How to Pay Attention

I don’t know who first conflated love with attention, but I’m glad they did. Mary Oliver said that over time spent observing her partner Molly at work in the darkroom she began to connect the two. “Attention without feeling, I began to learn, is only a report,” Oliver wrote. “An openness — an empathy — was necessary if the attention was to matter.”

I spend a lot of time reporting. A documentarian streak that runs through many aspects of my life, slicing it at right angles. Professionally I report what happened for a living. Get into an argument with me (unlikely) and I’ll begin with an accounting of minutiae so painstaking that we’ll both give up within minutes. In writing, when even an everyday word strikes me at an odd angle I’ll cross-examine the exact definition for any trace of a mismatch. It’s exhausting, all of it — and for what? The truth is an asymptote. The most we can do is bend life toward it.

My photography began as another way of reciting the truth, but over the years it grew into something more essential. I take photos because they are true, whether they are true or not.

My brain is a whirring stenographer. Buried under a pile of pencil shavings in some creaky cerebral attic, my mind chatters on, holding me captive to its whole thing. Still, spending more time outdoors in the last few years made it clear that’s possible, usually at some physical expense, to bring this process if not to a halt, then at least to a gambol. Picking my way up mountains for hours, gingerly selecting where to stake my tent on a windy ridge line, trudging along, sweating in the rain — there are ways, most not straightforwardly pleasant.

Oliver felt strongly about this: “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”

I don’t write about my time spent outside much. Honestly, I struggle to convey what happened, most often because very little did. Usually solo on backpacking or hiking trips, my most acute drama is intrapersonal: How did I forget the salami? Will I ever see a mountain goat on a trail explicitly named for mountain goats? And, classically: Now that I am here, how do I tolerate this stillness?

I don’t like being still. That’s how I know that I must, from time to time, trick myself into life without motion.

The first time I visited the desert, it looked empty. It was like someone had glued the rocks down, turned the whole thing upside down and shaken the rest out. That’s what I thought anyway. I left a bit bemused by the vast taupe of it all, the stark midday light casting harsh, empty shadows.

As a kid, I felt the same way about the forest. The version of the American south where I grew up is flattish and green. Those verdant corridors, their overabundance of texture always made me claustrophobic. Unlike the desert, which I’d encounter decades later, nature here was too baroque to be made sense of.

I have since returned to the desert with a camera and made sense of it. My mistake: I hadn’t slowed myself enough to see the life weaving its way around me. The secret dampness under sun-scoured rocks, a stirring in dense chaparral — turning attention away from myself meant flipping a switch on the natural world. Like a magic eye painting, you had to look and keep looking. The forest is still a challenge for me but it’s a practice, like many things worth doing. I don’t always succeed in seeing, but now I know to look.

In those moments of looking, I feel unmoored from the container of my body in the most pleasant way. Like walking uphill, the practice of attentiveness is a kind of numbing repetitive act, but it eventually gives way to something more, a lightness. Detail reveals itself. Attention might be finite, but the fine grain of reality is without limit. When the image is finally thrown into relief, the rest falls away, wood shavings revealing the object sought — often one quite useful. Sometimes the object is large — a streak across the sky. Others times, it’s a honeycombed piece of wood the size of a thumb.

“Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”

Most of the time I don’t use any modern digital lenses for my outdoor shooting. I collect old manual lenses; they’re used, having lived through adventures, or perhaps long periods of stillness, that I’ll never know about. They all have imperfections that I grow to know, and I get attached to them even though I should probably buy something more practical. I love spending time peering into glass cases in used camera shops, running my hands over studded barrels, summoning a shutter’s satisfying clack. I pay attention. I buy the lens that feels the best in my hands. I memorize the angled corners smoothed over by someone else’s hands over the course of many years.

More often than not, when I shoot at night, I’m alone. I spend hours in the pitch black stillness, staving off my terror with wonderment at the way the sky shifts, its imperceptible colors, the glow of human presence at the edges. The milky way performs every night in the southern sky, turning on an unseen axis as nature winds its giant starry arm beneath the horizon. Where you step, small things scuttle away, rustling invisibly through the brush. Overhead, the sky turns and turns.

“Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.”

You can see more of Taylor Hatmaker’s photography and pick up her prints at noxnw.com.  She’ll be adding more prints soon. You can email her at taylor@noxnw.com and follow her on Instagram and Twitter, but that’s really up to you. 🌲

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edited by vanessa.

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Roller Derby Recap: 2017 WFTDA Championships in Philly

feature image by Taylor Hatmaker

by Taylor Hatmaker & Evie Smith

In 2017 it may have come to your attention that there are in fact a lot of not very good things happening. At the same time, it’s important to enjoy the smattering of quite excellent things that do continue to exist, and I think we both know that I’m talking about roller derby.

Roller derby, for the unacquainted, is a sport in which women travel in circles, strategically hitting one another or not being hit by one another. I’m fairly certain that’s the most concise explanation of the game ever crafted, but if you don’t trust my description I encourage you to go watch a game in your own municipality and see for yourself!

Now that you’re up to speed, we’re going to talk to you about roller derby, which is objectively the Best Thing. My futurewife Evie, who skates under the name Raven Von Kaos, joined the sport in Santa Cruz back in 2007. She now plays roller derby here in Portland on a Rose City home team. I, Taylor, watch very many hours of roller derby and look at very many stats, which is like playing a sport but with numbers instead, for people who are bad at having fun.

Truly, supporting roller derby is just about the queerest, feministest thing you can do, and it’s at least part of the reason that we flew across the country to Philly last weekend to watch the Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby Association (WFTDA) championships, which we will hereafter simply call “champs” because that is what it is called.

On to champs! We took a red-eye from Portland on Thursday night, got in Friday morning and basically went straight to the venue and blissfully, sometimes stressfully, watched derby for the subsequent 72 hours, switching hats and bandanas approximately 3-7 times per day based on who we were cheering for.

2017 proved to be a huge year for the sport in a number of ways that played out thematically over the weekend. Example: If the world ends in a paroxysm of nuclear fire, this will be the last roller derby championship ever! But happily, many other notable things about champs this year have less to do with planet-rending warfare. On to those!

Cheering for literally everyone

There are definitely skill clusters within the top 12 teams that compete at champs, but all of those teams are incredibly talented and they all have really different things going on. For me, it was fun to get to see teams that I hadn’t seen play much this season.

Teams like Crime City, Minnesota, Arch Rival and even Gotham don’t make it out to the West Coast games we usually watch, so seeing them in action was exciting! Many of the teams in the top 12 are pretty evenly matched but bring different styles of play to the game and those differences in gameplay and how they neutralize or overpower one another tend to be the most interesting thing for me.

As the skill level goes up across the board, every team is fun to watch and any bout could end unpredictably — just look at Saturday’s Texas/Gotham nailbiter (145-148). Roller derby is becoming less of a sport in which one team dominates year-to-year and that’s just another sign that the game is all grown up.

Read about this morning's thrilling game between @gothamgirls and @TXRollergirls https://t.co/egBXI1Vdps #talk2WFTDA #WFTDAChamps

— Derby Central (@CentralDerby) November 4, 2017

E: Out of the games we saw I really loved the Denver vs. Angel City match up and the London vs. Montreal game. These are teams that are similar in skill level so it’s really fun to watch them compete.

T: As a big Angel City fan, I did a significant amount of pouting when they went down 166-196 to Denver. The funny thing is that I’m also a big Denver fan, which Evie pointed out to me, but I was too busy making dejected faces to come to reason. That’s the great thing about derby, honestly. Every team offers something to love and hearing people cheer for both teams or even earnestly cheering for roller derby itself is a thing that happens. We can probably chalk that up to derby being a sport mostly built by the ground up by women, many of whom are queer.

Derby matures but holds on to what makes it special

In 2017, roller derby is all grown up (it’s on ESPN, after all!) — but not too grown up. The sport is mature enough to have developed into an incredibly deep, strategic game, but it’s young and queer enough to still be really ridiculous in the best way. There were plenty of these moments in Philly, including but not limited to a cameo by that giant inflatable dinosaur that’s very in this year, skaters hanging onto excellent derby names like Catch Mikachu, Space Invader (cute glasses btw) and Satan’s Little Helper (Satan for short), Denver’s top-notch Twitter live-gif game, and an impromptu dance session on the jam line between Denver and Gotham right in the middle of a tense bout.

Christy Demons grabbing lead like #drdmvp #talk2WFTDA #WFTDAChamps pic.twitter.com/bkADzIZ4DJ

— Denver Roller Derby (@DNVRRollerDerby) November 4, 2017

Evie adds:

“I think a lot of people would agree that one of the best moments of the whole tourney was when Gotham and Denver broke into dance toward the end of their game. What I loved about this moment is that these are two teams that have played each other four times this season. FOUR TIMES. It was very cute, fun and a well earned moment for these two teams at champs. It also reminded me of some of my old school moments of dancing on the jam line, but like, on an ESPN level. ”

Why I love derby in 20 seconds. #talk2wftda pic.twitter.com/ETYlFnZK6m

— Wrex (@lindseycore) November 5, 2017

Talent, talent everywhere

One of the raddest things about derby is that it’s complicated. That complexity means that there are a hell of a lot of ways to play the game and no single strategy, style or even body type dominates. The best teams play together, but following players who pop out of the pack for their skill, innovation, and strength is a lot of fun too.

