning and think experimenting all the time. Here it is, the assumption is that culture has lain out two poles - masculine and feminine.  Let me be clear, culture has not done this, honest people have done this based on their interpretation of culture. Gender fluidity and messiness..."trouble" if you will... has a long cultural significance and rich history.

Further, most people do not lay out two choices for "males" and "females" (yes, I am forgetting my sexually fabulous intersex friends whom I love and adore). No, American society is really still just stuck in one culturally recited model - masculinity....despite the reality, despite the strength inherent in other morphologies. For "females" there may be a "weaker" form of masculinity that is taught...but it is masculinity none the less.

And, there is nothing wrong with masculinity in itself, it is not evil...it is a method, a tool, a skin, and it has its uses. It is the abrogation of all other cultural forms to its sole elevation that is the problem. I would not be an activist if it were not for masculinity. I would also not be a leader if not for my feminity. And, I would not be a dancer without my fluidity and the infinite points betwixt and between.

The term "cis" means "on the same side as".
Last time I checked, I was not a benzene molecule or a phenol ring....I do not have functional groups hanging on "one side" of my plane or on "opposite sides" of my plane. Again, I am a shining crystal with many facets....I have a ton of functional groups, and if you will kiss  me, I will show you a few....maybe even the seduction ones :-)

My sex is "same side" of my gender
To reiterate, gender is not planar.
Sex also is a socially constructed concept, so guess what.....Problematizations.
I will not bore you with the mathematics of sex right now....again...maybe privately for a kiss.

Hence, I am cisgender?
No, you are you!
I have this friend who is a new grandma (Suzana, talking about you friend) and she has an amazingly cool, liberal, and open minded son who is so close to my heart that Iron Man had to lend me his gizmo to keep him away so his shrapnel did not "infect me" too much. He has a new child.. a new son..

I fought with grandma at first while listening to her that her grandchild would come out "however he was" and that in this family that would be nurtured....so what color clothes, etc, did not matter whether they were stereotypes or not. I fought quitely and mentally while listening to her story....and that is the problem, I listened to her story.
She was not out to reify the polar North/South, she was not out to make sure "he is a boy".
She was out to buy cute clothes for a kid.
As long as she lets me put the tutu with the Spiderman outfit, I don't think we should have a problem.

Oh, and for the record
Pre World War War I
Pink = a form of red = courage and blood = boy
Blue = a form of color of flower = periwinkle I think = girls

Post World War I
Pink = girls
Blue = boys
and the rest of us get all the other colors, sux to be you :-)

OK, kidding.....and you cannot blame Hitler for the color change....WWI as in UNO, UN, Einz

So, to the twelve steps...
Sorry for othering you
Sorry for calling you cisgender
I lied, you are just like me
Maybe just not as loud about it
And you, you are fabulous in all your sparkling diamond facets of gender.