Kate Bachus

“Talk talk talk, talk talk talk.”

“I’m in a boss fight.”

“Talk talk, talk, talk. Talk… talk talk.”

“You know I’m in a boss fight, right?

“Talk talk talk. Talk.”

“I’m in a –” *sigh*

“Talk talk. Talk.”

“You know I died, right?”

“Noob.”

“You know I died because you were chattering at me, right?”

“Whiner noob.”

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This is how my evening goes.

I buy my kids pizza for dinner because I’m a crappy mom and then we have Coke to drink because I’m really a crappy mom. I should also mention I have let them play Minecraft together for EIGHT BILLION HOURS. Key word: “together.”

So I’m in the kitchen with G and he’s petting the cat and says “this is a great cat.” And then, somewhat randomly, “he was born and raised on the streets of Ohio.”

And I start laughing and we say “in your day, in Ohio? We didn’t have none of this ‘litter’ business or any of this ‘kibble’ you all have these days, no. We used to HUNT. And poop on the STREET.”

And the fact is that Spotlight was actually mailed from a kill shelter in Ohio out to Maryland to avoid him getting, you know, killed, which is how we got him, the one lone jet black kitten in the back of his cage, sleeping in his litterbox.

Because, you know, Ohio.

And this goes on and we’re at the table eating our pizza (or they’re eating their pizza and I’m having a sandwich) and drinking our Coke, and we’re talking about the diamond mines in Russia and L will say something and we’ll say “that’s because you weren’t born. On the streets. Of Ohio.”

“Where were we born,” she wants to know and I said “not on the streets of Ohio, dog,” and then finally I relent because we can’t stop laughing and I tell her they were both born at Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara and Grandma was there both times, and stuff.

Then out of nowhere L says “so there was this owl.” And G and I stop laughing and talking about Ohio long enough to listen and she continues, “And it was shot in the head. And it’s recovering.”

G was taking a drink at this particular moment, which is how Coke came to be spat out all over the tablecloth with the giraffes, and I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe, and we’re trying not to, and she’s going “what??? what?????” and finally we calm down and apologize and I tell her to continue.

And G is just taking another sip when she goes “anyway, so there was this OTHER owl…”

And Coke got spat all over the table again and L flees the table in a tantrum because G and I can’t stop laughing.

And G gets up to go apologize and comfort her but on the way he says to me: “that owl was from the streets of Ohio… he ran into some rough times there.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a hard place, ask the cat. He knows.”

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I’m trying to like these bands.  I’m trying to like these kind of “rock” type bands now.  I keep thinking I’ll find the new Rush, right? I like rock. I do. And look, this 3 Doors Down isn’t bad. At all, this isn’t bad at all:

And this one, well, you know. It’s in 6/8 time and that’s cool, right?

But the lyrics are pretty whiny. As is the rest of the album.

What is that? Seriously?  What the hell is this song?

It’s time to let you go, it’s what we had to do,
It’s time to give this up, I think we both knew,
There’s nothing left to say, there’s nothing left to prove,
And now it’s time to turn and walk away from, what’s left of
me and you…

… that’s the best we can do for lyrics? Major band, 2011? Seriously? Does music not evolve?

Here, here’s some real eloquence on relationships:

Different eyes see different things
Different hearts beat on different strings
But there are times
For you and me, when all such things agree…

This is the metal I found, what… six months ago?  I’m still listening to it. It doesn’t get old. I hear new things, understand new things about it all the time.  Music should unfold.  Music should start dense and opaque and each listening should bring understanding and illumination and I guess if I gotta go to to metal to get that then I will.

Bodiacos
Sunartiu
Segos brigos
Anauos

From antumnos the life-giving winds
Fanned the flames into a blaze
The awen of the mighty

By the force of sucellus sledge
By every impact of ogmios club
With bricta’s invincible epiphany

A tribe arose
A tribe broke forth

Cause we’re born free
Cause we’re born wild
Cause we are indomitable and bold
Cause we are fire (brave)
Cause we are wave (strong)
Cause we are rock (tribe)
We are one – we are helvetios

The ears tethered to the divine tongue
Following the ancient wise
As laughter fills antumnos

Drinking from the cup of life
The well that’s never running dry
We wandered into the light of day

Again taranis enthean wheel revolved
From antumnos life was upheaved

By the force of succellus sledge
By every impact of ogmios’ club
With bricta’s invincible epiphany

While the English part of that may be somewhat questionable, this shit has things to say. It’s an exhortation, meditation, assertion. It’s part of a long story the album tells not just of a tribe or an historical event, but a state of mind that a whiny “well, I guess that’s it then,” breakup song isn’t, never will be.

