Blog Jammin'

What Should Come First- The Identity Crisis or the Vow of Poverty?

2011-04-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

I often feel at odds with an imposter that has usurped my soul and, in addition (grasping at the most self-aggrandizing of language) made me a total phony to myself. This has always been my greatest fear— but at least in the fantasy, I was rich, traveling, and important.

What is this imposter, though? How do I look at it carefully, at a distance, for its whole being, when I dispense so much of my waking self upon another trajectory— that which I hope to accomplish in my work—my “call to service”? Where do I begin? And end. How do I examine myself when I’m staring at the memo, the phone, the godforsaken subway tunnel all day?

The imposter, as far as I can tell, is this sort of second-self. The one that, in many, likely inhabits the shoulder or kneecap and merely whispers and mutters suggestions of impending failure. It points to pathways of dissatisfaction, of lying to ourselves, of regret, and indecision—pathways we’d look back on later and wish we had never seen the signs for. And though this second-self might point to such delusional realities in ways that are practical and to some extent even helpful, for it is how they are to be avoided at all, this send-self is ultimately to be ignored because, damn it all, we’re Americans and we don’t have to worry about regret! We can do anything, because we’re modern people in the free world! and we can explore whatever roads we want in life, like cooking school, the suburbs, and bicuriosity. This “second self” is no more than a shadow looming on a low day, I suspect. Moaning on a Monday when we want to switch jobs or have an affair or up and move to Dubai six years ago. Maybe that’s what it is, for some.

For me though, this second self is so labeled the “imposter” because it takes over and impersonates the sum of my character. It clutches the skeleton that holds me together pushes me, contorts me, in violating motions so convincing that everyone around me believes that I really believe what I say and do. The words I utter, the messages I write, the enthusiasm in my eyes are all fake, and for my salary, it’s downright cheap for me to sell my soul at this price. So close to resembling what I want to be, and yet so far from being it. That is the essence of deception.

Maybe it’s not all quite so melodramatic. I spend most of my moments with others hungrily pursuing opportunities to move up- to move out- in the world. I seek a sense of centeredness, of belonging, of saying, “Oh, yeah. This is me.” More than that, I am compulsively hunting for a reasonable alternative for the worst-case-scenario I have wandered into through some self-fulfilling prophecy. I search in vain, thus far, for the solution, a resolution to my malcontent. But perhaps, first, I should locate the source.

It’s far less about my skin and hips and sexuality now than it is about my location, my ability to sit still. And the irony, of course, is that I flew thousands of miles to sit for weeks in a Soto Zen temple in Japan to learn that a single grain of rice might be worth setting all of one’s senses upon, if it means snatching the grain of rice in the exact manner in which we intend. Meaning that, if we give ourselves over to something without reluctance, we can find gratification and a symbiosis with that thing in such a way that the search for gratification is thereby over. I learned this in the most clichéd fashion and forum possible. It benefitted me for about a week.

I’ll give you another example. Today, on the subway, I stared at a dog for 30 minutes. It felt like what I imagine acupuncture is like. It targeted something really lost in me. I doing so, I recognized how desperately I wanted to hold it, to pet it. I have only distant memories of what the fury haunches of a Labrador really means to me, and that seems wrong. Such sensory deprivation is beyond criminal. I have become the creature that readily expects a disabled train but not a friendly nod by any stranger. I know the ring of a Toshiba X200 but cannot remember what hot pavement feels like anymore. I am more familiar with disgruntled muttering to myself than I am with naïve optimism.

Even in “public service” I have become a zombie amid my corporeal deficiencies over the course of the winter, in which I spent most of my days under fluorescent lights, in steel chairs (in chairs at all!) and in a state of strange absorption. Others’ words, others’ orders, others’ interpretations of women and sex and the world and many other things I hold dear. Why, then, was I not able to turn my thoughts to my writing at the end of the day and reflect upon what I’d “learned?” Why couldn’t I, at the very least, spew some minor insight beyond an incensed “status” update without further exploration? Why haven’t I, at the most basic level of what we call the names of Zen and Feminism, “just do good”? That’s all it ever asked of me, and I failed. I fail. But it’s likely because I forgot the foundation beneath that tenet.

The first thing to remember in anything that claims to have the interest of others at its core is to care for oneself—to saturate the senses with goodness to further churn the Good. “Inundate one’s compartments for love with music, warmth, and light.” It’s all there, though many of us might misinterpret any experience we have with “Buddhism” or something of the sort as “extinguishing desire” and losing the self completely. But the lesson delivered by my brief conscious (and expensive) practice and my everyday experience of refusing my soul the things it needs most is that, to push the spirit to exist, nourish, and love outside of the body, it must first and always flourish within it. There is no singular “sending off” of the soul onto some vaporous plane of assuredness, accomplishment, and goodness. It is, instead, an appendage with unlimited expanse and reach— if its roots are enduring, nourishing, and fertile.

I’ll break from my “Eat, Pray, Barf” tangent here, but it is actually critical to my point. We cannot discover ourselves or our self-indulgent journeys to the core of our purpose(s), or any sense of peace in my mind if we don’t recognize and cultivate our most basic needs.

That is to say, perhaps sitting at a desk all day writing emails saturated with nonprofit buzzwords with someone else’s signature is not the best way to change how the world sees and talks about rape. Maybe sitting under incandescent tubes all week isn’t as fulfilling as the four weeks’ vacation and health insurance might have us believe. Maybe bullshitting my way through a “practical” graduate degree because it sounds like something people in my field might hire for is wasting more time and money than the goddamn PhD or JD I really wanted but talked myself out of because I was too scared of standardizes testing. Maybe by the time I’m 30 I’ll have hit that maternal phase and none of this will matter anymore because my “kids will be my whole life and no regrets ehhhh!”

And maybe this is all terribly obvious to everyone. But that’s part of living alongside a life-sized parasite in one’s body— it’s so convincing, so articulate, and it knows you so well that sometimes, you forget who is the real Rach. Who is the boss, who lives, and who dies. And who just lies. Waiting to be born. And even as I lie in wait, I fear you will read this, and mistake me.

Chasing Tails, Paper Trails.

2011-04-27T07:13:00.000-07:00

“I wanted only to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?”

It has taken me two hours, 4 months, and about 10 years to write this. Even as I begin to type, I can feel the surge of expression clinching in my throat and sifting back down into dislocation— or perhaps fading, not unlike the lucid nightmare that we forget shortly after waking. A stillborn dream, sucking the calcium from my teeth and then expiring. Back to dust and mixed metaphors.

But it’s worth trying. That’s what I’ve been telling myself in the decade that I have tried to leave the paper trail of my soul- not to anyone precious enough to wade through it or traverse down it, but rather, to something more ethereal that might alter my karmic nature. This sounds, of course, pretentious and grandiose, and that is why I have not articulated it before. And I am starting to think that the silence is more to my detriment than the impending criticism from my real and imaginary naysayers.

I have not written for fear of failing to perfectly articulate myself. The breadcrumbs of my lifelong polemic lead from misanthropic discomfort to foolish anger to inescapable codependence. I have spoken out, to be sure. I have updated my “status” (what is my status?) almost compulsively since a platform for it existed for it. I have complained, shown righteous indignation, and all the while searched in vain for some practical, lucrative, and “secure” way of channeling my otherwise seething outlook on the world. I have mustered my inner megalomaniac and determined I have no choice—no choice!— but to defend my personal and improvable perception of what’s worthy and deserving in the world. Hence the venture into public service. But I have not written for fear of being wrong, for fear of regretting the permanence (are words permanent anymore?) of my thoughts, for fear. I have found every way possible to live a life that resembles what I want, but in so doing actively avoids what it is I want. For fear, and that is cowardice. That is, if my perception of the world and desire to alleviate suffering has any relative merit whatsoever, I am a coward for hiding behind the institutions that, in complicit fashion, position me as an advocate for any cause. Yes, it’s true. I have not written for fear, and this is the greatest offense not only against myself, but against the very karmic nature I am speaking of— my choices themselves spring from complete self-absorption and end with them.

