Six-Winged Confessions

Appropriation.

2011-11-28T20:28:00.001-05:00

I've seen a lot of talk about cultural appropriation lately. From the ubiquitous sugar skull costumes around Halloween, to posts about wedding traditions including a discussion of mehndi, chuppas, and jumping the broom, to a discussion about smudging with sage on a shelter blog. There seem to be two views on all of these things: a) that we're all members of the "human race" or "human culture," and thus all traditions are to be shared, and b) that we should be careful--especially, that people with certain types of privilege should be careful--to not use the traditions of other cultures in ways that might be insulting, hurtful, of just plain incorrect to their cultures of origin.

I'm pretty solidly in group b, which was solidified not ten minutes ago, when a blog I frequent used the term for the most sacred rite in the religion I was raised in, to signify something that, while I know she meant no offense, was comparatively trivial. And it kind of stung.

Now, due the fact that the rite was baptism, as practiced by Baptists (Southern ones, even!) I'm trying not to get all bent out of shape. Christians in general have done our share of appropriation--look almost every tradition surround Christmas, for a timely example. Not to mention that the Christian experience in the States is so widespread that you can't help but absorb some of it, or even a lot of it, and the dominant culture really has nothing to whine about. But the most important act in a young Baptist's life, one preceded by prayer, meditation, and pastoral guidance, one performed publicly in front of one's entire faith community, laden with tradition and one on which the very state of one's soul may rest? is not the same as falling out of a canoe on a chilly day.

So, I have my little taste of what it's like to be on the other end of things. And I would like to apologize to anyone I've stolen culture from, in ignorance or in a misplaced sense of "sharing." And I'll try to do better.

A quick note: one of the blog posts that got me thinking--the wedding one, on Offbeat Bride--had a sort of solution to the urge to borrow culture in it. The writer and her husband, inspired by the meaning behind the glass-breaking in a Jewish wedding, invented their own tradition to honor the meaning without appropriating the act. In their case, this was adding a small charm to each of their outfits, as a remembrance of hard times during their joyful time. And in the smudging discussion, several commenters recommended Western traditions with similar intent, instead of borrowing an act the OP was obviously unfamiliar with--for example, cleaning the house thoroughly and lighting new candles, or rearranging furniture to make a space seem new and cleared of bad memories. Perhaps USians need to remember that we do, in fact, have our own traditions, and we need to find ways to honor those and rediscover our own meaning in them.

You know what bugs me?

2011-06-02T17:25:00.003-05:00

Gendered nursery design.

Really? I mean, really? This child that just slid out of your birth canal OBVIOUSLY won't like pink and will like orange and brown because it happens to (apparently) have a Y chromosome?

This bugs me. Maybe more than it should given ALL THE OTHER THINGS that should be bugging me, but still. I read a lot of shelter blogs.

Will nobody rid me of these troublesome sinuses?

2011-03-14T19:45:00.004-05:00

Puffs Plus: check.

"snot-rag bag"*: check.

Simply Saline nasal wash: check.

peppermint aromatherapy shower tablet**: check.

beat the roommate to a steamy shower: check.

Ayr saline gel***: check.

Aquaphor****: check.

apple juice: check.

Panera Bread broccoli cheddar soup: check.

Yogi Throat Comfort: check.

Cable tv, internet, and ps3: check, check, check.

The cold from hell is good to go.

No, seriously, GO. Jeez. I blew my nose so many times between 12:00 and 6:00 I had a Very Dramatic nosebleed just as I was about to clock out. If I could get the stupid manager to change the filters on the vents it would really, really help.

*This is what my dad calls the plastic grocery bag employed to segregate tissues from the communal trash. Also portable!

**It doesn't clear my sinuses, but it does make me very aware of them.

***To moisturize the inside of the nose.

****To moisturize the outside of the nose.

My colds are, obviously, a bit of a process.

Highschool English

2011-02-17T22:05:00.003-05:00

Books I remember reading in highschool and liking:

Their Eyes Were Watching God (my first AP English teacher was in love with this one)

Wuthering Heights (But the ending sucked. I recently got an oddly romantic email about it from an old highschool friend. Go figure.)

parts of Canterbury Tales (I'm descended from Chaucer's sister-in-law Katherine Swynford)

The Killer Angels (actually this was eighth grade, I'm cheating)

The Great Gatsby (the high point of ninth grade english)

Books I read in highschool and hated:

Heart of Darkness (BLECH. It was a good teaching tool, being dense and short, but BLECH)

The Yellow Wallpaper (short story, not a book, but still, I detested it)

Lord of the Flies (Really now. Blech.)

Crime and Punishment (boring, nasty, long, and the epilogue doesn't make a lick of sense in context)

I'm not sure if I had to read Huckleberry Finn until college, actually? But I'm oddly indifferent to it.

I really thought I could remember more. Apparently, most of what we read was forgettable dreck? At least I was never made to read Ayn Rand.

Of all the things to be annoyed by

2011-02-13T22:16:00.002-05:00

It suddenly ticks me off that in Discovery Channel shows about sex and sexual attraction, hetero sex is always man-on-top.

Seriously?

Sooooo...

2011-01-11T22:34:00.003-05:00

I decided upon graduating to take a year off of school.

That year is up.

Now what?

Man, a BA in Literature gets you nothing.

Anybody have any ideas on how to become an editor?

Anybody have any advice on getting really awesome recommendation letters for gradschool?

Anybody know if you can put a key back on a keyboard when even the little squishy doohickey underneath is gone? My quotation mark key popped off...more than a year ago and I'm sick of it. I managed to write a thesis without it, too.

In Which a Hobby Reinforces Harmful Gender Policing

2011-01-09T13:34:00.004-05:00

I love it when blogs I would categorize as "fun" cover topics I call "serious." So imagine my delight upon finding The Studioist, and this post:

Thoughts on Man Caves, Mom Caves, and Gendered Space

As the Guiness scientists would say, BRILLIANT!

The comments continue the goodness, with such snippets as:

"When I commented that “I think this personal space arms race is often a sign of culturally-reinforced familial dysfunction”, what I meant is that there are strong cultural narratives about how families should work that undermine families."

"...the “caveman” image insults everyone–it suggests that in the home or family sphere, men are incompetent, monosyllabic oafs, leaving women to be the Responsible Caretaker 24/7."

"I also found it strange that they call it a mom cave. As if women in general can’t have a place to themselves, unless they are a mom."

"Ready"

2011-01-08T14:02:00.004-05:00

When I find blog posts that are a bit too not-current to comment on, I try and remember to write here. And as I am in the middle of a snow day, I have time and energy!

http://nyc-urban-gypsy.blogspot.com/2010/10/scarleteen-blog-carnival-talking-to-my.html?zx=696a7e2d1d0e9492

Hoo boy, would I have liked a mom like that. I pretty much literally got all my useful sex ed from Scarleteen. My schools hadn't quite regressed to abstinence-only when I went through, but they were getting there and the classroom environment was never one to encourage honest questions and answers. I went to a conservative Baptist church in which "February" meant "no sex month" to my (genuinely beloved) youth pastor. My mom never even attempted "the talk" with me. If I planned to ever be a parent, I would want to be a parent who could talk to her children like that. Maybe I'll get a niece or two I can mentor a little instead.

So, that brings me around to the quibble I have with this post--or rather, the comments: Anonymous at 10:44 says that:

I think your approach to your daughter's situation is a positive one. I do, however, disagree with the therapist who told you that your daughter is the only one who knows when she's ready to have sex. In my opinion, the very first criteria for being, "ready," to have sex is whether you're ready for the possibility of pregnancy. I know, for a fact, my 17 year old daughter is NOT ready for that. Could she handle it, if she had to? Sure. Maybe. Probably. Is she ready? No way in hell. Emotionally, yes, she has the final say in whether her relationship has reached the point where intercourse feels appropriate. But emotions aren't the end-all-be-all of being, "ready," for sex. Been there. Done that.

This statement is...limiting. I'm a college graduate in my mid-twenties, living on my own, on the marriage track with my wonderful long-term boyfriend. Am I "ready for the possibility of pregnancy"? NO, NO I AM NOT. I don't want to be a parent. I don't want to have a baby. I don't want to get pregnant. I don't want to have an abortion. I don't think I'll ever be ready for a pregnancy--pregnancy would be, for me, an utterly lose-lose situation. If it happened, I would FLIP THE FUCK OUT.

Does this mean I am forever barred from having sex?

This also puts a lot of weight on the female end of a male-female relationship, AND ignores same-sex relationships. Would this anony be comfortable with her daughter having sex with another girl? Or is the "pregnancy" litmus test a way for her to avoid the issue of her baby girl wanting to have sex?

Quibble

2011-01-02T00:11:00.003-05:00

A number of blogs I read are written by women who are pregnant. Most of these are my cotton-candy blogs, that talk about clothes and jewelry and interior design and have pictures of cats. So I guess I shouldn't have particularly high expectations about this kind of thing, even when said bloggers are open about considering themselves kind of liberal, and mostly it's just a mistaken misuse of the word--

But I hate it when they refer to a fetus's "gender."

I mean, the kid is still a cashew-shaped blob with a tail, floating about in your amniotic fluid, and you're already talking about how it will conform to societal pressures and expectations about its appearance and behavior.

You mean your baby's sex, people. SEX.

Word to the Eyeball-Wise

2010-09-03T19:55:00.003-05:00

Contact lenses are a prescription device.

It is federal law that you cannot be given contact lenses without a valid prescription. Contact lens prescriptions, according to federal law, only last one year.

No, you cannot "OD on a contact." We know that. But it is still a prescription device that comes into direct contact with your eye.

SERIOUS SHIT can happen when you wear your contacts incorrectly. If we give you contacts when your Rx is expired and you come back with a scratched cornea and an ulcer that cause you to lose your eye (YES THIS IS POSSIBLE, dumbass) that would be all our fault because we broke the law, and people would lose their licenses and it would be very, very bad for all of us.

So no, we can't "just" give you contacts, any more than we can "just" give you, say, a pacemaker.

PRESCRIPTION DEVICE, people.

When I was your age (a blog review)

2010-07-15T18:26:00.004-05:00

This girl reminds me just a tad of...well, me.

I've never decided if telling someone that is a compliment or not. I suppose it just is what it is. I mean, she's so very earnest and ambitious and thoughtful, but at the same time some things she says are irritatingly maudlin. It's a teenage thing. And a girl-who-thinks-too-much thing, most likely.

This post is especially apropos.

"i've been thinking about thinking and i've been thinking that i think a lot."

Ain't that the truth. And I feel like I'm intruding on her privacy sometimes when I read her blog, like I snuck into her room and picked the lock on her diary. Or maybe like I'm overhearing a conversation, or the way you feel sometimes when you notice something someone is doing when they don't know you're looking, like staring at someone else or picking their teeth or trying to hide an emotional reaction, and they suddenly realize that you're looking at them, and then you both feel embarrassed. It's like she's writing a journal more than a blog with some posts, and then in some posts she's updating her Etsy or talking about photography. It's a mixed internet bag. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's really annoying. I think she has a lot of growing to do, but she seems like she could grow in really good ways.

"i've been thinking about what it means to be both a christian and a feminist."

Oh look, a can o' worms. Though as one commenter says, "doesn't being a christian automatically mean being a feminist? how could it not?" From where I stand, that sounds about right. Christianity can be about the last being first and the first being last, and about living justly and loving mercy, and about maybe one day the whole world being united in love. Another commenter quotes Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

And then there is what the church seems to have become, an excuse for the powerful to remain in power and for women to submit to their husbands and shut up in worship and dress modestly and be valued mainly for their reproductive systems. And as a mode to shame those who are not "moral"--not immorally power- and money-hungry politicians and business men who make people miserable through irresponsible decisions and a desperate clinging to their own special snowflakeness, but mostly people who have sex. No, mostly women who have sex. (More on that in another post).

So yeah, can o' worms. But a good can to open anyway, I think. I wish I had gotten around to that can by the time I was her age. Not that I'm so much older, just the end of adolescence is a jam-packed few years with a whole lot of changing and growing and decision making squeezed into a short time, and a time when our minds and bodies seem most prone to doing weird things and knocking us off track.

When I was eighteen, I remember crying a lot by myself because I'M JUST EIGHTEEN DAMMIT, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO? Anyway.

"i don't know how to tell them that i don't care about who they want me to be, but that i do care about them."

I would like to second yet another of her commenters in wanting a paraphrase of this on a poster.

So yes, this concludes the first ever Six-Winged Confessions blog review! It's like a grade school book review, only more like thinking about what you've read instead of proving to your teachers that you like to read, really. No really, this book was great. Like, I really liked it?

Mmm, what you say?

2010-04-14T20:43:00.002-05:00

In honor of Tiger Beatdown, and Ladypalooza, and Silvana, I present you: entirely bitchin' music by ladies!

(as my taste in music is almost entirely vocally/lyrically driven, these are all female-sung, rather than focusing on female-played instruments)

My friends and I were all about Flyleaf when they first appeared on our radar. A girl! Who screams!

Also, in finding these videos, I find that I tend to buy vastly more music by men--female artists I like, like Tori Amos, I tend to not bother buying whole albums. I look her up on YouTube instead. This needs to be remedied!

a reminder to The World:

2010-04-10T23:20:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, emotion is a rational response.

If you insult me, my anger is not irrational. It is very rational, it is very real, and it is not a reason for you to cease listening to me.

Rationality and emotion are not mutually exclusive, people.

