I have become scarily addicted to political blogs. I hate them, and yet I love them. They all cover the exact same stories and issues. They refer to each other constantly. Basically their whole purpose for existing is to refer to each other. They repeat themselves. They blow everything out of proportion. They bicker like children. They are ruining American democracy, and maybe saving it too: at least they are talking about the issues, sometimes. Good or bad, I am addicted.
Another new addiction: the Sweeney Todd soundtrack. Can it really be healthy to spend an hour every day in my car singing about cannibalism?
I signed up to be an Obama precinct captain, as I may have mentioned, which means that I am responsible for contacting likely Democratic and independent voters in a couple-block radius to see who they are planning to vote for, and as election day nears, to get Obama supporters to the polls. Only my precinct is not actually near my house. Also, 80% of the people in it are over the age of 80 (there's an assisted living center smack dab in the middle). I
tried to make calls tonight after I got home and had dinner, but it was 8:30 so I didn't want to call any older people who might be asleep already. Calling only people under 65 meant I could call 1-3 people per page (18 to a page). I do not have a good work schedule for this. But I will try to devote myself to it this weekend.
One of the women I talked to said that she was undecided, even though she lived Obama better, because she did not want to get too attached to a candidate and be disappointed. I laughed, sadly, and said, "I'm bad at that." I really hope I am not disappointed this time. The Clinton machine is on the attack, and that scares me. Why does the lowest common denominator always win? (but it hasn't won yet - and I am going to tell myself, at least for the next 12 days, that it won't win this time)
Other than that, I am taking a newswriting class at City College of San Francisco, one night a week. The teacher has been in journalism and editing for over 20 years, and he has lots of good stories. His experience is both an asset and a drawback. He knows all of the reporters in SF, and at the San Francisco Chronicle - which is cool because he has the inside scoop, but unfortunate because he is unable to separate himself from them or be critical of their work. We were discussing an article in class yesterday, and he seemed to take criticism of it personally, and rather than admit it might not be perfect, he finally suggested that an editor might have changed it - as if we were criticizing the reporter and not the work. Institutional thinking - the press defends itself. I'm interested to see how he critiques our writing, as that is the real test. I hope he can teach me to be clear and concise. Obviously, my conciseness needs some work.
I am hormonal and have a head cold, and wrote a very general and rather angry post on Friday. Like many general and angry posts, it contained some truths and a lot of over or under statements, so broad as to lose any real meaning. I blame the head cold, and too many editorials/articles/etc. which refer to my generation as one entity, as if everyone between the ages of 18 and 25 has the same worldview, the same motivation or lack thereof. I admit in responding, I was guilty of the same generational-ism. That cannot possibly be a real world.
In other news: I went to a pumpkin carving party today. I have a slight complex about pumpkin carving, due to the fact that my pumpkins usually come out with one enormous mouth (having screwed up the teeth or jagged edges or whatever was supposed to make the mouth interesting) and unevenly sized (and placed) oval eyes. In short, they continue to look like a five year old carved them. This despite the fact that my mother, the artist, is able to pick up a knife (a regular knife, not one of those special pumpkin-carving saws) and create lovely and creepy faces without template or forethought. Pumpkin carving is a yearly reminder that I am not artistically inclined. This year, I caved, and used a pattern. Now I feel inadequate in a whole new way!
(I'm kidding, mostly. I love carving pumpkins. Even though I suck at it.)
NaNoWriMo starts on Thursday. I am all geared up, though I keep making plans for social engagements after Thursday, without really meaning to. Still, I have confidence that I will keep pace: I have a 10 page scene-by-scene outline to keep me chugging along, and a goal of finishing before Thanksgiving which requires 2,500 words a day. Now I just have to hope the cold goes away, all of my friends cancel on me, and my characters and narrator cooperate once I actually start writing. This process is so different from how I normally go about writing I'm not quite sure what to do with myself, or how it will go once I get started. Usually I start with characters and get to know them very well, writing about them, trying out different narrative voices. I don't discover the plot until much, much later, and it grows out of the characters, and expands slowly, internally. In this case, I started with a plot and fit characters into it; granted I changed parts of the plot to fit the characters better, but the overall structure remained the same. I now have a description of every scene, but haven't written a word - I have no idea how the voice or characters will actually sound when I start writing.