We both left champs ranting about derby icons and up-and-coming players alike so naturally we had to make Derby Crush lists and fight about it:

Evie:

• Olivia Shootin’ John (Texas)
• Barrett (Denver)
• Tui Lyon (Angel City) [Editor’s note: Evie saw Tui in the airport and legit almost passed out]
• Freight Train (Texas)
• Gaz (London)
• Rogue Runner (London)
• Laci Knight’s shoulders
• Arocha (London)
• Tracy Akers (Denver)

Taylor:

• Blackman (Denver)
• Gal of Fray (Rose)
• Tracy Akers (Denver) (come at me, Evie)
• Falcon Punch (Montreal)
• Beyond Thunderdame (Rose)
• Soledad (Angel City)
• Smarty Pants (Texas)
• Sarah Chambers (VRDL) – (Evie adds: “Her makeup was flawless after 60 minutes of gameplay. Wow.”)

And of course shoutout here to some universally well regarded superheroes of the derby world like Scald Eagle, Brawn Swanson, Bonnie Thunders, Loren Mutch and many others— y’all are just so good… what’s the deal with that?

Evie clarifies: “I def have derby crushes at Rose City, but am opting to not ruin my semi-aloof supporter-of-my-peers vibe.” Good call.

Derby’s nefarious globalist plot

Roller derby’s showdown of the fiercest and finest included four teams based outside of the U.S. (Montreal, Victorian, London, Crime City) — and one of those teams took the whole dang thing! With a major 2017 playoff game hosted in Malmö, Sweden and a massive international presence in the high stakes bouts, derby has truly evolved into a global game. While it’s sad to see the trophy leave Portland after two consecutive hard-fought Rose City wins, the fact that it’s headed to Australia is pretty remarkable. Watching new roller derby dynasties form on other continents is pretty fucking cool.

pic.twitter.com/4xVTB0VnTD

— VRDL (@VictorianDerby) November 6, 2017

Something IDK this way comes

We’ve talked about plenty of themes from Champs this year, but now it’s time to talk about the final game: the big showdown between Portland’s Rose City Rollers and Australia’s Victorian Roller Derby League (VRDL). As someone who watches Rose City play regularly, it was difficult to imagine how anyone could take down a fully developed Rose at the end of the regular season. It’s worth noting that VRDL has beat Rose two years in a row in a mid-season tournament game, but both teams have months to tighten and develop moving into Champs.

E: VRDL is the only team Rose has lost to over the last couple years – I went into the VRDL game with the thought that it was a very real possibility that Rose could lose the Hydra [roller derby’s funny twisty metal trophy].

T: Acting the part of a True Believer and clad convincingly in purple, Evie did not voice these concerns at the time.

Going into the final game, I just couldn’t envision a scenario in which a team could best Rose’s wildly talented blocker lineup or its deep jammer bench, especially after such a commanding game against Gotham the night before. Portland is my favorite team to watch but since I tend to kind of cheer for everyone I remained open to this idea!

E: Having been a derby watcher for a long time, I used to get so excited for playoffs and champs. That was when the top teams would unveil the next new thing, whether it was knee starts, “stroller derby” or one of the millions of small things we all just do now.

T: Well, unveil they did. VRDL kicked off the final game by taking lead in 8 out of the first 10 jams. That set a dominant tone that VRDL maintained, ending the half up 99 to Rose’s 32. Rose perked up a bit in the second half, getting lead 35% of the time (compared to just 24% in the first half) and putting up about twice as many points, but VRDL stayed the course. The most confusing part is that VRDL made their commanding performance look effortless and that’s no small feat against a team that no one else can even touch. In the end, VRDL maintained control of the entire game, beating Rose 180-101.

E: I think over the last few years there have not been too many WFTDA rule changes that have opened the door for loopholes leading to new strategies. I totally get that teams are always innovating year over year, but it’s been a second since a team caused the entire, global derby community to stop and all say “WTF?” like they did after Sunday’s game. What happened? How did VRDL not just win champs, but win in such a decisive way? VRDL straight up bested Rose (and it pains me to say that).

T: Yeah, that’s what was so mind-blowing. It was hard to even figure out what was happening as it all went down.

E: The Rose loss hurts, but I’m excited to see what’s next for derby! I feel like we witnessed the next big jump in the sport on Sunday. It’s not about a particular start, offense play or a new technique (although those are all important things to keep evolving), it’s about playing to a specific opponent. VRDL created strategies and plays that it saved for the game, and that counted.

T: Definitely. They had an answer to everything. Usually I don’t like watching VRDL that much because they play a very defensive, controlled, war of attrition style game. How did VRDL totally neutralize Mutch, one of Rose’s biggest scorers, on the outside line? What magic kept their jammers upright and in bounds, even when physics seemed to suggest otherwise? How did they stride by Rose’s killer blocking lineups right off the start? IDEK. This was a different VRDL than we saw throughout the rest of the tournament and a very different, much more aggressive team than we saw last year, even. And their jammers! Like… what even.

All told, it’s a paradigm shift for a sport that’s maturing really quickly, right before our eyes and it’s going to make 2018 that much more exciting. Much like Bitcoin, Beanie Babies, or the musical Hamilton, you should really get in on the ground floor to watch while this thing takes off.

The Starting Place: How an Unlikely Hiker Can Get Outdoorsy

I’m happy when I spend time outside. It’s the one thing I really need to do to feel good.

It’s taken me a full 30 years of my life to get to that realization, but I’m glad I’m here now. After 15 spent ambling through mirror-image suburban wastelands and at least six sandwiched into the urban thicket of lower Manhattan/various corners of Brooklyn, I moved to the Pacific Northwest and started figuring some things out. Right now, I’m figuring things out full-time.

For the past year I’d been imagining what it would be like to climb the various crumbly, foreboding, impossibly beautiful volcanic mountains sprinkled throughout the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately for my mountaineering career, that interest manifested exclusively through obsessive online research, which was more than enough to scare me off. As it turns out, people fall off mountains all the time! Pro tip: Don’t google it.

In recent months, my therapist, well acquainted with my tendency for obsessive over-research, started emphasizing the idea of “showing up” which is exactly as simple as it sounds. Nervous about something? Overthinking it? Just show up and see what happens. So I did.

After stepping away from the Google and into an often immobilizing state of psychological reckoning/imposter syndrome wrestling, I signed up for a mountaineering class put on by one of the oldest, largest alpine climbing and mountaineering organizations in the country.

I was worried there wouldn’t be any other queer people (there are, but not many!) or any other women (there are, but not many!) but I’m really glad I took the steps and did the thing. There’s something to this whole showing up thing.

Some things I figured out in the course of getting ready for the class, mostly by hiking alone and experimenting:

• Hiking is a radical exercise in being present
• Hiking poles are a game changer
• Cotton kills. Wear synthetic stuff and merino wool (When I moved to Portland, a good friend from where it snowed a lot used to always say that and I thought she made it up. Apparently not!)
• Hiking, even monotonous hiking, can be unboring
• Hiking in the rain, even hard rain, is surprisingly totally fine if you’re dressed for it
• When you look at a hike, pay attention to the elevation gain, not the mileage so much. Ideally pay attention to elevation gain per mile!
• Hiking uphill is a mental game as much as physical — also not boring

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Being “Outdoorsy”

Taking this class seems pretty much in character for the people who know me now, which is sort of funny looking back. In Portland, my friends know me as outdoorsy, which can mean a lot of things but seems to reflect the fact that I go camping alone, obsessively over-research new places to explore, and likely seem sanest/happiest when outside (accurate!). It feels surprising then that in 2010, I was just a city queer new to the natural wonders of the West Coast (volcanoes! snow-covered ones!) with a vague interest in nature. In retrospect, I have no idea how I lived in New York City for six years without losing my mind, though I guess I did lose it eventually so I packed up a car and drove west with my partner at the time.

Prior to 2012 or so, my most immediate connection to nature was probably the god knows how many hours I spent looking at ground squirrels on Cute Overload or the nature club I founded in the fourth grade when I moved to suburban Houston from Atlanta and made enough friends to found a nature club; apparently you need three. The nature club casually disbanded after one outing to some kind of local conservation place where a regional ranger volunteer showed us a horny toad and a barn owl. I was captivated by the strangeness of natural things, the inability to parse intentions out of their sharp eyes.

In a few ways I’m an unlikely hiker, a term I borrowed from a couple of Very Smart Local Friends who write about hiking. In most ways, I’m not. I’m white, thin, able-bodied for the most part (my own chronic illness ≠ a static physical disability), and financially comfortable enough to take time away from work to figure my shit out, outside.

