Mommybloggers: We have to ask - what do you think about the term "mommyblogger?" Are you a mommyblogger?

LIz: Sure, I don't have a problem with it personally. Here is the rant coming, can you feel it? Mommybloggger. Denigrating? Trivializing? Cutesy? Well, yeah. Carries negative connotations to some people, like it's all about self-absorbed yuppie soccer moms who think their kids' shit is made of gold and who never write anything important? Yeah, I see that too. I just don't care. Since I'll happily call myself a slut and a bitch (Read The Bitch Manifesto, people!) it's not like I'm going to balk at a little bit of mommy talk. In fact, the more someone tries to convince me that "mommyblogger" can't be claimed or reclaimed, the more I suspect that the term might challenge patriarchy and misogyny. Since I don't accept that being a mother is trivial, I don't accept that the word mommyblogger is limiting. "Mommy" is babytalk. Babytalk is extremely functional when you talk it to babies and there is a point to being proud of the word "mommy" or mama. Yeah it probably sucks that this is the term that evolved, and this is the genre that evolved for women to talk in, and be marketed to, and be marketed as. That is a problem. There are problems with being identified as a woman at all! That doesn't mean I'm going to say I'm a human first and a woman second - if I did I'd be seriously deluding myself. To me, it's like, face it, as soon as I admit I have a kid, I become "mom" in many people's minds, first of all, and everything else about me is secondary. ("Oh! I didnt' think of you as ... a mom.") I don't like being seen as a woman either. I hate that and I will fight it. However, since I know it's there, I'll stand in solidarity with my sisters and accept that that's how I'm seen. I'll be a woman and also be genderqueer, and be a mommyblogger and also whatever I damn please.

Mommybloggers: We've got it from a reputable source *cough Grace Davis cough* that you have serious geek cred. In the wake of Katrina, you packed your bags and headed for the Houston Astrodome, bringing your considerable technical expertise and organizational skills to the relief efforts. How did that experience affect you?

LIz: I learned a lot about my privilege as a white middle class person, and about my potential for leadership. I sure learned a lot about racism and class in the U.S. I learned about disaster and crisis situations. I guess I learned some things that people in the army must learn, or people who run refugee camps. I learned some ways to speak to power and to make things happen.

In many ways I realized that some of my own personal qualities that make me not very fit for my middle class daily life, that those qualities make me excellent in an actual crisis situation. My ability to break the rules, to understand and see through rules, was very important. Part of that ability comes directly from my privilege and sense of entitlement. Another part of it comes from my experiences of situational poverty, and from being a bit of a rebel, a criminal, a bad girl, a woman, a punk, and a revolutionary. I felt like a superbeing, because I knew the inside, but I also know the outside. That meant I could cross lines, where other people didn't even see that lines existed. How powerful!

As a white person with a laptop in hand I could go anywhere and persuade pretty much anyone to listen and pay attention. I could take a black person or a black family with me and get them more attention, or get them past a checkpoint. Think about that please, white people! Black people could speak up and ask for themselves, but it would not get the results that they'd get if I were with them. That's just horrible! Anyone who thinks there is colorblindness, open your eyes. It was not just my skin and my laptop, though that was a huge part. It was also my expectation of being listened to, my expectation that persistence and insistence would not have negative consequences, Guess what, if you're a black man, heck, if you're a 15 year old black kid, and you start fucking with the guards and military and police or with some nice Red Cross lady, the way I fucked with them, you're going to get arrested for causing a disturbance and a problem. And if you're black you know that perfectly well from long experience. So, that is part of the privilege I saw. I could fuss and insist and pester and refuse and demand and stand my ground. I could burst into tears as I demanded that people in power pay attention to me (really to the black family I was helping). (The notorious "white woman syndrome"!) I'd be seen as an annoying uppity funny-looking bitch, but no one was going to pull a gun on me. You can see my privileged background by the fact that this was a revelation to me. I just feel lucky that I learn fast and am very willing to look at myself as improvable. If I work hard I can keep learning.

