summer fog

I've been in a blog fog - not a ton of inspiration, but here are some updates and tidbits until there's something really great to write about.

I ran my first post-collegiate race last weekend. Can't really say I "raced" but I did run hard and have a lot of fun doing it. If you're planning on doing Hood to Coast and somehow get in and then need another team member, let me know.


B's little brother wrote a fantastic Op-Ed Piece in the Charleston Gazette.

Brüno! Not as funny as Borat, but has a great message. Baron Cohen is the man. B and I went to see it at the Kabuki. Fun.

My mom joined Facebook. B's mom had joined a while back, so I added her as a friend. She didn't sound too happy when I wrote on B's wall saying, "I'm friends with your mom. no joke." Oh well, I think it's fun, but also funny how our worlds are meshing.

B and I are going to kill our TV! Celebration details to follow. . .

which applies to you?

Today I signed on to my facebook account, only to have a very interesting message waiting for me.
"Which applies to you?" was the headline. It went on to say something like, "Your mini-feed is confusing. Please select which applies to you." My choices were "Barrie edited her profile" or "Barrie edited his profile."
My instant reaction was to laugh out loud because I thought it ridiculous that the ambiguity of my name had even stretched to the facebook realm. Then, I began to wonder if facebook was confused because my gender is not listed on my profile, thus it didn't know which pronoun to use. Or, I thought to myself, what if normally when one does not list their gender on their profile, facebook assumes gender based on a name and mine was not clear? These thoughts, of course, began to make the obie in me a little disturbed.
First, it said my mini-feed was confusing, because I guess beforehand it would report things as "Barrie edited their..such and such" (I always wondered why it was doing that...). This is a lame attempt at gender neutrality because it's grammatically incorrect. "Their" implies more than one person. So, to be grammatically correct, one must use either the male or female pronoun. Herein lies the problem with a gender binary. What about those that feel as though they identify with both or neither? Not only does facebook force one to choose between only male and female if they wish to list gender (unlike the "religious views" section, one cannot write in an option not listed under gender), but if one opts to leave this section blank, they are later forced to clarify so their mini-feed is not grammatically incorrect or "confusing". One may argue here that facebook is asking for gender, not sex. Yet, forcing me to choose between "her" or "his" (yes, it gives me the option, which, arguably, is a step in the right direction), signifies to the world that you must be one or the other, even if it is letting you choose the one with which you identify. I am reminded of my days in class back at Oberlin, where we were asked to introduce ourselves (name, major, hometown, etc) on the first day, and many would take the time to tell people with which pronoun they identified. But there were still only two choices.
Having gone to a college that required at least one gender neutral bathroom per floor in dorms, had an annual event called Drag Ball, and was one of a handful of schools to begin offering coed dorm rooms recently, breaking the traditional system of gender dichotomy is important. Facebook, which some may call an unimportant aspect of pop culture, is a leading social networking site with incredible power to disseminate information and set standards for such things as gender identification.
This is obviously a very complicated issue: what are the differences between gender and sex? how can one not identify with either "her" or "him? how can one identify with both? where do we begin in changing this in mainstream society?
A discussion on the implications of asking one to choose between only two options (public restrooms, filling out forms, sports teams, etc) is required in pop culture before we can make any changes. Maybe getting facebook to make some changes would begin a much-needed awareness.

good morning.

The first email I opened this morning was from this woman who is the mom of a boy I ran high school track with. At first I thought she was updating alumni about his running, something she's done in the past. Then I opened it and it was really an email from reunion.com saying that this woman searched for me on there. How weird is that? Who searches for people using their email address on reunion.com? Aren't you just supposed to use facebook?

update: I got another email like this one but the person this time was a family friend. My guess is that reunion.com got a hold on people's contact lists or something and spammed the hell out of them. I'm not as creeped out anymore by the individuals but now by companies like that.