I’m not saying “back then in days of fur kilts and plague we were much better people.” That’s a trap.  You know why it’s a trap?

Y lovede a child of this cuntre,
And so Y wende he had do me;
Now myself the sothe Y see,
That he is far.

Here, let me translate that for you:

I loved a child of this country,
And so I thought he also loved me;
Now, myself the truth I see,
That he is far.

That’s fifteenth-century whiny lovestricken bullshit right there, not so different from 3 Doors Down at all.

Maybe Helvetios is in some ways some illucid, pretentious crap, appropriating a past culture we’ll never really understand and certainly not by means of romanticization. What the fuck does “upheaved” even mean?

But see, it’s a state of mind thing.

I’d rather sit here and contemplate “upheaved” and being indomitable and bold than listen to some guy whine on about myriad wrongs of his life and the world. In the end, I need music to push me, exhort me, not echo and amplify any of my own whiny voices.

So I still listen to metal.

I’ll leave you with this, today. Listen to whatever lights you on fire. Don’t listen to anything, don’t make any art that consigns you to your fate.

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*pokepoke GROPE*

“Ow!”

*grope grope*

“Ow! No, god ow, I’m bruised there too.”

*grope, poke*

“Ow, god, no, to the left, everything else is scraped…”

*grope*

“Ow, fuck!”

“WELL GOD DAMMIT INDY WHERE DOESN’T IT HURT??”

*

“Will you make me a protein shake?”

“Yes.”

“With marshmallows?”

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John Scalzi has written a really good post, An Incomplete Guide to Not Creeping
…which I had a fairly hard time staying out of because I have a vested interest in this conversation and its outcomes. Which really any woman does. But I feel especially strongly about.

*

Something I’ve observed in the comments of both that post and his post following it, about his own experiences being potentially creepy – but avoiding it – is that men really, really want there to be divisions and polarity between “malicious” creepy behavior and “innocent” creepy behavior.

The more I read, the more I saw it, and despite John’s attempt to close that gap with his second post which amounts to “no, potentially I am also that creepy guy,” men really, really needed to say “well. Some of us are potential rapists. But most of us are clueless.”

I’m sorry. No. Bullshit.

I wanted to post, over and over again – and it would be futile so I didn’t – no.

No, and no and no.

*

Guys. This is the same behavior and it has the same effect and more importantly it has the same source whether you get to the point of rape or not.

Creepy behavior is about objectification.

It is where I cease to be a person.

It’s where you see me as a means to an end.

That is hideous, quite frankly, from the start.

It is also the place from which rape happens.

*

I know you think it’s not creepy. I know you think it’s innocent. But there is nothing at all innocent about the selfishness of an impulse that drives you to speak to a woman solely because of your needs – predominantly physical – and what you think she can do for them.

I have just disappeared at that point. I’m no longer a person I’m a potential vagina for you to sate the needs of your dick on, or I’m a object of comfort for your loneliness, or I am an imagined lover and companion you desperately want but do not actually know me to be, and the stripping away of my person, my self

who I actually am standing there and what I need and want and hope in my own heart

is a violent act to begin with.

*

The power of what John is urging men to do is not as much in the practical, physical safety it provides women.

It’s that it forces a paradigm shift.

You stop thinking about the woman in terms of your needs and desires and your rights.

And you approach her specifically thinking about hers.

*

I am an imperfect creature. I objectify all the time, I project imagined things on men, other women all the time, I do. I think very impure things about Josh Duhamel and Manu Bennett. I do.

But I do not walk up to Josh or Manu with those desires paramount in my mind. With my need for my fantasy of them to be real. Or my need for them to respond to me, or validate my attractiveness (!), or have them be part of the fantasy I’ve made up in my head about who they are.

In fact, I don’t walk up to Josh or Manu at all.

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The NE Spartan Sprint is this upcoming weekend. I am fairly unprepared, apart from being, as they say, swole as fuck from all the lifting. But I haven’t been playing much hockey and I think I’ve run all of twice this summer.  And, you know, in theory it’s a footrace among other things.

I’m told it’s not that difficult. I’ve also read accounts online that contradict that.

I had to stop reading the Spartan facebook pages because I compared myself to every person posting and felt like I came up lacking.