I learned about real poverty and class. Anyone who had email, they were out of that camp really fast. That goes for almost all the teenagers and families with teenagers! But there were thousands of people who didn't have that. They didn't know anyone with email, anyway, even if we signed them up for it. They didn't know anyone who was richer than them, to email or call, to come and help or get them the heck out of there. Now, no matter what happens to me in my life, I know a hell of a lot of people who are upper or middle class and I could call them from a disaster area, and something would happen, someone would come pick me up, or send me a ticket. That was not true for many of the poorer refugees from Katrina.

I learned about family and about people's expectations. I was working hard to connect people with family members, because that was their only lifeline. But families are very very complicated. I ask you to think of your own extended family. You know that annoying devout Baptist great-aunt who's kind of deaf and spits when she talks and never liked you? And your crazy cousin who sometimes lives with her and who molested you when you were little, but you never told anyone? And how she had a big fight with your grandma 50 years ago but you never knew about what? And she always resented you for being the smart one and making straight As? Well now you're in a refugee camp calling her to help you. And you realize that no one in the family ever told her that you had 2 kids because they didn't want to give her a heart attack that you weren't married. What I'm saying is that all the old scandals come out. Divorces, custody battles, everything. At first I'd be like "whew! found their family! now everything'll be okay!" But no. On the other hand I saw people reunite and talk to family members they had been estranged from. And I thought about my own extended family and what they mean to me, and what I'd do for them or expect from them in a disaster; I felt more of an internal commitment to my own family and friends.

As far as a direct effect on my life: It ate my life for a few months and then I had to draw a line and say, No more helping right now. I could not figure out how to integrate my regular life with doing that kind of work.

The actual experience, after I came home again, I was really almost insane, I was crying all the time at the contrasts between my sweet life in the sun with happy children and privacy and luxury, vs. being in a pretty squalid 20,000 person refugee camp. (I know, we said "evacuees" and then "guests" but it was a refugee camp much like any other from a war zone, disaster, famine, etc.) I would stand in the grocery store and be overwhelmed at all the things, and most of all at the feeling of civilization, taking for granted that there was abundance and order and a system that was understandable. I cried a lot, and I felt that I hated everyone I saw who took all those things for granted. It was very hard. The only way I could deal with it was by working 14 hours a day from my computer and phone to keep helping. But, like I said, that ate my life and sanity and I was neglecting my family, schoolwork, and another level of responsibility. So I stopped. I'm not proud of stopping and not comfortable with it.

Disaster is all around us. Individuals and communities all around me are in crisis, in poverty, with unstable lives and futures, without any basic support. We are also in a war. That's a huge disaster. We're all responsible for it. I have not integrated this knowledge into my life, a year later;; how to be personally responsible to my family and extended family, and to myself, and how to be socially responsible. I'm trying hard to figure that out.

Mommybloggers: How did your passion for Spanish literature develop?

LIz: My dad is from Venezuela and I grew up with a bunch of music and books in Spanish. I liked to try to translate poems and songs, and took Spanish classes from age 12 up (with occasional earlier lessons from dad).

Aside from that, I am interested in literature from all over the world. Out of basic orneriness, I would notice when a teacher or a book would say "And the novel began in England in 16... whatever" and so I took great pleasure in saying "You're WRONG... what about the Tale of Genji..." And especially when people made claims about there not being any women writers at various times in history. I'd just get mad, and I'd know they were dead wrong, and I'd say so out loud.