Knots and How to Tie Them

I didn’t grow up hiking or Girl Scouting or skiing or anything like that. None of the stuff that functional families seemed to do together. Here in the Northwest, it can feel like everyone hiked or downhill skied or extreme sport I’ve never even heard of out of the womb. I still have a tinge of jealousy about the functional, non-abusive family dynamics that must make things like ski trips possible, though I’m sure class and race are way bigger barriers to the Great Outdoors that continues to belong to some and not all of us.

Living in the Southeast, when I did end up in the woods, everything looked the same to me—humid, lush, and one shade of green in summer or leafless, brown, and still in winter. And when I went there, usually it was to get away from my family not to spend time with them. When I moved back to Texas, before I had friends, I’d spend whole days in the woods behind my house unfurling imaginary worlds that I wish I could conjure in my adulthood.

To his credit, my dad tried, sort of. When I went to college, my dad conveniently popped back into my life in a meaningful way and we forged a fragile, fraternal sort of friendship (the paternal one was rockier; we only saw one another a few times a year). When I was 19, he casually mentioned that we should go snowboarding “up in West Virginia” (that sounds funny now) which would have been a lot of intensive time together and a pretty big departure from our new relationship. It didn’t happen, but it did feel like he’d vetted me for friendship and I’d made it through the first round, for what that was worth. In the summers prior, we went car camping a few years in a row to the same place, a lush pocket of Appalachia with a lake that seemed to attract a thunderstorm as soon as you jumped in, but it was more of a new backdrop to string vodka tonics over than a particularly present outdoor experience.

Growing up as awkward a tomboy as they come, I wanted to know all of the stuff my dad seemed to have ambiently absorbed and taken for granted or even resented. Making a fire, knives, compasses—the stuff guys just knew about. As a blonde boy squarely in the middle class, the son of two good Southern Baptists who lived through the Dust Bowl and worried a lot about keeping their kids involved, the gates of father-to-son style knowledge transfer were flung wide open for him. I resented that he didn’t open those doors to me, while he resented me for being like the son he secretly wanted but still not quite right. When I was 10, in an apparent compromise, we went to the downtown Atlanta REI before a Braves game and he bought me a tiny, forest green swiss army knife which quickly became my favorite thing ever.

After my dad died, I slept in his childhood bedroom surrounded by light pine bookshelves full of worn copies of The Wolf Cub Scout Handbook and Knots and How to Tie Them. Now, those books, their 70s primary color palette covers fraying, rest in a long, low fir shelf below a window that opens into the rose garden behind my house.

Before my first mountaineering class lecture began, the room roared with 200 men excitedly swapping summit stories with anyone who’d listen. When we split up into smaller groups, they showed off the knots they just knew with deft hands so quick I couldn’t follow.

The rest of us fumbled through, starting from the starting place.

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Originally published on Out Lab. Republished WITH PERMISSION MOTHERF*CKERS.

The Road Home: PS4 And The Rebirth Of A PlayStation Fangirl

My, what a difference a generation makes.

A console generation, in the case of Sony’s PlayStation 4. After a well-crafted press event at E3, Sony’s console has even Xbox diehards peering over the fence – and me too. It took Sony’s bold offensive approach to the future of gaming to make me remember, but it all came crashing back.

I’m a PlayStation fangirl. And until this week, I had altogether forgotten myself.

A Simpler, More Pixelated Time

Back when life was simpler and populated by considerably fewer bits, I owned a PlayStation. It wasn’t my first console (My dad bought me a Nintendo for making straight As in the first grade. Later, the Sega Genesis and I had more than a casual dalliance), but it became my special portal into the sprawling fantasy worlds that absorbed my attention in a way that my then-understimulating environment seldom did.

In 1995, Sony’s new console was a cutting edge slab of hardware. My first games were terrible and few. I spent a disproportionate amount of time playing kind of awful titles, but it didn’t matter – ESPN Extreme Games and its jerky control system had me occupied for months.

Worse, I may be the only person to have ever played Bubsy 3D – a perennial favorite on “worst video games ever made” lists – to completion, which inspired in me both a feeling of closure and a vast relief that I’d never have to look at the jagged platforms of its awkward 3D hellworld ever again.

But with the PlayStation’s hardware chops, 3D worlds were immersive in an entirely new way. Bubsy 3D was a particularly cruel embodiment of the growing pains from side-scrolling 2D gaming to 3D gaming, but something about moving around on that extra axis gripped me nonetheless.

In 1999, my mind was blown again. On a whim, I rented Final Fantasy VIII from the gas station that I could walk to at the front of my neighborhood. And as anyone who’s ever played a Final Fantasy title knows, it isn’t the kind of game you rent. After a bleary-eyed 48 hours with my new PlayStation gem, I reluctantly pushed it into the returns slot.

That day, my love of gaming turned a new, more mature leaf – one with more side quests and sleepless nights. From that point on, the PlayStation became synonymous with the open-world gaming that made my imagination itch.

(Further nerding: Video Game Maps: An Ode to Overworld Cartography)

A Gaming Dark Age – And A Renaissance

My love of gaming flourished for a while, but the summer before I started high school, I quit playing cold turkey. Video games didn’t seem like a thing that girls did – straight ones, anyway – so I tried to reinvest my energies elsewhere, like shuffling listlessly around the mall. That seemed more socially acceptable than obsessing over plain text online RPG strategy guides and flawlessly executed boss battles.

So I did normal “girl stuff,” casting sidelong, apologetic glances at my trusty PlayStation, quietly collecting dust on the shelf it’d rested on for years.

Fast forward to college. No longer boxed in by the social mores of being 16-ish, my passion for gaming was back on. I’d moved to New York for school and started dabbling in World of Warcraft after a few friends introduced me to the whole online RPG phenomenon, but my nostalgia for the PlayStation still burned bright.

By 2008, we were still dutifully playing it in our East Village apartment, wrapping up elaborate quests for rare items on rainy days when we didn’t have work or school.By winter break of my sophomore year, with falling snow turning to grayish sludge, I made my 15-block pilgrimage to the used games store on Broadway where I bought a slightly worse-for-wear PlayStation 2. My then-girlfriend and I holed up in my dorm for days on end with that thing. We never had the newest games, but we loved whatever we played.

To The Dark (Green) Side And Back Again

By 2009, I was a full console generation behind and suddenly faced with a choice. I was a PlayStation person — PS games renewed my love in vast, imaginary worlds time and time again. But it was the seventh generation of gaming consoles, and now people were playing with and against each other, all online.

In the end, I betrayed my deep PlayStation roots and bought an Xbox 360 (as documented in a rather disgruntled holiday Autostraddle post circa 2009). All of my friends were playing on a thing called Xbox Live, and the PlayStation was a hundred bucks more expensive anyway. I bought a 360, but to this day, it’s never felt quite right. The console feels designed around shooters and Kinect-era casual games rather than the kind of epic titles, like the Final Fantasy series, that lured me in way back when.

Date With A Google Glasshole: Cyborg Dating 101, A Report From The Field

I am a pioneer (ahem, Explorer) tasked with testing the developer edition of Google Glass, arguably technology’s biggest quantum leap forward since the advent of the tablet. The start of Google’s epic annual conference this week will no doubt bring a critical mass of Glass-wearers into San Francisco, making its social implications more relevant than ever — especially come happy hour.

But since hardware benchmarks, unboxings and rigorous teardowns are so 2012, I to set out to review Google Glass with one noble (if amorous) goal. I wanted to wear the device on a full-fledged, real-life, real-stakes date and see what happened. Just for the hell of it.

The Plan Goes Like So

Sure, a romantic evening on the town wearing a Star Trek-remixed smartphone on your face might ward off your average weirdo, but I like to live well beyond the doldrums of social custom. Which is to say that my editors suggested the idea and I blame them for everything. They may have been joking – I’m not actually sure. Everything began innocently enough on our weekly over-caffeinated Skype call. The rest is history, especially the bivalves.

This is how it goes: I propose that a cute girl of interest (her name is Rebecca) accompany me to dinner and drinks… and mention my one wearable, Bluetooth-enabled caveat. As it turns out, she’s game for the experiment, curious about Google Glass and accepts my invite. Cue nerd panic.

Glasshole On The Half-Shell

My frantic pre-date self pep-talk logic goes like this:

• Glass is more interesting than it is obnoxious.
• My natural charm, good looks and modesty will provide a diversion.
• Working theory: Glass will actually prove less obtrusive than a smartphone in a social setting.
• Okay maybe I’m in a distinct minority, but I think Glass looks super rad.
• Date has some warning and is partially familiar with Glass. Date has expressed positive possible romantic interest in prior social scenarios sans Glass.