I wonder if this hatred of "emotion" and love of "ration" is related to the equally false mind/body dichotomy? Emotions are felt bodily, therefore they must be separate from and less than the good and rational mind. Men are rational, mind-oriented, women are irrational and body-oriented. Emotion is also bad because it is womanly--so women are bad because they are "emotional," and emotions are bad because they are "womanly," and it all goes in a big nasty circle until I want to grab the next man I talk to who says I'm being irrational and shake him till his big manly brain rattles around in his big manly skull.

And this is an ENTIRELY RATIONAL RESPONSE, people.

Rant brought to you by Tiger Beatdown and all the Freddies of the world.

[ETA five seconds later to add: "mansplaining" is my Word of the Year. Seriously, whoever made it up deserves a medal or something. In the shape of like, a dictionary with a dick.]

Porn For Women

2010-03-15T19:09:00.001-05:00

brought to you by xkcd

My dumb dude friends, as magically portrayed by A Softer World

2010-02-25T00:02:00.003-05:00

A Softer World reads my mind, I swear.

New title!

2010-02-08T00:35:00.003-05:00

I threw the "I Confess" header (a leftover from a personal project a few years ago) as a placeholder until I thought of something better--but I might as well keep it. Hence, the blog title change, to fit the header, instead of vice versa.

Sorry about the double post, just felt like explaining.

plus, I like the idea of "confessions" more than "reflections," somehow. Maybe it sounds less navel-gazey? Maybe I need to go to bed. Whatever.

unintentional poetry, brought to you by Facebook chat.

2010-02-08T00:19:00.003-05:00

how the hell do i remember what song

was playing when i left a city

Music! because I can.

2010-02-06T19:55:00.002-05:00

The first one is an old favorite, the next two are new--found through a former coworker's Facebook. The last one talks about Lasik and mentions other optical things--though in optometry at least (I don't know what those crazy ophthalmologists do) we say "minus" and "plus," not "negative" and "positive." If your glasses Rx is -2.25-0.50x120, you say "minus two point twenty-five, minus point five, at one-twenty." And "negative five is pretty much blind" is utter nonsense--assuming your vision is correctable, you're not even legally blind at -5.00. I'm -7.50 in my right eye--I see less than 20/400 without lenses (the large E projected in the exam room? looks like jumbled semitransparent blocks, basically), but I correct to 20/20 and am therefore definitely not "pretty much blind."

Nitpick, nitpick, nitpick. It's a great song anyway.

Ugh, weather.

2010-02-04T21:51:00.001-05:00

sleet hisses pale grey

on ice-cracked mountain sidewalks.

steam rises from tea.

Horndog On A Stick

2010-02-03T22:47:00.003-05:00

After three days on a different, low-dose birth control (Microgestin Fe 120, as opposed to the dreaded OrthoTriCyclen), is it too soon to know if it's the reason I am suddenly incredibly horny all the time?

Or is it the fact that Wulfy came down with an _insert number of hours here_ stomach bug, and knowing I can't even kiss him is somehow bringing my (largely absent, lately) sex drive to the forefront of my consciousness?

Amusing anecdote: night before last I dreamed that I fucked Wulfy in a Cracker Barrel restaurant, which was actually a riverboat. I told him this as he staggered back to bed after being sick again, and it made him laugh weakly while holding his stomach.

Also, the new pill doesn't make me throw up! Score.

Watching the news

2010-01-29T18:51:00.003-05:00

Special on the news my aunt is watching this minute:

Reporter goes to a women's gym to horrify the 20- and 30-somethings exercising by telling them that, oh noes! by the age of thirty they only have 12% of their eggs left!

I can't quite pin down exactly what's so facepalmy about this.

Is it the assumption that all women want to have children? That was definitely there. The concern that the human race might come to an end because educated able-bodied white women aren't popping out babies? There was the whole "oh no, women are having careers instead of having babies" thing.

Meh. Just a moment of annoyance while I happened to be online.

Bunny Chaser

2010-01-27T19:17:00.002-05:00

Suckitude

2010-01-27T18:46:00.004-05:00

Reasons last week sucked:

-Dumb argument with guy friends (see below)

-Sleep deprivation

-Tina Turner the Honda Accord has been making disturbing rattling, thumping noises.

-Annoying patients

-Coworkers disrespecting My Brother The Doctor

-Coworkers blaming me for "freaking out" over said disrespect

-Possible week before my period? Not sure, as I still haven't figured out exactly how I respond to the Pill.

-Dog my family has had since I was ten is steadily getting sicker.

Reasons This Week Has Sucked:

-Parents had the dog put down Monday morning; they and my brother stayed with her. I had to stay here for work.

-Coworkers continuing to argue.

-Coworker who regularly cheats on her husband with her ex-husband (who cheated on her) flips out because her husband may or may not be corresponding with someone who may or may not be another woman, and has been looking at cute girls on Myspace. Facepalmage ensues.

-Annoying patients

-Sleep deprivation

-Today, Tina's front tire almost falls off when I drive my mechanic coworker around to figure out what's wrong with her. It turns out that when my parents had a very trusted family business at home to replace my tires last month, they didn't tighten the lug nuts down enough. It's amazing my tire didn't come off when I was going 70 on the interstate to get back here after xmas. Coworker helps me get her down to a local tire place to replace the lug nuts, which are totally stripped, and they end up having to replace the entire wheel, which is bent and broken all to hell. Repairs cost close to $200.

-I remain vaguely irritated at my aunt, all the time, because she's nosy and nitpicky and thinks she's my mother, and she still hasn't cleared her stuff out of the apartment I was supposed to move into in August. And she refuses to work on it until I clean my room--that is, the tiny guestroom she's tried to squeeze me in for months, with no desk and tiny twin beds. And not enough storage because her stuff is still in all the dressers.

-I need to go to a dermatologist because I think the rosacea I've probably inherited from my parents is beginning to show symptoms, because my cheeks are really red and blotchy and flaky, and it's But I'm not actually full-time so I don't have insurance right now. Which is freaking me out in general, really.

This is shaping up to be the Fortnight of Suck.

On a lighter note, boobies!

2010-01-24T20:42:00.003-05:00

After reading Dw3t-Hthr's post about this post, I thought I'd weigh in with my own thoughts:

Having been on the pill for a few months now, I am proud to report that my breasts have grown from 32-no-one-makes-cups-this-small-dammit, to 32-a! The past few years I've mostly worn training bras from Target, which come in a few cute colors and patterns, but are lacking in the won't-show colors of black and "nude," and have oddly-placed underwire. Now, I have one black bra and one "nude" bra that came from the adult lingerie section. I have arrived.

I still don't like my bra selection, though. Bras this small usually have a metric buttload of push-up padding, because most bra manufacturers seem to think that a-cups are something to be ashamed of. I stopped wearing padding after meeting Wulfy, who helped show me that my breasts are fine as they are, thank you very much. Victoria's Secret even has a bra they claim "fit's like custom," which means that d-cups have no padding and a-cups have more padding than I have breasts. And their underwire stabs me like woah.

I also don't like going braless, which larger-breasted women keep marveling at--even though they're small, it's uncomfortable to jog or go down stairs without a little support because they bounce (that, and my boss is the Abominable Snowman who keeps the office incredibly cold and a ridiculous lot of people are offended at the site of a nipple bump through clothes). This, even though my mom had to naaaag me to start wearing a bra when I was thirteen.

I'm more-or-less happy with the way my boobs are now (I was not particularly happy when they grew, as now I only have two bras I can comfortably wear), I just hate whatever idiot designs most bras.

Now, a couple sources for small-sized lingerie. I haven't ordered from these yet, but at least most of the models do actually have small enough breasts that I can get an idea of the fit on petite ladies like me:

Lula Lu petite lingerie has lots of cute lacy styles, and lots of basics.

The Little Bra Company has bras designed by a petite woman just as frustrated as I am about bra design.

How do you start?

2010-01-20T21:10:00.005-05:00

I just got into an argument with a few white male friends who insisted that American white men are discriminated against, other forms of discrimination have nearly faded out of existence, and "racism doesn't exist up North."

*facepalm*

At least one of them is genuinely a cool and understanding person. I think he's just burnt out on the atmosphere at this liberal arts college, where no matter what the class, the point is often that White Men Are Evil. If I had the emotional wherewithal to calmly discuss a few pertinent examples with him, I might be able to get somewhere. But I am an emotional person and I'm dissatisfied with my living situation and my body hates me and I'm underpaid and my dog is dying, and I just. Cannot. Do it.

So, Irrational Female I remain.

The other guy? Is a know-it-all engineering major. The numbers of disciplines in which he thinks he is an expert and is Most Emphatically not are ridiculously numerous, and no matter what the argument he seems to end it with "whatever, we're not going to agree anyway," with an undertone of "I'm right and you're wrong, no matter what you say." To which tonight, I had so say, "You're right, we're not going to," and refrain from saying "because you're never going to listen to a word I say." He's the one who said "racism doesn't exist Up North." By Up North he meant, mostly, Boston. Any minority Bostonians want to disagree? I'm sure you're out there somewhere. Not that he'll listen.

And my beloved Wulfy had to take me home and comfort me, after being astonished at the ire I showed in this argument. And, because I am a white female and this is what I know, the conversation turned toward "women's issues." Why am I a minority anyway? My "minority" comprises 51% of the population, I say. My "minority" also makes less on average than your "majority," for the same work, of the same quality, over the same time. A female coworker of mine was flat-out told by our manager that she doesn't make as much money as a man who works with us, despite doing the same work and having more experience, because "it's a man's world, honey." And here's how I really flabbergasted him:

"Can you tell me when the last time you were really scared you were going to be raped? Because I can."

My car wouldn't start and I was near my workplace, and after catching a ride over I got a male coworker who used to work as a mechanic to take me back to my car and get it to start. And I was scared shitless to get into his car, but I need my car and I knew he could fix it and I was afraid to piss him off if I told him I didn't want to ride with him after he'd gotten our manager to give him permission to leave work, and I knew for sure he could fix my car, for free, and in a far shorter time that waiting an hour in freezing weather for a AAA person who was a totally unknown quantity. And I had to weigh that against the fact that he's over six feet tall to my 5'3", and weighs nearly twice as much as I do, and I know he can lift me a foot off the ground at arm's length.

And my boyfriend had no clue that I was scared that night, that I would have reason to be scared. Because he has never faced that kind of fear.

And now I am so far away from that original argument that I don't know what to think. I'm just a mess of these stupid emotions and I've cried too many times today.

2010-01-07T20:21:00.001-05:00

My dad just called to tell me that the family dog--the goofy chocolate lab puppy we got when I was ten--probably has lymphoma and they might have to put her down within the next few days.

Poor sweet dog-baby.

I am tired of my body betraying me. And vice versa.

2009-12-22T20:22:00.003-05:00

I started on birth control recently, as the last few years my cycle has gotten less regular than, well, ever before (not counting the first few that I know I didn't keep good track of) and the accompanying cramps got worse. And well, it's nice to know that, should Wulfy and I decide to start having sex, I'm covered on the pregnancy front.

But this damn pill. Is killing me.

Even my worst cramps, the four-Advil-takes-the-edge-off, mommy-I-think-I'm-dying, ohgodowowowowow cramps, have only ever lasted one or two days. Until now.

owowowowowowowowow. For more than a week! And as I haven't even finished my first pack yet, I need to keep on this stuff long enough to find out if it will work long run, once my body gets used to it. I actually left work early today, even though I've been snowed in since Friday and missed even more days of work.

AND, my boobs are so swollen and tender, I can't wear my favorite bras--the cups are too little. I know I have said in the past that I would like to fill out an A cup, but I am so not sure about that right now.

I am so tired of feeling like my body and me are two separate entities fighting each other.

Why hello there, come here often?

2009-12-21T21:06:00.002-05:00

...No, actually.

I just graduated college--only not really, because I'm going to eventually go to grad school so I'm not graduated in the sense of "omg I'm DONE, WOOOO," and because the ceremony got snowed out. 10+ inches of snow in this part of this state is, while not by any means unheard of, still brings everything to a grinding halt. Except people wanting eye exams, apparently, as my-brother-the-doctor still performed a fair number of exams in the midst of a raging snowstorm. Without my help! Amazing.

The snow wasn't really that raging, it just. kept. coming. is all.

So now, being out of school for the time being, I have no clue what to do with myself. Hypothetically, actually write something funnish--blog more maybe, and start work on a cheesy romance novel. All my loose ends feel very untied right now.

Am thinking, this minute, of blogging every day; if not here, over at the other blog. Obsessed as I've been with interior design lately, it makes sense. Blog as daydream, as I'm not in a position to decorate anything--living with an aunt who has an apartment in the basement that's supposed to be mine, but actually in her guest bedroom (on a twin bed, which I vowed never to do again) because said apartment is filled with the detritus of many years of living in the same house. It is, after all, in the basement.

I feel guilty for feeling so dissatisfied with this situation. I have a job, a place to live, plenty to eat, a great boyfriend, a city I love, etc etc etc. But nothing feels right, right now.

blinkblink

2009-06-02T08:30:00.002-05:00

I am...appalled and disgusted. You know what about.

And I'm a bit tense about going to work today because I work with a number of right-wingish people and I don't. Want. To hear it. Thank god I don't have to go to my home church any time soon, too. Or maybe not, maybe I should be raising some hell among the fuckers there I know will be cheering the murderer.

Argh.