The weight of failure of all those firefighter agilities has stayed with me, some twenty years later.  What doesn’t matter is the ones I passed, what doesn’t matter are my successes in fire, what doesn’t matter is that I gutted it out in Feburary in the fucking Staislaus for two straight days in the water in a goddamn wetsuit when everyone else was in drysuits, going down class four rapids on my back. The Swiftwater Tech 2 doesn’t matter. When I finally sucked it up enough to do the burnover evolution and sat in a piece of tinfoil with wildfire raging over and around me heating the dirt I was breathing… none of that matters.

Just the failures.

*

I fail to see the progress, I look at my body in the mirror as I do squats and hate my shape instead of reveling in the power of how much I’m lifting.

I know better. It doesn’t matter. I do it anyway.

*

I watch the Spartan video.  Over and over.  The one that made me decide to do it. This one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt0Fb72XDzU&feature=related

I watch it and cry, and cry. At the gap between what I am and the hero I imagined for myself, for my life.

And also for the gap between what I feel, and the hero I actually am.

*

I am afraid.

A lot, often. I’m afraid of cancer recurring. I’m afraid of my shape. I’m afraid of not doing what I need to do before I die. I’m afraid I’m wasting my time here, on this planet. I’m afraid of being a shitty parent. I’m afraid of doing less… then my potential. I’m afraid of not writing with the kind of honesty I should.

I’m afraid of not finishing.

I’m afraid of being alone in this.

*

There’s a key difference between myself 20 years ago and myself now, though. I’ve gone through a failure process at the gym every night, on the ice, over and over again. I’ve failed lifts and dumped plates, I’ve shown up and lifted 40 pounds less than I did last week for no apparent reason, I’ve fallen, I’ve missed the net, I’ve played for shit and I’ve played well.

I’ve beaten all my previous personal records.

In a few months I’ll be able to bench my bodyweight.

I have, these days, despite everything, a fair idea of what some of my actual limits are, but not just the lower ones. Also how much I can do, physically.

Two nights ago I got 145# up unspotted, halfway, on the bench. 145 pounds. I was almost there.

*

What’s changed, in 20 years is that I can put my head down and move, past the background noise. I can move my feet, my body, put my skates out on the ice again or grab the bar and dig deep, I can keep my feet moving and call it willing sacrifice.

I’ve realized that sometimes it’s enough just to keep moving, to not stop, to go the the gym over and over even though sometimes it stops making sense and you have no idea why you’re doing it anymore.

I have that, now.

Sometimes, there is no reason. Sometimes you just block out everything including your fear and your doubt, but also all your hopes and dreams and aspirations

and just without anything other than will do to do it… no matter what. Just move, and do.

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I was told today that I am too manly and therefore unattractive.

I secretly suspect this sometimes.

It is part of the litany of self-doubt that is in my head when I am not vigilant about social programming versus my own, better sense of self-worth.

“Manly.”

What a conundrum is that, to be told that the better gender is male, and then that I am too much of it. And therefore unappealing.

*

I like to pass for male.

That’s the thing.  But not physically. Physically I’m always a bit startled by my own body, by its being either more muscular than I expect or bigger than I expect, or female, or masculine. My sense of self is so far outside my body sometimes that the person in the mirror is an utter stranger.

But over the years, I have done my best, endeavored to have a kindly relationship with her. With that mirror person.

But I pass for male, except not physically, I have learned to pass for male as much as I can and is appropriate, on the ice.  Maybe in the gym, lifting.  Maybe other places, maybe every day in every interaction I take on traditionally male roles or qualities, maybe a hundred times a day I speak or talk or act and am recognized as doing traditionally masculine things, in masculine ways.

Does this make me queergendered, or a feminist?

*

If I could flip my gender back and forth, like some species of frogs, I probably would.

Male is easily half my internal self, after all, and I like to express it.

I have a sense that both everyone and no one is like this.

Or a lot of people are.

They just find ways of being how they are and express it accordingly.

*

I reserve the right to be a guy today.

*

But seriously.

Don’t mistake power and strength for masculinity.

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I was a secretary for twenty years.

It’s not a bad job. I was terrible at it, although I had positions of increasing responsibility and was fortunate to support some of the nicest, smartest guys in high tech. I worked for Gary Campbell at Compaq for a few years and it was the most ridiculous cushy job I ever had, where mostly I processed expense reports and was there for genius tech people to download to and not trip over my dick when talking to Bill Gates’ secretary.  Gary was a great guy. Gruff, no-bullshit, brusque in a way that made people dislike and sometimes fear him or both. But he was a brilliant, fair, down to earth guy who didn’t like me to get him coffee because he got why secretaries fetching bosses coffee was problematic, from a feminist standpoint.