Luckily, it doesn't matter much. This is not supposed to be good. I have to keep telling myself that, because I keep forgetting. I'm sure when I am actually producing 2,500 words a day, it will become much easier to remember.
Tomorrow a thoroughly
First event: The culmination of an anti-war march. Marchers will have a “die-in” (I believe this involves lying on the ground in the park and pretending to be dead) to remind apathetic citizens of those who have died in
Second event: A re-enactment of the dance from “Thriller” (Michael’
On one side of the park: committed activists still willing to lie their bodies on the ground (granted, there will be no tanks) to protest an unjust and unnecessary war, even though they (and everyone else) knows they will probably not make any difference. On the other side: a bunch of hipsters who have watched the Thai prison re-enactment of the “Thriller” dance one too many times, most of whom cannot remember when Michael Jackson was not scary. In all: a lot of privileged white people with too much time on their hands?
I am feeling cynical, and a little guilty. I want to protest the war, and believe that it will make a difference; but the “die-in” feels like a stunt, the ridiculous name feels like mockery rather than reverence. I want to join in the “Thriller” dance because it is ridiculous, and funny, and why not spend a Saturday afternoon laughing in the park, coming together with hundreds of strangers to be publically weird; but juxtaposed against something serious the ridiculousness loses some of its appeal, I am reminded of why older people rant about my generation.
This could end up being a really long post.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this, given what feels like a constant bombardment of Baby Boomers declaring that the “problem with the ___ generation” (they all have different names, but they basically mean 18-29 year olds today) is that we aren’t angry enough, we aren’t out on the streets protesting, we are too quiet, we are too distracted, we are too cynical, we are too complicit with the system, we are too accepting of authority: we are too content. This argument makes me angry, because all the things that we are supposed to be angry about are things created by the Baby Boomers. They have the money and the numbers and the power; why don’t they stop the war? I also feel (as others have said before me) that it misses a fundamental point about the modern world, and political change: things are different now than they were in the ‘60s. What worked then won’t necessarily work now. We have to try things our own way.
So what’s our way? That’s where I get stuck railing against Baby Boomer commentators. Because I don’t have an answer. Protesting the war doesn’t help? Well should we all go dance “Thriller” instead? Hmm, maybe not. The old paradigm for youth movements feels broken and useless. So what’s the new one? The typical answer is the internet. But I have yet to see internet political organizing accomplish anything of significance. Mostly what I see online is a lot of in-fighting, a lot of obsession with scoring points off the other side, a lot of recrimination, and attention to things no one outside the Beltway could possibly care about.
Maybe the truth is that our generation is not politically mobilized. Maybe it’s because we have to fight so hard just to get by, to get a job, to get ahead, that we don’t have time. Maybe it’s because despite everything truly frightening happening in the world right now, none of it hits close to home for most young people; the Baby Boomers reacted to the imminent threat of being shipped off to Vietnam; to police beating black people in the streets; to women being raped and prosecuted for making decisions about their own bodies. Maybe our lives are actually too comfortable. What did the Baby Boomers really win? They ended the draft, so that the children of middle class white parents no longer get shipped overseas. They ended overt, brutal discrimination, so now minority groups have only the shadows of structures to swing at. In short, they made the problems invisible. And now they yell that we don’t see them.
This does not really serve as a valid excuse to dance to “Thriller” in the park tomorrow, because I do see the problems and I still don’t know what to do to fix them. Most likely, I’ll just lurk around the edges, take a few pictures to illustrate the weird wonderfulness of this city, feel guilty, laugh, and then go home.
( Silly examples )
That is not the point of this entry however. That is just the beginning to explain what is really bothering me. So my roommate sent me this link. I read it, trying to give it the benefit of a doubt, and quickly became appalled by the fact that this man was claiming scientific objectivity and that he wanted a fair, unbiased discussion of gender, when what he was really doing was attacking "feminists." His examples (under the cut) also made me incredulously annoyed. I emailed my roommate a few times with particularly choice quotes (and mentioned I wanted to punch the guy, though of course it was all in the spirit of rational criticism). That evening, my roommate and I discussed the article, and I became incensed, as I am wont to do, and ranted about how stupid and mean it was. My roommate laughed at my outrage, and egged me on, admitting that she sent me the link hoping that I would get angry and rant, because apparently I'm very amusing when I am outraged. Last night we were sitting around with friends and the article came up again. I began to explain how it was ridiculous, which quickly devolved into everyone teasing me about how worked up I got, and calling me "cute."