Hoo Boy

2009-05-26T20:26:00.003-05:00

Started a new job in a (kind of new) city recently.

Boss is, of course, kind of a dick.

Too exhausted at night to blog.

But hey, at least I get paid...*falls over*

2009-04-24T20:21:00.003-05:00

The godawful cold is moving along. The incredibly sore throat is mostly gone, the unbelievably stuffy nose is beginning to clear, and the dreaded cough has set in. Every time I get sick I get this damn cough. It's uncomfortable, disruptive, and makes Wulfy think that I'm about to die. Oh god, I hate this cough.

At the same time, it is satisfying to get rid of that tickle in my chest. It's like scratching a bug bite.

I also definitely have a job for the summer, and a tiny basement apartment in which to live, so I don't have to go home. Yay! I like home, I just like here better.

And uh...that's it.

My adventure for the evening:

2009-04-21T20:30:00.002-05:00

cold=blowing nose

blowing nose=nosebleed

nosebleed+empty stomach=scary panic attack

scary panic attack=911 call

911 call=EMT visit

EMTs figure out that it was a panic attack, but tell me to have bloodword done at the infirmary tomorrow. Am now eating brocolli cheddar soup and being glad the bleeding has stopped.

Names, Nicknames, and Identity

2009-03-18T23:10:00.004-05:00

Due to discussion about names, nicknames, and the importance we ascribe to them here, I got to thinking about mine, especially my first real online handle.

Somewhere on that thread, someone named Rebecca gets told maybe it would be cool if she went by "Reb." This was, in fact, my first handle, short for both my middle name and "rebel" (not the Southern kind, but stemming from an odd occurence in my youth group*). I loved that name, really, even though I haven't thought about it in years. It felt very "me" at the time--maybe still does in some ways--and I wanted badly for my friends to call me by it, but that would be (like Buck) violating the First Law of Nicknames. Plus, self-ascribed nicknames rarely stick.

"Seraph" was thought up for me partly by a friend of mine in highschool (The Mastermind), when I was making my first-ever online journal. I tend to overthink screennames because I want them to convey my identity more fully than a lot of people tend to bother with, and I had trouble thinking up that one because I felt that my social identity was in flux at the time. Mastermind suggested some combination of "shadow" to express that gray area, and "seraph" because I'm religious and it sounded cool. Eventually the shadow part got dropped but Seraph stuck somehow.

In a lot of ways I think of myself more as Reb or Seraph than my real name. But there's no way calling myself by those names in social situations would fly. This comes from very early personal experience, when I tried to get everyone I knew to call me by the name of a candy that I liked, and which sounded vaguely like my name in some contexts. I think only two people ever called me by that name, and one of them arrived at it on his own instead of having me try to tell him.

Maybe names aren't something we're meant to pick for ourselves, somehow?

*One time, my youth group in the course of a Bible study was asked to think up a bunch of people they would call "rebels" to write up on the white board. My name ended up there alongside Che Guevara and Saddam Hussein, probably due to my perpetual tendency to play devil's advocate in discussion rather than immediately swallowing the usual doctrine. Maybe they should have called me "Buck"? The actual point of the exercise was to demonstrate that while most people that youth-groupers will call rebels are "bad," there is a good way to be rebellious, especially since Jesus was portrayed in that study as "The Ultimate Rebel."

Anxiety

2009-02-18T19:57:00.002-05:00

I am stressed right now.

It's not because of school, per se, because my classes are going along more or less fine. I'm just stressing myself out over grad school.

My parents want me to go into law, which would make money, but I don't know if I want to. I would ideally like to teach English at a community college or higher, but there aren't a whole lot of jobs or money there. Or, lately I've been thinking I'd like to get my masters in library science and be a librarian, at least for a while. A few schools in the state offer a joint JD/MLS, so maybe that would be good?

So either I've been working on school, thinking about what to do after I graduate (likely this December) or distracting myself with fluffy bunnies and Shadow of the Colossus so I don't freak out too badly.

And this is why all my blogging, even my shiny new design blog, has fallen by the wayside. *sigh*.

A sad blog goodbye...

2009-02-15T15:21:00.002-05:00

We all found a while ago that Kim at Bastante Already shut down her blog for what seems to be the last time.

I loved that blog. Kim is a cool chick, and I hope we'll see her around these internets somewhere, sometime.

Filler post, woooo

2009-01-27T19:07:00.004-05:00

I am taking a salsa dance class this semester.

If you don't think this counts as exercise, think again. The way you have to move for that Latin rhythm is just...unnatural.

Ow my back. Ow my thighs.

Picture to the right is Wulfy's sister and brother-in-law, not doing the salsa. They're dancing a rumba, actually, but it's the same family of dance. Imagine how strong she must be to hold that position.

Is this thing on?

2009-01-11T20:26:00.003-05:00

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it?

I started a goofy new blog about design, my latest relaxing time-waster:

Ange de Design

Sometimes it's hard to write about things I want to write about here; so many other people have a better handle on current events etc, and my personal life is...well, it's personal. I'm at a point where sharing my life is kind of difficult, for whatever reason. But "hey, I really like this chair!" is not so personal, so there you have it.

More stuff will go here, I swear, when Winter Break is over and I have classes to write about.

"Hey look," said the blogger, "I can post mixtapes!"

2008-11-29T02:14:00.002-05:00

Edit: Or not. Bye, Mixwit, you will be missed.

Oh gee, Thanksgiving.

2008-11-27T16:51:00.003-05:00

My extended family is a confusing morass of great-aunts, removed cousins, adoption, marriage, remarriage, re-remarriage, and random unrelated folk tacked onto the edges. The English language needs more specific terms for cousin relationships and chosen-family relationships. There were at least twenty people, maybe twenty one, swarming the house today--we had people eating in the dining room, the den, the living room (which should be called the parlor) and the foyer. I hadn't ever met one of them before today--my grandmother's cousin's daughter's boyfriend's son. It sounds like the route traveled by urban legends.

I don't even really feast fully on Thanksgiving--turkey isn't really good until at least the next day. But my extended family are generally Moravians (instead of Baptists--we're in the Baptist church because of my dad) so there was no long drawn out blessing and giving of thanks, just the short and simple Moravian blessing, said in unison:

Come Lord Jesus, our guest to be,
And bless these gifts bestowed by thee.

Bless our loved ones everywhere
And keep them in thy loving care.

The second verse is even optional. Sometimes when there are enough people who know it, grace is sung:

Be present at our table, Lord,
Be here and everywhere adored.
From thine all-bounteous hand our food
May we receive with gratitude.

It's sung to one of the melodies of the Doxology; not the Old 100th, the other one. In searching on YouTube I've found it sung to the Talis Canon as well.

Obviously, I'm rambling. But I like the communal aspect of the Moravian blessing; which is a lot like the Moravian church in general, the motto of which is:

In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, love.

I'll have more to say later; this blog is getting dusty with disuse.

In which the blogger exclaims, "Holy crapsticks! I haven't updated since JULY?"

2008-11-10T17:16:00.004-05:00

Well, it's been a tough semester. I had to withdraw from my art class to deal with everything--I was doing really well in that class and I liked it, but it was too much of a time suck to work on art projects with a due date and write FIVE BAJILLION papers too.

Not that the FIVE BAJILLION papers were unexpected, mind you, I'm a senior Literature major taking 12 hours of nothing but Lit classes. And all my professors like to assign research papers within two days of each other.

BUT, I'm taking a Shakespeare class in which our big project is a group performance of a scene from a play, and my group is doing the witches from Macbeth. We're totally pwning the other groups too.

What else deserves mention...

Oh yeah, that whole election thing. Can I just say

WOOOOOO HELL YEAH!

Followed by Prop 8 passed? What a bummer.

And conclude with the anti-Obama people I am Facebook-friends with are racist, sexist, rude, illogical, and unreasonable. I may mention more on that later.

In fact, I probably have a lot more to mention later, but I need to go get some supper and write a paper on the differences in the treatment of women in Genesis and the Gospel of Mark.

School

2008-08-20T07:24:00.003-05:00

School has started up again for the year.

I went ahead and ordered my class ring--I will graduate in 09, dammit!

I'm looking at a difficult semester (no easy electives for me, in addition to four upper-level major classes, I have an introductory art class that's notoriously difficult and time-sucking) in which I need to do really well (have to have a grade boost to get into grad school), so wish me luck and don't be offended if I'm not around the blogs much.

The Ballad of Jimmy

2008-08-15T21:30:00.003-05:00

My freshman year, I took a Creative Writing class. At one point, we all, as a class, selected six words (some of which ended up being phrases) without knowing what we were going to use them for. It turned out our homework for that evening was to write a sestina with the words: (phrases):

Jesus H. Christ
shafted
Chuck Norris
wobble
mustard
Catholic Boy's School

Mine ended up being about a boy named Jimmy who got in trouble at St. John's Catholic Boy's School, because a priest who looked like Chuck Norris caught him saying "Jesus H. Christ." Oddly enough, another girl in the class wrote about the exact same thing. It wouldn't seem so odd, because there are probably a limited number of coherent stories that can be made up with a group of words like that, if she hadn't picked the name Jimmy for her protagonist.

And if we hadn't come to class on multiple occasions wearing the same outfit, and had not picked the same poem to read to the class when we started the Poetry unit and had to bring in a favorite poem (the poem was "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes)

snortgiggle

2008-08-08T21:02:00.001-05:00

Oh god.

Look at this.

Look at it NOW.

Oh fer...

2008-08-06T13:32:00.004-05:00

By the way, for whom it may concern... by Belle, including this link: Kali Ma.

Y'know, I'm pretty damn monotheistic, but even I have to admit that there are Forces out there that you shouldn't be screwing around with, and Kali is definitely one of them.

Goddess =/= Happy Fluffy Loving Mother Who's Automatically On Our Side.

Oh, and btw, in the link to info about Kali that Belle provides? "She is especially known in her Destroyer aspect, squatting over her dead consort, Shiva, devouring his entrails while her yoni sexually devours his lingam, penis." How much do I love that image? He doesn't penetrate her, oh no, she devours his penis with her vagina. How great is that.

Geez.

2008-08-06T11:53:00.005-05:00

I found this through Ren...

And here's my response:

(artwork compliments of The Muffin)

I generally stay out of the Feminist Blog War because it makes my brain hurt. The cartoon in question is a case in point...as are this and this, by the same blogger.

In a post defending the latter comic, the author, Mary Tracy, says:

"I wish I could be a more positive person and use my abilities to help advance the feminist cause by bringing the spotlight to the people who are causing the real damage. I am aware of this, and, for what is worth, you have my word that I will try my best to change this aspect of myself."

Well gee, good job on that changing thing, I guess...

You know, I've seen some pretty nasty shit come from the "sex-pos" side and the "radfem" side...but it seems like more of it comes from the "radfem" side, from where I stand. And it seems to me like a lot of the time, the "radfem" side sticks its fingers in its ears and goes "lalalalaIcan'thearyoustupidwhore" when someone points out that they've said something insensitive, or hurtful, or sexist, or racist, or just downright wrong. And I won't say that the "sex-pos" folks don't do that too...just way less often.

And you know, even though I'm not really involved in all of it...I'm sick of it. Really. Cut it out. Whether or not you have hairy legs or wear makeup, or you hate porn or don't really mind it, or you have a boyfriend or not, doesn't mean you are or are not a feminist...in fact, IT'S NOT THE POINT OF FEMINISM AT ALL.

Women making choices, being in charge of their own lives, not having to be forced to stay at home or cover their faces lest they be stoned, not having to be scared to walk at night lest they be raped, not being trapped in abusive relationships because they can't support themselves, being able to get a good education or have a good job or sleep with someone or not sleep with someone if they want to, is the point.

And you know, if some of those choices include deciding to not watch porn or deciding to be a sex worker, so be it. But those choices are not the be-all-end-all of feminism.

Like my jerry-rigged cartoon says, there are more important things.

Geez.

Updates.

2008-07-27T11:36:00.001-05:00

I'm very slowly updating my blogroll and other linkstuffs, so anyone reading should take a look over at the sidebar and see if you find anything interesting (or yourself, for that matter).

In which the blogger once again resorts to YouTube.

2008-07-23T20:25:00.002-05:00

Okay, so it's not resorting the way the Mighty Mouse thing was--as in, I feel these things are at least somewhat pertinent. Mostly because I've been thinking a lot about religion and faith, coupled with thoughts from my current US history class about changing perspectives on such (how many Jesuses are there?), and spending time with a friend I hadn't seen in a while in a coffee shop we used to have a Bible study in.

So, well, here:

Iron and Wine with "Sodom, South Georgia":

Sufjan Stevens (I am a hip little shit, aren't I?) with "To Be Alone With You":

And Jars of Clay with "Something Beautiful":

"Something Beautiful" is my me-and-Jesus theme song. Or "Jealous Kind," by the same band, depending.

And a quick-and-dirty poem-thing by yours truly:

The love of you--

Gentle savior, how you wound me.
Did you know your blood
would poison the ground?
Beautiful lover, did you see the wars?

Tell me again how you wept.
Tell me again how the drops of blood made dusty splashes in the garden.
Tell me again how you died.

Teach me again to sing you, I've forgotten the words.

buuuuuh

2008-07-22T21:16:00.003-05:00

I've found lately that looking at fundamentalist Christian websites, books, videos, practices, etc, makes me feel dirty.

Buuuuuh, get it off me.