Which is another problem. Aside from the fear, I like to think of myself as this tool through which good might be wielded. The problem there, of course, is that I think of myself first, and the Good second. I want to do it all perfectly: find the ideal role through which I might help people, fill it in the right capacity, fit the proper gaps in the universe in manner of some martyr so that I might be absolved of my (let’s face it) yuppie angst and liberal guilt— and all with great benefits and job security.

That’s not to say I don’t genuinely care about people. I do. Except for the general manager of the MBTA. He can take a long walk off a short pier.

But all this is to say that one thing has become glaringly obvious to me this year. And that’s that I’m not happy. I appear to have too many windows in my mind open at once, and the cross breezes of my consciousness relentlessly cast the unfortunate circumstances happening around me, my participation in them all (great and small), and my obsession with averting regret (and thereby risk) makes for a very unfortunate future in my mind (and present, for that matter). I am debilitated by fear and indecision and all in the fragile guise of a “go-getter” dedicated to the public interest. I volunteer! I started grad school! I make shit money in a neat nonprofit! I’m good, right?

Maybe what I’m really going for, since I can’t clearly see what it is I want without flinging myself around like a pinball at the prospect of standardized testing, exhausting hours, and low wages, is to just have someone tell me that my interest in the public interest is satisfactory enough. Perhaps my real dream is to be eulogized in some awesome tragedy in manner of Marlowe, the Greeks, or Michael Bay. Now that would make an impact.

So why is it, with all of these opinions, substantial grammar skills, and the faculties to at least detect wit and humor, that I can no longer write? Why is it that, despite being housed for most of my waking life in an office that spouts the feminism I live and breathe, I cannot sit and tell you about it? Why is it that, despite living my dream of a paid teaching position, I cannot stand and deliver? Why is it that, despite two years of vetting the “next step” in my education, I’m desperately unchallenged, unsatisfied? Is it me? And worst of all, if my priority truly is the interest of the public, why have I already referred to myself in the first person in this piece more than a dozen times?

It could be circumstantial. Sure. For days, I could cite circumstantial reasons for my dissatisfaction and recite a yarn of convincing and acceptable excuses- for my fears, my pitfalls, my ultimate failure to discover and truly be what I want (what is that, again?). I could say that 2011 has been tainted by my beloved Nonna’s unexpected death, an emergency surgery, the unforgiving cancellation of my already floundering graduate program, my family’s brave but failed attempts at “recovery,” and my year-long displacement from a real home, to say the least, is disheartening. But it always has been. I could list all of these things, and do, here, as I have been reminded to by countless loved ones. (I should take a moment to pause and appreciate that my recent and crippling fear of failure in my vocation has helped to alleviate my fear of being abandoned and alone. Score one for the codependents.)

But to list these excuses is deeply unsatisfying, and only magnifies the menacing cloud ahead of me: if I am unable to withstand the challenges of independence, which come with the pursuit of doing good- real good- in the world (what’s real good again?) then I might as well give up now.

(To clarify, the sorts of things I consider “giving up on” include, but are not limited to: my dream of changing the cultural perception of sexual violence against women; my goal of doing so through the written word and oration; my hopes of pursuing an academic track in law, public policy, global health, or some other related field; ever taking the GRE because I am terrified of math; ever being able to spend more than two hours alone without calling someone; ever being able to afford to grow old; and relationships in general.)

Remember that show “Eek! The Cat”? Wasn’t he afraid of ham sandwiches? Well let me you, I was petrified of that show. What’s that say about me? Enough about me- what do you think about me?

Back on topic. I’m yellow in that I answered the phone between this sentence and the last one because I can’t say “no” to the prospect of being sought after by someone who shows interest in me. Mostly because I am afraid of the consequences of not clutching to another concrete thing outside of myself when it reaches for me, and of painful consequences in general. Such things lead to involuntary solitude. Abandonment, as I said. I previously tolerated negativity and misuse from others because I feared the alternative, and now surround myself with good folks who might not know that I chew my fingers wondering what I’d do without them.

Why am I afraid of rejecting attention, even if it’s poorly timed or placed? And does it really matter? I used to think so, but the more I’ve “dealt” with it—the “my parents are to blame” model of self-actualization—the more I’ve questioned what other areas of my life besides residual adolescence are at the detriment of such a pervasive fear, and where it manifests in my self-perception and interpersonal dynamics—you know, outside of the “I hate my mom and dad” one.

Turns out, everywhere. Or maybe that’s part of the obsessive compulsion to self-analyze. Either way, it’s become a full-time job alongside my full-time job, part-time education, and feeble attempts at building a successful present and future. It is ironic and counterproductive in that it is equally exhausting to recognize a pattern of behavior and all but completely fail to break out of it. I expend most of my energy each day acknowledging that I say “sorry” too much, that I feel subverted by working and writing on behalf of other professionals without ever increasing my own skills, that I lack complete confidence in ways I never have, and yet, I do not have the energy or resources or wherewithal to combat (or perhaps accept) my current self. I thought that three years of immersing myself in the culture of “what I want to do” would make me more confident. But the truth is, I resorted to writing this in order to avoid preparing for my lecture tomorrow. Maybe I’m just not mean to teach. But more likely, I simply have lost my voice to a strangler in the work-a-day world.

let your poison choose you.

2011-02-10T09:43:00.000-08:00

They said that you’re the one

but we don’t give much credence

To the voices behind the ice

Or the poison that drowns them

anymore so I don’t tell you.

They were prophets

And made a megalomaniac

Of me and now we know the crystal

They throw is not a ball, has no shape

for soothing at all.

Just a plastic vessel for their disease

The idea, the shape of emptiness

Waiting to be filled.

But still, with it I tell the future

To you now, each night.

Inherited the practice, I did

To look into the glass

Predict your sorrow

And mine

For silver

Linings

outside

this cabin

Of gypsies, beggars

And thieves.

2010-12-15T06:56:00.000-08:00

Things I need to do in the next week:

Find out my grades for the semester
Prepare for best holiday dinner party ever hosted in the Jape:

Prepare 25 spinach and mushroom cannelloni stuffed with garlic, goat cheese and ricotta
Make 5 dozen of Nonna’s taralli
Figure out how the hell to pull off matzo-ball soup for 25 people
Buy 3 bottles of champagne for blackberry basil bellini… and make it
Buy peppermint schnapps for scratch hot chocolate and mint liquor
Clean apartment
Have amazing dinner party with screening of best Griswold film ever

Go to New Hampshire for 3 days: sleeping, “skiing”
Do all of my Christmas shopping
Work
Go to NYC for 3 days: see movies, go to museum, see Schley, ice skate, have fabulous food
Take mother to dinner and to see local production of “A Christmas Carol”
Buy all ingredients for Christmas meal, to include

Roast Chicken
Roasted vegetables, including carrots, celery, onion, fennel, and potatoes
Pastina (Christmas soup) with mini meatballs
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Green bean casserole
Creamed Pearl Onions
Taralli
Pizzelle
Apple Pie
Chocolate Coconut Layer Cake
Cheesecake
Champagne cocktails
Whiskey!

Go to parents’ house, cook entire Christmas meal
Celebrate holiday with graceful air, no stress, and relaxed disposition

Yup.

Follow Up

2010-11-19T11:59:00.001-08:00

Strange timing, but Judd Apatow, who I essentially indicted in my most recent post, was being interviewed on NPR's WBUR today. So I called in and got through, and talked to Mr. Apatow himself. I decided to hear straight from the horse's mouth just what he had to say about the portrayal of sexual violence in his films.

Unfortunately, the horse wouldn't let me ask my actual question.

You can listen to the interview by clicking on the link below. His responses were utterly shallow, short-sighted and disappointing. But not surprising.

http://www.onpointradio.org/media-player?url=http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/11/judd-apatow-funny&title=Judd+Apatow+on+Funny+People&pubdate=2010-11-19&segment=2

Drunk Bitches and their Pimpin' Mistakes: Rape's Historic and Current Place in Western Narrative

2010-11-17T08:45:00.000-08:00

Rape a tool of female and community oppression has been prevalent in the western narrative for millennia and its value as a symbol, illustrating the necessity and gaining of power by men, has transformed in the twentieth century, albeit subtly so. While modern interpreters of such texts might assess rape as a symbol of seizing power at the expense of an individual (woman, historically), it is all too easy to dismiss both the myths themselves and their analyses as obsolete products of their times. Closer examination of both the historic context and development of rape as this emblem for male power, however, reveals that its evolving meaning is as relevant as ever in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. While simple analyses portray this taking of power as linear— moving from victim to perpetrator- the act and significance of rape for women, their communities, and the art that reflects them, requires further assessment, particularly in a contemporary western context, where women’s “equality” in sex is superficially valued and mistakenly considered achieved.