They were teasing, but it stung anyway, because it a recurring moment in my life. I can't count the number of times friends of mine have deliberately provoked me into a moral/political rant, and then sat around laughing at the strength of my reaction. It occurred to me this morning that it goes back even further than I thought, pre-political outrage, when my brother would say something to me that would make me incredibly angry or upset (I can't even remember the kinds of things he would say - but I think they were generally personal attacks on me) and I would scream and bang things, and hit him, and he would just laugh at me. Nothing I did ever touched him (or he never showed it if it did), but he could rile me with a sentence, anytime he wanted. I was a game, a doll; he would wind me up and watch me go. Now it's not personal, my friends don't attack me, but they say something or point me toward something I find really maddening or offensive, wind me up and watch me go. I hate this. Nothing I say in a moment like this matters, rational or irrational. No one is listening. The second I show a hint of emotion, I am just a little girl in over her head, boxing with shadows. The hurtfulness of having friends sit and laugh at me is not as bad as the feeling of helplessness.
Maybe I take things too personally. Maybe I am too sensitive. (Both at a political level - caring what someone said in a speech - and the personal level - taking it badly when people tease me.) But I also think I am justified at both levels. One of the worst offenders in terms of this riling-me-up-and-laughing phenomenon was a friend of mine freshman year of college. He would make misogynistic remarks and jokes to get a rise out of me. I wanted to be cool, and not to make waves, to be one of the boys (and not to be teased) so most of the time I would let it pass. I regret that now; he would push further and further looking for a reaction, until he got beyond the point of joking, and I would let him. I wish that I had told him it wasn't okay, and let him laugh. I wish that I had walked out. He has since grown up a lot, and we've had discussions about how much he regrets saying those things; maybe I could have helped him get there sooner if I hadn't kept my mouth shut. Even if he couldn't have heard it then, I would feel better. I don't know why I take gender issues so personally, but I do. Yes, I get upset. Maybe it's naive and idealistic. Maybe there is nothing that can be done, maybe the speeches people give, and what they show on TV doesn't matter, doesn't affect anyone's real life. But I don't believe that; I think it does affect people, women, men, in ways we might not see, and I believe shutting up about it just makes it worse.
On a personal level, I'm sure it goes back to my brother, and feelings of helplessness, and a friend I had in 9th grade who would make fun of me to my face and then tell me she was just teasing. It's insecurity, I get that. I know my friends like me, and don't mean any harm by it, probably don't see why it would hurt me, or that it does. I still think I'm justified feeling hurt though. The problem is, if I tell them to stop I am just perpetuating the image of myself as a little girl, who can't take a little ribbing, who has no self control. Maybe that's what I am. It's amazing how successive friends, who have never met one another, are able to find this same weak spot and return to it, again and again. Maybe I have a string coming out of my back, and a sign saying, "Pull me and see what I do!" and I just never noticed.
EDIT: To lessen all the bitching in here a little, I came home hungry and tired and ended up telling one of my roommates how upset I was, and she said (while still validating my feelings) from her perspective no one was laughing at me, I make entirely rational arguments and don't react in any crazy or over the top way, and in fact she (she said "they" but I don't want to push it) admires me for my political passion. So that was nice, and made me feel better about this particular incident, if still frustrated about the lifetime motif.
This made more interesting by the fact that we had an actual fire in my apartment yesterday. I wasn't here, but the firemen were. So ridiculous.
Oh, now there are four firetrucks outside. No fire, as of yet, just a strong smell of smoke. This is crazy.
Anyway, what I meant to post about was the election. Because we won! Both houses of Congress! Governorships! We won! And Rumsfeld is gone. Completely gone.