The whole time I was growing up, my mom was an English major trying to get her B.A. And I'd read all her books. So by the time I was 16 I had read my way through a basic college education in British and American lit (even if I hadn't gone to lectures or written the papers.) By that time I was very ready to read something else, and I began to look around me for anything. I would comb through bookstores looking for anything from another language or country. I particularly remember "Women Poets from Antiquity to Now" and "Technicians of the Sacred" , which were very important to me when I was around 15, in 1985. But I'd read any dusty old paperback by anyone not white, not from now, and/or not written originally in English. So I have anthologies, poetry, novels, etc. from African American, African, Chinese, Hindu, Arab writers, contemporary or historical. I think this is not simple xenophilia. I just want to know everything. I will die someday regretting all the wonderful books that I haven't been lucky enough to read. I have learned that other literatures from other times and countries have their own rules. You have to read a lot from them, to figure out what's going on, what their particular literature's rules are.

Spanish is just the only language I have a real background in, and I'm unfortunately not a natural language-learner. At this point, I love a lot of Latin American poets and will spend a good part of my life reading and translating them.

Mommybloggers: What else are you passionate about?

LIz: Feminism. People. Empowerment.

Mommybloggers: Tell us about your formative years - what experiences have influenced your own life as a mother?

LIz: I feel like I should talk about my parents here.

My parents were young, fun, creative, and bookish. (They still are, of course.) My mom did amazing art projects, made me costumes, took me to the library, and was very encouraging to my interests. My dad was always ready to take an idea and go to the library to do some research into it. I think from him I learned my basic attitude of "I don't know, but I can certainly find out" as well as his infectious interest in whatever was around him. For instance, we lived in Michigan, and he learned a little bit about the history there, about glacial geology, about things like the French and Indian War. Or if he was reading a book like Plutarch's Lives, then I would suddenly be tagging along on that interest, and would be reading about Roman and Greek myth. We'd all read a set of the same books, and play around with the ideas and literary style, like I remember all running around for a while talking crazy like Le Morte D'Arthur, or characters from Robin Hood; we'd be at the dinner table quaffing a stout Malmsey or whatever although it was just milk, or shooting our shafts trippingly into the dun deer in the greensward as we got some hot dogs out of the fridge. We talked like total idiots a lot of the time with a lot of in-jokes. So there was always sort of an informational, and story-world, overlay of our daily reality. At least that's how I felt about it. In my house now, we can seamlessly move from being Godzillas to getting ready for school, and back again, in the goofy way we talk. What my mom would do besides just making it possible for me to have the books and the unstructured time to read and imagine, was to bring stuff into reality for me, and making it fun, like when I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings, and the fall that I was in second or third grade, my mom made me a Gandalf costume for Halloween. You may picture me age 8 as a little girl in a long beard made of fake-fur fabric and a homemade robe and cardboard pointy hat. Or my sister and I would create all sorts of weird scenarios and my parents would play along. My sister and I played for years with tiny model animals and model horses, making up elaborate personalities, homes, scenarios, and cities, and I played that sort of thing until I was around 15 and she was 10. I taught Moomin to play with his own animals and robots and stuff in exactly that way. We had a lot of "imaginary life".

I think of this stuff while I'm doing things like making a birthday landscape for Moomin out of giant refrigerator boxes. I have my own projects, and don't devote as much time to parenting as my own mom did. But I can try to keep some of the best things going.

For a few years, my parents helped us keep diaries. My dad would write what I dictated on a calendar or in a little blank book, and my mom would do the same for my sister, and then another night they'd switch off. So I have these diaries that gradually transitioned into my own handwriting, when I was around 8. You can see some funny excerpts from it here on an old web site of mine. We also had a fairly regular "Fun Night" which we made ceremonious with ice cream, and we'd play a board game and stay up late. (Dessert was kind of rare. I don't think my parents had the money to go out. Thus, Fun Night.)

Stuff like that was just ubiquitous in our lives. Now that I am older I realize how much I took it for granted. We're still like that as a family in some ways. We all four, mom, dad, sister, and me, read all the Patrick O'Brian books a few years ago, and there was a period when we read every Pern book, and I totally know my parents go around the house with their stuffed fire lizards, talking like they're on Pern.