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, I did the purity pledge thing, I went on mission trips. I "witnessed" to my friends (for those not familiar with weird xian jargon, to witness to somebody is to tell them about Jesus in the hopes that they'll decide to convert. Not necessarily as creepy as it sounds). But it never made me feel skeeved out, unclean, or intellectually violated like looking at the Purity Ball or Quiverfull or Mars Hill or what have you stuff does now.

The key difference is probably that my five-point Calvinist and seven-day creationist, yet uber-beloved youth pastor really, truly wanted us to think. Bring your Bibles with you to church, he said. Pray and think about what I'm telling you and what the other preachers and Sunday school teachers are telling you. If you don't agree with us, that's okay.

And sometimes (maybe a lot of the time), I disagreed with him, and that was okay. And when he decided he was wrong about something he had taught us, he told us, and apologized, and told us what he'd learned.

Looking back now, I can say I swallowed a little too much of his more conservative doctrine, but I did so of my own free will (pretty funny for the student of a Calvinist, eh?). And being taught to think about my shit made it, if not easy, at least not near-impossible to change my mind and learn and grow. And not having it shoved down my throat made it possible for me to see the love of the god I believe in, and return that love in my human and imperfect way. I can pretty accurately say that he was probably the biggest influence on what I believe, even if I don't believe in a lot of things he believes in. Here's to you, Mr. Youth Guy.

So feeling like I'm having some nasty, hateful doctrine forced upon me is actually a fairly new sensation, and it's totally grossing me out. Ew ew ew.

Delayed Creep-Out

2008-07-03T20:52:00.004-05:00

As seems to be usual, I am behind. I just found out about Purity Balls.

Oh god, the creepy. The middle-aged dads, the dressed-up teenage girls, the vows (someone please tell the author of the vows that "cover" is a word for animal sex), the ring exchange...creepy creepy creepy.

Unfortunately, the video that seems to have sparked the discussion in 2006 has disappeared into the ether waves, but I rounded up some other pertinent links:

Would you pledge your virginity to your father? (Glamour magazine)

Purity Ball (short documentary following a father and daughter)

Hey Little Girl... (thoughtful vlog about the Balls)

Serious ew (belledame on the subject of creepy controlling sexuality, Purity Balls included)

Purity and Danger (Queen Emily on the dangers of daughters reserving their sexuality for their fathers)

*shudder*

I took an abstinence pledge in February 2002, which would have made me about 15, through the True Love Waits program.

I even got the ring, see:

I still have it--it doesn't fit anymore due to me inexplicably losing a ring size. I still wear a ring in it's place though, because it would feel seriously weird to not have one (and I need balance for the rings on the other hand).

But this whole virginity thing is wearing kind of thin. Though I was interested in boys when I made that pledge, it was basically the same sort of interest I'd felt since I was about five. This whole virginity thing seemed clear cut and easy, to a young girl who found the idea of kissing with tongue distasteful (ew, slobber).

And now, I'm old enough to do anything but rent a car, basically, and in a good relationship with a boy I love and trust and desire. And if I decide to marry this kid, it will be, oh, five years? of waiting before we're both done enough with school to be able to move to the same city on a more or less permanent basis and get our shit straight so we can get married. And five years of horny youth is a long time.

And, beyond that, I'm pretty much positive that it will be difficult for me to not clutch my "purity" with such a tight fist once I'm married. One gets used to the idea that Sex Is Bad.

(Note, in the Glamour article, one girl says she worries that she might disappoint her husband by not being pleasured by his fucking. Poor kid, won't even allow herself to worry about her own pleasure except for how it might displease her owner.)

I know a number of people who would be appalled at me not upholding abstinence-until-marriage as wonderful and Godly and something everyone should do. But neither they nor my father owns me, and they don't get to say what I believe anymore.

Before this post falls apart utterly (I have a headache forming and I'm tired), I would like to say that my parents didn't push me into the True Love Waits thing at all. In fact, I recall my mom seeming a bit reluctant to buy me that ring. I found that odd but didn't think about it at the time; I now figure it's because they knew it was kind of a dumb idea.

Perhaps "homemaker" is a better word than "housewife" or "stay at home mom"...

2008-07-03T19:17:00.003-05:00

-11

As a 1930s wife, I am
Very Poor (Failure)

Take the test!

Hah. Letting my bra strap show totally did me in. How fucking nitpicky is this test? "Wears red nail polish"? "Seams on stockings often crooked"?

As a 1930s husband, I am
Superior

Take the test!

A much shorter and easier test, indeed. Were all 1930s husbands complete wifebeating louts, that I am so superior?

...actually, considering what I've heard from my family, that's entirely likely.

In trying to post more often, the author resorts to YouTube.

2008-06-30T16:09:00.000-05:00

111 Words (possibly a start to something more)

2008-06-28T23:46:00.001-05:00

A sweet pretty young thing, dark of hair, blue of eye, walks through the woods in her oldest jeans and hoodie. She pauses, lifts her camera, adjusts the lens with liquid wrists, and snaps a photograph, a beam of light slanting through the tall dark pines. Busied with her hobby, she does not shudder at the puddles of shadow at her feet, the rough and unfriendly trees, the roots terracing the path into unfamiliar steps. She only pauses and records them, walks a few steps on, pauses again. She loses herself in her gentle work, eyes wide, lips parted, breathing quietly.

She does not realize that she has lost the path.

snicker

2008-06-28T16:06:00.001-05:00

so...

2008-06-07T22:04:00.002-05:00

I am having SERIOUS issues in my personal life right now.

Concentration = nil.

And I'm totally in the wrong, too.

Which makes it worse, because there's no one to look at and say "You did this to me! You BITCH!" except me.

oh btw

2008-06-03T23:43:00.003-05:00

I should have noticed this before now, but...

buy harry potter toys

Yay! I love the way she writes.

It's a little bit Spacetalk, a little bit poetry slam, and a whole lotta raw cool.

And horses and fluffy kitties and one very big dog.

and oh, another btw: the font of the sparkly stuff is called "Space Toaster." I don't know why it's a toaster.

Fear, Taboo, and Kink

2008-06-03T20:23:00.003-05:00

Upon reading this post and the following comment discussion over at my web doppelganger's--that is, Amber's--I got into a discussion with a friend, we'll call him Alcée, about the meaning of the word "kink". The discussion blended into a discussion of what is "normal" and whether there are any constants from society to society, when we eventually decided that we'd never come to an agreement on a point and moved on.

Now, keep in mind, neither of us are experts on kink--far from it. But the closest anyone seems to get to a real definition is, as he said "something that's different from the norm, [sexually]." The question then became, but what is normal? Move from society to society, or even subgroup to subgroup within a society, and the rules change. Christian devotees of Domestic Discipline wouldn't say spanking your wife for disobeying the rules and then having sex with her is kinky--it's the Lord's will for a husband to rule his wife. My Christian mother would say heck yes, that's kinky*. Some would say using a blindfold and a feather is kinky, others would say oh gee, how vanilla.

So. Societal norms. Alcée says there are no constants from society to society; like the good once-upon-a-time student of society I am, I say there are three things that are taboo in all societies:

1. Murder within the group. (Thou shalt not kill--except the Phillistines)
2. Theft within the group. (Thou shalt not steal--except from the enemies of the Lord)
3. Incest. (Honor thy father and mother, but not like that!)

He of course took issue with this. There are times when it is societally acceptable to kill a member of one's group, he says.

I say sure, but the thing is, those who are acceptable to kill have in some way placed themselves outside of society already. Within fundamentalist Muslim communities, it's okay to kill a woman who had premarital sex because by breaking the rules she put herself outside of the community. She broke the rules, she pays the price. Within our society it's okay to sentence a man to death by lethal injection who murdered his buddy who fucked his wife because by breaking the murder taboo, he stepped over the line. He broke the rules, he pays the price.**

Incest, on the other hand, is pretty definitely forbidden but the definition varies. Is it taboo to sleep with your stepbrother? Can you marry your cousin? How about your uncle? Your mom? In our society most of these are taboo (depending on what state you live in) but in others, some would be, others not. The taboo on some act labelled incest, then, is constant. Would, then, some sort of real or play union with a verboten relative be "kinky" across the board?

Enough with the broad, societal view of kink. As Toby Keith said, I wanna talk about me!

My personal definition of kink would involve fear. The things that could be considered "kinky" that I like (in practice or in theory) fly in the face of things I fear.

I'm claustrophobic, so tie me up.
I fear pain, so whip me till I bruise.
I'm scared of heights, so suspend me from the ceiling.
I'm desperately afraid of being raped, so take me by force.

Which reminded me of a link Alcée sent me earlier today, and which I used in a vaguely scientific way to explain to him how fear is related to arousal:

Flow of potassium ions in brain cells is key to sexual arousal

The interesting thing here not being the potassium, per se, but the norepinephrine. If I remember correctly, norepinephrine is released in the brain as a response to epinephrine, commonly known as adrenalin.

The fight or flight response.

The pounding heart, the panting breath, the dilated pupils, the sweat.

The confusion of one type of physical arousal with another.

I'm also not a biologist, so don't jump on my ass for getting this connection wrong. It certainly makes sense to me.

*The word "kinky" is related in my memory to a moment when the fact that my mom is not, in fact, the Blessed Virgin was hit home. We were watching Trading Spaces, and the design of one of the rooms, a bedroom, focused around a bed that the couple had been given as a sort of bizarre wedding present; it had been handed down through several pairs of newlyweds in their family. It was a large canopy bed made of clear acrylic (like a stripper's platforms) which was bad enough, but towards the end of the show we simultaneously noticed that the acrylic canopy was lined with mirrors. We looked at each other and said, in unison, "wow, that's...kinky." Keep in mind that I had pretty much never talked about sex with my mom before so the fact that she knew the word and could recognize it when she saw it was a shock to my tender teenaged sensibilities.

**This is not to say that either capital punishment or honor killing is right by my own moral compass, only that it is generally accepted in that particular society.

2008-05-27T19:38:00.003-05:00

I am a horrible blogger.

I keep thinking of these interesting things to write about...and then I think, someone's probably already said it, and said it better than me, and it's not like I matter much anyway.

So I talk myself out of writing anything of much importance.

Hopefully later in the summer I'll be able to jump this silly ditch and start actually writing in this thing.

Oh God.

2008-05-21T19:25:00.002-05:00

I'm cleaning my room.

The horror, the horror!

(Heart of Darkness got put in the "get rid of" pile...)

Having moved back home for another summer, it dawns on me that I never really unpacked last summer. And I haven't cleaned my closet in a few years--actually, that's pretty good, for me. Previous to that I hadn't cleaned my closet since we moved to this house. When I was ten.

I am realizing more and more that hoarding is one of my most troublesome neuroses. I can't get rid of the September 2000 issue of Allure! I might need it someday! For...collage! Yeah, that's it, for collage materials! Never mind that I have twenty other issues and they're all the same!

(Fashion magazines are my vice of choice. That and swearing.)

And don't even get me started on the stuffed animals *hangs head in shame* I identify far too strongly with cute and fluffy inanimate objects. I feel guilty enough about keeping the majority of them in the closet, much less entertaining the idea of giving them away. And Wulfy doesn't help, either, as he has a similar soft spot for cute-and-fluffies, compounded with feeling really, really bad for anyone or anything that seems to feel unwanted. The thought of a needy sock monkey makes him get all teary-eyed.

And oh god, the books. I moved a bookshelf to school this year and got to leave it there until fall semester, so I'm now short one. I have a weird hand-me-down shelf (an Oakley display case, a cast-off from my dad's office) but it doesn't fit a lot of books. The shelves are clear acrylic cubes that look big because they're deep, but they're actually absurdly short compared to normal bookshelves.

I feel silly having all this......stuff.

Aw, crap

2008-04-16T14:36:00.003-05:00

I almost completely missed National Poetry Month.

Crappity crap crap crap.

I usually love hunting up a daily poem for the blog or the Myspace or whatever I'm using that year, so crap.

Anyway, here's "The Stolen Child" by Yeats, currently one of my favorite authors.

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scare could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.


And another new favorite, Gerard Manley Hopkins, with "God's Grandeur"

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

And Blogger's weirding out on me, so that's all for now.

OMGWTFBBQ

2008-03-16T19:02:00.006-05:00

I did something rather strange and certainly not exactly characteristic of my usual self yesterday.

It started when Wulfy and I rolled out of bed in the morning. He went back to his room to take a shower, I hung around mine checking email and stuff, waiting for him to come pick me up because we were supposed to eat breakfast at IHOP (we love us some IHOP. Cheese blintzes, mmmm). But he had a wedding to go to in about an hour, and an errand to run before then, so when I went out and met him he ended up circling campus and dropping me right back off because exactly why am I running this dumb errand with you instead of going back to bed when we don't have time to go to breakfast which is what we were supposed to do and I reminded you about ten times over last night and this morning and we've been wanting to go out for breakfast for about a week so how the hell did you forget?

So I stayed pretty pissed at him until about four in the afternoon, when he returned, and we waited until about five to finally go eat our IHOP because we might as well make it supper since you got back so damn late.

So I simmered and he kicked himself for about an hour, at which point I decided to try and be nice (which I actually rarely am, I am sullen and have a tendency to half-unconsciously, half-intentionally make him pay when he pisses me off, which he only usually does slightly anyway. I'm hard to live with.) and hopped up on the bed with him to tickle him and cheer him up and get him to stop looking pitiful and take me to IHOP.

I say, "Oh look at the poor pitiful Wulfy oooscha booscha wooscha wooooo *tickletickletickle* Oh come on cheer up."