Tuesday night I went to an Election Night party at a bar, where we all crowded by the bar watching the TV, and yelled when they called good things, and counted the votes, "It's 2,000 now. Oh, up to 3,000, about, the margin's getting bigger!" and generally were giddy and young and happy. Wednesday morning our electricity went off, and I couldn't make breakfast, and was grouchy and had to go out of my way to get food and coffee... but then, in the car, I heard on the radio about Montana, and about Rumsfeld, and it was like an electric charge - I yelled "Hell yeah! Fuck yes!" and thumped the roof of my car, and did a little dance, and then I started singing, aloud, "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" and continued to sing/hum it the entire day. Because life is good. And Webb won, and we have the Senate, and life is good. Despite the firetrucks.
Our apartment though, kind of a mess. There was a fire. We have stuff everywhere because they stopped letting us store things in the garage. Turns out we're paying $500 more than the people downstairs, just because our landlord realized he could get away with charging us that. Our washer and dryer are on (temporary?) hiatus. Our cable stopped working, so no Grey's Anatomy. And now the DVD player hates me. Weird things going on.
But, it's okay. We have Congress. And tomorrow is Friday. And the firetrucks just left, so I guess I'm not going to die. And Saturday I am going to a picnic. Life is good.
(And, really, vote for the Democrats. Because, despite popular opinion, they do have some plans, or at least some thoughts, which is more than the Republicans, who really could not have fucked things up more if they had been TRYING. Sometimes I think they have been trying. Pick your issue: the war in Iraq, gay marriage, stem cell research, the minimum wage, immigration (A WALL? THEIR SOLUTION IS A WALL? HAS ANYONE EVER HEARD OF BERLIN?) tax cuts (the enormous majority of which have gone to the very, very, very richest people), the environment, the Supreme Court, etc. etc. And consider this: if the Republicans win, it is quite likely that Bush will want to go to war with Iran. Because it worked so well in Iraq.)
I will, of course be voting, but thanks to our electoral system, my vote counts for very little, since I live in San Francisco. It will be cast though. And I beg you, especially if you live in an area with a tight race, but even if you don't, be a good citizen. Vote.
I've been making MoveOn calls to voters. I hate it, hate bothering people, hate sitting here monotonously dialing (it reminds me too much of that summer of telephone surveys). But I have to do it. I will not forgive myself next Wednesday if things don't go well, and I didn't do this. And also, it is nice to hear the voices of strangers who agree that something needs to change, and are willing to do something about it.
My voter registration card came today. On Tuesday, I am going to the polls (for the first time, literally - I have only voted absentee).
I am tired, and sicksicksick. (Actually, I don't deserve three sicks. I am fine. Just dry-throat-muffled-sinuses-tired.)
All week, I have been coming here and I have not been able to begin an entry. Because too much has happened, and nothing has happened, and my brain or my spirit or something is on hold.
Last weekend a man followed me on the street, and touched me, and now my orange dress, that I love, is hanging in my room, mocking me, and I know I won't wear it, not even for Halloween. And I was eating ice cream, and now I don't want to go to that ice cream place again; and, in short, I hate being a girl.
Last weekend I wore fairy wings and danced with Colin, and strangers: a college party, but not my college. I was sore on Monday.
On Monday Alicia visited and we sat up talking, a group of people, and it was one of those good talks, those talks that feel solid, that make me miss people and places I have been, where I had those talks more often (or imagine that I did).
Besides that I have been sick. And there have been envelopes. And attempts, failures, to sleep.
I want the election to be now, so that nothing can happen between now and then. Every day I am terrified that the news will deliver some coup, that Karl Rove will remember how to be an evil genius, and the change that I can feel solid in my hands will disappear as if it never was. Which it wasn't, which is isn't, yet. But it could come, it could come. Eleven days.
We still have not got reliable internet at home. This is not an excuse for never posting, I know.
I have been busy. I have been busy!