Pre-date risks, social, romantic and otherwise:

• I own the only Google Glass in Portland (at the time of shipping, anyway). Here, it makes for a lot of awkward, enthusiastic and inescapable extended social interactions.
• Date is a suspected technophobe.
• Date could take privacy concerns very seriously and literally flip table, walk out of restaurant.
• Date may think I am surreptitiously taking photographs of her (true) and get creeped out.
• Normal date risks (bad hair days, epic failure) amplified by social risk of full documentation via Internet.

A Date With A Glasshole, Documented In Realtime

For dinner, we agreed on an authentic cajun place/oyster bar in North Portland with stiff drinks and plenty of exits.

Taylor: Do you generally like technology? How do you use your mobile devices?

Rebecca: Sure, I like technology. That said, I’m not crazy in love with it. I do use my iPhone 5 almost constantly. I listen to podcasts and stream music all day at work. I text up a storm every 15 minutes… at least. I check my email, Instagram and Facebook every hour or so.

T: What’s the first you heard about this whole Google Glass thing?
R: I first heard about it about five months ago. I thought it would be a great for people who need to be available all of the time for work. But I knew it [wasn’t] for me.

T: So what do you do for work? 
R: I am a vintage dealer and leather craftsman.
T: That’s pretty old school. You make like… non-virtual 3D objects? Whoa.

T: Were you nervous at all when I told you that we were going on a formal “date” with me wearing Glass and I was going to write a story about it?
R: I wouldn’t say nervous. A little apprehensive, but overall excited and curious.
T: A lot of people probably would have been weirded out. If I wasn’t already a major weirdo, I would have been weirded out. Cheers to that!

The Full-Disclosure Glasshole Date Debrief

A day after the date, I check in to see how she thinks things went. You know, for the story. At some point she called Glass a “breakup-inducing cyborg face device,” so I was a little nervous about this part, I admit.

T: So, like, why did you agree to do that? Was it weird?
R: It was kind of weird. But the face that Glass was attached to is so damn charming. And it was promising oysters and tequila. Who could resist?

T: Fair enough. Flattery will get you everywhere.
R: I was also curious to see the general public’s first reaction to it. People looked for any excuse to come up and talk to you about it. It was the first thing our server asked us, remember? “I’ve gotta ask: What’s up with that glass visor thing?” Everyone sitting near us was staring. You might as well have been wearing a huge squirrel costume.
T: Next time I will wear my huge squirrel costume. That’s more of a date 2.0 thing, I think.

T: Squirrels aside, do you think there are rules around technology and date etiquette?
R: There are most definitely unspoken rules around dating and phones. And, yes, I tend to obliviously violate them.
T: Okay so maybe I got mad at you for texting back and forth with a friend while we waited for our entree. Was that hypocritical?
R: Well, yeah… at least a little. You were also on your Android phone too. We were both on our phones on that date – not just on Glass. I have pictures to prove it.
T: Oh. Er… my bad.

R: There are rules. No phones on fancy date night. It’s a time to connect with a person that’s important to you.

T: Oh, so you’re saying that I’m important to you? The truth comes out! Maybe this was all a ruse to get you to say that you liked me?
R: [Possibly creeped-out silence]

T: So, uh, let’s get down to brass tacks. Do you think Google Glass is going to turn us all into zombie cyborgs who don’t care about other humans? There are apps for virtual kissing, you know.
R: I think Google Glass is going to turn the people who are already predisposed to being zombie cyborgs into zombie cyborgs. I think it’s easy to own and use Glass with respect and class to the people around you. It really depends on the person wearing them.

T: What about how I used Glass during our date? Was it distracting or rude?
R: I thought you were super classy. You only talked to it (to send texts) when you needed to. And I love that you could take candid pictures of our experience, that part was great. But in the back of my mind I worried I didn’t have your full attention.
T: You did… I swear!
R: But the fact of the matter is there was a thing on your face that also had that attention. I had trouble seeing my way around it, literally. A phone in a bag wouldn’t get checked [until] the date is over. Not that mine was in a bag…

T: How much did you enjoy our landmark social experiment on a scale of 1 (total catastrophe) to 10 (impromptu marriage in Vegas)? 

R: I’d give the outing a 7. I definitely wouldn’t want you to wear it to my birthday dinner or anything. But it was a fun to see other people react to a thing that they really didn’t understand… especially during Happy Hour.

T: So how did you think the end of the date went? Did Glass affect that?
R: You mean when I gently lifted Glass from your face and with one careful motion and slid it into its specialty Japanese microfiber case with a hardshell bottom?
T: You had me at “microfiber.”

T: So, um, do you want to get drinks this weekend?
R: I would love to go on another date with you. But will Glass be coming?

Back To The Future

As for delicate, at-times technophobic Portland, I may have unraveled its gossamer social fabric in ways irrevocable. After drawing a lot of stares, I’m a little embarrassed to go back to the same oyster place in my North Portland neighborhood. (Which sucks, because they have a kick-ass special on Tuesdays.)

Still, my date — who I have taken quite a shine to — is game for further interactions in the three-dimensional world. (And I mean, how cute is it that she put up with all of this experiential tech-journo bullshit to begin with?)

I have to admit: The world beyond Glass does have its perks.

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Confused about this whole Google Glass thing? Google’s official video is a pretty accurate depiction of the device:

[All photos by Rebecca Barron, who is a very good sport, and Taylor Hatmaker]

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This story was originally published on ReadWrite, a place for news and analysis on all things web, tech and social media — and coincidentally a place where Taylor also writes things.

Want to see more good stuff from ReadWrite? Check it:

• Google Glass FAQ: What Do You Want To Know?
• How The Giants Of Tech Stack Up On LGBTQ rights
• True Confessions Of A Digital Hoarder

Gallery: Tegan & Sara at the Waterloo Records Day Party SXSW

Tegan and Sara played at the Waterloo Records Day Party on March 13. Here are some pictures for you to cherish, tumbl, print on glossy paper and frame, etc.

Your Gay Guide to iOS 6: Passbook, Panorama and VIP Inbox, Oh My!

iOS 6, the new operating system for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, is super relevant to our interests. There’s over 200 new features and while none of them are explicitly queer, they’re all very useful (much like a pocket knife). So whether it’s Facebook integration, the new maps app or passbook, add these to your gay tool belt right beside learning how to dry-wall.

Before Updating Your Operating System

1. Check to see if your device meets the system requirements.
2. Back that shit up! Yes, most of the time nothing will go wrong. Like 99.99% of the time everything will come out fine. But if you fall into the .01%, then you want to make sure your contacts are safe somewhere. Do one of the following:
   1. Backing up to iCloud. If you have iOS 5 and have enough space in your iCloud account (5 GB is free, additional space costs money), then you can back up to iCloud. Simply tap “Settings,” tap “iCloud,” and scroll down to “Storage and Backup.” Once you’re in there, make sure iCloud back up is turned on and then scroll down to the Back Up Now button. Tap that. If it’s that weird grey color, make sure you’re connected to WiFi.
   2. Backing up to iTunes. This will be necessary if you have iOS 4 or earlier, or if you don’t have enough storage space left on your iCloud account. Plug your device into your computer (Mac, PC, it doesn’t matter as long as you have iTunes on it) and either right-click or control click on the device in the left-hand grey column. Select back up. Be aware! You can only sync your device to one computer at a time! If you have done a previous sync to another computer, this may wipe out some things on your device. Usually a back up will still save the important things, like contacts, in the even of this occurrence. But just to be safe, transfer your pictures to the my pictures folder first. Apps and music can always be re-downloaded.
3. Know that this could take a long ass time. Mine took an hour and a half. Why? Because iOS 6 launched yesterday and everyone is updating. It’s important to know because this makes updating require a little pre-planning–are you at a point in your day where you can spend an hour without your device? It’s also super important because
4. You must be connected to WiFi and power for this update! Grab the charger and turn your WiFi on (because hopefully it’s always turned off to save battery.) This means that for the length of the update you have to stay in one place. You can’t start the update ten minutes before you leave work and then just swoop up your devices and head for the subway. Nay. While most of the time this only results in the update stopping itself, it can sometimes result in software corruption that will break your device. I recommend waiting until you’re home for the evening, maybe eating dinner so you’re not tempted to go anywhere.

Ready? Okay, Let’s Do This!

1.  Tap “Settings” and then tap “Software Update.” You need at least 2.5 gigs of free space to do the update, and it will tell you if you don’t have this. But you probably do, because you aren’t a digital hoarder like me. If all is well (and you have done the whole of the Before Updating list) then tap “Download and Install.”
2. Wait for a bajillion years. This step is like watching grass grow or watching paint dry.
3. Follow the set up screens.
4. OMFG, you’re done with it! The build up was way worse than the actual update, right? But now for the fun stuff. Here’s how your phone/tablet/music lifeline has changed:

Using All The Fun New Stuff

Maps For The Directionally Challenged Among Us

Google maps is out and Apple’s own map client is in! From fly over to turn by turn directions, very little is required for set up. Just tap the new “Maps” app on the home screen and poof, you’re there. Flyover, one of the new features, is a bit difficult to find. You have to be in either Hybrid or Satellite mode for it to work, then press the button in the lower left hand corner that looks like city buildings. Here’s an example:

You can also now get turn by turn directions, a function that was only previously possible with the purchase of an app like Garmin or Tom Tom. Simply search for a location in the search bar and then press the little green car, like so.