Rape’s connotative significance has and continues to pervade popular narrative form and media, veiled as a plot device in popular fiction, as comedy, as euphemism, and its current place as a “women’s issue.” These forums shape common misconceptions perpetuate rape as an omnipresent tool for oppressing women. The lack of violence often portrayed in popular fictional narratives in turn labels “real rape” as synonymous with gratuitous violence. No matter what the differences in cultural uses and perceptions of rape, men’s acquisition of power is almost always achieved at the expense of women. Realizing that rape’s multidimensional symbolic meaning changes over time and space, it is crucial to evaluate current conceptions of sexual violence against women in the United States from historical keystone texts, its nebulous place in current events, and its increasing but concealed presence in popular art today.

To understand contemporary interpretations of rape and symbolic value in the western world, we must at least briefly establish its role in critical texts from more than two millennia ago. Widely remembered, for example, though not regarded commonly as a violent exchange in the Hebrew Bible, rape establishes women’s place as currency exchanged for freedom and power in the story of Lot and his daughter. Similar examples match this stage-setting illustration of rape, spanning hundreds of years. Persephone’s rape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for instance, indicates to readers that the sacrificial lamb’s virginal undoing is honorable and even necessary, although tragic. Much later in popular myth, but equal in its willingness to dismiss women as accessories to the complex issue of male power dynamics, rape is centrally depicted in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. These texts are only a few in the thousands that have used rape symbolically in their efforts to address practical social, spiritual and political issues as they pertain to men. Thus, the historic and current significance of these texts have unquestionably shaped the way that literature and art view and use rape as a pliable symbol of power among men at the apparently inconsequential expense of women. In contemporary contexts, the status of rape as solely a women’s and human rights issue demonstrates how we reinforce its symbolic value today in our own social, spiritual and political spheres. Rape as a gendered health emergency— indeed, more than 90% of victims identify as women— is widely, inaccurately depicted as a strictly social force in U.S. media through television, film, and the internet in the United States (Franklin 2010). In a culture with the second largest film industry in the world and where pornography comprises the highest grossing industry in the country, the work of top contenders in the narratives forum via sex and entertainment wields unparalleled power.

Despite what American perceptions of “real” sexual violence do to reinforce the historic connotative meaning of rape, however, the symbolic value of sexual violence as a power acquisition by force is actually rejected within both the justice system and industry in the United States. Where women are allegedly treated as “equal” to men, and are granted greater sexual liberties, rape in the U.S. is rarely represented in modern narratives as a violent, gendered struggle in power dynamics. What, then, does rape symbolize in contemporary texts, as it continues to claim the safety, minds and bodies of 20% of women in the United States (Koss 1988)? Likewise, what is rape’s symbolic place now in the American metanarrative, as it is embedded frequently in pornography and the film industry’s top earning films?

This analysis is best begun with the existing literature on rape in the United States. Statistically, less than 3% of reports of rape will lead to a conviction of the defendant (Vickers 2007). Of reports filed by victims, between 2% and 8% are determined false. However, surveys of jury panelists report believing that up to half of all reports to law enforcement are false. This is particularly true for survey participants when questioned about victims who were intoxicated at the time of their assaults, the majority of which occur on university campuses (Lisak 2008). In these environments, where law enforcement often instructs victims to utilize their administration’s adjudication processes, it is estimated that fewer than 10% of all claims of rape are investigated or treated in the context of disciplinary hearings (Traywick 2010). More often, the victims and defendants are treated “equally” in mediation sessions facilitated by administrators—the very same who report their institutions’ rates of violent crimes to college boards annually. Popular constructions of rape reflect “equality” similar to that which American popular culture cherishes in granting equal sexual liberty to women and men: women are equally culpable as men in these acts of violence— if one dare call it violence. It can be surmised, then, that within the U.S., rape is not simply regarded as a unilateral act of violence, but rather, a mutual (though perhaps regrettable) act of sex by both parties, in the event that the “victim” has not sustained visible injury, as she must in order to be regarded as victim. This new symbol of women’s sexual culpability, conjoined with the image of historic unreliability, is thus revolutionized in a victim-blaming model, found in popular film and media, the narrative forms which attract the same university-age victims and perpetrators as their target audiences (Armstrong 2006).

The catalogs of admired film makers such as Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan, for instance, are no exception. Their careers in film have used rape contained in the context of mixed messages by women, unreachable female caricatures, and playfully innocent “drunk sex,” facilitated by their male protagonists. These top figures in the industry are the producers, or in some cases the actors, writers and directors of top-grossing hits such as The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005); Superbad (2007); and Observe and Report, (2009)— the popularity and success of which cannot be challenged. Troubling, though, is that every single one of these films uses sexual violence against women as fodder for comedy and as plot device, without addressing the act’s symbolic value, which is only increased by the successful production of the films themselves.

Rogan’s 2007 hit Superbad illustrates rape’s current place as a gray area mired in women’s elusive sexuality through its importance in achieving the goal of its male protagonist, Seth: alcohol-facilitated sex with a peer. To quote his character’s view of alcohol-facilitated sexual encounters, he states early in the film to his friend regarding purchasing alcohol for an underage female peer, “Yeah, man that will be pimp! That way you know she'll be drunk. You know when you hear girls say 'Ah man, I was so shit-faced last night, I shouldn't have fucked that guy?' We could be that mistake!” However, it must be noted that the film itself never explicitly refers to the protagonist’s method of achieving sex (intoxicating the victim to incapacitation) as rape, which is literally the entire plot of the film. Here, the female target is regarded by the protagonist and his dubious friend as too confusing to understand, too difficult to reach, and ultimately out of [his] league. Implicitly, incapacitated sex with his target is necessary and forgivable, as she states later in the film, and as audiences and critics reflect in their high regard for this “romantic comedy” (Rogan 2007). Here, rape is not a violent act of desperation or seizing power, but merely an exchange through which the playing field of sex may be leveled.

In every other popular film mentioned above, too, similar portrayals of these unreliable and ultimately dangerous sexual beings are achieved not in female characters’ supposed dominance over their male predators, but in their willing participation in self-incapacitation and submission. The filmmakers succeed in depicting their ideal blend of masochistic and subordinate women through the symbolic value of rape implied as premeditated, attempted drunk sex. In The 40 Year Old Virgin, for instance, the protagonist’s group of three male friends explains the most successful tactic in selection the right “drunk bitches”— not too intoxicated to walk, but just enough to weaken their decision-making (Apatow 2005). Such a tactic and its popular reception by producers, fellow filmmakers, audiences, and women further intensifies what rape, embedded in more innocent terms, stands for in contemporary contexts. It makes women accountable—“equal”- in this supposed exchange of power, and therefore eliminates any opportunity for any women to be victims at all.

If rape as a symbol of power-acquisition between men and women or between men (using women as the tradable commodity) is regarded as obsolete in the United States, low reporting numbers among women 15-24 and the representation of rape in popular media illustrate an undeniable correlate in attitudes about violence against women (Baugher 2010). Whether the symbol reinforces the social construction or merely reflects it, sexual violence is undoubtedly among the most complex women’s health and rights issues around the globe. Therefore, its symbolic value—that is, how we treat rape- must be scrutinized. Its meaning and place in shared realities of violence change not only over time, but especially by whom it is observed and condoned. Rape, considering the myriad factors and influences under which it takes place, is never an act easily understood. This begs the question: what would rape look like in the American narrative if it were finally acknowledged as a domestic problem, a health issue, a war crime, and a not simply playful misunderstanding among confused youth in the status quo?

Skin. Deep.

2010-11-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

Maybe the problem is that I’ve always had too my time and/or energy to think.