Let's see: dinner and a concert last Wednesday, Grey's Anatomy viewing party Thursday, with sushi, Oakland Art Murmur (lots of galleries, lots of pretty, hip young people) Friday, wandering and cooking (polenta with eggplant, mozarella and tomatoes) and a new board game Saturday, IKEA and new shoes and groceries on Sunday (I have a bookshelf! even though the one I wanted was too big to fit in my car, or to lift onto my cart for that matter, so this one is half-size, very sad...this is why I need a boy), a reading to benefit Progressive candidates last night, and... tonight is my night off. I'm going to cook something. Tomorrow is Sufjan! Thursday, viewing party again, Friday I'm going to a party in Golden Gate Park for the De Young museum, and Saturday hopefully is Lit Crawl, if I can find someone to go with me - three sessions of readings all up and down Valencia street, with themes, and drinks, and lots of pretty, hip young people, hopefully.
I bought a striped shirt on Sunday, and I've decided I'm going to be a pirate for Halloween. And now one of the girls is instant messaging me. Hurrah. Oh, it's Merlyn. I am still stunned by them being old enough to do this.
Work is still so-so. But they've realized how much time I have, so now they're keeping me busy. And more editing and writing, which is good. Less tables. I get to draft a paper on Food Stamps, which is exciting, in that I'm actually interested in the Food Stamp program, and I know something about the issues involved. The only problem someone is supposed to call and talk to me about it, and she hasn't called, and I was planning to leave in five minutes. And I'm hungry. Oh well.
I got all fired up about the election at the reading last night. I'm going to give more money, I just have to figure out where the best place to put it is. I can do that now! Give money. Granted, instead of giving money I could be giving my time, were I working for a campaign as I said I would be at this time... but we make choices. I was also inspired by the reading, by people living in this city and writing about grandfathers and mani-pedi parties, and confession. I went home and wrote for the first time in weeks. I want to run off to Panama. But not yet.
I saw Barack Obama and Tim Russert speak and engage in a conversation about changing the nation's view of public service, getting involved, bipartisanship, changing the way government works, and other good things.
My boss' birthday is coming up, so we had Indian food and cake.
My roommate Sarah got a library card from the public library, and I am going there after work. Despite my vow to read all the books I brought with me before getting new ones, I have found that I just can't stand to not go to the library. Anyway, "Underworld" isn't really summer reading material.
I read a Dave Eggers short story called "Your Mother and I," which made me very happy. ("One week we made all the cars electric and put waterslides in every elementary school. We increased average life expectancy to 164, made it illegal to manufacture or wear Cosby sweaters, and made penises better looking - more streamlined, better coloring, less hair. People, you know, were real appreciative about that.")
I went to Teaism, and sat.
On a more serious note. I'm going to a protest after work about US support for the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. The situation makes me very angry, and also very sad. Two hundred Lebanese to twenty-four Israelis is a proportional response? You know who else had a differential view of human life: the Nazis. They killed ten French people for every German soldier killed by the resistance. Of course, given Eastern Europeans, or Arabs, the Nazis would have taken a much harsher stance; 100 to 1, for instance. The Israelis should be proud of their measured response.
(And no, contrary to what I just said, I don't think the Israelis are Nazis, and I do know that its a very complicated situation, and Hezbollah is also to blame, and I am sad for all the Israelis that have suffered in this situation. But still. There are lines you have to draw.)
I arrived at 10:35, five minutes late. There were no seats inside, and a man hovered by the door making sure no one else hovered by the door. I stood in the hall for twenty minutes, self-conscious, in uncomfortable shoes. I finally got a seat, and found out that they were discussing one of the other four bills they were marking up today, so I hadn't missed anything too important. An interesting discussion, on prison industry, though difficult to follow since I did not have the text of the bill or any of the suggested amendments. The Second Chance Act was supposed to be discussed next, but as there was a recess approaching by the time the first bill finished Mr. Sensenbrenner, the Chairman of the Committee, put it off until after the recess. I grabbed lunch, and then returned to the empty committee room where I read the paper and made sure I had a seat for the next session. They returned, or rather, some of them did, and went through two other bills in fairly short order, neither of which I could get a lot out of. I figured they were waiting for everyone else to come back before dealing with the Second Chance Act. They were all relaxed, Sensenbrenner was using an enormous fake dog bone as a gavel, because of a New York Times article yesterday in which he was referred to as a dog of some kind. Ha ha, even Congresspeople have a sense of humor.
At about 2:30 pm, Sensenbrenner announced that they were not in fact going to mark up the Second Chance Act today. It's not ready yet.