Conversely, you can also hit the arrow button in the top lefthand corner for directions, especially if you’re looking for walking directions. Alert! You can no longer get public transportation directions directly from the Maps app! If you select public transportation (the bus button) and tap “Route,” your device will take you automatically to the app store and find you apps that apply to your city’s public transportation situation.

Siri

Siri now purports to do a lot more, including giving you sports scores. Unfortunately, she gives me an error every time I ask about the US Women’s National Team. Most likely, the designers forgot about women’s soccer. But I will instead think of this flaw as Siri collapsing under the sheer sexual attractiveness of the USWNT. (No, but seriously, please, give us women’s soccer. They’re gold medalists for fuck’s sake. I’m really pissed about this. Rage rage rage.)

She also lets you know what movies are playing and can help you make dinner reservations for your sexy queer vegetarian restaurant and movie dates. I tried asking for gay movies, but I don’t think she understood me.

Siri is available on iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, the third generation iPad, and the fifth generation iPod Touch.

Facebook Integration

Are you ready for Facebook to totally invade your contacts and calendars? For some of you, this may be a good thing (especially for the A-Campers, because Facebook is now just basically A-Camp). For some of you, you may want to avoid this like a swarm of bees. Either way, you can turn the contact and calendar information off and just use the awesome things, like the ability to post pictures directly to Facebook and have Siri update your Facebook status.

To set this up, tap “Settings.” Then scroll down to the Facebook setting. Sign in and turn things on or off at will. Pro-tip: now everyone you met at A-Camp will be in your contacts. So is everyone you ever met in college. This may be the day to slice and dice your Facebook friend pool to include only the people you are actually friends with/everyone from Autostraddle.

Passbook– Paperless Flights to See Your Long Distance Girlfriend

I would really like to talk to you about Passbook because it was the feature I was most excited about. Except this happens:

So I actually haven’t tried passbook. But here’s what it’s supposed to look like:

Theoretically, this is going to be good. When it works.

Facetime Over Network

You used to be able to only Facetime (video call) over WiFi. But now you can do it over your cellular data network as well. But be aware, this eats your data like whoa. AT&T won’t charge  extra if you have a shared data plan, and neither will Verizon or Sprint, but it will still eat up your data plan. So actually don’t do this unless it’s necessary! My tip? If you must video chat over cellular but don’t want to give up your AT&T grandfathered unlimited data (that would be the worst idea ever! Don’t do that!) then just use Skype.

Ignore People Easier

I won’t screenshot on my phone for this one, because I don’t want you to know who I’m ignoring. But you can send people directly to voicemail by sliding up on the little phone icon. Just sayin.

VIP Inbox For Your A-Camp Friends and Lovers

Here’s a little something special: for the very important people in your life, you never have to miss their emails again. Just tap the Mail app, then tap the VIP inbox. You can add as many or as few VIPs as you want!

Attaching Photos In A Way That Actually Makes Sense

Oh hey, look. If you’re sending an email to someone and then you think maybe I should have a picture in it, you can do that! Just press and hold until you see the little magnifying glass pop up, let go, and press the right-arrow. Wham presto! You can now attach photos to emails without the premeditation that the previous operating system required! This is also wonderful if you want to attach a few pictures in one email. The days of flooding someone’s inbox with a crap ton of emails with single picture attachments are gone gone gone!

Safari Got Better

Here’s why this is relevant to your interests:

With iCloud tabs, you can begin reading an Autostraddle article on one device, and then just keep going on another device. The iCloud tab button is located at the top of your browser on the Mac and iPad

and in the bookmark menu on your iPhone and iPod touch.

You can also save not just single articles, but entire websites in your reading list for offline viewing! This means you can read Autostraddle while you fly to A-Camp! Just tap the share button (it looks like an arrow popping out of a box) and tap add to reading list!

Panorama Camera

What a wonderful thing this could have been on a mountaintop with 400 other queers, or at your favorite gay bar or anywhere, really. After you tap your camera app, tap options and select “Panorama.” Then it’s just a matter of playing the keep-the-arrow-on-the-line game, which is actually wicked hard. But please, give it a try!

A-Camp by Rail: An Ode to Amtrak

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Being the human of questionable judgement that I am, I have elected to wend my way toward that nexus of sheer joy known as A-Camp by train. I live in Portland, which makes the trip roughly 30 hours long and approximately completely awesome.

On the train, you spend a lot of time thinking about being on the train. Here are those unfettered thoughts and observations, as recorded at a not-too-impressive amount of miles per hour.

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List of things I brought on the train (and their status as of departure + 4.5 hours)

(1) Cold beer (drank it immediately to ‘wind down’ after running down the train platform)
1.75 liters of screw top red wine poured into an aluminum water bottle
1 pack smooth mellow American Spirit cigarettes, which are like not smoking at all
2 avocado and hummus sandwiches (1 down)
10 .5 mg clonazepam (emergency use only) (prescribed)
Altoid mini tin of marijuana (prescribed)
2 egregiously large chocolate cookies
1 lemonade of sorts
Assorted organic whatnots

 

Mistakes to date:

Forgetting a toothbrush (bought one on the train for one dollar! win!)
Not supplying my own fount of caffeine
Forgetting a blanket. I will pay for this one.

Windfalls so far:

Scoring a seat on the ocean side
Having a maybe-queer in my row
Sitting next to a totally sane person

Train Log Day 1: Portland to Northernish California

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2:30 PM: And we’re off! Portland is sunny and gorgeous, but I guess I’m going to California where it is always sunny and gorgeous so I can’t complain! The woman on the platform said she’d give me an oceanside seat, because that’s the kind of small kindness she has to dole out.

5:30 PM: We stopped in Eugene, Oregon so the smokers could stop vibrating in their seats and driving everyone insane. A girl in my aisle who seems queerish got up and looked excited, so naturally I followed her because I wanted to be excited too. I stood striking my coolest I-don’t-give-a-fuck pose about 10 feet away from her, devil may care and all, you know, the whole deal. Unfortunately, I forgot to forget a lighter, because that’s the only real way to start a conversation with another human. Other unsavory humans approached me employing this tactic while the maybequeer hit a tiny joint there on the other side of the train tracks, holding it tucked in her hand which is a move I can never really pull off — I just burn myself. I saw her 20 minutes later on the bottom level where they keep the luggage, eyes fixed out the window, just standing there.

6:30 PM: I’m in the observation car now, which is kind of cool, especially because we’re going into a lightning storm. In the observation car, the glass stretches up to the ceiling so you can take in the scenery as it passes or effortlessly avert your gaze from the meth heads who hopped on board at the last stop.

I recognize the man stuffed away in the bottom level snack cart. He calls me honey, which I like. He calls everyone honey. He is old with leathery skin and a toothy grin. There used to to be two snack vendors, he says, but not since ’82. He is making hot dogs, but I just want some watery coffee and to get away from the hot dogs.

7:30 PM: We’re slipping along a muddy stretch of the Oregon cascades. It’s beautiful… today there’s rain, even though there’s snow on the ground too. There’s a deep valley winding around the edge and every now and again you get a glimpse of white through through the fir trees. Not snow or sky, just white. Like negative space, with no borders at all.

8:00 PM: What kind of people take the train? People with time on their hands, maybe. Wayward people. Lots of people in transition. The girl sitting next to me is “between everything” and works the herring season up in Alaska. She said her steel toed boots freeze through and showed me how big a herring is with her hands. They’re pretty small. She told me that one time she just kept petting one of the fish with her hand because it was so beautiful. I think I’d like herring too.

10:30 PM: Train travel feels falsely survival oriented, kind of like a lot of modern camping. Assessing my resources, I have roughly a third of a bottle of wine and some pretty choice salted chocolate to trade. Still no blankets have manifested out of my bartery interactions. Travelers seem evenly split between people who care about getting shitfaced and people who care about their carbon footprint. Why are both of my feet asleep?

11:00 PM: Hanging out in the observation car again, now with the ne’er do wells. Was hoping the maybequeer might be a relative train night owl, but she is sleeping in a small stoned ball against the window.

11:15 PM: Train drama! Some guy in all camo and a Led Zeppelin shirt is apparently being much more obvious about his boozing than the rest of us. The conductor suggested she would let him off in the middle of the tracks where he would surely perish at the hands of bears indigenous to the area.

Now some other seeming methhead is very excitedly/nonlinearly recounting a story about a boulder crushing the last train he was on. Huh. He’s carrying around some kind of container the size of a propane tank which he keeps sipping out of. We should swap moonshine recipes. I wonder if he has a Pinterest account?