So I did it for him anyway.

I got fired, like a soft-fire fired, by another guy like Gary, a CEO who finally looked me straight in the eye and said “god knows I love you but you are the worst secretary ever, and now that you’ve had your cancer wake up call would you please do something else for a living you actually enjoy?”

Which was kind of a ‘huh’ moment for me, and he gave me three or so months to find something he approved of and said if it was something I was actually suited for he’d even give me a recommendation.

I became a video game designer.

This boss, this boss who fired me was actually the one who helped me arrive at that conclusion and while the “career counselors” working with me insisted there was NO FUCKING WAY I could get into the industry, that I didn’t have the experience and it was TOO HARD

- clearly, these were people who had never gone through a firefighting hire process with four thousand other highly qualified candidates for one fucking firefighter position -

my boss helped and got me some contacts and while those specifically didn’t pan out, I did have a good friend working in the industry who helped me look, helped me with my resume and held my hand when I finally got a bite and had to do my first video game design test, where I basically had a weekend to learn how to do a mod and had never, ever modded before.  Ever.  In fact that weekend was the first weekend that I’d ever really played a single player RPG.

But I did all right.

The studio I applied to admitted that I mostly got in on my writing chops, but they liked that I had learned to mod in a weekend and it showed brains and a certain nice degree of insanity that I later would learn was a job requirement, and I got in.

It was home.

Look, folks. It was *home*.

I spent twenty years showing up to work thinking work was something you do that is separate from you. You get your coffee, you sort some mail, you make a spreadsheet, you make some travel arrangements and it is pleasant and mindless. You have a couple of friends at work who tolerate your strangeness, or are maybe a little bit weird in the ways you are, and you hang out with them but mostly you do your job and are relieved when quitting time rolls around and you home.  That’s it.  That’s what “work” is.

And then it wasn’t.

Suddenly at work I was doing the same things I’d always crammed my free time with.  Making things up. Dialogue. Swords, fighting, characters, pretend books, pretend songs. Ways to torture my players. “What, not scary enough for you? HOW IS THIS FOR SCARY? YOU LIKE THAT NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS ARE YOU HIDING UNDER THE COUCH YET??”

I was doing that.

At my job.

I was surrounded by people exactly like me, not just one or two who were a little like me but people, even my bosses were like me. Everyone. Weird and who had read the same comics and could argue intelligently about the various representations of Batman, who knew who Lobo was, who had read the same books and cracked jokes about what one does and doesn’t do going into Mordor, and also grown up playing swords and wearing cloaks to school. Who had turned their closets into fighter ships and sat in there by the glow of a Lite-Brite set with a makeshift joystick yelling “PEW PEW PEW!”

I worked with these people to make games to entertain in the way we all had grown up wanting to be entertained. By immersing players in fantastic worlds with epic stories and thrilling combat, where we could be anyone and do amazing things, fantastic things. Conquer and do magic and make kings, become a name equating to hero on the lips of every wide-eyed child and you think – you think we didn’t work to make that happen even in an MMO? We did, because it’s what we want, as players. It’s what we grew up wanting.

I went to work and made worlds.

And it was good at my first studio and I loved everyone there so much, and then I moved on because I knew that while that was amazing, 38 was going to be even better.

And it was.

I made so many fucking friends.

I played hockey with people and wrote with people and played D&D with people and, oh, right, we also made a video game in there too. A really, really wonderful one, where I kept seeing things and would have this shock this thrill of holy shit we did that?  That is fucking awesome! I put things into the game I was so proud of. Where later, I knew someone would be playing and would burst out laughing or stop, stock still and look at the screen and go “… shit.” In that tone of voice where you knew that in 25 words or less I’d just sucker-punched them.

I would open up the game and despite all the myriad things you see that you need to fix or make you facepalm or need to be tweaked or make you want to beat your co-designer about the head and say “WHY WHY DID YOU DO THAT?” mostly I would fall in and start playing and then a little while later think “oh, oh, right, no play. I’m working on this right now.”

And I’d dream in the world’s vivid colors.

And I’d wake up knowing Amalur was part of my psyche, the world-place I had lived in since childhood.

And I loved it there.

We, as designers, live in a state of perpetual magic. We lose sight of it sometimes because it turns out that magic is often buggy as shit but when something happens, and you lose it, the loss of color and wonder is almost intolerable, for people who need that color and wonder in their lives in order to survive.

I was surrounded by people like me, who need a world like that.

And what we lose, in losing that world and each other?

Is incalculable.

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