This is the part where I'm screaming inside.
Then I went to catch a bus back to the office, and ended up waiting twenty minutes outside in the 90 degree heat (feels like 100, thanks to the humidity) and the direct sun. I am so disgusting and exhausted right now, and I did NOTHING the whole day.
Stupid Congress.
(I realize I have not posted in here in days, and I went to San Francisco and came back, and have done all kinds of fun and exciting things in the meantime, and I GOT A JOB! and all of those things are more interesting than hearing me complain about sitting around for four hours for no reason, however I really needed to bitch for a moment, and I will try to get to all that other stuff soon.)
I wanted to jump in on this as someone who has actually had 3 abortions & would have had another - fairly late- if circumstances were different
also as the person (probably) mostly responsible for Felicity's perspective...
None of these abortions was an easy choice; I cried for a week after the first one (literally most of the day for 7 days in a row) because I really wanted children, then & since, - but I was heedless and young & worried that not knowing & the way I was living at the time had already damaged the baby before I even knew there was a baby - to not even get into the issue of whether the father would stay, whether we had any of what (emotional stamina mostly) it took to raise a baby, etc etc, etc (it makes me tear up even now & I think it all came out right)
I carried around the guilt for 8 more months, until a voice spoke to me about the time the birth would have been and said (in essence) "It's alright Mom - I'll see you later" and when my first child was born it felt like the same spirit.
The other two were after I had 2 children and I KNEW what it took/takes to raise a child - a person that's totally dependent on you for everything for quite a while- and also how easy it is for a young woman's body to get in the pattern of making babies. Again I mostly did not know about the fathers and (already being a single mom) I was not willing to potentially damage my much-loved children for the sake of ones I knew were more than I could manage just then. Those were difficult but clear decisions. Should I not have gotten pregnant in the first place? Clearly. But you don't always control everything & life happens to teach you tolerance among other things.
The last times, I very much wanted children, but was again aware of my personal limits, and chose to have genetic testing to see if everything was alright. I am very glad I did not have to then make a choice that I was contemplating. But no one else can even come close to knowing one's inner (or outer) limits & so it seems to me we do need to empathize as much as we can with women in all kinds of circumstances, and avoid judging people whose places we have not been in.
I seriously doubt any woman picks abortion as "easy" birth control. It's a life-changing decision/process any way it comes out & to not acknowledge that is not feeling & thinking hard enough, I think.
I think that says it very well and I am very proud of my mom, and appreciate her input. And love her very, very much.
That's all for now. Gala stories later.
EDIT: I was asked about my "most people" contestation, so I went and checked it out and in fact a very slim majority of Americans are pro-choice (52% according to a recent Zogby poll, versus 43% against it). Ten years ago somewhere around 65% were pro-choice (which was the number I had in my head), which I think speaks to my point that 1) the dialogue is being controlled by the conservatives, and 2) those of us who are pro-choice are too comfortable about the issue.
***
On a totally different note, I went shopping today for the upcoming Gala, which is a formal event that happens off-campus once a year. I bought a semi-formal dress (black, shin length, strapless), and to dress it up I bought elbow length black gloves. They're pretty fabulous.
I would have an abortion. The circumstances under which I would, might, have, or might have chosen to have an abortion are nobody's business but mine and those I choose to tell. They are not the business of any government. I do not accept the proposition that either the state or my sexual partner(s) should have any say over when and if I choose to bear a child. I do not accept any sovereignty over my body and my reproductive organs but my own. If faced with the situation, I will do everything feasible to help women and girls I know exercise their rights to safely terminate a pregnancy if they so choose. When a state treats women and girls as chattel, it is they that commit a crime.
***
If you agree, please place the preceding paragraph in your journal. Then use the following link to send a message to South Dakota's governor: Planned Parenthood's take action page. And thanks.
***
On a personal note: how horrifying that this is happening here and now. And that in five years, this court may come before the Supreme Court and they may not strike it down. And that right now, at this moment, a ban on "partial-birth abortion" that in fact restricts all kinds of very important rights is before the Supreme Court, and may survive as federal law. How horrifying that my body is a testing ground for other people's morality.