He says, "But I hurt you."

I say "You're a silly bean. Do you want to take anyone else to IHOP with us?"

He says "I don't know, what do you want to do."

I say "You decide."

He says "But you're more important than me."

I say "Oh Wulfy, you know that's not--"

Wulfy, at this point, snaps because I've been a brat all day, and says very harshly some unpleasant and unpleasantly true things about the way I treat him and threatens to leave me.

I say "If that's how you feel, just leave."

He gets his big oh-shit-I-shouldn't-have-said-that-now-she's-gonna-hate-me eyes and says "I didn't mean it!" while attempting to hug on to me so I won't get up and make him leave.

I make him let go.

I sit and seethe for a while.

Then, without saying where I'm going, I put on a hoodzip and put my room keys in my pocket and leave.

It was pouring rain. I walked around campus for what I'm guessing was an hour or more, cellphone-less, considering a lot of things. I've been inexplicably unhappy lately, with myself, with school, with the job I have at home, with Wulfy, with what the hell do I really want to do with my life, with what the hell am I doing with my life now, with my suite-mates who are Loud Talkers, with my brother who is an asshole and my mom who is a little bit nuts and my dad who is not exactly the most sympathetic person in the world and the portion of my friends who never talk to me and the one girl who slandered me and with myself for not calling her on it and with my campus ministry for being politicky and obnoxious and my campus minister for having a large and thorny stick up his conservative-in-about-every-way-you-can-think-of-except-not-hating-
Harry-Potter ass and myself again for not being good enough for my almost annoyingly sweet and considerate boyfriend and sometimes wanting to break up with him for no good reason and for flirting too much with a cute coworker and just GAH WHAT THE FUCK TIME FOR A MELTDOWN.

So by this point I am fucking soaked and tired and my jeans are getting heavy because they're so wet and I'm wearing an old pair of Keds that are now squishy and my socks are wet so I've got two intense blisters on my Achilles tendons and ohmigod how long have I been gone what will Wulfy think I bet he'll hate me for making him worry I'm so mean to him god I am a horrible girlfriend and I just got mad at him over IHOP for god's sake wtf am I doing.

So I go back, and find my cell phone, which he has called three times and left a desperate choked-up message begging me to call him and tell me where I am because he's really worried and DAMN, I do not deserve to be with someone so wonderful but I'll be fucked if I let him go. So I call him and he's outside looking for me (oddly enough, he's where I was, but having checked other likely places first he's about an hour too late to find me there) so we figure out where we both are and meet halfish way (he runs, I limp in my squishy shoes so I meet him more like a quarter-way) and we have a cheesy-romance-movie crying hug in the rain, then go back to my room and cry some more and talk everything out and woooooo catharsis.

And THEN, we go to fucking IHOP.

Wow, the drama. The romance. The histrionics.

So I feel much much better now, though I'm thinking about forcefully dragging myself to therapy since as long as I'm a student here I get like ten free counseling sessions a semester. Well, sort of free, since it comes with tuition and all. I've got a big fat family history of depression and have had an episode or two before of just feeling like shit for weeks, so I feel like I need to be doing something to at least monitor that and try and check it before I end up being, well, my mom, who is only just getting some help now that she's going crazier now that she's older.

So yeah. The whole meltdown thing is in general not me but this time it worked out, even though I feel just the tiniest bit stupid about making this big scene. I was never really nuts as a teenager so perhaps I'm still getting the adolescent crazies out of my system. But for now, the air has been cleared and I'm feeling pretty groovy.

Hey Wulfy! I love youuuuuuuuu!

[Edit] After reading over the first bit, I seem to have made the Wulf look worse than he was with the snappage. This is something he does occasionally, usually as a weird injoke thing, but also occasionally because I really do drive him nuts sometimes. The criticisms were real, the threat to leave was not. It was also stingingly accurate, namely that I do often treat him as if I am more important than he is, but I was upset about it because I already had too much going on in my head. We have also lately not really talked about all this shit enough, and even the Wulf has his breaking point.

My point? He really isn't an asshole, even if the outburst seemed harsh.

Happy Birthday Kim

2008-03-01T02:56:00.003-05:00

i be wearin no pantz, wif mah skinny legs.

Wulfy takes issue with the skinny legs part, but it's true.

[Edit] I also never clean my glasses. And I get that spit-grin from my daddy. Yep, that's a smile.

Bahaha

2008-02-26T18:00:00.002-05:00

Out of Wulfy's mouth just now:

"You're sweeter than a vagina filled with whipped cream."

Isn't he awesome?

I honestly don't know how to title this.

2008-02-07T11:08:00.001-05:00

One of my professors (oddly enough, Doctor is in the Science Department but this is a liberal arts course at a liberal arts school so they get all sorts of professors to teach it) had an interesting story in class yesterday.

You see, Dr's a chemist and a biophysicist (and maybe an MD, I either don't know or can't remember) and like a lot of sciencey people, Dr. has worked with various aspects of the medical industry, researching, developing, etc. And at one point Dr. worked for A Big Pharmaceutical Company developing a new treatment for breast cancer (I'm not sure if it's okay to tell the name of the eeeevil evil company so for now, it's BPC. But it wouldn't be too hard to figure out which one. It's a BIG one, after all).

Dr. worked on this treatment system for I believe about five years, funded of course the whole time by BPC. It took at least a year for Dr. to simply study the body system he was working with so it could be figured out how to deal with it--it's complicated stuff. But complicated or not, at the end of five years, Dr. had a product that everyone felt confident in--wow, they said, this has potential. This could save lives! This could really work!

And Dr. took it to the team's bosses in the Big Pharmaceutical Company for the final presentation, which was attended by a gray-haired man Dr. had never seen before, and therefore was obviously important. And Dr. gave the presentation.

And the gray-haired man said "Dr, this is some great work. We're really impressed with this product, you are amazing. But you see, women with breast cancer have this habit of dying before selling a nice new product like this to them becomes cost-effective. So we're going to shelve this wonderful product, we might pull it back out later but we just don't think it would be good for the company to produce right now. But I'm looking forward to reading your final dissertation, thanks."

And Dr. walked out of that room and that was the last time Dr. worked for the Big Pharmaceutical Company. And BPC is getting the product patented but not putting it into production; and Dr. is positive that if the product had been for, say, prostate cancer instead of breast cancer, the company would have rushed it into production, because it's run by gray-haired men, after all.

"Hello desk. It's nice to see you again."
"Oh, hello forehead! It's been so long since we've met."

Misc.

2008-01-26T14:37:00.000-05:00

Thanks for your concerns, belledame and DBB. Sometimes it's good to know someone's out there in these great big internets.

My grandparents gave us the money to pay for my tuition etc. I got most of the classes I wanted; those that I had to switch out are proving to be a blessing in disguise, as the books were at least a hundred dollars cheaper, even though I was lazy and bought most of them at the campus bookstore.

Plus the fact that one of the interchangeable classes I wanted wasn't open, but the other possibility? Is taught by one of the better professors I think I've had (knock on wood). He has the best voice I think humanly possible for reading William Blake.

Wulfy and I were trying to get a group together today for a daytrip specifically to procure mustard-based barbecue (which is a novelty to me), but the plans fell through so we're just hanging around little Hippieton today.

So, there's a brief update on my general life...the only other thing going on is my passive dislike of a girl who used to be one of my better friends here; I don't actively hate her right now, I just don't want to be around her...ever. Beowulf has written up the breaking point in that relationship, I just don't want to bother.

I hope (how many times have I said this?) to post a post with some real substance soon. I at least do have some stories to tell.

Deja Vu

2008-01-11T21:52:00.000-05:00

About a year ago, my family experienced a giant meltdown of both my mother and our finances (my mom being the one who takes care of the finances) which nearly prevented me from returning to school for the fall semester.

Guess what happened again this year?

The big problem is, last year there was some sort of glitch at the school that allowed me to keep my classes; this year, no such luck.

All my classes are gone. I have to compete with other late-registering students in the next few days to get classes I don't really want. I'll probably speak with the professors of my original classes to see if they'll add me in (again).

How the fuck did this happen again? I understand my mother, she's not the most stable person in the world at this point in her life, but after last year I thought my dad was keeping better tabs on the situation.

At least they kept my room for me.

A Brief Observation.

2008-01-08T00:06:00.001-05:00

Taking off a bra is one of the most lovely feelings in the world.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-03T14:45:00.000-05:00

*sniff sniff, cough hack cough sneeze...sigh*

Ringing in the new year with a nasty little head cold. I coughed really hard a few days ago and threw my back slightly out of whack and have spent the past few days sitting against a heating pad--I am way too young for this stuff.

Anyway, it's 2008 now. 2007 sort of slipped by me unnoticed; I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. On one hand, the year hasn't been marked with as much theatrics as, say, 2005; or 2006 for that matter. Wrapping myself up in a nice cuddly relationship probably had a lot to do with that, and that's where the problem comes in. I didn't do much in 2007. My Spring Semester grades weren't so great; I worked in the same summer job for the second year in a row, and came home dead tired every evening from being happyhappy nicenicenice to ungrateful patients all day; I hid in Wulfy's room most of Fall Semester, avoiding simultaneously schoolwork, my roommate, and the Drama of life with my friends. So a conundrum: during a markedly unproductive year, I managed to be rather happy. Or maybe, not-unhappy.

I have big plans for the Spring Semester that, knowing me, probably won't materialize as the year progresses. This is why I don't make resolutions. Case in point: I resolved to study intensively both for Comps and for my more difficult classes over our long Winter Break. I ended up sleeping off the stresses of the semester (despite the time running fairly smoothly, I was however a wreck about a third of time) and reading part of Dune. I worked a few days, and visited relatives...and that was it. I guess you could say I'm enjoying being a lazy college student.

Anyway, the Plans:
1. Get a job in Hippieville. I know, I'm terrible for freeloading this long, especially after my family's financial problems this time last year. So this is supposed to be non-negotiable, though tough because though I'm only taking 14 hours this semester, they're tough classes that will require lots of work outside class.

2. Get in shape! I'm skinny but not particularly in-shape; I want to start going to TaeKwonDo with Wulfy. This will also ensure that he actually goes, too, as he's been whining about being slack.

3. Work more on photography. I'm a Very Amateur photographer, and I want to get Slightly Less Amateur, but that's not going to happen unless I actually, you know, take a damn picture every now and then.

4. Write more outside of class. I have Story Ideas. I may even have a Novel Idea. But Ideas don't matter unless I make myself do something with them.

I would put "Read more books outside of class work" but one of my difficult classes is going to require me to read about 15ish novels during the course of the semester.

So, there's 2007 and the first bit of 2008. I have planned, possibly, a more substantive post, but that will have to wait.

Happy New Year, y'all.

$$$ and cuteness

2007-12-21T16:49:00.000-05:00

My GPA is higher than 3.5 this semester, yippee. It fell last semester after Wulfy and I started dating, as did his; my parents were confused because they didn't have that problem when they were dating in college, and I'm having trouble reminding them that we are not them. I'm still a little bit scared about my workload next semester. I'm taking one class that's a survey course of novels. We'll be reading about 15 novels during the semester, and that is of course on top of the other stuff I'll have to read, which will probably be, at least in part, novels as well. Oh gad.

My most expensive book is about $120...and I need twenty-four more books, most of which are between $10 and $20. Oh fer fucks sake.

The campus bookstore reeeally cheats us out of our money. I buy a book used...which is maybe 10 dollars cheaper on an expensive book. then I sell it back and they give me less than half of my money back...and sell it to someone else at the exact same price I bought it. It sucks. But I haven't really found a cheaper source. I guess I need to look harder.

I want to start saving up money for when I'm out on my own but it keeps getting sucked out of my pocket by frivolous little things like, oh, required textbooks and that silly stuff everybody has...oh yeah, food.

I'm sorry, I'm whining, there are a lot of people who would give an eyeball to science to have my privilege. But that doesn't mean it doesn't kinda suck sometimes.

On a more (truly) frivolous note, behold my new picture. It's a damn good facsimile of me, courtesy of this candybar doll maker. I love these things, even though they only come in skinny and pale-white. But I am skinny and pearlescent, so it's all good for me. And for the muffin, who already looks like a cartoon, and therefore doll-izes easily.

I'm also a nerd who makes candybar dolls of Kingdom Hearts characters:

Roxas:

And Namine:

They're cute.

And that's enough dorking out for one day.

What a jerk...

2007-12-12T23:58:00.000-05:00

I may be behind in my web surfing (in fact, I know I am) but

Somebody needs to kick this guy's butt.

He's just so proud of being a total ass.

late/early. learly? eate?

2007-12-11T02:28:00.000-05:00

I've gone and gotten myself a single room for next semester, in what could generally be regarded as the nicest dorm on campus. Whoopee. My grandmother gave us the money for a nice little flatscreen for my room (spoiled brat, I know), and I have one of those twisty medusa lamps and a metric buttload of photos and dilly dallies for my walls, so I aim to be nicely ensconced next semester. I just turned in my last final (yes, just now; it was a take-home and she emailed it to us, so I just emailed the damn thing back with my answers, good riddance). I had to read half the stuff we read this term to finish it (remind me to actually read Cat On a Hot Tin Roof sometime, my skim didn't do it justice) but paused to draw a little illustration for one story that I'm rather proud of. I think I may do a few more for that story when I feel up to it.