I got some scary news from my doctor the other day, and it got me to thinking.

Nothing life-threatening. Or even “now-threatening.” But something else is looming over me— something I used to write about often, as women do, because we’re asked to by the societies that impel us to internalize failure. What’s looming is the question of whether I could really love myself, my body, unconditionally. But I suppose I should back up and ask what begs the question…

At 7, I was “diagnosed” (and I use quotes to try to diminish how self conscious I am about using such a dramatic word) with psoriasis. The name of the condition itself makes me cringe, and having explained it to people for nearly two decades now still fills me with shame. First, because of what such a condition does to the body, in appearance and otherwise. Second, because it is largely regarded as a “cosmetic” condition, and nothing more. So despite my being questioned about my appearance often as a young person, I often felt like I was proclaiming to have, in the minds of others, something as important or life-altering as freckles. Although I was often treated as (and indeed labeled) a “leper” due to the appearance of my arms, legs, neck, and forehead by my peers and even elders, the professionals who were intended to provide support for the disease (yes, some even call it a disease!) shrugged off the condition as merely topical, and not “beneath the skin.” But I was in elementary school, and so for a child, you don’t really need to dig so deep to make an impression. Needless to say, it took me until my early twenties to realize the impact such a cosmetic disorder (I have never in my life heard of or met anyone my age who suffered from the same thing) could have. Aside from the appearance and infrequent physical pain (i.e. cracking, bleeding) that it caused, it was how I internalized the treatment I received from others that shaped how I loved (or didn’t love) myself.

Setting that aside for a moment, we can fast-forward to my late teens. Having “accepted” my situation and “rejected” others’ opinions of my physical appearance (and though still crippled by the fear of rejection), I unexpectedly found a doctor with a miracle drug called Infliximab, or Remicade, for short. Although he specialized in gastrointestinal disorders and treated patients with Chron’s and Colitis with the same drug, he found that other autoimmune disorders, like psoriasis, could be temporarily pacified by use of this drug. He promised, as no other ever had (and we’re talking everything from top-ranked dermatologists to holistic healers, here) that he would “eradicate my symptoms.” At 17, with a prom and senior photos pending, I naively placed my trust in him. I’ll even go so far to say that I remained willfully ignorant of the potential downsides of this drug. Finally, someone had made the leper an offer. How could I refuse? Until recently, I thought the story really would end there. He made good on his word, and for a mere $7000 a month (thanks, HMO), along with several hundred milligrams of intravenously infused TNF-alpha inhibitors, I was “cured.” I could finally see my body clearly. Clear. I could love it, finally.

So I continued, for seven years, to spend 2.5 hours every 6 weeks receiving my “treatment.” That’s what we called it. When I got a job after finishing my undergraduate degree, I continued to drive the 50 miles from Boston to ensure it was his offices that treated me, because they were so nice, and because I knew them. They hooked me up, they put on a movie. They had wi-fi. They even gave me lunch on occasion (provided by some man or woman in a suit shelling out Panera Bread like it was currency, strangely) and so I never gave my long term health a second thought. I didn’t even consider the possibility that Remicade might be making me sick, despite my knowing that it can make one prone to upper-respiratory infections on occasion.

I didn’t entertain the idea that I might be so tired for the past two years because we changed my schedule to be “treated” less frequently by simply “upping” my dosage when I seemed resistant to the prescribed amount. I never questioned why I didn’t receive the obligatory TB tests other than my first one, in 2003, or why I haven’t had an actual appointment with my doctor in more than three years. I never questioned any of this until I saw a new doctor, out of convenience’s sake, last week (I don’t have a car any longer, so taking a whole day off work to travel 100 miles round-trip by train was starting to seem daunting).

This new Dr. performed tests I’d never heard of. He asked why I hadn’t been recommended or referred to see a dermatologist in almost eight years. He raised his eyebrows and immediately voiced concerned when I named my current dosage: 800 mgs per 6-8 weeks. That, he said, is the maximum dosage he’d give to someone in their later or latest years—not to a young patient with decades of potential treatment to go. He was shocked to realize that the only “chart” sent over by my previous doctor read only one line “DiBella: treated March 2008.” That was all. He said we need to pull back. He said an appropriate dose for me was roughly half of what I’ve been receiving, and that a continued dose at my current level hugely increases my risk of Leukemia and Lymphoma down the road. He said these were required warnings by the FDA, and the company who manufactures Remicade itself. Why, then, had the word “lymphoma” never been uttered to me?

I should mention that there is good reason, in the case of some young patients, like those with Chron’s, to provide higher doses of a drug like this. Their pain, the damage to their GI tracts, and the short-term quality of their lives depends sometimes on this treatment. I at one time would have indubitably agreed with regards to my “cosmetic” condition, which only in hindsight I realize caused me such trauma. It’s a drug I’ll continue to use for now, but this issue is really only the springboard for so much else with which I’ve been confronted lately: I’ll have to stop at some point. If I get pregnant, ever, I’ll have to stop. If I get sick, I’ll have to stop. If I move to a remote place that doesn’t have access to professionals who can administer the drug, I’ll have to stop. I guess what I’m asking is, will I have to stop loving myself again? This question is raised for me, I’m sure, because I’m now performing a three-year sociological critique upon the status of the U.S. healthcare system and its treatment of women. I’m also participating in it. We live in a world that I’m beginning to believe makes us and keeps us sick.

Instead of cures, we’re given consolation. When I tried to research what I could about my now-increased risk of blood cancers, most of what I found was either sugar-coated by the drug companies themselves, hidden in the fine print of practitioners’ websites, or amplified by personal injury and medical malpractice attorneys encouraging me to get sick so I could sue. In the end, it was kind of laughable. In the end, I realized that, if it weren’t for the environment in which I’ve been inculcated for 24 years, and which pushed me to seek this “treatment” in the first place, my situation truly would be “cosmetic.” It is not the disorder, but rather my socialization as an untouchable that made this thing, which I have hated my whole life, and which made me love myself only conditionally, that created this.

But who is responsible for the socialization? Am I, because I can self-actualize? My elementary school peers, who sparked my self-consciousness? The drug companies who profit from our self-loathing? Our ancestors, who constructed it? Who? Name it, so I can look it in the face before I have to face the real me again—the me who will inevitably be revealed in ten, twenty, thirty years. Too soon.

Regina, One More Time

2010-10-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

Hold on. One more time, with feeling.

Try it again.

Breathing's just a rhythm.

Say it in your mind until you know that the words are right.

This is why we fight.

What percentage of sexual assaults reported to law enforcement are believed false by experts?

2010-10-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Get a free sms student response system at Poll Everywhere

A Response to the Silence that Has Followed Yale's Pro-Rape Demonstration

2010-10-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

Last week, my visceral response to fraternities and rape culture, which was pacified temporarily upon my immersion into a graduate school, returned with a vengeance. Granted, it's hard to avoid thinking and getting angry about rape when one works in a law center dedicated solely to responding to it, and when one pursues a graduate degree focused on it. Thus, I shouldn't have been surprised to hear about Yale's latest extracurricular sport: chanting. About rape. Anal rape. Rape of "sluts," campus rape, party rape. All kinds of rape, in fact.

Read about this radical new pastime here: http://www.salon.com/life/violence_against_women/index.html?story=/mwt/broadsheet/2010/10/15/yale_fraternity_pledges_chant_about_rape

Now, victim advocates and campus residents are calling for a reaction that goes beyond wrist-slapping (or, as I imagine it, high-fiving). But as with most women’s issues and particularly women’s issues pertaining to “sex” (is rape sex?), the backlash to this feminist response is as strong as the response itself. Protectors of these perpetrators (because, let’s face it, most of them are probably rapists) argue that adjudication by Yale’s administration would be going “overboard,” and claim that the bros in this fraternity were merely practicing their freedom of speech by inciting threats to women's health and safety.

In the words of the Dude, “this isn’t a first amendment thing.”

First of all, Yale is a private institution, and as such, it has the freedom to react accordingly to any actions that intimidate and target half their resident population.

Yes, Yale has a choice.

Of course, most institutions turn blind and/or victim-blaming eyes to victims who come forward about completed rape, let alone demonstrations calling for it.

