June Journaling 10

I found a list of daily prompts for journaling in June and thought I'd give it a shot.

10. A new thing to try:

You know, I've been working here 4.5 years with an Ethiopian restaurant just down the street that I've been meaning to try. Maybe I should put it on my calendar and go try Ethiopian food.

I'm also trying to figure out how to get involved with Back on My Feet, a charity that uses running to empower people and help them find work and housing. The thing is that they run in the mornings and I would not have time to go home to shower before work, so I need a membership to the office fitness center, which I've wanted since it opened a year ago. I just need to fit it into my budget.

Missed Connections: The Evangelical Incident

To the asshole who littered my car, and only my car, with evangelical garbage while I swam laps at the senior pool this morning, here's something just for you.

I also put your garbage in the recycle bin for you.

Since no one else's car in the lot was profaned thusly, I can only assume that you took issue with my Bisexual Pride flag, "I Stand with Planned Parenthood," and "At Gods We Chuckle" bumper decals, deliberately ignoring the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society decal and EIGHT other race stickers from among the 30+ events I participated in last year alone, benefiting SCORES of local and global charities.

While you kill trees, waste natural resources, and litter, I raised over $5,000 for local, national, and global charities in 2014 and gathered over 100 pounds of food and 250 pounds of clothing donations for my local food bank and domestic violence shelter.

FUCK YOU, YOU JUDGMENTAL PIECE OF SHIT. How DARE YOU call yourself a “Christian”?

Why do I do?

This is a May 21 post from my fundraising page that I'm just now getting around to cross-posting on Blogger.

 I don't have a heart-breaking or -warming story about why I'm joining the Team in Training program. I just want to do good.

Last spring I registered as a bone marrow donor with Be the Match when I happened to walk by a registration drive in a park, because it is a good thing to do. I organized a charity 5k run in the fall on a whim to support organizations that matter to me and will do so again this year.

I signed up with the Skepchicks for the local Light the Night walk because I knew I could contribute more by soliciting my contacts to help with fundraising than I could give from my own pocket.

Last year I hosted a food drive at my Amtgard park to benefit Minnie's Food Pantry in Plano. This year I organized the clothing drive for Hope's Door and collected 3 full trunk loads of donations plus cash and a Target gift certificate for the charity.

I'm not sure even know anyone who's suffered from the blood cancers that LLS is trying to cure.

My family and friends have been touched by other cancers, and I will run in their honor. My grandmother died in her early 60s of esophageal cancer. A college classmate was diagnosed with a brain tumor at 19 and died at 21. She was a flute player in the marching band and the kindest girl I ever met. I run because they cannot.

When I took up hashing in S. Korea, I met a woman who was battling a rare form of cancer and didn't expect to live to 40. She ran nearly every day, even though the chemo meant she had to stop frequently to puke. She ran anyway. And now she's expecting a baby! Another friend, Mofo, is a cancer survivor and marathoner who has also done fundraising for TNT. These two inspire me to run harder and longer than I could otherwise push myself on my own.

I meet more people every day who've been touched by these illnesses and I'll run for them and their loved ones. Because I can.

Cultural Appropriation in Racing

I rail about the color runs and how they stole a beautiful Hindu cultural tradition for profit and how much it frustrates me that people see this profile photo and ask me about the Color Run when in fact it is from a local Holi festival this year.

But I signed up for Cinco de Miler and Cinco de Muddo without a thought about cultural appropriation. There's a big difference between appropriation and celebration; the short explanation is demonstrating respect versus mocking the culture.

I went to the Cinco de Miler for the celebratory atmosphere, cool t-shirt, and the chance to run a 5-mile race, a race distance I'd never run before. Many participants dressed up in sombreros and luchador masks, and I saw one woman running in a full-body taco costume. I was ignorant. They were mocking. The race claims to celebrate "Mexico's colorful culture," which is NOT what Cinco de Mayo celebrates, and it supported the Ronald McDonald House Charities — Dallas.

No. Just stop.

At Cinco de Muddo, we got free samples of tequila. If there was anything questionable at the event, I didn't see it. The mariachi band and flamenco dancers were gone before I arrived. This event made money off the Cinco de Mayo celebration but/and benefited the Sharkarosa Wildlife Ranch, which houses and rehabilitates rescued wildlife.

The issue of cultural appropriation as related to these events only occurred to me after the fact, so I did some research. Cinco de Mayo is a small Mexican holiday with about as much fanfare as the United States' Flag Day. It commemorates an unlikely victory at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. In the US, we typically celebrate by dressing up in sombreros and mustaches and getting falling-down drunk on the basis that that's how to celebrate Mexican culture. It's mocking, it's rude, and it's wrong. So it's very American:

We completely forget about the true meaning behind the day. Instead, we get giant store displays of beer and tortilla chips stating things like: “Corona de Mayo” and “It’s Cinco, let’s salsa!” Because obviously the only way to engage others in this holiday is through beer and tortilla chips. I always dread the few weeks before Cinco de Mayo because of these stereotyped displays. All they do is trivialize the holiday and push people back into further ignorance about the significance of the day. Cinco de Mayo has come to be known as more of a drinking and partying holiday than anything else, which is wrong.