Wulfy is asleep on his bed behind me. I've avoided my room this semester because I no longer room with the adored Muffin (she wangled a single before I did) and my roommate for the semester was just too damn perky. All the time. I mean, I have perky friends, but damn. I felt bad for keeping away but there's only so much happyhappyjoyjoy I can stand, thanks. Next semester's going to kick ass--mine specifically, I'm not taking many hours but the classes I'm taking are the sort that will wear black leather and tell me to say "thank you" after every whack. Ouchies. The thought of the papers is already making my poor tender head ache.

Anyway, it's late/really fucking early, so I'm either going to eat some Easy Mac (surprisingly good stuff) or go to sleep, maybe both sequentially. The dinner Wulfy's parents bought us has kind of worn off--why wasn't I hungry when I ate it? Argh. I'm rambling, bye.

2007-12-04T00:49:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to write the paper that's due tomorrow--oh wait, it's tomorrow already.

But it's on Charles Frazier, whom I adore, and it's only five pages, and tomorrow is Reading Day so I'm really going to write the dang thing tomorrow. Lucky for me he's only written two books so far and I've devoured them already. Mmm yummy yummy books.

You know what just struck me as funny? I write more about sex as a Lit major than anything else, it seems.

Beowulf didn't get any sleep last night writing his five page paper about Medieval Islamic society so he's asleep now...sort of. He keeps waking up and either

a) mumbling long rants in Tongues, I swear, or

b) telling me to go get some water from the creek we just passed on our hiking day trip (!) and whining that I and our driver (!) are laughing at him. And that we're doing it to be mean to him to get him to tell us where he came from and it's not working so there.

c) just grunting indistinctly and twitching, like a dog dreaming about chasing rabbits.

The hiking thing probably stems from leftover anxiety about his Hiking Camping and Orienteering class, which went on a camping trip last weekend. He didn't really want to go. I bet he'll detail the trip on his blogthingy, along with his instructor's crazy Peruvian camping stories.

dreaming of your Etcetera

2007-11-28T10:54:00.000-05:00

I really shouldn't be writing here...I have two long papers due Friday, a performance piece to arrange and memorize (for my Renaissance and Enlightenment Literature class, oddly enough) another paper due midweek next week, two reading journals to write (because I'm a terrible student who hasn't already done this), finals to study for (FINALS stands for Fuck I Never Actually Learned this Shit, according to one group on Facebook), friends to visit, a Beowulf who often needs a good firm nudge to do his homework, and, importantly, a room to move out of. I'm switching to another dorm--admittedly an older and possibly grody dorm, but one in which I will have a room to myself. As I've hated living on campus this semester, this is a good thing; and next semester I have a shot at a single room in the nicest dorm on campus (score!) even though there's no guarantee. And if I get that room, I can keep it for next year and might not have to find an apartment in order to have some dang privacy.

Next semester is going to be hellishly busy (even though I'm only taking thirteen hours of classes) but has potential to be really fun. The Feminist Collective is, of course, putting on the Vagina Monologues, which I'm thinking about auditioning for (I figure hey, I should do it while I'm a fledgling college feminist and I have the chance, right? Even if it's become something of a cliche) and the Theatre department is doing the Tempest, and Vanilla wants me to audition for that--again, when the hell other than now am I going to get the chance to be in a good performance of a play? I could do community theatre later on but I don't know what I'm going to be doing in my life later on. I'm Carpe-ing the Diem, heh. I'm also going to try to work on my photography and creative writing, which have suffered like woah this semester because when I haven't been working on school shit, I've been sleeping and/or desponding too much for anything else. Though this might still be on the back burner depending on the job I get--up till now I've only been working in the summer at home, but I'm getting all anxious about saving up for grad school (IF I manage to make it into a grad school; the sleeping/desponding has been shaving bits off my grades, which have already suffered since the advent of the relationship with the Beowulf. I'm a terrible student. This CHANGES next semester, dammit, and I'm going to learn how to take decent notes {a skill I never learned in highschool because the classes were mostly too damn easy--thanks a lot, No Child Left Behind.}). Wow, that was a doozy of a parenthetical remark.

Anyway, I've got class in an hour and a halfish, and I haven't eaten breakfast, and I need to work on my ten page paper. I'll write the eight-pager tomorrow; that'll be the hard one because I don't give a shit about my topic. For the ten-pager, I'm writing on the effect of war on poetry; both the general paradigm shifts post-war that allow change in convention. Would T. S. Eliot written The [Godawful] Wasteland without WWI? Doubtful. But I may focus on the effect on individual poets who were involved in various wars in US History. I'll be using Whitman's "The Wound-Dresser" and E. E. Cummings's "my sweet old etcetera" for that--two of my favies! Yayz! And I found a collection of interesting Vietnam War poems and some political poetry about Iraq, to round it all off. I wish I had a month to write this thing. Maybe I'll revisit it for my senior thesis?

I had a really great idea for my senior thesis while laying in bed awake at three in the morning, but I didn't write it down so the only thing I remember about it now is that it was Fucking Awesome and would have Changed the Face of Literary Analysis As We Know It. I'm only brilliant late at night when I don't have a notepad on hand *facepalm*

Next semester I'm taking senior comps; I'm getting them out of the way early, that way if I do absolutely terribly (as I likely will) I'll have at least two more semesters to try.

I have a plot for a book rattling about in my head; one that could be a romance novel, in fact, although hopefully a good one...involving hippies. There are a lot of Nouveau Hippies around the area--sometimes it feels like to many, especially when they are of the opinion that deodorant is Unnatural and therefore Evil; and hey, their odour doesn't bother them! Some of these are actually in my ballroom dance class so it occasionally feels like I'm dancing with a Giant Armpit. I'm sure they're wonderful intelligent etcetera people but I don't know because I'm not fond of their apocrine sweat glands.

I will eventually have something to say about something important; my own life has swallowed me whole.

Emily Dickinson

2007-10-19T23:31:00.000-05:00

...I wrote a paper on her religious views, as expressed through her poetry. I'm not terribly in the mood to post anything, so here. It's fairly mediocre literary analysis--though not bad considering I pulled it out of my nether regions the day it was due (I'm a terrible student, I know).

[Title]*

Emily Dickinson has been the subject of much discussion, ever since her work began to be published, about not only her work but also her mysterious personal life. We seem intent on discovering what she thought, whom she loved, and why she did what she did—especially, why she spent so much of her life in seclusion. Her religious beliefs also remain alluringly ambiguous; while some poems suggest an adherence to the Calvinist Christianity of her time and place, many others are wildly unorthodox. Having failed to have the dramatic conversion experience expected of her, her poetry at times expresses anger or confusion toward God; at other times she seems to adore her Higher Power and his Creation.

What is not lacking from Dickinson’s poetry is a belief in God in general. What is most intriguing is her view on who God is. Sometimes, her God is benevolent, even a teacher or pastor to her. In Poem 236, she writes, “God preaches, a noted Clergyman—/ and the sermon is never long” (Dickinson, 1204) In this poem, she speaks of keeping the Sabbath at home, outdoors; she revels in the beauty of nature and the lessons her God teaches her through it. Here, God is both a benevolent Creator and a wise and eloquent teacher. In Poem 39, she speaks of crying out to God upon losing loved ones, calling God “Burglar,” Banker,” and “Father” in the same breath. “Father” is one of the most common descriptors of God in Judeo-Christian tradition, a very richly shaded metaphor that implies he is a loving progenitor, protector, provider, teacher, guide, and disciplinarian. A father is both someone to love, and someone to fear. In Dickinson’s case, her Father God is someone to turn to in time of need, a provider and caretaker. God has already sent “Angels” to “reimburse [her] store” twice before; she cries out for him to aid her again, and seems sure that her compassionate Father God will once more supply (1201).

All this is a fairly typical, orthodox, non-threatening view of God. Her use of the word “Banker” is more troubling. While she also uses this word to mean that God will help her in her time of need, “reimbursing” her loss, a banker and a father are distinctly different creatures. While a good father has the interests of his children in mind, and gives freely, a banker has his best interests in mind. A banker would expect Dickinson to pay back her loan someday. And what is it she is begging for, anyway? Mere comfort? Love? Companionship? We can’t be quite sure, but whatever it is, is likely to not be easily repaid, as her Banker God would be aware of—and maybe not care.

Her use of the word “Burglar” is startling, but perhaps not surprising. The Bible itself describes God as “like a thief in the night” (New International Version, 1 Thes 5:2). The author of 1 Thessalonians (namely the apostle Paul) would have known the Old Testament well, and referred to it; in the book of Job, Job speaks of the same event referred to by Paul, namely the “day of the Lord,” Judgment Day, and says “when daylight is gone, the murderer rises up and kills the poor and needy’ in the night he steals forth like a thief ” (Job 24:14). In the same way, Dickinson is saying that God, while at the same time still the Banker and the Father, also the one who took her loved ones from her. She is hurt and angry with her God, and yet has no choice but the rely on him for help. There are probably many Christians who feel this way; God “taking” someone is, after all, a common euphemism for death; but most would not dare talk about it, much less with Dickinson’s intensity.

Dickinson seems even bitterer about death in Poem 1668. In this poem she relates death as a random, natural occurrence, as the Frost “beheads” a “happy Flower.” But she takes no comfort in the naturalness of death—even though the death of the Flower is “accidental,” she yet describes the Frost as a “blonde Assassin.” She resents that life moves on, that “the Sun proceeds unmoved,” and that another day passes with no consideration for death, even of something—or someone—she loved. Most of all, she seems bitter at God for watching the proceedings and not only not stopping death, but being “Approving” of the whole process. Unlike Poem 39, she does not cry out to God. He is not a Father or a Banker, or even a Burglar; he is no longer personal at all (Dickinson 1221).

So, Dickinson’s belief in and relationship to God was undeniably complex. In fact, her poems argue that God himself is complex; her God is not comprehensible, he is mysterious. She says in Poem 365, “I know that He exists.” The poem at the end of this line emphasizes it, standing out against her usual unusual punctuation. This poem she starts with a concrete statement: He exists, period. No more discussion about God’s existence, she’s already figured that out. However, she goes on:

I know that He exists.
Somewhere – In silence –
He has hid his rare life
From our gross eyes.

Yes, God exists, but only “somewhere.” She gives no concrete location—no typical “in heaven” or “all around” or “within me.” He also exists “in silence.” No glorious throngs of angels singing His praise for all eternity; no giant James Earl Jones voice booming commandments from the sky; no still small voice of guidance. Just silence. In some ways, Dickinson’s God at this point would seem to be the “watchmaker God” of Deism. But somehow He remains more of a concrete being than an obscure, distant Creator God. It’s not that he doesn’t care about us, he has merely “hid his rare life,” the glory that “our gross eyes” cannot bear to see (1211).

Dickinson also makes no mention of Jesus in her poetry, only God. For her, God does appear to truly reside “somewhere,” rather than having come to Earth, died, and taken up residence inside the hearts of believers. Perhaps her experience at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary affected her view of Jesus and salvation; being constantly one of the few girls who experienced no religious awakening, no dramatic salvation experience, perhaps it is logical that she would leave behind the idea of a Savior—no great Redeemer had come for her soul. Why should she put any stock in a belief that in no way applied to her?

Her views on death and the afterlife could well have been informed by this belief—or lack of belief—in a Savior. Death is often more of a concrete being than her idea of God; in Poem 355 he is as concrete as Night, Fire, or Frost (1209). More notably, in Poem 479 Death “kindly stopped” for Dickinson in his carriage, and they take a cold and melancholy, but not unpleasant, ride to her grave and eternity (1214). This is another odd feature of her beliefs about the afterlife. In her poems about death, especially those in which she speaks as one of the dead, she is very concretely in her body. In poem 124, she describes the dead as meekly sleeping in their tombs, waiting on the Resurrection. They are not in heaven, traipsing about on clouds, or singing eternal praises to God. They lie in their caskets as if asleep—a sight she would have been accustomed to when attending funerals and preparing bodies for burial (1202). In Poem 448, she describes herself as dead, laying peacefully in her Tomb; her soul, or whatever she would call what her selfness is composed of, is not in Heaven or in Hell, or wandering as a ghost; it is very decidedly decaying along with her body, as is the soul of the gentleman beside her; and they talk quietly until they are decomposed under the soil and forgotten above (1214). Even more frightening visions of death are painted in Poems 340 and 591. In Poem 340, she describes the heavy, rhythmic footsteps of her Mourners. She herself is “wrecked” and “solitary;” and her death itself is described as “a Plank in Reason” breaking, and herself falling and knocking into different Worlds all the way down until she finally “Finished knowing” (1207). In Poem 591 she dies in “Stillness…like the Stillness in the Air – Between the Heaves of Storm,” and describes her death itself as the windows failing, “and then I could not see to see –” (1215)

Her seeming lack of belief in a positive afterlife in these poems, frightening as it is, is in some ways mitigated by her beliefs in Poem 236, where she keeps the Sabbath “staying at Home.” In the last lines, after describing God’s sermon, she states, “instead of getting to Heaven, at last – I’m going, all along.” Her love of Nature and of her benevolent God allows her to see the life she is given on Earth as a kind of heaven, against the Calvinistic belief that humanity and the pleasures of life in this world are utterly depraved and evil (1203-1204).

In fact, she disagrees with religion itself on principle in many of her poems. In fact, that same Poem 236, while being cute, is also rebellious—after all, she’s not going to church on a Sunday. She even describes herself as angelic; opposed to clergy who “keep the Sabbath in Surplice,” she says, “I just wear my Wings.” Her own mind, and the Nature around her—a singing Bobolink and a beautiful Orchard—beautiful but everyday wonders—sustain her in a way church religion never could.