On Mount Zion today a man attached himself to us and took me up a flight of stairs to see the room the Crusaders built where they decided the Last Supper took place. A large, stone room. My tour guide said it was the pesach room, having assured himself that I was a good Jewish girl and would care more for Jewish references than Christian (when he saw us he tried to speak Hebrew, and told us astounded that he was sure I was Israeli. I got the same two days ago, only in Arabic - I have an all-purpose complexion in this part of the world). He asked if we were Conservative Jews and I said I do not practice, and my family is Reform. He looked very disappointed, but said I should still marry a Jewish boy. I shrugged. "You are Jewish from your mother and father?" he said and I shook my head, "No, just my father." "Oh, then you are not really Jewish." I smiled a little, wryly, and shook my head. I am always being told this by the men who most want me to be Jewish. He exclaimed, "But you look so Jewish! So Israeli!" as if I could not have inherited the genetic material from my father.
At lunch in Zion Square, the pedestrian shopping mall at the heart of modern West Jerusalem, Doug said everything is about identity here. Ours, and other people's. Our cab driver/tour guide this morning was Druze, a mysterious sect who live in northern Israel and do not tell anyone anything about their religion or its practices. It's the first thing we ask any taxi driver. Where are you from? (meaning, who are you?) Identity is foregrounded here in dress and because in a couple hours it will be Shabbat and practicing Jews will not be able to drive or turn a light on or off or answer the phone, and because identity politics have consequences here. Jerusalem asks you to choose, to define yourself.
This is true, but it is also too easy. It lets America, it lets us, off the hook. As if we aren't asked to define ourselves at home. As if we don't use dress and language and skin color to judge other people in relation to ourselves. We are more subtle about it (our hats are less interesting), and perhaps our markers are less important (that is the myth anyway, the American ideal), but also we are so steeped in our own class/race/ethnicity markers and judgments we don't even notice. The identities offered here are different than the ones offered at home, so we re-evaluate ourselves, but it doesn't mean that our identities are not incredibly important at home, they are just engrained. Beyond thought.
We ask our cab drivers where they are from, because here we don't know how else to tell. Robin points out that women with covered hair could be any number of things; we don't know what motivates them, because they all look the same to us. We would have to ask. We wonder. But my guess is an Israeli would know. The identity markers make sense to them, and matter or don't matter the way identity markers in the US, anyway, matter or don't matter.
These are slightly extreme arguments. The truth, I imagine, lies somewhere in between. But my sun has been swallowed, for good this time, and I think I am going to go inside.
Tomorrow I have to be prepared to discuss/critique four stories. On Friday I have to introduce Rob Corddry in front of 625 people. On Monday I have a 10-15 page research paper due which will basically determine my grade, since I just barely have an A- in that class. On the Friday after I have a 25+ page paper due for a really smart professor who I love and respect and want to impress, and again, grade totally up in the air. Also on Friday I have to have at least two copies of a chapbook, which I want to be interesting and have my best writing in it and somehow reflect or frame that writing in the form of the book, and be pretty.
It's not that much, but it's not nothing. And I am doing nothing for it, for any of it. I am doing nothing. I think I need to start leaving my room, going to the library or a cafe, but it's so cold. It's that time of year when I can't work here, I just crawl into bed and waste time. But it's so cold, and I live so far. So I just stay, and do nothing.
All my classes that I love are over now. I only have one class left really, where we're going to try and critique four stories in two and a half hours. Or maybe we're going to critique two stories and do two at the potluck later tomorrow night. Anyway, one class left, my least favorite class of the semester. My others are done meeting.
In American Culture and the City, which is probably my favorite class I have taken at Brown, my professor ended the class by talking about how social movements begin, how the country changes. He said a small group of people who believe in something impossible, and who do not give up, and that small group grows, and grows, and finally snowballs. He said in 1959, nobody believed desegregation would happen within a decade, but it did (before everything re-segregated). In 1991, he said, nobody believed Republicans would have gained completely control of Congress within five years, but they did. In twenty years, he said, I want us to come back and have pizza and talk about those terrible old days when the country believed everything could be blamed on the individual, and denied all structural influences, all societal responsibility. You can make that change, he said, and for a shining moment I believed. Maybe I do. It was definitely one of the more inspiring things a professor, or an adult of any kind, has said to me. He also said maybe we'd come back, and nothing would have changed. And he said, let's make it twenty-five years, you might need the time.