I mentioned the charities above because other racing events, such as Chicago's Carrera de los Muertos 5k, manage to create a race based on a cultural tradition AND support local charities that benefit the Hispanic community. Unlike the Dallas events that didn't even bother.

I'll think twice about participating next year and see if I can get in touch with the event organizers about my concerns before I do. Cinco de Miler sent out a thorough post-race survey with ample opportunity for me to speak my mind about the event. At least it's something.

It's a process, and every month I learn something new that I ought to look for in future races so I can responsibly vote with my dollars for basic respect of others.

Hope's Door

When I performed with the DFW Vagina Monologues in February, Hope's Door was one of our two beneficiaries for which we raised over $900 each. Hope's Door is a shelter for victims of domestic violence.

I frequently get rid of my clothes at clothing swaps but wanted to only donate this time and not bring anything new into the house because we're packing to move soon. I decided to give some things to Hope's Door and on a whim to also hold a clothing drive at my Amtgard park, with which I like to periodically lead events to benefit local charities, such as the food drive we held in November for a local pantry.

A few days later, I overheard coworkers mention getting rid of some clothes and individually asked a few to send them my way for this particular charity. I also posted a flier in the break room and immediately received a few extra donations. One coworker requested further details and is going to talk to her kids' Girl Scout troop about donating items or possibly holding a garage sale and donating its profits to Hope's Door.

I was thrilled with the response and how quickly interest grew and spread from my small plans to others.

One coworker even put together a lovely gift basket to donate for Mother's Day.

I then reached out to Russ of the Circus Freaks to ask if I might set up a box in the lobby of the weekly Open Stage event to collect donations from that group as well. He was on board with the idea, and with less than one day's notice, I received a trunk full of clothes the first night and will have to make a few more trips than I first planned.

I wish there was an easy way to quantitatively report the results of this endeavor, but I don't even own a scale. Instead, I think I'll take pictures and report back in a few weeks.

Here is a little more about Hope's Door from its website:

The mission of Hope's Door is to offer intervention and prevention services to individuals and families affected by domestic violence and to provide education programs that enhance the community's capacity to respond.

Hope's Door is the only organization in Collin County specializing in comprehensive intervention and prevention services for all members of a family affected by domestic violence - from victim to abuser. Hope's Door was established in 1986 as a crisis hotline. Clients were housed in local hotels until the opening of a 21-bed emergency shelter in 1989. Since then, services have expanded to include transitional housing, counseling for adults and children, legal advocacy and services for abusers.

Annually, Hope's Door responds to over 1,900 crisis hotline calls, shelters more than 400 women and children, houses over 50 families in transitional housing and provides counseling and legal advocacy to more than 1,300 survivors.

I love to run and I love to kill cancer!

Yesterday I signed up to participate with Team in Training and set a personal fundraising goal of $2000 by October for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It's sounds like a big damn scary number, but it breaks down to finding a mere 100 people who can donate $20 or 200 at $10. Those numbers sound much more reasonable to me.

For a lot of people, the challenge is training to run the race. TNT didn't have any marathons available, so I signed up for the Honored Hero half in October. I have zero interest in this event and am finding conflicting information online about whether I can change my event later, such as if the org ever posts its winter events. Oh well. By October, that distance should be a regular part of my marathon training and nothing to stress about at least.

I'm brainstorming creative ideas for fundraising, such as selling jewelry at Open Stage and offering for every donation of $X amount to write the name of a donor's loved one who had cancer on a ribbon and pin them all to my shirt during the race. I think that would be really neat, but I wonder where to set the price point for that. I already have three names of my own. I hope my company will offer a donation and/or matching funds. That would be a big help. I asked my sis if she would donate some funny sketches to sell. She's very talented.

The fundraising guidelines stress the importance of sharing your personal story of why you are doing this and why it's important to you. I don't have an engaging story for why I chose to do this. I signed up because it would be a challenge and because I would be doing good for people. I just love to run. And kill cancer. I could wear my Lady Sif costume (that I plan to make for the Disneyland Half Marathon) again for this race or make a different hero one. Ooh, I could design a Humorless Harpy heroine costume. Fun fun.

Maybe I'll meet interesting and inspiring people along the way (undoubtedly) and bring back a better story another day.

"I love to run and I love to kill cancer!" is a pretty good story, though. I think it would make a good children's book, too. I know I'd read it.