I would also say a word for how my mom tried very hard to advocate for me in the public school system. When I was in kindergarten the teacher and principal yelled at her and said that teaching me to read would ruin my life forever, socially and sort of developmentally or intellectually. She defended me then and often in future when I would have conflicts with teachers or school administration. In a way, what she did was to defend my ability to be a geek, an intellectual, and an individual. She was not afraid to point out bullshit and to stand up against authority and senseless bureaucracy. She might not think of herself that way, but that's how she is. If I know how to point out that the emperor has no clothes, it's because of watching her.

Besides being so lucky as to have had this kind of childhood, I am amazingly lucky to have found my partner Rook who has a similar approach and outlook on what's nice about being in a family.

Mommybloggers: You've written about feeling scrutinized by other parents, and have pondered your place in the elementary school scene. We've all experienced the difficulty of relating to other mothers on the playground. Why do mothers have such a tough time connecting?

LIz: I blame the patriarchy.

We need mom gangs. Especially when you have small children, you need cohesiveness and unity. Cliques and moms' clubs just aren't enough. How about some formal hierarchies with gang jackets and officer positions, like in biker gangs. It would be a way of expressing pride in the tough aspects of motherhood that make us strong, and our commitment to each other as moms and as women. Different suburban gangs could have formal treaties, so the leftist queer-friendly anti-racist public-school advocates of my town could establish truces with the white anti-immigrant Christian homeschoolers. Rumble in the playground! Oh, those tense moments in Starbucks! Historic jumping-in moments in Gymboree, just imagine.

So, we need more gangs.

Urban and suburban commune structues and co-housing would also be excellent. We should be thinking in terms of utopian social engineering.

Mommybloggers: You're upfront about your life with two partners. Do you all share parenting responsibilities equally?

LIz: No, we never did. This is kind of a painful question right now because my girlfriend and partner of the last 2 years, well, our relationship just broke up. I think we will always be close and important in each other's lives, though we aren't going to be partners anymore. She and my son connect over things like comic books and Dr. Who. While she enjoyed that connection, she didn't do any parenting, babysitting, or even really "auntie" level relationship. More like "mom's nice friend". She was very clear on that from the beginning, and I was fine with it. My other partner "Rook", I've been with him for 8 years, and he is an amazing parent. I can see that if my girlfriend had wanted to be in a parenting role, we would all have had to be a lot closer and had more communication. To make that more clear: I consider my body and sexuality and time to be nearly all my own personal decision. But inviting someone to co-parent our child is more than just my decision!

As far as my kid is concerned, moms go on sleepovers sometimes, just like kids do, and that's all there is too it. Moms or dads might also go to overnight conferences or business trips. We have never gone too far into discussing my relationship. He's only 6. It doesn't really factor into his life much at this point.

Where it does or might have an effect is with the rest of my family, the greater societal view of how I live and what that means about my parenting ability, and how other kids see him. For example as he gets older it might be embarrassing. But there is a lot about me that will probably be embarrassing and that seems like just one more thing, rather like having a parent who is gay or lesbian. There will likely be other kids who tease you over it. It was helpful to me to go to some events sponsored by COLAGE and PFLAG to hear other kids and parents in "non-traditional" families speaking up. I imagine that single moms who date must also run into quite a lot of similar questions around their dating life, boyfriends or girlfriends.

A lot of poly or open marriage people worry that their being "out" could mean that someone could use that knowledge to try to take away their kids.

I don't want any relationship I'm in to limit the range of possiblity of my other human relationships. I've known that and said that since I was very young. In fact I was notorious for going around my middle school giving impassioned speeches about "free love". I think that relationships have to be negotiated. As a woman in a patriarchal society I am especially sensitive to the feeling of my body and sexuality being "owned". It's very important and central in my life for me to know that I "own" myself.