This shit is like international waters. You can do whatever the hell you want on the train, just maybe like, be 3% discreet about that thing. We got off in Klamath Falls, Oregon briefly and people were basically leaping onto the platform in a plume of pot smoke. I think we should hold an Amtrak tribunal for our transgressor. I wonder if trains have ordained ministers, like ship captains? I want the snack man to wed me and the little stoned girlball.

11:30 PM: I ate three identical sandwiches today. That’s sort of weird and definitely way more sandwiches than I usually eat per day. I ate one preemptively in a panic at home. The other two were survival fodder. It was either me or them.

11:45 PM: I think I’m sleepy but it just seems like kind of a big commitment.

Honoring Gillian Anderson’s Newly Revealed Lady-Dating Past: Top 5 X-Files Episodes That Made Me Gay

This week, love-of-our-collective-geeky-lives Gillian Anderson opened up about her past relationships with women. In honor of this fact, we are bringing sexy back with these pivotal gayifying Scully moments. Because I guess our love wasn’t one-sided after all…

From the interview with Out:

“I was in a relationship with a girl for a long time when I was in high school, and then I was in a relationship with a punk rock drug addict who…”

Wait, a lesbian relationship? “Yeah, yeah, well it’s… You know, I’m old enough that I can talk about that,” she says, before resuming her list: “And then I was in a relationship with somebody who was way, way older than me. Everything that that kind of anarchistic attitude brings—the inappropriate behavior it leads to—was how I chose to be in the world at that time, which was, you know, not what people did.”

Much of this has been written before — how she dyed her hair purple, how she glued the school gates shut on graduation night, the drugs and alcohol — but her lesbian romance is something new. Understandably, she is wary of making a big deal of it, precisely because it is a big deal for so many people. “If I had thought I was 100% gay, would it have been a different experience for me?” she wonders. “Would it have been a bigger deal if shame had been attached to it and all those things that become huge life-altering issues for youngsters in that situation? It’s possible that my attitude around it came, on some level, from knowing that I still liked boys.”

Anderson says she has had relationships with other women, but they have been the exception, not the rule.

Back in 1994, I was but a tiny proto-geek minding my own business when the X-Files flickered onto my radar. There I was, swimming in my oversized tie-dyed T-shirt with my awkward too short bangs when my first episode  (“Darkness Falls,” I remember it well) swept me up in its weird embrace. This is how that single chunk of not-at-all explicitly queer TV set me on a course for gayhood that no amount of subsequent un-homo conditioning could possibly reverse.

It makes sense: the series followed the scifisexy adventures of Agent Scully, a certain smokin’ hot redhead with a badge. And as a young, impressionable girl, your first fine lookin’ gun-toting woman can change you in ways irrevocable. I’d suspect Scully (or perhaps actress Gillian Anderson?) captured the hearts of blossoming gay ladies the world over.

Oh yeah, and her sidekick’s cool, too. What’s his name again?

So, if the X-Files did in fact make me gay (it did), I chalk it all up to Agent Scully, the no-nonsense FBI sexbomb who I followed like a puppy through nine sometimes brilliant, occasionally faltering, but always, always homosexy seasons. (We’ll just have to forgive her for the early ’90s hair, for it knew not what it did.) As Scully doggedly searched for the truth at Mulder’s side, I unknowingly sought my own truth. And that truth was that I wanted to get in her pants. (more…)

10 Things I’ve Learned About Flying and 5 Things I Never Will

2012 is the Year of the Tiger*, and also a year that I have found myself flying approximately all of the time. I have gleaned little wisdom to date, but what I do know I will share with you now, in the utmost confidence.

Go on, settle into the scratchy sky-high polyester seat at my side and let the unfortunate aesthetic of its muted geometric pattern wash over you. Buckle its alarmingly limp ostensible safety fabric around your waist and try not to feel weird about it. Here are 10 pieces of pseudo-advice and 5 pieces of not-advice for avid travelers and wayward sky-faring individuals of all shapes and sizes.

* not actually true

5 Things I have not learned and will never learn:

1. How to pack a bag more than 1 hour prior to leaving for the airport because it always works out okay actually, 100% of the time.

2. The right amount of coffee to drink that will get me to the airport on time without sending me flailing into an endless cascade of anxiety.

3. How to choose reading materials that I will actually care to consume and how to avoid the stuff that will just glare at me for the duration of the flight, riddling me with the guilt of the ill-read.

4. How to cope with the crippling public transportation OCD that prohibits me from rewearing any article of clothing that was on my person in-air once I arrive at my destination.

5. How to talk about my flying/travel panic without it being a humblebrag. (bcw just taught me the word humblebrag, so this one is sort of in progress)

10 things that I have learned:

1. The TSA is wholly ineffectual. I have accidentally found myself on the other side of a security checkpoint with everything from hulking nalgenes full of suspect liquids to razors and (Boy Scout) knives. A close friend made it through by accident recently with an entire tin full of joints. Which is not to say you should try this. I think anything you do in an airport is a federal crime, so try to remain very still and do very little.

2. Never check a bag. You will not only save a ridiculous amount of time, but you’ll look extra hot, strong, and gay. And you’ll be building up invaluable arm muscle. You’ll need that later.

3. Airports make you sweaty. Never wear Tom’s on a flight. It just can’t be there for you — it’s time to bring out the the big guns.

4. Everything I ever told you about drinking and flying still stands [see the “In-flight Advice for Adventurers” section]. For bonus points, bring travel sized bottles of liquor and order a mixer on the plane (free!)

5. Tweet at the airport and check in on Foursquare. You’ll experience a sense of deep fullfilment that your life is otherwise devoid of. You will win friends and admirers, be the talk of the town, etc.

6. No one ever hooks up in an airport except in that one episode of Six Feet Under, unless I made that up too. It’s sort of unfortunate but also maybe a good thing.

7. In order to hibernate properly, you will need the following: a hoodie, fingerless gloves, over the ear headphones, wool socks and sunglasses. This is The Best. It’s like being an anonymous bear in an anonymous bearcave 30,000 feet in the air.

8. Are you going to a godless place without proper coffee? Pack a shatter-proof french press and some pre-ground coffee beans from your pretentious local roaster of choice. You can put it in your carry on and the interior of the french press will fit between 1-5 snacks. Your luggage will smell like euphoria.

9. Snacks! These Mojo Clif bars are the best even though I think they are terrible for you, maybe. Also: bananas.

10. “Two carry-on bags” actually means three for your average not-asshole. You have business class traveler assholes who just don’t give a fuck and wheel on suitcases of egregious proportions to thank for this. Smallish rolling suitcases are okay or whatever, but we’re all homos here.

Get yourself a proper duffel bag (ideally from a garage sale or Army Surplus store), a decent backpack, and something else small like a tote bag or a Crown Royal pouch slung around your beltloop, full of treasure. You are now Pro. You’re welcome.

Those are my things. Do you have things? Tell them to me.

Playlist: 13 Degrees of Sleater-Kinney

Once upon a time, I was but a humble genteel pseudo-straight southern ladyperson fumbling her way haplessly through the Texas suburbs, one Coors Light at a time — and sometimes two.

Then Riot Grrrl blipped onto my tiny radar screen. What a vast turn of vast sonic fortune! A few crackling, third wave feminism-infused listens in and I suddenly wanted to rip my life right open, turn it inside out, and wear it like a fucking animal pelt. So I did.

We were (t)here, we were queer, and we had some rad fucking mixtapes! Sleater-Kinney quickly became the nexus of all that was good and pure and pumped through a ’92 Chrysler LeBaron convertible’s speakers. If we knelt it would have been at the rock-altar of our alt-holy trinity: Corin Tucker, Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein. (I’d cross myself but I don’t ever remember if you start on the right or the left.)

Now the time has come to pay tribute to Sleater-Kinney, and we shall do so via a convoluted series of causal chains manifesting into (1) playlist. While a straight-up S-K throwback mix would be its own flavor of perfect, instead enjoy this Our Chart-esque melange of S-K adjacence. Feast your ears on these ragged intersections, former bands, side projects, evolutions and devolutions — because it’s high time you tended to that Hot Rock burning a hole in your pocket.

1. Things You Say – Sleater-Kinney

2. Forever 28 – Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

3. Yeah Yeah Yeah – The Minders

4. Your One Wish – Cadallaca

5. Hot Shit – Quasi

6. I’d Rather Eat Glass – Excuse 17

7. 1,000 Years – The Corin Tucker Band

8. The Revolution Of Hearts Pts. I & II – Helium

9. Drunk #1 – Sarah Dougher

10. Axeman – Heavens to Betsy

11. The Age of Backwards – The Spells

12. 14 Horses – Mary Timony

13. Future Crimes – Wild Flag

STREAM THE PLAYLIST HERE

Don’t be shy, go on and share your fondest Sleater-Kinney-adjacent memories in the comments. Do you remember where you were when you heard they broke up? I don’t, but probably I wept into my hands, right there, where I was. Want to suggest a playlist theme? Hit Crystal up on Formspring and someone on the team will make it for you.