And you know, I have a feeling that the whole "free speech" defense of these disgusting displays of violence would go out the window if the frat had showed up at a Hillel Club shouting "Kill the Jews" or headed to the Black Student Union screaming for a lynching. Like racial and cultural minorities, across which women span, this half of the world's population has historically been not only oppressed, but violently so, at the hands of a dominant, unforgiving group: men. Not all or most men, to be sure. But men, nonetheless.

Our culture needs to reach a consensus about violence against women: it's historic, it's present, and it's detrimental to us all. Rape is already rampant on college campuses in 2010. Remember: 1 in 4 women will be victims of sexual assault in college, and only 1 in 10 these victims will report it. To ignore this battle cry to perpetuate sexual assault is to comply with and condone a future where women are not valued, are not heard.

We have witnessed an outpouring of support toward suicidal teens and university students in LGBT communities around the country this month. These voices have risen to the top of the media, commanded the attention of the president, and are changing how we respond to verbal assaults upon lesbian and gay youth. Now we need to ask ourselves why we have never found the same relief- the same rallying- for women, who cross all lines of race, class, sexuality and gender identity.

It would be great to tell all women, "it gets better." But does it?

Shore at Head of the Charles, 2010

2010-10-25T07:43:00.001-07:00

hazel afternoon spinning

down, wool and cotton hugs, and tears-

conjured by hungry bellies

between chinks of laughter

in the blue, the yellow of our fading day.

i never knew love

was wielded from such work-

the product, the renewer of

good intentions and bad

ears and long bridges.

i never knew love.

Twenty and Ten.

2009-12-28T08:18:00.000-08:00

Hardly blog material, but hopefully any sort of update will make me post more shortly.

It will all come out soon, but I have caused so much pain at the close of 2009. 2010 will be better for everyone, if only because I hope to suck the poison out of my own selfish deeds and bring whatever I can to help those I hurt and get back to being myself— a more altruistic self.

Which is the upswing: I feel more like myself than I ever have. Strange, yes? I have such conflicting ideas about what constitutes the “self.” On the one hand, there are infinite fleeting selves, all of which perish as soon as they are born and which cannot be returned to those which are born and die subsequently. They comprise and dissipate in constant flux.

On the other hand, I have always told myself that there is a core in each of us, which binds us like a collective consciousness and which cannot be shaken, beneath the waves that try to sway us. We rely upon this core with the sense of camaraderie and understanding that we are not unique; we can survive anything because everyone is surviving. We are all beneath the waves.

On the third hand, we all want to believe that, with an unshakable core, which keeps us moving forward, such a core affirms that we are unique, sentient individuals. Which is it? Ultimately, I let my perception of the whole thing remain vague and unformed. It’s a beautiful illusion, and it’s better that way.

I have let the end of this year serve as a gestation period for “a better version of me.” I will be better in 2010 with my mind and body and vow to give more of myself and make the changes I’ve been going through work for others as well as for me. Now that I know where I’ll be, geographically speaking, for the next few years, I feel like my life is taking shape in front of me. Maybe the self follows the situation. So confusing. Either way, I finally feel like I know where I live, what I love, what I want. It’s been so long since I felt that way. I'm no longer stretched so thin. What a surprise and a gift. And a trap: I cannot let this selfish sense of satisfaction, which takes up so much mindspace (even in spite of my efforts to be productive) keep me from giving to people any more than it already has. Christmas time this year became all about me and I was ashamed at how little I reached out to people this season. Spring will be better.

I know what I have to do: I must clean my room. This has always been at the foundation of reclaiming my life because the state of my living space is acutely reflective of my mental state. I have tried to live, as much as I can manage, like a minimalist over the past 18 months (though recognize that a record player, computer, and iPod hardly qualify me), but recently have collected so much stuff without regard to where it ends up, what its function is in my life, or where I intend to keep it. It is such a manifestation of my spirit, but I’ll be doing some early spring cleaning. I remember reading that a living and working space that does not fulfill its purpose of storing us and creating beautity is really a just a cemetary for dead ideas. I will not live or work in a cemetary.

I made certain to purge my life of so much "stuff" when struggling with decisions regarding my living situation and law school this past year. I painted and gutted my bedroom knowing that the experience would be cathartic and expedite change in my life. I didn’t move or go to law school, but I think settling myself further into where I was affirmed what I really wanted. or didn't want.

Now I’ll be going back to school. I'll be living (really living) in Boston. I cannot wait. I am promising myself that I will travel this summer. I have not been responsible enough with my plans or money recently to organize a trip, but I can foresee how much I will need one by summer. I will be outside as much as possible. I will extend myself beyond work and minimal community service and insular writing projects. That has been my life this year: subsistence. I know it’s changing now because I’m looking around and WTF.

My life is unrecognizable now from what it was a year ago. I feel I’ve lived 12 years in 12 months. My brain is working differently. I can feel it. I am happy. I am exhausted, but hopeful. I will be good.

It’s hard to write here and not simply be either a complete narcissist or a reactionary sigh of hot air.

And that’s when I stop.

2009-10-27T08:26:00.000-07:00

Talking to my friend Catherine the other day, I somehow got on the topic of work. Service. Values. The paths that lead us through all three. Catherine asked me a great question, which got me thinking about my current place in the world, and the direction in which I’m moving: “if you could be a part of any movement, knowing it would succeed, what would that movement be and what would your role in it be?” I knew the first part of my answer immediately, and the second one is still forming.

I belong in the movement to end sexual violence against women. I believe, truly, deeply, almost maniacally, that the root of every bad thing that is happening in the world, now and across history, is a result of sexual violence. I recognize that my perspective on the state of things and my (sometimes obnoxious) outspoken attitude towards rape and sexual assault have pigeon holed me. Perhaps I am a cliché.

But I feel like my eyes have been opened, or a veil has dropped, or a light turned on, and only a few others in my life have experienced something similar when it comes to this kind of violence. Even the most sympathetic, open-minded, and even feminist people in my life have a difficult time accepting the truth about sexual assault and letting go of the myths (“women should be held accountable for what they let happen to themselves,” “half of all reported rapes are false,” “intoxication = consent,” et cetera). I find myself choked up, apoplectic when talking about rape because to me, it’s all so obvious. To me, it’s a no brainer that only 6-8% of rapes are falsely reported. To me, it’s no surprise that only 2% of perpetrators are ever convicted, incarcerated, or even arrested. To me, the fact that only about 25% of all rapes are ever reported is very discouraging; to others, 25% is plenty. Really?

Seeing what survivors experience in the aftermath, sometimes forever, means becoming simultaneously desensitized to rape and repeatedly horrified, disgusted, and determined. A victim’s body/soul connection is never the same following an assault, let alone what happens to her interpersonal relationships. Or her professional relationships. Or the way she sees her education. Or the way she feels safe. Or the way she trusts herself. Even if her perpetrator is sentenced to 15 years (HA!), that’s criminal justice. That’s not justice for the victim. Which, of course, leads to more questions. What IS justice for the victim?

At this point, many turn to other violent crimes like murder, assault, et cetera to point out that there are few resources for such victims once perpetrators are convicted, sentenced, and serving their time. However, many argue also that the laws, cultural attitudes, and even global perspectives on something like murder provide some relief, and perhaps prevention. That is not to say that “murder isn’t a problem,” in the world, but I believe (no, I KNOW) that sexual violence as a weapon, a tool of war, a vehicle for domestic violence, an oppression model, et cetera, is wildly underestimated. Rape is at once the most heinous and most accepted crime among cultures that do not anticipate it or punish it harshly enough. And so it continues.

I could go on and on. And will. I don’t know what my role, ultimately, will be. I’ve dabbled with the idea of law school, thought about a sociological route in academia, thought about media relations, and am pursuing women’s health. Ideally, I’d like to help steer the cultural perception of sexual violence against women towards something more... accurate. Do not mistake this for censorship, to which I am adamantly opposed. But our societal expectations and attitudes towards rape were all shaped somehow, and the education and laws surrounding SA will never change until the culture does. They feed one another.