A lot, oh, a LOT of other moms, and straight women, ask me questions about my feelings and practice in this area. They want to know the details. How does it work? How do I get my husband to "give permission"? What about jealousy? (You feel it, you learn about it, you deal with it, it's not the end of the world.) What about time? Can I really love more than one person at once? What if my other partners have other partners? How many times a week do I have sex? Do I have some kind of monster giant libido (well... no!) Do my partners "like" each other "that way"? What do other people think? (Move to California, everyone's poly and it won't matter so much.) Does this mean you'll make out with me right now to assuage my bi-curiousness? Oh yes, I get asked everything. I don't mind. Ask away. I might not always answer. But you can also read books like The Ethical Slut that try to give some pointers. (See, it's good to be my ex-girlfriend, I still plug your book for you, 10 years later.) Or I would point people to the alt.polyamory pages as a starting point for their questions, or this post on Blogher.

It has been great for me to read other bloggers, especially moms or mommybloggers, who are a little bit open about their poly relationships - Bitch Ph.D. comes to mind.

Mommybloggers: You've written about everything from politics to sex with equal enthusiasm. Is there anything you won't write about?

LIz: When people ask me not to write about something that involves them closely, then I don't. Though I can imagine situations where there would be an overriding reason to break that rule, for the purposes of justice or if someone became abusive to me.

I sometimes put a check on writing from a point of anger. Especially if I'm angry at a friend, or annoyed at someone I'm close with, I'll write it out privately and then not post it. A couple of times I've done private posts that filter people out. But I want to steer away from doing that! It seems both toxic and unreliable.

And yet the most interesting things to write about are often those complex partly negative feelings about our relationships or families! It's what we want to read, and reading honest stories is important to everyone. It's not always vultures who want bad gossip and drama... it's about honesty and integrity, and allowing life to be complicated!

A little distance and time helps with that.

I have also fictionalized incidents occasionally. Like "I used to know someone who..." "A long time ago... " While this might be perfectly transparent to people close to me, especially now that I open my big mouth and say so, it at least saves face for whoever I'm really talking about.

These are problems every memoirist faces. They are also pressures that silence us politically as women and make us invisible. These pressures are especially strong on women. Even after you are dead, your biographers will have trouble explaining complex truths or secrets or negativity, because your family will not want it. That's a problem, because it keeps the realities of women's lives invisible to other women.

So, while I try to respect privacy in some cases, I have big problems with privacy and family on a political level.

Mommybloggers: We're inspired by all the creative play and imaginative parenting that goes on in your home. How much of your son's interest in science-fiction and fantasy comes from you?

LIz: I've been passionate about reading science fiction since I was 5. It was like nothing else. Imagination could be completely open; I have to say it is probably what opened my own mind. If you can imagine other worlds, other structures of society, other-than-human, other planets and universes, then you can imagine this world we live in also being different than what we see daily as reality.

My partner Rook also loves science fiction and creative play. He has been heavily into role-playing games since he was around 7 or 8 years old. "Heavily into role-playing games" is an understatement, as you can see if you check out his amazing web site that records everything, ever, about any role-playing games ever invented.

So, both of us are into stories, imagination, creativity, pretending, and that sort of thing.

Mommybloggers: Give us seven words that tell us who you are.

LIz: I came up with:
woman, feminist, bookish, queer, dilettante, imaginative, white

On a whim, I asked Rook to come up with his own 7 words for me and here they are:
enthusiastic, ambitious, erudite, hot, progressive, writerly, nice.

In theory I would never define myself by how my husband describes me, because that would be inherently nauseating, but on the other hand I can't help but approve of his choice of 7 words.

Mommybloggers: Tell us about the inspiration behind Woolf Camp. How is it evolving?

LIz: Grace and I wanted to have a get-together with a focus on women, blogging, and writing. To have fun, to create a community feeling, get to know each other better, and have more of a "writing retreat" atmosphere. If we all spent the weekend together, what would we like to do? Have some intense conversations, make some really nice food, drink some wine, dance, hang out in pajamas, girly slumber-party style. What conversations will happen when we talk to each other, instead of listening to who we think we're supposed to be listening to? What can we figure out? So, a bit of an antidote to those blogging sessions that are like "The 10 ways to improve your blog writing to make money". Instead, more exploratory. What are we doing? Why? How can we support each other more? What can we learn and teach?

