Horses are good company -- The Witcher

Sovay recommends God's Own Country in a beautifully written review:

https://sovay.dreamwidth.org/984559.html

I watched this today, via netflix. I loved it more than I can rightly say. This film speaks to me particularly; I grew up on a sheep farm, though we were hobbyists and not depending on the farm for money. And I grew up queer. The scenes with the sheep and the cows are so real. There is a technique for "dropping" a sheep that I learned from the man who came to shear our flock. (Shearing is a specialized skill.) You put your thumb in the ewe's mouth and turn her head back toward her body. She'll fall down and then you can lift her up by the front legs with her butt on the ground, so the shearer can handle her easily. I saw Johnny use this technique in the film. That is just one example of the accuracy.

There are clear parallels to Brokeback Mountain, another film about queer sheperds, but GOC is better: there is a happy ending, little homophobia, little violence. It is, as sovay says, about bodies: the human body as an animal body. The body's uses and limitations and pleasures.

Content note for animal death in the context of farming.

mystickeeper (laceblace) gave me 5 words for one of those memes that I like to do:
Horses
Kindle
Intersectionality (of disability and feminism)
Farm/Country Life
Intelligence

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.


Horses

Yah! I love horses. I had/have three to call my very own: Penny, Tiki, and Cassidy. I rode in 4-H as a teenager, mostly doing barrel racing and the like. I still have the boots and hat and Wranglers and all that. I don't ride enough any more. I miss it a lot.

Penny was an Appaloosa, 22 when I got her, and I was 11. She died my senior year of college, which means she was Very Aged by horse standards. She was this wise old gentle soul. <3

Horses horses horses! They are very smart, silly, brave, frustrating, and awesome. And the most beautiful creatures on earth. They even smell good. They're a gift. A blessing.

Kindle

I wrote a review of my Kindle at kindledfans.

Kindle kindle kindle! I did go to look for Dangerous Liaisons today and Amazon only has it IN FRENCH, which is disappointing. My sites for free ebooks (like Project Gutenberg) do not have it either.

I love showing it off. I love listening to p0rn in the funny robot voice for a lark. Which, by the way, can be either male or female: my Kindle is gender neutral. ("Who would want a male robot voice reading to them?" general_jinjur asked me at WisCon. "Well, I guess it takes all kinds.")*

People asked me if it has a name, and I guess I'm not one of those people who name my inanimate objects. It just doesn't occur to me to do so.

[*She may have specified "reading p0rn", I don't quite remember. But there was someone at a fanfic panel I was at, at Another Con, who disliked having pr0n read to her by a female human voice. Interesting.]

Intersectionality (of disability and feminism)

jesse_the_k have talked about how oppression often works the same even when "the differences are different". For instance, take weird gendered comments, and weird comments disabled people receive ("Don't you need a license for that wheelchair?"), or the "where are you from" that some POC receive. They all tend to come from privileged people who are uncomfortable with someone who is different from them, or taking advantage of their privilege somehow. The privileged people feel they are entitled to comment on you, know something about you, invade your privacy, because you are obviously different in some way, and reduced to that difference. That difference is the most important thing about you.

I can't really separate some of the stuff I learn about into obvious categories-- it all feels the same to me, it all feels like an umbrella of "anti-oppression". Or at least ideally, it should be so. Especially because many of us fit into multiple categories. I see the connections pretty easily. But, I'm just beginning to learn about race and class, so I might mistakes on those things.

Farm/Country Life

Or why the heck do I live in the city?

I like chickens, and dogs, and sheep, all of which I grew up with. I like gardening. I like quiet pastures and fields. I like gravel roads and streams and woods. I like staring off into the distance and laying on the porch swing reading. I like going to the barn even in the middle of a blizzard to check on the sheep.

I don't like smog/air pollution, car alarms, crowds, noise.

I'm getting used to the city, and I like being so close to my friends. There are a lot of cool people here.

My four grandparents were farmers, my parents grew up on working farms and made a hobby farm life for themselves, and I have aunts and uncles who farm, and yet! Out of the next generation of me and all my cousins? I think there are only 2 who will end up as farmers. And one cousin is getting into CAFO (confined animal feeding operations), because it's the only game in town. And I think CAFOs are sad and wrong. It's just too hard for farmers to make a living anymore.

Intelligence

Er, thanks!? I should remind myself of this, because sometimes I feel like a big faker. Is that a woman thing? I know I'm smart but still I'm a little insecure about it? I like hanging out with people who are smarter than me, and I went to good schools on academic scholarship, and was interested in learning everything, but a part of me feels like I never worked hard enough or was never quite smart enough. Which is totally silly.
----

Also, I just finished watching S1 Leverage. ZOMG. <3