I feel it so strongly in my gut that I belong in this field. My feminist philosophy, which stems from my childhood, my interests in women and values surrounding gender, my passion for this work, and my deep curiosity in how a life in this field could take shape excite and frighten me. Because it’s a constant struggle. Worth every moment.

More later.

Hmm, Really?

2009-10-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

If Glenn Beck truly believes that Obama's "call to service and volunteerism" is really just a brain-washing tool by a ruthless pack of fascists, I'd like to be the first volunteer to tell Glenn Beck to suck it.

I'm glad that I have finally realized who the new most dangerous man in America is. Too bad that he, too, is a fucking moron. Why couldn't it be someone badass like... Walter Sobchack? Or Kahn? Sigh.

All this indignation gets stuck in my throat. Must improve upon that.

2009-10-18T13:29:00.001-07:00

Was there ever a fall that looked so much like winter, but felt so much like spring?

Because I'm so cold, my heart hurts.

2009-10-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

Big hearts. i can feel them, smell their blood

Filling, swelling, bursting over the Spring.

Rosary bees weave the new air around me-

A braid for me to pray on...

Please, bees, I promise you that I am

not a flower, But I am not afraid of you.

To the left, an ant is trying to wear my

Forgotten shoe, but let him-

An eye distracted is watching

My hand pluck chinks of buried light

out of the earth.

And right, there is music!

Oh, big heart, swell and share yourself-

I will leave my shoes in the tangle of this shade

And we shall be unafraid

And we shall be, unafraid.

If I can just hear your pretty voice, I don't think I need to see at all.

2009-10-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

Soft hair and a velvet tongue
I want to give you what you give to me.
Because every breath that is in your lungs
Is a tiny little gift to me.

Regina

2009-10-14T07:31:00.001-07:00

Don’t sing your next song.
Or sigh, or sound. Our affair has been
so divine so far and so good,
and I would rather remain suspended
knowing only that the unknown will stay so.

Suspended with great expectations. Willfully
bound to await the expiration of this fleeting gasp
with your mouth always at my ear.
Could my love grow? The borders I cross
To stay in tow already leave me writhing
and crazed, but if mystical things harvest resilience,
you feed me.

I hear your song and I hear you sing about how
it works, and as you sing it, you make it so.
Lay me down among the words and inscribe truth
with every roll of your tongue.

Brick and Ivy

2009-10-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

When was spring so heavy?

I saw you carrying your love

Behind you, plodding through

The mossy weight of new ground

And the whining gates

That follow Winter. and I saw you

Scampering under the great pregnant

Belly in the sky-

Let her cry.

2009-10-13T12:53:00.001-07:00

under sun illuminated

i felt her light in the trees- not through

i didn’t write that day but combed

the earth suspiciously

with curling toes to reap what heat

was hiding there and waiting

to peek at me. just then-

soft breath and great surprise.

2009-10-13T12:48:00.000-07:00

When the hollow winds of debt
Broke over her, she shook
And drew the future close
In a seductive suck of final breath.

Reclining, resigned along her shore
She pressed an aching ear, weighty with figures to
The breast of the sea. Then lashes, elbow, and
Regretful tongue made brackish love with death.

A week(end) in review.

2009-10-13T08:07:00.001-07:00

My weekend, despite working a half-day on Friday, began on Thursday. It was awesome. Whomever invented the pretzel-toss needs a prize. Which reminds me: I need to make caramel apples soon.

Then I traveled across the state to pay homage to some sweet foliage and friendship. Then I drank a martini in a railway tunnel. And bought an awesome jacket. I'm a consumer, but a damn good one, sometimes.

This was followed by some pumpkin carving. Pumpkin carving, much like cake decorating and egg dyeing, is one of those activities that seems exciting in the abstract that you don’t have the foresight to stop yourself before the top comes off (okay, maybe more like karaoke at Hong Kong’s than egg dyeing). And considering how much I love all things pumpkin, it seems strange that I still gag (literally) when I’m reaching for the guts of my beloved gourd.

The face came out cute though.

I also ate pumpkin ravioli and apple & brie pizza-- both of which were too sweet. I'm going to perfect both on my own, though.

I saw the two worst movies ever made this weekend, too. Plan 9 from Outer Space was awesomely bad and totally worth watching, and Bright Star made me want to kill John Keats with TB all over again. And I think he’d agree to it if he saw the movie. Lots of awkward moments and even more melodramatic wailing by a 19th century fashion criminal. Oh, and it was 2 hours long.

I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t go to Europe in January, but I’m also pretty sure I’m going to anyway. I need to see Paris again, but is this a good idea in winter? Of course not. It is, however, much cheaper than going in July. Maybe it would be nice right after Christmas and the New Year and whatnot? Also: Strasbourg, Schwarzwald, the Swiss Alps, and maybe something in provence before circling back to Paris. Amazing, right? Come with!

Weirdly, despite eating more ice cream than is good for me lately, I've maintained my weight loss from a few weeks ago. I guess I'll take it as a favor from the gods and try to keep it going. No excuses, and no pain.

Probably going to write again tonight.

And now, my song is a flood.

2009-10-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

I am having a moment that is outside of space and time, apparently. A really brief moment of feeling eternally happy. And even if I don't remain completely happy in real time, in this moment, I have been happy forever. Past and future happiness. Maybe that's what hope is.

For the Love of God, Get Me Some Garlic.

2009-10-08T13:19:00.001-07:00

As part of what we'll call a sort of "social experiment," I recently read the first installment of the Twilight series. I didn't know what to expect. I feared being sucked into the vortex of fandom like all of the other fang-bangers who've been salivating over her books. I've heard her compared to J.K. Rowling, to Stephen King. I was afraid I'd have to "come out" as a fan.

Don't worry. If I ever see Stephanie Meyer in person, I'll probably trip her in the street. I'd like to say she needs a thesaurus (I dare you to count how many times she uses "cold" and "perfect" throughout this piece of utter garbage), but she's already so enamoured of adverbs that I'd rather she keep her verbage to whatever minimum she can manage... which would include NOT writing another book. Please.

I won't even go into how much this drivel is really just a giant euphimism for domestic violence, but I will say that she needs to fire her editor(s). I can't bear to imagine one more sentence making millions like, "the crowded Suburban felt really claustrophibic." (JFYI: Cars don't feel.)

Honestly. This book makes Danielle Steele look like Nick Hornby.

Trips that need taking...

2009-10-06T20:49:00.000-07:00

1. San Francisco, Napa Valley & Sedona, Yosemite

2. Scottsdale, Grand Canyon (May 2010)

3. Mexico for what will likely be my only "all inclusive resort" experience (February 2010)

4. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia! (Summer 2010? Ha!)

5. Washington DC, because why not?

6. Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans

7. Tokyo

8. Kalahari, African Plains, Kenya

9. Chicago

10. Upper mid-west and Northwest

Must consolidate.

2009-10-06T19:36:00.001-07:00

free write because i can't write right anymore and i don't know how to let that dust that yellow dust go i had fingertips once that just couldn't quit even when they tapped on your lips and nothing else they moved to the rhythm of something other than hey there thanks so much eff why eye can't let you go the weight of security is not a blanket its a tarp and its choking me and security can never feel free when you require it you don't want to think critically about it because then where will i be can't stop it need it and it's funny that the institution that opens our eyes costs so much that we need to shut them curl up hold on shortly after and when will we bloom again? a tease a near orgasm of light and experience followed immediately by the dry choke of fantasy and is that philosophy? a throbbing pang of wonder a glimpse of understanding only to be shut and shuttered in the cold winds of debt? i couldn't tell you now because this impotence is whetted by the nine to five and the five oh nine each week please tell me i'm just weak that this won't last that i'm just adjusting for a year that the thrill will come back fill my lungs strain my brain pry my eyes and never let me go. it was there once in spring and winter a tingle head to toe no sleep no rest writing breathing believing and what will there be now? health and welfare and the IRA the 401K the diplomatic email the slip that's pink and having to smile for those with the something borrowed blue when you know i don't want to and maybe i should just stop complaining because this is what it is to become a tumor on one's own soul. to separate oneself from nature. and what good will that do when i'm reaching for the dust and trying to will it back into my fingers for one last shot?

