In Transition

Per my last blog, it's become wildly apparent to me that my life is a series of identity crises. I feel like I'm always defining myself and being defined by the actions of others, and what's really made me so homesick lately is that I don't have people to be defined by here.

So here I am, in transition, trying to figure out who the hell I am and coming to terms with who I've been.

It's scary, it's exciting, and it's happening right now. I'm looking forward to the person I'm becoming.

nothing to win and nothing left to lose

Holy fucking balls am I homesick.

Been thinking a lot about my motivation to come here in the first place, and have deduced it's because of my family. Two-foldly: firstly, to make them proud; secondly, to prove that I'm not my father. Turns out, your problems remain the same despite geographical relocation. Bollocks.

I feel I've wasted time and resources on several fronts. It's true that I've learned some, seen sights and absorbed culture. Hell, I even asked a German boy to dance at a traditional Scottish ceilidh.

I've been in a pretty consistent rut and I don't know what the fuck to do about it.

New Life Goal

Reclaim the Virgin Mary as a patriarchally subversive figure in the bible.

Write a book about it.

Rabble-rouse.

Braaaaaaains

It all started one night as I was doped up painkillers, immobile and watching 28 Weeks Later. Even with the percocet, my hip throbbed with pain--I've been diagnosed with trocantaric bursitis, an inflammation of the connective tissues that hold my muscles in place. I sustained this injury as a result of some overzealous laps around our athletic track two years ago, and since then, I have had three injections, two anti-inflammatory drug prescriptions, and endless litanies of OTC Tylenols, ibuprofens and Advil--none of which are covered by my insurance. In desperation, I went to a specialist who recommended physical therapy, which is not covered because it's not considered an accident. Bastards knew I lost the ability to walk and function normally for a little over two years to cheat them out of $100 for the initial and $20 for each subsequent visit. Fortunately, the physical therapist sympathized with my situation (and found my social awkwardness and fear of stretchy plastic bands amusing) and taught me how to do the stretches on my own. While I feel that a fundamental right is being deprived of me, I can't even imagine what it's like for others with worse conditions than my own and those who have no insurance.

As I sat on my couch wallowing in pain and self-pity, it dawned on me: we need to move beyond this us/them, Democrat/Republican partisan dichotomy in regards to health insurance reform because when the zombie apocalyspe comes, we'll need healthy, mobilized (and accomodations for the differently-abled, of course) citizens to stand and fight against the undead menace. How many million Americans don't get regular checkups a year? Or how many million Americans use the emergency room as their primary source for healthcare? Hospitals are a big no-no come zombie apocalypse, as many will be unaware that bites sustained by the infected transfer the virus to your blood, then kill and reanimate you into a mindless nomming machine. For those of us with easily treatable conditions that aren't covered by our insurance companies, how are we to prevent ourselves from desiring braaaaaains if we aren't able to, say, run or hold and utilize zombie skull-crushing weapons? Is it really fair that socioeconomic status determines whether or not you live or die-and-rise-again? We need to come together despite ideological differences in order to secure a better and safer future for America--we need to mobilize, people! MOBILIZE!

That Wacky Old Kook Is Belle's Father

And his sanity's only so-so.

Shit List

-Keanu Reeves

Hate the Game, Not the Player

Although I began Deborah Siegel's Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild much earlier in the summer, I just began to get really into it yesterday (when prose is more academic jargony than funny, it takes me a while to get into it). The particular passage I'm interested in and blogging about kind of requires a backstory if you're not familiar with second-wave going ons:

[Backstory, abridged-- The 1968 Miss America pageant was protested by feminists who felt that the power of held male-defined standards of beauty were detrimental to women's liberation. They threw bras, girdles, fashion magazines, Playboys, high heels and makeup into "freedom trashcans" in protest of these unfair standards. Hench the image of bra-burning feminist emerged, although the cans were never actually set ablaze because of fire codes. Select feminists crowned a sheep in all its metaphoric glory, and from there feminists were divided as to whether the sheep crowning was helpful or harmful to women.]

In the harmful to women camp, Carol Hanisch argued that "such woman-hating tactics were not feminst, political, or a promotion of sisterhood:"

Crowning a live sheep Miss America sort of said that beautiful women aresheep, she wrote, with disdain. She further argued that by failing to make it clear that women are forced by men and a system of male supremacy to play the Miss America role--andnot by beautiful women themselves--the protest came off as an attack against beautiful women in general and the contestants in particular.



While my feelings on beauty pageants are mixed at best, their relevance in terms in feminism really aren't that relevant. Yes, they are essentially the epitome of pseudo-political feminine vapidity for the male gaze. But isn't feminism all about giving women the power of choice? Though it pains me on a personal level to watch their implicitness in patrirachy and socialized patterns of behavior, it's a discredit to women to say they aren't acting with their own agency.

I suppose my feelings are contradictory on the matter--while I would love nothing more than to see the end of pseudo-political vapidity, it is not my decision to make, and should be up to individual women themselves. What is inherently feminist (and nonfeminist, for that matter) to me is going to be different with other women (and men!), and I suppose I shouldn't judge them based on their pageantry decisions.

...but I still kind of do.