Maybe it's that grades and classes seem unimportant now. The reading we did for that class, the discussions we had - those felt important. I worked all semester because it felt important. But finals just feel... contrived. I need to find a way to make this paper important, to me at least. To work out all these issues within in, in an interesting and enjoyable and intelligent way.
Which means I need to stop staring at my computer screen and start thinking. Sigh.
Go watch the "coverage" it's amazing (once you get to the website click on the box on the right that says free video and then "Ivy League Debauchery?") My favorite part is when they talk about how the "homosexual tone" spread to the mainly heterosexual party-goers. Oh, I also like at the beginning when he says "This one's not for kids!" Oh, but Bill O'Reilly doesn't care what we, "the kids" do - he cares about the $100 we pay for student activities, some fraction of which goes to the QA - even though SPG sells tickets and I'm fairly sure is paid for entirely through tickets. But he's not judging, you know. He doesn't judge. Amazing. And so ridiculous.
There are people on this stupid Brown student forum (stupid because everytime I go to read things on it - because people tell me I have to see something in particular - every comment is negative, cruel, horrible AND idiotic) who posted things like "I think everything he said was true and unbiased." Now, you should all go see for yourselves. But I personally think just the WAY he says "gay" and implies that gay people are always involved with debauchery is, in and of itself, pretty homophobic and offensive. But to link those evil, druggie gay people to a liberal, expensive college - well that is just a stroke of brilliance. The way these people work is not by being openly offensive - it's by saying "oh, I'm not judging" while showing and implying things that are clearly meant as judgment.
Anyway, I mostly think it's funny - but I also think people need to wake up. If Bill O'Reilly had his way, parties like SexPowerGod would never be allowed - and certainly not on campus where they can be regulated, and EMS can monitor the situation and arrive in a timely manner to help people. And where would it end? When we got rid of all the gay people, would it be okay for straight people to have sex in public? Or would they not want to anymore, is that all the spread of the gay "tone"?
In totally separate news, I'm going to have an essay (the one I posted here about writing and architecture) published in one of the lit mags. V. exciting.
I have very little to say. It's November. One month today until I turn 21. One year today since the election, when my spirit was crushed. I wore my "boys who vote" shirt today. No one laughed. It's just sad now.
There are riots in Paris. It's horrible, and at the same time makes me fiercely satisfied. Someone should be having riots. Things are so fucked up, in so many ways... riots are deserved, maybe necessary. The ridiculous part is, I didn't even know about it until one of my professors mentioned it today. I read the NY Times headlines every morning and I didn't see so much as a mention.
I am procrastinating from writing a response for creative non-fiction. We just turned in our second essay and I feel tapped. I could maybe work on my thesis, but not... this, not some random page that is only useful to impress the other people in my class who I want to impress (read: the boy I have a crush on).
I went to a reading today, a woman named Noy Holland. She read for a good forty-five minutes, a story about a girl on a farm and her father and their horse. It was far more beautiful than I can make it sound. I'm not good at listening to people read though, I'm not aural (which is a good word, and sounds it). I drifted in and out, listening, thinking of my thesis, of what I will say if I get to introduce Salman Rushdie for lecture board (we put in an offer to him today), of nothing, and then picking out a word, being drawn back in. She had very long hair which she kept shifting back from her face.
After we had a slightly shortened class, badly time-managed, which frustrates me, and we talked about Franz Fanon, or rather my professor talked, which he does a lot. At the end he read from his new, unpublished book which is sort of about Fanon and sort of about himself and sort of about a man who receives a head in the mail. I wrote in the margin of my notebook: What is the logical next step after receiving a head in the mail? I like his writing a lot, but I could listen to that even less intently, after hours of listening, and I stared into the distance and blinked, and tried to grasp one or two words as they flowed by.
I say all this to explain why I will, from this moment forward, refer to Donald Rumsfeld as The Ruler of the World and the Ruler of the Home Who Hails From the Field of Wild Garlic.
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bytheriver05- Felicity