There's a blog for that...

2009-10-06T16:17:00.000-07:00

FUCK ROMAN POLANSKI AND ANYONE WHO THINKS HE DOESN'T DESERVE WHAT HE'S HAD COMING TO HIM (and which he committed yet another crime to avoid) FOR 30 FUCKING YEARS.

Unfortunately, this includes some of my favorite artists in the film industry, including Natalie Portman and Martin Scorsese. Awesome. Maybe they'd all like to rape a child too, if it's worth forgiving when the perpetrator lived a celebrated career showered with praise, wealth, and admiration?

No wonder people don't "get" rape. Polanski got one thing right, though: “If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!”

The guy even compares his gross assault to murder. Yet masses of ignorant celebrities are jumping on the bandwagon to advocate for his release. Do they really think a child is capable of consenting, let ALONE when intoxicated by the man by whom she's employed.

Seriously, fuck you, Hollywood. I only WISH I was surprised.

Picketing, complaining, AND laughing all the way to the bank.

2009-09-14T07:50:00.000-07:00

I wish that I could write more on this, but I have little energy and less time.

I wish that people would consider what's behind all the animosity that comes forward when political debates are had. Personal philosophies on things like self-determination, the roles of western civilization on the individual throughout history, and of course, the lenses through which we see our history/histories shape so much of what we value. I'm so tired of hearing people talk about health care like it's either an attempt by masked fascists to control our minds or a necessity that must be passed through without due consideration. If we took a moment to examine one another's personal philosophies (and in many cases, our own) on any hypothetical group's responsibility to take care of its own, the conversation would be over. Because I'm not sure those values can be changed much without a huge change in one's socioeconomic status.

Since this is my blog, I feel free enough to say that rich people (those who never worry about money, even though they might pretend to) have little to no need for the programs and services offered by much of what their precious "tax dollars" fund. I find it hilarious when they complain about their "tax dollars enabling and supporting" those whose lifestyles they disagree with, and in many cases, completely misunderstand (i.e. underserved migrant workers, the poor, drug addicts, et cetera). It's funny because the United States generates so little revenue in its tax dollars outside of defense spending (don't even get me started) compared with other developed countries in the world.

I'm saying this because I've recently affirmed my personal philosophy on society's responsibility to take care of its poorest, sickest, and least able-bodied. Working in the public interest for only a year and in such a narrow demographic has opened my eyes to how distorted the wealthy's perception of the poor is, and it's likely because those in the middle and upper-middle classes have virtually no real exposure to the working poor. It's easy for them to assume that the poor are just lazy, unwilling to pay their own bills, and eager to go through the incredible hassle of a work-to-welfare program.

Poverty is a regular vacation in the eyes of those who can afford to take one.

I'd also like to ask those so adamantly opposed to healthcare reform why they don't seem to give a shit about how much money their government is wasting on military spending.

More on this later.

... shmealth care.

2009-09-10T14:27:00.001-07:00

Why is it that certain tax payers in this country find that having access to the world wide web is a public right, but not access to the experts, technology, and elixirs that keep us alive?

All You Need is a Revolution Seeking to Protect the Rights of LGBTQ People in Life and Love

2009-09-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

I am compelled to write about the rights of and challenges faced by various LGBTQ communities today, but don't feel I'm enough of an authority to delve deeply into the subject(s). While I don't identify solely with any one of these groups in particular, I think my overwhelmingly feminist philosophy has me very much attached to the rights, barriers, and cultures of these communities. So I'll just say this:

Love is an active thing that requires persistence, dedication, and integrity. It's not to be confused with immaturity, sexual deviance, or purses & cosmopolitans.

I don't want to lump every community in the acronym together because that would be as narrow-minded as presuming that gay men shouldn't be boy scout leaders. But what we find consistently among these groups in social politics, above anything, is the need to prove one's capacity to love. Before marriage ever came into discussion, skepticism about the legitimacy of love among LGBTQ folks was rampant. Love of what? Oneself, one's partner(s), one's mother, one's father.

And, of course, in some parts of the country, there is still pressure on us to prove loving someone of the same sex does not equal romantic love for one's sister, one's cub scout, or one's neighbor's pet goat. (For whatever reason, sexuality and gender identity issues are often mistaken for sexual disorders and taboos like incest, pedophilia, and bestiality.)

In any case, it is saddening and disappointing that, at this stage in progressing the rights of members of LGBTQ communities, there is still a debate about whether one's capacity to love is equal to that of the heterosexual individual. Many anti-gay-marriage proponents argue that it is a matter of the laws, and that the cultural definition of commitment (which they say is unquantifiable) plays no role in defining marriage.

It is obvious, though, that the cultural perception of love and the human ability to demonstrate great affection and care for individuals across gender lines is skewed. Where people differ on the issue of something like "gay marriage" has nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with what I believe is a misinformed philosophy on the teleological purpose of human beings and the ideal form of human identity.

Ironically, I believe those who oppose marriage are themselves symbols for how easy it is to slip onto a path of euphemistic hatred and degradation-- the two devastating forces that they actually claim will destroy American family values once LGBTQ folks are granted all the rights we/they deserve. By contrast, those who fight for the right to marry are symbols of persistence in love and devotion.

If I could, I'd call on all of those in love with someone who is NOT a heterosexual male or female to come forward and demonstrate that love can be legitimate no matter how different the couple (or triple?) seems. Age, color, gender identity, orientation, music taste, and even political philosophy cease to matter when other people are bringing out the best in us. And that is what love does, isn't it?

I should really start writing rough drafts of these first...

2009-09-08T07:37:00.000-07:00

I should have clarified earlier that weekends, days on which I receive unemployment from the Massachusetts Division of Workforce and Labor Development, and holidays don't count as blogging days.

Most of what I want to talk about pertains to food, as promised. I read an interesting editorial today that again sparked my recent fascination with the link between avoiding processed foods and living better. Articulating that makes it sound so stupid. DUH. Of course "junk" food is bad for you! But that's not what I mean.

Many people don't acknowledge that "whole grain" foods are "processed." General Mills might seem like health food to some in the same way that Quaker granola snacks don't seem like candy bars (they are). We don't just have "junk food" anymore. We have a LOT of food-like substances that we buy and eat because they kind of taste like food and are cheap. Then we take dietary supplements to "fill the gaps."

I actually saw this very dietary philosophy advertised in a PediaSure commercial recently. In it, a mom stands in her kitchen playfully rolling her eyes and shrugging to her audience about how her "picky eater" of a kid had to start drinking PediaSure "after her diet began to affect her growth and development." Really? Want to know how to make sure your kid eats right? MAKE THEM. Don't give them animal crackers if they won't eat carrots. Let her go hungry until she eats the carrots. I was a nanny for 7 years. I've fed angels, demons, and the spawn of Satan himself. Eventually, the kid takes the carrot. Human beings are built to eat when they are hungry. If your kid is willing to eat animal crackers but not dinner, she's never experienced hunger. And now you're going to give her all kinds of behavioral disorders because your failing to show her boundaries (which is really what she wants) and she'll trudge through life listless, untrusting, and likely a binge-eating kelptomaniac. But I digress.

I'm trying to explain this to myself as well as this trusty blog because I've undergone what I believe is a personal revolution with food recently. It extends through every part of how I live... not only in how I eat, but how I see food's distribution throughout the country and its social, economic, and political consequences. It's amazing what people accomplish without having enough food, and equally astounding what people who have too much of the wrong "food" can't accomplish. Like harness energy, live actively, be happy, or avoid diabetes.

I can't tell whether I'm stating the obvious or am just plain late in saying that I believe that the American food industry has conspired to keep the poor poor, the rich rich (again, DUH), and of course, the fat fat. I know that on a surface level, all of this seems obvious. We are a "fast food nation." Okay, fine. But is it just "fast food" as we perceive it that's hurting us?

For instance, I didn't know until recently that 90% of the corn harvested in this country is inedible to humans. Almost all of it becomes grain feed for cattle or is processed into food (most likely soft drinks) for us. Oh, or it becomes ethanol for fueling our our precious motor vehicles! What that means is that the corporate vendors who feed us and the government who "regulates" them find our dietary needs on par with those of tortured animals (ironically also future food?) and machines that feed but don't feel. Great.