Even more, in Poem 373, she denounces not just religious ceremony, but religion and faith themselves. While she begins with a fairly orthodox “This World is not conclusion,” she does not go on to talk about how God or Heaven or Angels are beyond this World, but a strange “Species.” This mysterious form of being is beautifully described as “Invisible, as Music – But positive, as Sound –” She says that Philosophy doesn’t know this otherworldly Being, Sagacity can only know it through a Riddle, and scholars are puzzled by it. This is all well and good, but furthermore, Faith can’t show it either. This is the direct opposite of average religious thinking, which says that the mind can’t understand God, but Faith can help us understand. Instead, Dickinson says “Faith slips – and laughs” and not only is Faith a bit silly this way, it “Plucks at a twig of Evidence – And asks a Vane, the way –” Faith, at least as understood by the religious, is a false guide—going on but the tiniest amount of real evidence and asking the way from a weathervane, which points one direction one minute but changes with the changeful wind. But that’s not all. Not only is Faith false, says Dickinson, but the “Gesture, from the Pulpit” and the “Strong Hallelujahs” that “roll.” She describes religion as “Narcotics;” and not only are they mere pain-relieving drugs, they “cannot still the Tooth that nibbles at the soul –” In other words, no amount of faith, preaching, or congregational approbation can still the longing in her soul to truly know this mysterious, divine presence (1212).

In essence, we can never be sure exactly what Emily Dickinson believed (and really, it’s difficult enough to know what we ourselves believe), but we can gather clues from her work. Dickinson sees God as a Creator, a Preacher, and a Father; but also, in times of pain, her hurt and anger cause her to see him as a cold, far-off observer who doesn’t care, or as a thief who has taken away her happiness. At the same time, she loves the Nature he created, and is suspicious of church religion, believing her supreme being is greater than anything religion can offer. And though she is saddened, deeply, by death, and afraid of it, she does not always believe it is evil; and she believes that whatever makes her, her, will persist.

While we cannot call Dickinson an orthodox Calvinist Christian as she was expected to be, there is no doubt that she felt a relationship to God and to his Creation that many Christians should envy.

Works Cited

Dickinson, Emily. "Poems." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.

Quest Study Bible. New International Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1994.

*yes, I turned it in without a title. The next day, I turned in another paper with the same mistake. *facepalm*

Blaaaaarg

2007-10-13T01:44:00.000-05:00

I am taking three Literature courses, a Humanities course, and Ballroom Dance. I had a paper and a midterm on Wednesday, a longer and more involved paper due today (that I finished at 3:00 in the morning because I had too much other oddly necessary stuff to do at times I otherwise would have worked on it), an even more involved paper due Monday, and just before we had our wimpy two-day Fall Break, I had three other midterms and a paper, plus I'm behind on the reading journals I'm supposed to be keeping in two of my Literature classes and I haven't started on my final paper and performance piece! for Renaissance and Enlightenment Literature. Anyone wonder why I hadn't updated this blog in a while?

I have a new roommate, just for this semester; she's Korean. She's very sweet and easy to get along with, but I don't make friends easily and I miss the Muffin. She also doesn't like having boys in the room so Wulfy usually isn't allowed over unless she's not there. And I don't exactly hate Wulfy's roommate; I just find him obnoxious, petty, and...odourous. Between the stress of classes, dealing with Wulfy's roommate, living in a room that doesn't feel like a home, having zero privacy, being in a different building that isolates me from most of my friends...I'm a wreck. So I haven't been writing.

And now Wulfy has his own blog and I let him start reading this one...and we got into a mild fightish thing over one entry.

So yeah, I'm not having the best time right and the whole blog thing has been put on the back burner for a while.

101 Words

2007-07-21T17:12:00.000-05:00

I have been online as much as ever, I just haven't bothered writing--it takes too much energy and I've been working more than ever, while having occasional migraines. I'd never had migraines before this year, and it's beginning to worry me. I also had a (small) nosebleed while visiting Wulfy last weekend. I think it freaked him out as much as it did me.

Oh, and I got my driver's license on Wednesday. It took me long enough, didn't it?

And because anything else I would like to talk about is too private and/or close to be able to, have a 101 word story I wrote for my last creative writing class. It was good exercise in not wasting words--though one very verbose fellow student could not cut hers down, and so it ended up being 201 words. It was a very good 201 word story...but it was plain that too much odd detail was being included that could have been cut out without hurting the actual story. Anyway...mine is actually cut down and altered from a roleplay character history I wrote for a small, irl-friends-only game that went on for about two straight years.

"Caprice, a runaway, seventeen, sat in a lonely diner, drinking a cup of bitter black coffee to help stay awake as she rode west. The man beside her tried to lure her away from her seat with the promise of a warm bed on this cold night. She shuddered as she realized his true intention.

“Go to hell,” she said.

She laid a few crumpled dollar bills on the counter to pay for her coffee, only half finished, and walked outside. The man followed.

A few miles down the road, she stopped her motorcycle to wipe his blood off her hands."

The RIGHT column, imbecile! RIGHT!

2007-06-24T23:14:00.000-05:00

My job is annoying me. I like it well enough when I'm there, it's just little things that patients do annoy me way more than they should.

Here's a tip for my ever-so large constituency of loyal readers: when you are at the eye doctor's office and you have to use the accuities machine (the thing with the bar you put your forehead against, like the thing you use to look at roadsigns at the DMV) please listen closely to the person conducting the test, and if she says "read the smallest line you can see in the right-hand column," read the smallest line you can see in the right hand column. Do NOT use the left hand column, do NOT start at the top and read down, and do NOT read from right to left. Oh, and don't come into the office and expect us to give you contacts if you haven't had an eye exam in three years. My office only gives out contacts if you've had an exam within a year--that varies, but we need to know we won't blind you by giving you something your eyes can't handle. And yes, this applies if you're wearing color contacts, even if you don't have any Rx in them. They're still a medical device that comes into direct contact with your eyes (they're called contact lenses for a reason) and your eyes have to be healthy in order to wear them. There's a lot more that can be wrong with your eyes than needing glasses.

Oh, and that one condition? It's "astigmatism," not "a stigmatism." And it's not "a stigma", or "stigmata". Yes, people call it that, and while it's funny, it makes me want to smack you in the forehead like those V8 commercials.

In other news, my brother is an ass. My parents and I are visiting him over the weekend, and his intellectual condescension is getting really obnoxious. He makes me feel incredibly stupid. I keep trying to nurse my self-worth by telling myself that, after all, my IQ is supposedly higher than his. But it doesn't stop there--he manages to find something he doesn't like about the books I read, the music I like, the clothes I wear, the way I laugh, my glasses, my skin, my hair, my build...it never ends.

However, my dad bribed me out of acting terribly annoyed at everything at large this morning (I had a pre-noon relapse into moody teenager mode--after all, being around mon frere makes me feel like the least popular kid in high school again) by saying we'd go by Beowulf's town on the way back home. So I suppose it's worth it.

I've also been having migraines in the past few months, which I've never done before. Today's ended up just being a medium-strength headache that two Advil knocked out, but it was accompanied by a light sensitivity, and yesterday's was light-sensitive and nauseated, but I headed it off by going to bed early. Sleep remains the best thing for a migrain, apparently, other than supposedly snorting hot pepper. The idea behind the pepper is that it short-circuits the brain's pain receptors by being incredibly ouchie. I suppose it's similar to biting your tongue when you stub your toe.

I'm not in my normal time zone, so I'm getting really sleepy. Maybe my next post will have more of a point.

Oh, btw, thanks DBB, I'd actually been thinking about reading some Ayn Rand sometime soon. Honestly, I haven't even gotten around to reading anything on that list; my mom derailed me by finding a few books by Madeleine L'Engle that I hadn't read.

Wuv, Twue Wuv

2007-06-10T22:48:00.000-05:00

I have not written lately because it is summer and I am lazy.

Plus we just ditched our old dialup in favor of cable with a wireless setup, so I've been catching up on my YouTube and undergroundfilm.org.

Renegade Evolution (whom I enjoy and hope to never piss off) recently had a "Blog for Sex Education" day, which I missed. But my one-sentence answer for why I would like to see better sex ed in the US, specifically my south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line area, is:

I never again want to say to a boy (or man!) over the age of twelve, "No, girls do not pee through their vaginas."

I had to explain that to Beowulf once.

Speaking of, he has already visited twice, with a two-week space between each visit. Having him here is always lovely, which is saying something because I hate having people invade my house. This includes relatives, and friends, unless I'm very very close to them. Wulfy actually just left; his actual reason to visit this weekend was a friend's wedding that my non-driving self needed a ride to. It was a pretty wedding. The bride and groom are the same ages as Beowulf and I. It's strange to have one's friends get married.

It's getting late and I have to get up early tomorrow for work.

Summer (not) In the City

2007-05-13T19:49:00.000-05:00

Summer has arrived. I am done with classes--now to work my ass off to make sure I get to go back in the fall. I do tech work and some secretary/receptionist work at a doctor's office--so I either get to deal with ornery patients, or get stuck in a back room with boxes and boxes of files. Lovely.

And I am separated from my Beowulf for most of the summer. And talking on the phone is long-distance, and we're both terribly awkward over the phone. So it's instant messaging and email for more or less an eternity. I am a silly little schoolgirl over this boy--it's only a few months, and I'm getting all highschool-dramatic over it.

I am about to see if my grades are posted for the semester. Wish me luck.

On a happier note, even though I am working, work involves no homework, so I will be able to devote my free time to other, more pleasurable things. Like my photography--I will be around Violet, who is gorgeous in a unique and very sexy self-confident way, and Josey, who is also stunning. I have beautiful friends.

I'm also declaring this the Summer of Literature; I have not read as many of the great classics as I should have, especially since I actually like reading the tough stuff. So on my list for the summer:

A Farewell to Arms
Pride and Prejudice
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Moby Dick (this one intimidates me)
Antic Hay
Bend Sinister (I need a copy of Lolita, as well)

I also want to read some Vonnegut (I've only read one short story--the one they put in highschool textbooks, Harrison...something), and a little more Shakespeare, and C.S. Lewis's space trilogy. And a large number of short stories. I also should read Mere Christianity, now that I'm thinking about Lewis; I'm also supposed to lead a Bible study next semester and I want to start preparing ahead of time. And somewhere in there, I'll throw in some spy novels and re-reads to not kill myself. And Angels and Demons, which Beowulf gave me for Xmas. We'll see if this happens--I'm a fast reader, but the TV and the Internet have a very loud call.

Does anyone out there (I know there aren't many of you reading this) have any other suggestions of books that one -must- read?

Stressssssssss

2007-04-25T15:35:00.000-05:00

Finals season is upon us. I have two large papers to write in the next week or two, one interesting, the other really, really not. The interesting one is on the connections between Calvin's ideas of predestination and election and Shakespeare's tragedies, probably with a focus on Othello. I'll post that one here in chunks, probably.

My friend Violet came to visit a few weeks ago--a wonderful excuse to explore downtown. This city is amazing, I tell you. She was going to come up again with her girlfriend Vic, but that plan seems to have fallen through.

Note on Violet: her madre needs to grow a clue. She and Vic are not together because Vic hypnotized her with evil lesbian mind tricks or whatever the mom thinks; they are together because they genuinely care for and love each other. Their relationship is a hell of a lot healthier than various hetero relationships Violet has been in. A lot of my churchy friends need to realize this as well. Not all non-straight relationships are based solely on The Evil Gay Sex, just as not all hetero relationships are founded on teh solid rock of Twue Wuv.

Oh, and my parental unit recently chewed me out--if only mildly--because Violet's mom didn't know she was visiting until she was already here. And I couldn't tell them why I was okay with that--namely Violet's mom flipping out on her, believing everything she does is wrong and evil because of Vic--because all hell would break out in our ever-more-conservative church if anyone found out about Vic.

:end rant:

So on Violet's heels came Josey the Sex Kitten, who has been my designated BFF for a number of years, and her cute Leprechaun of a boyfriend. They only stayed a night, and nothing terribly exciting happened.

Beowulf and I are doing quite peachy-keen, one week away from our three-month anniversary, and about two weeks from being separated for the summer. I'm guessing that we'll see each other for a total of two weeks until August, so it looks like I'll get a test in Long-Distance Relationships 101. Thank God for AIM.

This has been a really me-centric post. So, links to the webcomics I use to procrastinate:

http://www.somethingpositive.net/

http://www.sinfest.net/

http://robandelliot.cycomics.com/

Courtly Love

2007-04-10T17:33:00.000-05:00

I said I'd post this here. It's about a five page paper. Not the best I've written, by far, but it made a good grade.

Courtly love, or fin amor, “fine love,” a literary tradition began in the Middle Ages, has had a lasting impact on Western thought.

The poetry of courtly love sprang up in the songs of the troubadours, often characterized as poor wandering minstrels, though in reality troubadours were often celebrated members of court. They entertained their fellow court members, in large part ladies and unmarried men, with songs of gallant knights elegantly seducing the beautiful ladies who drew their desire. Though the concept of courtly love originated in song, eventually young aristocrats imitated the stories in the troubadours’ ballads, and an elaborate set of rules sprang up to govern their affairs. Though the most “official” set was written down by Andreas Capellanus for Marie of Champagne, and consists of 31 rules, subsequent scholars have boiled down the concept of courtly love into more general elements (Halsall).