17 Things on My Computer That You Need Too

How did I live without any of the things on the list? I have no idea. Some are work, some are play, but most of these software/applets/what-have-yous get put to good use every single day in my Grueling Productivity Routine. Enjoy — and do share your own top-secret-way-classified productivity tips!

On Booth Babes, CES, and Why This Female Tech Journo Thinks We Deserve A Better Apology

Update: Shapiro responded in the comments section, you can read his apology and weigh in on it here. The IP address has been verified as belonging to the CEA in Arlington, VA. (The effect of the default kitten icon is admittedly amazing.) 

Perhaps it’s having been struck dumb by sheer, unmitigated rage, but I’ve been sitting on my response to this whole “booth babe” thing for a few days now. Last week I attended the Consumer Electronics Show, a massive annual technology expo in the neon wilds of Las Vegas. CES is helmed by a man named Gary Shapiro, and it’s a flashy, chaotic convergence of media, business, and PR folks, all swarming around the Las Vegas Convention Center for the better part of a week each January.

Mid-week I was deliriously vying for an ethernet connection in the press room when a nice youngish fellow named Matt Danzico asked to interview me for a BBC segment about “booth babes.” The video went live the next day (that’s me — that Taylor Hatmaker gal) and I looked on in horror as Consumer Electronics Association president and all around extremely-influential-technology-guy Gary Shapiro utters some beyond ignorant things — things so carelessly dismissive that calling them toxic might be a gross understatement. 

Here’s what Shapiro said re: the booth babe phenomenon:

Well, sometimes it is a little old school, but it does work. People naturally want to go towards what they consider pretty. So your effort to try to get a story based on booth babes, which is decreasing rather rapidly in the industry, and say that it’s somehow sexism, imbalancing — it’s cute, but it’s frankly irrelevant in my view.

As a female-identified human person, navigating the vastly male waters of CES is a strange kind of mental contact sport. In the press room, women are so few and far between I almost feel like we should have some secret hand signal of mutual respect, or maybe the cool lady tech journos do and I don’t know about it yet. But beyond the  press room, you’ll see women all right: over-the-top, hyper-feminine ones wearing anything from form-fitting black and massive fake eyelashes to only the most cursory shreds of fabric. This is the booth babe, the ultimate anachronism at a convention ostensibly about the transcendent places technology can take us. (The booth babe issue itself is a complex one. I’m in the same camp with sex-positive tech columnist Violet Blue in feeling that “the way women feel about booth babes is way more grey than black and white.” I plan to unpack my own thoroughly gray feelings about that through the lens of sexuality, just not in this piece.)

In a pitch-perfect article on Gizmodo yesterday, Mat Honan gets to the core of the issue, which in this case is not really booth babes at all — it’s Shapiro’s ultra-condescending, laissez-faire nonchalance.

“The reason his answer is so bothersome is because as the head of the CEA he is, in a very real sense, speaking for all of us in the technology industry. And that Mad Men bullshit doesn’t represent who we are as an industry anymore, and it certainly doesn’t represent what we should aspire to become. Technology is about the future, and this attitude is from the past.”

In an analogy drawn by both Honan and Violet Blue, Shapiro’s words indeed conjure images of Mad Men, everyone’s favorite cultural TV time machine. Namely the utter disconnect between the ad world’s reckless gender elite and the hostile professional environment its attitudes give rise to. It doesn’t feel like a stretch to imagine Shapiro (and his unsettling smirk) slinking off stage right to enjoy a cocktail in the Old Boy’s Club after swatting the BBC reporter away.

Antediluvian(ly stupid) comments like Shapiro’s make feel like I’m Peggy trying to break into an industry the hard way: by means of the merit of my work. As a woman in the industry, beholden to CES, working day and night at the event over which Shapiro himself presides, the tone of those words made me feel very, very small. And that sure as hell isn’t a place I’m willing to be put — for long, at least.

The thing is, I almost never feel like that. I love what I do, I work with awesome people, and while women are vastly underrepresented in tech, I feel comfortable, extremely competent, and right at home in my field — most days. But Shapiro’s caustically casual dismissal of the booth babe issue altogether makes me feel like I’m treading water in a pool of sharks. Why bother looking at gender politics in a historically (and currently) male-dominated field? How cute of you to bring it up at all!

It’s not Shapiro’s passive support of the time-honored tradition of hiring near-naked women to drape themselves over a company’s shitty gadget that’s rage-inducing, per se. In fact, if we assume that women have agency and can be empowered by the work they choose, booth babes might not be problematic at all — were it not for the bizarrely hyper-sexualized and gender-imbalanced ecosystem that their presence is designed to lend ambience to. Rather, It’s Shapiro’s entirely negligent disinterest in scrutinizing the issue altogether and his inadequate, defensive response, issued to Gizmodo yesterday (published in full at the bottom of the story). You can almost hear the deep, bristling sigh Shapiro must have heaved at those pesky journalists and their “gotcha” moment.

I wish I could dismiss Shapiro’s words as out of context, or spliced together, or anything really. But they just aren’t. The comments were careless, sure, but the follow-up statement doesn’t do much to mend them. Since when was being weary after a day of work an excuse to lapse into complete misogynistic apathy? I guess if Shapiro’s pseudo-apology is to be believed, his comments don’t count at all due to some convoluted mixture of his being married to a female surgeon (which smacks of the “some of my best friends are black” line of reasoning) and the BBC interview having been near the tail-end of ” three straight hours of media interviews.” After all, aren’t we all a little racist/sexist/homophobic or just plain vile when we’re tired? And if we in technology just pretend that gender and sexism aren’t issues worth talking about, the whole thing will probably just work itself out eventually . . .  just like civil rights, women’s suffrage, and marriage equality, one can only assume. Right?

You’re right, Mr. Shapiro: Let’s sit by and idly watch the phenomenon “decreasing rather rapidly” with the detachment of a scientist peering into a petri dish. It’s not like as the president of the whole shebang you’re uniquely positioned to have any pull in this matter, anyhow. And Joan, could you be a dear and fetch another ice cube for my Old Fashioned?

Gaming OPEN THREAD: What Are You Playing Over the Holidaze?

It’s officially the holidaze. Whatever holigay you may choose or be coerced into celebrating in a lackluster or unsettlingly enthusiastic manner, I think we can all agree that it’s a fine time for gaming. A) It’s cold outside or should be, global warming aside B) You may have time off from work or school or juvie or whatever C) It hits an acceptable middle point on the socially-acceptable-avenues-for-total-immersive-escapism scale. Unacceptable being how much small-batch bourbon I would drink, had I the foresight to travel from my Portlandish micro-paradise to Kentucky with my CamelBak. Completely acceptable being a checked-out smile and a reindeer sweater.

New My Drunk Kitchen Ep: Hannah Hart’s Gingerbread Shanty Edition

My Drunk Kitchen’s Hannah Hart(o) is nothing if not festive! In her most recent installment of culinary devolution, watch the plaid pioneer build a 100% definitely structurally sound, LEED-certifiable house out of gingerbread, which no one likes to eat anyway, do they? Don’t you wish you were tiny enough to move into her little gingerbread house? You shouldn’t, because it would probably crush Tiny You in a horrible and also quite small incident that would probably make the Tiny Evening News.

Bonus Feature: The artist-currently-known-as-Harto has a decidedly elfin thing going on — and even wears tinsel! But is that all she wears? Without an animated gif to answer that question, you’ll probably just have to watch to find out.

Wanna know more about our favorite walking demolition derby de cuisine? Read Autostraddle’s very own epic Harto interview!

19 Things About Living Alone

1. If you set a thing down, it just stays there.
2. You could die and people might not find your body for weeks.
3. There is no dissemination of responsibility. Also there is no responsibility.
4. You will feel the need to explain why you live alone so people don’t think you are a sociopath.
5. You must play music all the time. The quiet is when the weird creeps in.
6. You may feel like someone could break in and kill you at any moment, and in some ways you’re right.
7. No one ever knows where you are. Usually you are home.
8. Your fridge may just have hummus and four kinds of beer, and I guess that’s okay.
9. Things you won’t just have, unless you go out of your way to buy them yourself: band-aids, q-tips, mayonnaise, dryer sheets.
10. Accept the fact that you will never know which day the trash and recycling is picked up.
11. You will be acutely aware of the amount of water and electricity you consume; it is alarming.
12. Try leading double lives, or triple lives, even. Quadruple is pushing it.
13. You’re either vastly weird or painfully boring when alone. You’re going to learn this The Hard Way.
14. If you leave empty bottles from multiple cases of beer out, it can look like you just had an awesome party if you play your cards right.
15. You are not an adult, nor will you be any time in the foreseeable future. Embrace that.
16. Life without furniture builds character.
17. Is it cold enough to turn the heat on? How do you know?
18. Spice it up! Buy some candles.
19. Sandwiches.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, A Boundless Fantasy World to Devour You Whole

Are you playing Skyrim right now? Approximately 66.7% of the humans I know are, right at this very instant. My copy was delivered at 9:04 am by a UPS employee darting furtively toward my front door. He clearly understood the gravity of the situation. After all, every RPG-minded gamer I’ve met has lost a sum total of three years of their life to previous Elder Scrolls games, and with good reason, I’d like to think.