Learning more about this, feeling afraid of my future self, and being downright curious about the alternatives (it sounds funny to call eating like a human being "eating an alternative diet").

In order to even approach food differently, I had to temporarily remove myself from the entire system. Books helped to detach my sugar-addicted perspective, of course, but treating a temporary "survival" diet as an experiment or game helped too. [Thank you, Les Stroud, for going days without eating and cherishing water in ways I never could.] Using this time, wherein I ate only "survival foods" (tea, plants, fresh and pastured meat, seeds, and some fresh unprocessed whole grains) allowed me to also experiment with scratch foods. Pasta, breads, animals, soups, and personal dietary staples like pico made me realize how valuable it is to understand that what we do to food determines what food does to us.

After a few weeks of feeling great, I decided to extend my "survival" diet with a few exceptions. I can have the occasional diet coke, coffee is okay a few times per week (but with no sweeteners), and special occasions don't mean I can't have a cupcake (<3).>

This started more as a political action: boycott the institutions that keep us down and their products because Americans deserve to eat better. But I realized after feeling better, thinking more clearly, and weighing a little less that this isn't just political. It's a medical, social, economic, humanitarian AND political issue. It's a "catch all" issue because eating (one of the four teleological purposes we have in life, I think) impacts everything we do and how well we do it. Which might explain not only why Americans have higher rates of specific chronic diseases than most other developed nations in the world, but why we have such high instances of behavioral problems (which, I realize, are also a by-product of reality television and the internets), depression, anxiety, and HUNGER. And bottle rot.

Why are we not only willing, but eager to accept the offer of processed meals for cheap? Why can't real food now be cheap? There are so many answers, but I think acting now will get us closer to a desirable outcome for all eaters.

I always thought that mobilizing herds of vigilantes or picketing for change or voting served as symbols of protest and social unrest. But I truly believe that refusing to participate in the establishments that are poisoning us and destroying us at our foundation is the strongest move we can make. And when I say we, I mean everyone who eats from the center aisles in the grocery store.

Hokai...

2009-09-03T06:25:00.001-07:00

So this will compensate for yesterday's lapse in blogging. I accidentally played trivia instead... and failed. Infinitely lame.

God, I can't wait to be back in school.

I decided recently to not be afraid anymore. It didn't ever occur to me that to be afraid is a state of mind, and ultimately, it's one you choose. Or I chose. Either way, I'm not going to do it anymore. I realized how much of my decision making was out of fear and insecurity, and while I acknowledge now that I need some level of security in my financial life, I let a lot of my fears about the future trickle into every aspect of now.

For example, law school. My fantasy of going to law school began during a work slump and in the dead of winter. I was looking for something challenging, a terminal degree, and something I could attain and feel "secure" within public interest. I wanted to be an attorney for all the wrong reasons. I looked at it as if it was the sum of all of these parts I needed in order to look 10 years down the road and feel "secure." Thank god I couldn't afford it.

I'm also done being afraid of my personal future life. I don't know where this level of insecurity began, but I could really laugh realizing how long it's lasted. I'm so fortunate in so many ways, and I have to stop comparing myself people who "know" what they want (they don't), and others with whom I'll just never connect. For example, I remember going out on days and nights when I was exhausted or literally had no interest, but my reasons for not going took a backseat to my eagerness to be with people. I would unconsciously infuse myself into any social opportunity because I was afraid to be alone. What does it say about you when you're alone and no one else is? Turns out, nothing.

Most people are with people just because THEY don't want to be alone. I observed that on a recent outing, where I realized that I had no actual interest in being there. Then I looked around to see why ANYONE would want to be there. Actually, they're all just afraid of being alone, too. Maybe not for the night, but ultimately. That's what socializing is for-- avoiding isolation (with the exception of, when you get lucky, having an engaging conversation, which I find rare). I have to stop giving myself so much credit; I frequently and unknowingly separate myself from situations and let myself believe that my circumstances are unique. Insecurity is universal and utterly human.

So I'm going to let myself be insecure and stop forcing things and trying to "make" things happen. I'll go against my proactive instincts when it comes to things like career, social life, and to some degree, my education, and I'll see what reappears in my head once the dust has settled. I'm done scrambling around trying to make answers for myself when I haven't even relaxed enough to be honest about what I really want. And as a result, I have no idea what I really want. I really need to start being more honest with myself.

Maybe I should save up some cash for my loans loans and try out subsistent living for a year.

Pretty sure the idea of individual destiny is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. But I guess it's useful in capitalism. It's important to remember that no one ever really "accomplishes" anything. Does that make me a Nihilist? I'm pretty sure the only thing to be accomplished these days is to collectively reduce the amount of pain in the world and make beautiful, amusing, and entertaining things. Does anything else matter?

Everything else in life should be filled with food that tastes good, people who feel good, music that sounds good, movement that makes us good, heat because I like it, and books that make us grow. I'm pretty sure that literally everything else is utterly pointless. Which makes me question why I'm so eager to spend my life in academia.

This turned out way heavier than I intended. Sorry; I haven't had my coffee yet.

More Articulate Ways to Say What I Said Yesterday

2009-09-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

I'm updating only because I said I would. I'm a bad blogger. But it's okay, because I'm leaving you with some quotes that I found to be much richer than anything I could come up with on a work day that only left my 15 minutes of free time just a few hours before a weekly trivia adventure (whereupon I shall dominate). I have some creative writing to post soon (after I kill the fool who invented Windows Vista), and for now, call to Marcus Aurelius:

The soul harms itself, first and foremost, when it becomes (as far as it can) a separate growth, a sort of tumor on the universe: because to resent anything that happens is to separate oneself in revolt from Nature, which holds in collective embrace the particular natures of all other things.

In (wo)man's life, time is a mere instant, existence a flux, perception fogged, with whole bodily composition rotting, one's mind a whirlgig, fortune unpredictable, fame unclear. To put it shortly: all things of the body stream away like a river; all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, a visit in a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.

What then can escort us on our way? One thing, and one thing only: Philosophy.

Starting...

2009-08-31T11:41:00.000-07:00

Now. I will have a blog. I've never "blogged" or written to no-one-in-particular outside of the angst-filled days of the livejournal, so this should be interesting.

I spent so much time thinking and feeling and having minor meltdowns over the last year that I forgot I had some things to say and some outlets through which to say them. I promise to update often, even if you won't read it.

I can't tell what posts will contain, but I think there will be a lot about food. I used to hate food because I thought I couldn't have a good relationship with it. But with a kitchen and foodies in my life, I've realized I love to cook (and might be good at it?). What excellent therapy in dark days and fun nights. Soups, pastas, desserts, and survival food. It brings everyone closer! Phase two of loving food (not lusting after) will involve some form of germination.

I think these posts will also include creative writing- something that I had all but given up on in the last year. Between moving, working full time, feeling guilty about not volunteering, feeling anxious about money, feeling stretched in 100 directions in present and future, feeling angry at sexual perpetrators, and feeling tired from feeling so many feelings, I stopped writing.

Viagra is to ED as _____ is to quarter-life-crisis-induced writer's impotence. A) blogging? Let's find out.

I spent about 400 consecutive days accidentally being a spectator to the shaping of futures around me, and forgot to act. I got wrapped up thinking about social, political, and gender issues with my friends and family (who I can only imagine are about to kill me if I say the word "rape" one more time) and became "that girl" who gets involved in conversations and will teach you a thing or two and let my work overflow into my personal life. In short, I should stop. Instead, I'll try to do it all here, put it in writing, and shut up in most other respects.

I can't fight fall, either. Maybe that's why I'm making this blog. I wanted summer to be here because spring failed to thaw us and I needed it to be so steamy that nothing else mattered but surviving the heat. That didn't happen. So, instead of shaking my fist at the sky, I'll pray for a dry fall and look forward to suede boots, cider, cooking, and letting this season be the one where I feel collected, calm, and capable of the challenges that I'm about to face (graduate school applications, parents' anniverary party, new job (?), finally being financial secure, etc.). I can do it. Blogs can help.