I like what Grace quoted from the principles of Mashup Camp (But I know I've heard Chris say all this, too:

* Whoever comes are the right people.
* Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.
* Whenever it starts is the right time.
* When it is over.
* Document your session on the wiki.

One thing I took away from WoolfCamp was a belief that it's important to teach other women how to blog, one on one. Individual mentoring is very cool.

People keep emailing me asking if we will have more WoolfCamps. Yes, but I would like to see other people have their own. Declare a meetup, and make it more than just a meetup. Pay attention to each other and see what evolves. You are all rock stars and you create your own importance!

Mommybloggers: What's next for you, busy mama?

LIz: I would like to look for work.

But also, I need to finish writing an article for the Encyclopedia of Women in Science Fiction, and prepare for a talk on Gabriela Mistral and Langston Hughes, and finish some translations, and keep working on some more translations, and send out three book manuscripts that have been just sitting around. I want to do more for my kids' school.

That all sounds like a lot of work doesn't it? None of it's going to erase those zeros on my Social Security report. I would like to be back in the world of people who get a paycheck. Not getting paid is messing with my head.

My new project, which I'd like to do full time for the next few months, is a community blogging project based on everyone I can talk with on a single city block in San Francisco in a neighborhood that is the source of some conflict and controversy. I would like to give people a chance to be heard and to hear each other.

I would also really like to write a kids' biography of Joan Jett.

Mommybloggers: Finally, here are the questions we ask everyone:

What is your favorite parent related word? cuddliness

What is your least favorite parent related word?
because-i-said-so-that's-why

What is your favorite creative censored curse word used around children?

They don't have to repeat it just because they heard it. Grownups get to cuss. Kids pretty much don't, or they need to know not to do it in front of people that will get upset by it, such as anyone in school. It's not the words, it's the context.

In other words that is an elaborate justification for the fact that I am filthy and swear like a soldier and have not learned to censor my cussing around children.

What is your favorite hiding place within your home when you need to get away from it all?

The bathtub is always good. But I am lucky enough to have my own office with a little foam-cushion futon on the floor. With some white noise and music I can get away pretty well.

For those really bad moods, there are three classic options: the driveway with cell phone; going on a virtuous errand to the drugstore or grocery store; asking for a little bit of peace alone in the house.

Sometimes I get in this fey mood. Always right around 9 or 10pm. Where I feel like I felt as a teenager, like there is nowhere to go and I am trapped in a room. Suddenly I want to drive 100 miles an hour, or drink a lot and go pick up sailors at the port, or scream, or blow things up. Anything! I want to be BAD! But I am actually not trapped. I have a car, and I can also just walk out the door. If that feeling is super strong, I have friends I could call. If I plan going-out nights to count on, then I don't get the trapped teenager feeling. I know my friend "Squid" gets babysitting some evenings and goes out by herself with a book to a restaurant that's open late, to stave off that same sort of thing.

If Oprah exists, what would you like to hear her say when you arrive at the Oprah Winfrey show when she features the Mommybloggers?

"Oh! Badger! Darling! Come over here and make out with me, I'm wearing the cutest underwear, want to see? Meet me later by the way, in my posh hotel room!"

Well, seriously, I'd probably like to hear her say "Liz! Your book is so incredible! Everyone should buy it right now! In fact, lots of people should just give you money, just for being you! You're an inspiration to flaky geniuses everywhere! In fact I'd like to fund you just to sit around and write on the internet all day and come up with wild ideas and here is a huge check to fund your World-Class Un-University Feminist Think Tank Institute for Scholarship and Activism! And also another huge check to start your radical urban feminist mommy socialist technocommune housing project!"

Thanks, Imaginary Oprah! She's like a goddess, isn't she?