For the uninitiated, Skyrim (out now for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC) is a sprawling role-playing epic that stays the course of its predecessor’s penchant for awe-inspiring vastness and wide open gameplay. While I missed the boat on every-single-other Elder Scrolls game due to being thrust into a gaming dark age of sorts, I’m not missing it this time around — hell or high water.

From the sound of it, and from the early buzz I heard while bopping around E3 in LA earlier this year, Skyrim pushes the bounds of gaming as we know it, peeling back the surface layer to reveal just what gaming can do as a medium for something more.

In Skyrim, this is accomplished through my personal number one gaming feeling: Open world exploration. At their finest, video games can rouse our slumbering imaginations, inspiring a kind of lust for the unknown that’s all too uncommon in our virtual day and age. You don’t merely play an amazing game — you tunnel right into the core of it, stake out a virtual outpost in your own imagination and make camp.

Joystiq really hits the nail on the head about this kind of transcendent gaming purity we’re talking about in their Skyrim review:

“Whether or not you know it, that same wanderlust that whispered into the ears of your ancestors and led them into the forests, into the oceans, still calls out to you. In those moments when all seems at peace, all seems safe, it’s that persistent, ceaseless call of “Yes, but what else?”

This is the deepest, loveliest world ever created for a single player to explore, and one that no one should deny themselves. This is a game about following Emerson’s advice, leaving the trail and finding that the most powerful force on Earth or Tamriel isn’t fire or sword, but the ever-insistent desire to know what lies beyond.”

While I haven’t had a chance to dig into the game myself yet, you may have! (But if so, what are you doing reading this article?!) If you haven’t, or you still don’t know what the fuss is about, check out the goods below.

Are you playing Skyrim? If not, what’s been spinning in your tray this fall, so to speak?

Every Single Homo-Offensive Joke From Friends Crammed Into A 50 Minute Video

Taylor’s Team Pick:

Hey, remember when we all watched Friends? I have no idea why we did, but it’s an immutable fact so don’t go trying to deny it. Well, some clever and enterprising individual has compiled ever single homo-offensive, homophobic, or just plain awkward homosocial moment in the show’s entire run into 50 minutes and now it’s on YouTube! It’s pretty epic to watch all in one go, so you might want to make a drinking game or have a friend nearby to punch gently.

From Bitch’s writeup and interview with video editor/creator Tijana Mamula:

“The whole point of this project is to show the very extent to which homophobia pervades the show, and how it changes over the years. It only makes sense to do this if you can give an idea of the scope of the issue. Otherwise it would have been like, ‘Oh look, there’s twelve homophobic jokes in Friends.’”

There is, in fact, ninety minutes’—a whole movie!—worth of homophobic jokes in Friends, as she found. But with some guidelines, and editing with a sitcom-narrative in mind, Mamula cut it down to forty-five. The result was Homophobic Friends, which is not embeddable, but you can find it on Youtube.

Mamula’s montage doesn’t just treat you to an onslaught of eye-searing ’90s fashion. There’s Ross berating his ex-wife’s new girlfriend (at one point Susan literally saying “We’re getting married” cues the laugh track), Steve Zahn’s character “coming out” as straight (clearly hilarious because things are hard for teh straightz), and approximately one gazillion “no homo” moments between Chandler and Joey. And it’s not just homophobia, there’s the transphobia played for laughs when Chandler learns his father has been living as a woman for some time, and lots of gender policing—often from Ross. “I’m just not that comfortable with a guy as sensitive as you,” Ross says to Sandy, a straight male nanny (played by Freddie Prinze Jr.), firing him for basically threatening Ross’s masculinity. “That’s fair,” responds Sandy, a typical response from the queer, or perceived-as-queer characters of Friends, who are written to rarely react defiantly, or insulted, or taken aback at the blatant ignorance hurled their way.

And that’s the thing—Mamula’s aim wasn’t to bring attention to Friends’ wealth of lazy jokes, but their sheer pervasiveness of the show’s epic run. “Homophobic Friends [is not an] attempt to ridicule the underlying homophobia, but rather strives to bring this attitude to the viewer’s attention in all of its apparent normality.”

Thanks to Taylor’s pal Eliot for the link to the vid!

12 Geeky Halloween Costume Ideas To Perplex Friends, Onlookers

So maybe this is just a thinly veiled attempt to have you tell me what to be for Halloween. Nonetheless! These costumes are a terrible idea because:

a) they are impossible to execute (that sounds like a challenge, eh?)

or

b) even a geek will have no fucking clue what you’re going  as, particularly if she’s had a few drinks or is riding a sugar high of epic proportion.

Let’s proceed:

1. NASA’s Space Shuttle program (people will be both confused and sad)

2. The chemical structure of dopamine (no norepinephrine or serotonin either, I mean it)

3. Emma Frost, Storm, Mystique, etc. of the X-Men…you’ll just look like any ol’ ice queen/a generic sexy-super-femme last minute store-bought Halloween entity. Jean Grey is an arguable exception, depending on how far you’re willing to go with the being-engulfed-in-flames bit.

4. Any Cylon except Number Six (Battlestar Galactica). Though if you have an abundance of Hawaiian shirts, you could try to make Leoben work.

5. Pluto in absentia.

6. Commander Shepard from Mass Effect. BECAUSE YOU COULD LOOK LIKE ANYTHING. There’s a character creator, after all.

7. Any prominent figure of the Horde except for Sylvanas Windrunner (World of Warcraft). There’s no way to make an orc costume flattering, and Halloween is about getting your sexy on, if I’m not mistaken. Or maybe it’s about the harvest season or something. While you’re at it, you know I’m not hating, but WoW might be a good catchall avoid-this-at-all-costs category.

8. Marie Curie. She was many things, but ‘identifiably dressed’ and ‘a babe’ ain’t among them.

9. Anything conceptual: Spacetime, any of Newton’s laws of motion, the blood-brain barrier, human evolution. Tempting, I know. Let it go.

10. Any Game of Thrones character. This is gonna go generic-RenFest real fast. And is that what you want? You’ve got all year for that! Goddamn, I want a turkey leg.

11. The ghost of Steve Jobs: Too soon.

12. The amygdala. That shit is almond-shaped. People will think you are dressed as a clitoris, and if that is your intention, you should probably plan in advance.

If you’re already going as an item listed here, fucking own it! Don’t listen to me, I was just kidding! (Pics or it didn’t happen.)

28 Things About Portland That Seem True

1. Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer. Beer; beer, beer.

2. Funemployment.

3. Everything is so cheap that you will compulsively overtip. (You’re doing it wrong).

4. Never look a kombucha mother in the eye. This is so serious.

5. There’s actually a skyline, sort of! It’s pretty!

6. Why does anyone not live here?

7. Oh yeah, rain.

8. Sometimes at a 4-way stop everyone just sits there politely and looks at each other.

9. People keep saying ominous, cryptic things about the rain.WINTER IS COMING.

10. How many people meant to move to Seattle and just didn’t quite make it?

11. Go by train, y’all.

12. Every day is Portlandia brought to life, but don’t say that because it’s probably not cool.

13. No one over 40 lives here…which translates into a terrible cougar deficit.

14. If you see Carrie Brownstein at a coffee shop around the corner, you’ll really wish you’d sprung for a bike with cooler handlebars. Then you will hyperventilate for 30 seconds and need your inhaler.

15. There are more coffee shops than human people to occupy them.

16. This exists.

17. Kinds of guilt you will accumulate: Guilt of leeching off of the local economy while making an out-of-state salary, Lack of cultural diversity guilt, Guilt of incorrectly composting, Guilt of wanting an automatic drip coffee maker, Paper towel guilt, Symmetrical haircut guilt.

18. Why is there no one living in these basements?

19. When someone offers to “take you to the river,” say yes; never ask which river.

20. Maybe there are no gay bars because every structure with humans inside of it is a theoretical gay bar.

21. There is no sales tax. REPEAT: THERE IS NO SALES TAX.

22. Never let anyone see you use your inhaler, esp. while biking. See: #14.

23. Sometimes a guy at the bar next to you just went to sleep sitting up, and the bartender nudges him awake gently and suggests he close out instead of tipping him out of his chair like in most cities.

24. Holistic everything.

25. Post-PoMo, Post-Irony, Post-Everything except brunch. Brunch is fucking serious, so stay in the moment, okay?

26. No one ever tries to steal your bike, which is sort of boring.

27. You can eat biscuits and veg. gravy every single day, which is to say that you will never leave.

28. This: “One of Portlandia’s catchphrases is that Portland is “where young people go to retire,” but that doesn’t fully capture it. Rather, think back to the moment when you realized you were grown up enough to buy candy whenever you wanted. Then imagine extending that phase indefinitely, for years.”