According to C.S. Lewis in The Allegory of Love, the three main elements of courtly love were humility, courtesy, and adultery (Delahoyde). The affairs of courtly love were usually extra-marital, with the lady in question a married woman being pursued by a younger, unmarried knight. Hence, the relationship between the two could be considered adulterous, especially if fully consummated, though there is disagreement about the level of physicality in the affairs of courtly love. Humility is exemplified in such relationships by the abject posturing of the knight and his raising the lady onto a pedestal, honoring her every wish as more important than his own desires. Lewis’s notion of courtesy stems from the idea that the feudalism of the times was reflected in the hierarchy of courtly love; the lady was in effect the liege lord, accepting the devotion of her vassal, the knight, but required to give reward in return.

The songs of courtly love had a very significant impact on the literature of Europe during the Middle Ages, an impact which can still be felt today. They established the tropes of love in Western literature; the anguish of the lover over the coldness of the beloved, the wan sickness of one wasting away with unrequited affection. These “ailments” had been recording much earlier by Ovid, but the troubadour tradition cemented them in Western thinking. Previously, the ballads of the Middle Ages were solely concerned with the daring exploits of male warriors like Beowulf; with the invention of courtly love, the gallant deeds of derring-do were not abandoned (the lady sets difficult tasks for the knight, in order to prove his love), but the points of view of the women in the stories were included, and room was made for romantic love. Though love poetry had existed for a long time in Arabic and Hebrew (as in the Song of Solomon), this was the first instance of it in Western literature. In fact, some scholars believe that romantic love itself was invented by the troubadours. C.S. Lewis was of the notion that romantic love was a literary invention, a lie, so to speak; however, it is of interest to note that his work relating to such matters was written well before he met the woman with whom he fell in love.

In Medieval times, women were given two role models, Mary and Eve. In the tradition of courtly love, women played both parts; beautiful, saintly Mary, passionately loved but inviolately chaste; and seductive Eve, giving in to temptation and desire. While previously, as evidenced in epics such as Beowulf, women were thought of as servants or as a way to cement political alliances through marriage, courtly love supposedly elevated the lady to a point where she commanded the lives and wills of the men pursuing her (Delahoyde). The knight obeys the every whim of the lady he loves. However, the eventual submission of the beloved to the lover is always included in such stories; while women are given a place in art and a modicum of power over their love lives, their freedom is still tightly circumscribed within the rules of courtly love. In fact, the lasting impact of the ideals of courtly love on literature has encouraged a continuation of the Medieval view of womanhood; the strong, handsome lover, the yielding beloved ultimately helpless to the lover’s desires. In the end, the lady is always subjected to the wills of men; her lover demanding payment for his adoration, her husband taking his property from the lover.

Whether or not romantic love was invented per se by Medieval poets, the work of such poets profoundly affected the meanings of the word “love.” While originally, the two types of love were sharply delineated—caritas, or charity, being Godly love, and amor, a term mainly designating carnal desire—the “religion of love” inspired by the practice of courtly love blurred the distinction. Amor became the more common word; the inscription on Dante’s medallion reads “amor vincit omnia,” love conquers all, but uses the term for romantic love instead of religious charity. The linguistic replacement of amor for caritas reflects the shift in importance between religiosity and secularism. Redemption and sublimation were formerly sought through the church; now, the acts and feelings of being in love were expected to raise men to a higher plane of being. The move from a religious society to a secular one in Europe was not solely due to the traditions of courtly love, but the ideology of courtly love (which one commenter calls “a suave new kind of paganism”) began to offer alternatives to the strict regulation of the Catholic Church; a very attractive alternative that made room for sexual pleasure (Simpson).

These ideas about the nature and function of love have had very interesting affects on life in the modern West. Christian preachers across America decry the state of the modern family, in particular the high rate of failed marriages. Such preachers often attribute the weakening of the traditional marriage structure to the immorality of our society (notable, homosexuality and pornography), but it can also be explained by a belief in a modified form of courtly love. Young lovers today still experience the symptoms of passion as described by Andreas Capellanus—the feverish desire, the loss of appetite, the preoccupation with the beauty of their beloved—Sex in the City’s “cant-live-without-you love”. However, the conventions of courtly love have an expiration date; love can be lost through discovery of the affair, or by bad conduct of the lovers, or even by spending too much time together. The modern Disneyfied version of romantic love, on the other hand, believes that this state of passion can last forever, and is a suitable basis for marriage. When the fervor of the newlyweds begins to die, however, they have none of the duty and companionship of medieval marriage to fall back on. As one story of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s Court of Love explains, once a lady marries her lover, he is no longer her lover but her husband, and the system of courtly love breaks down.

The concept of the lady herself is also consequence of courtly love, and possibly one of the more odious ones. Though the precepts of courtly love supposedly raised women to a better place in society, it kept women down for longer than it elevated them. In the (probably fictitious) Court of Love held by Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor supposedly sat by the side of her husband, ruling over questions of love as the king made decisions about matters of law. While Eleanor herself was doubtless a very powerful woman, this Court of Love cemented the idea that matters of law and logic were masculine domains, while romance was for women. Echoes of this idea are heard in the voice of everyone today who tells a smart, career-driven woman that she should be finding a husband. The ideal lady in the tales of courtly love—a lady like Queen Guinevere, for instance—while originally cold toward her suitor, invariably turns into a damsel in distress, waiting to be rescued by her gallant knight. This image, so familiar as to seem innocuous, has cemented itself into the Western psyche, and with it the implication that, no matter how strong she seems, a woman still needs a man to protect and complete her, an idea that chafes any strong woman seeking to make her own way in the world. Both the image and the idea behind it are attacked in works considered feminist. For instance, Ani Difranco’s “Not a Pretty Girl” proudly proclaims “I am no damsel in distress, and I don’t need to be rescued.”

In short, the stories of courtly love and the lessons they taught had major impacts on society, both in the times of their conception and today. Though the modern world attempts to distance itself from Medieval ways of thinking, decrying them as primitive, even barbaric, the ideals of the age—including courtly love—are inextricably woven into the fabric of Western society.

Works Cited

Delahoyde, Michael. "Courtly Love." Michael Delahoyde Homeplanet. Washington State University. 08 Mar 2007 http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/medieval/love.html

Halsall, Paul. "Andreas Capellanus: The Art of Courtly Love." Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Oct 1997. Fordham University. 7 Mar 2007 http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/capellanus.html

Simpson, David L. "Chivalry and Courtly Love." DePaul University. 1998. DePaul University. 8 Mar 2007 http://condor.depaul.edu/~dsimpson/tlove/courtlylove.html

Angst

2007-03-24T17:21:00.000-05:00

All last night I dreamed about weddings. White dresses galore (and other colors--my dreams can be noncomformational), and vows of eternal devotion. Some of the many of me getting married were happy; some weren't.

According to an (admittedly small) amount of research I've done online, dreaming about a wedding can symbolize a number of different things, among them:

a) The desire to get married.
b) a transitional period in my life, specifically in my relationships.
c) a need to integrate different parts of my life.

The shiny newness of my relationship with Beowulf is beginning to wear off, sadly enough--we've been "official" for nearly two months--and problems begin to set in. Puritanical guilt over our physical involvement, his anxiety disorder and accompanying paranoia that something is wrong, and my own wanderlust conspire against us.

He and the better part of my friends here are on a hiking trip today, one I skipped out on in order to stay in bed, dreaming of weddings and worrying. Is the idea that some day we may love each other enough to hold us together?

I'll Think You Properly

2007-03-10T21:29:00.000-05:00

...the next time I see you. Thus typos Vanilla the Theatre Boy.

This is a Random Post.

C.S. Lewis wrote in the nineteen thirties that the notion of romantic love was invented by Medieval troubadors. Interesting enough, this was long before he met his great love, Joy Gersham.

Courtly love was silly.

The Song of Solomon was less silly, though I'm not sure how I would feel about having my breasts compared to baby deer. Not to mention the whole teeth-as-sheep image; I mean, I get the whole snowy-white thing, but sheep are kind of...wooly. When my teeth feel fuzzy, it means I need to brush them.

I want to have WildRampantSex (tm) with Beowulf. But he is several hours away, and tired from the even longer drive from M.O.U.S. land, and we're good Xian kids who know better. But still. A girl has needs. Silly vows of abstinence.

I still haven't really started that dang essay--it's a five-pager--so I'm going to be up for a while. With no caffeine. God help me.

I think I will add a blogroll to this thing. Hm.

Beowulf is online and telling me how much he wants to fuck me, so...

Lazy Lima Bean

2007-03-10T17:59:00.000-05:00

I've been on Spring Break for the past week. My plans for a Crazy Girls beach trip fell through (none of the crazy girls' schedules match enough) so I've been sitting around at home, eating a ton of peanut butter and watching TV, two things I don't get to do often while off away at school. And, of course, not doing any homework whatsoever. I'm going to be totally swamped when I get back.

Beowulf and some others, including Rapunzel, Thyme, and The Muffin, are off on a mission trip on the Gulf Coast, fighting off Mosquitoes Of Unusual Size while repairing Katrina-ravaged houses and generally getting no sleep at all. Poor Wulfy is ready to come home to his Seraph's loving arms--not to mention his own cushy bed. The boy has one of the softer dorm bed's I've ever lain in. I'm jealous.

I am about to start working on an essay about Courtly Love, which I will post here. Interesting stuff--and a vehicle through which to write about the feminism I rather intended this blog to cover more. Hm.

Fevrier

2007-02-20T15:47:00.000-05:00

Fevrale dostat chernil i plakat,
Pisat O Fevrale navsnryd,
Poka grohochushaya slyakot
Vesnoyu charnoyu gorit.

[february. get ink, shed tears.
write of it, sob your heart out, sing.
while torrential slush that roars,
burns in the blackness of the spring. ]

--Boris Pasternak

February is a miserable month. No matter what happens in February, I will always think it is a terrible, terrible time of the year.

I am currently not getting along with The Muffin. Not necessarily because of Beowulf, though a bit of subconscious jealousy that I am in a relationship--a very good one--and she is not might factor into it. In part it's because she's more of a neat freak than I am. It's also because of stuff going on in her personal life that I don't know about (I don't know about it because she doesn't tell me such things. She doesn't tell me because she doesn't trust me. She doesn't trust me because _once_, nearly a year ago, I accidentally let something she'd told me slip in conversation. I apologized and said I was an idiot and I'd be more careful in the future. She'll never forgive me). And in large part it's because I'm still friendly with Vanilla, the boy she has a crush on who was afraid to ask her out. Vanilla deserves what he gets, I admit, but I try to be a good forgiving Xian, plus I don't like the feel of specific hate for too long. I can hate humanity in general for long periods with no qualm, but to feel as if I'd like to hold one little theatre boy under water until the last bubble of his breath goes "glub"...well, that's a nasty burden to carry about beneath my ribcage. So I started talking to Vanilla again. He's not my best friend or anything, but we have a few similar interests--mostly photography and, to an extent, theatre and literature. But the mere fact that I am not purely hateful to the boy grates on The Muffin's nerves to no end. I "ruined" her birthday--a day I tried to make as perfect as possible, by the way, Beowulf and I took a bunch of friends out to dinner at a good restaurant, and we chipped in and got her the perfect gift (a real, live bunny rabbit named Morpheus)--simply by mentioning that I'd talked to Vanilla. After that we got into what for us is a huge fight, and I spent the night with Beowulf rather than go back to la Chez de la Muffin.

That, plus the miserable weather. O fevrier, le mois de tristesse.*

So I've been taking comfort from spending as much time as possible with Beowulf, and have consequently become one of _those_ girls, who abandons her friends for her new significant other. I'm trying to not be _that_ girl, but Beowulf is one of the few things in my life right now that makes me feel good. But I'm trying to schedule some photo shoots with some girlfriends, and I eat lunch with The Mastermind, who is one of my best friends, and I talk photography with Vanilla, and I still go to all of my extracurricular stuff. The Mastermind is really the one pointing out my _that_ girl-ness.

So that's my life right now, mostly, really just the stuff that's on my mind right now. I'll write about less personal stuff later...

*I've been working on mon francais lately. Bear with me.

Beet Red

2007-02-07T10:54:00.000-05:00

Oh. My. Gad.

I am more embarassed than I have ever been.

My roommate, The Muffin, just walked in at the most inopportune moment possible--Beowulf was lying on top of me in the middle of the floor, as we kissed with a great deal of passion.

Beowulf and I just started dating, btw.

The Muffin is going to despise me for a long, long time. The Muffin will probably regard this as an example of the "pda" she so hates, though we were definitely not in public. In fact, we were very much in private, in the room that happens to also be mine, and not anywhere near her bed. Sure, maybe we should have locked the door, but it's not like we said to one another "hey, let's meet in Seraph's room and make out on the floor to gross out The Muffin!"

The Muffin is not a physically affectionate person--I don't believe she's ever kissed anyone with tongue. She looks a little bit uncomfortable when we hold hands, and turns green when we hug. If he kisses me on the forehead in her presence, she loudly excuses herself with an openly disgusted look on her face. If she is feeling unhappy or sick and I attempt to give her a friendly hug, she cringes away like a beaten puppy. I feel a little bad for The Muffin in that regard. I used to do the same thing.

Though to be honest, if I walked in upon her and one of her flock of admirers--Vanilla the Theatre Boy, for instance--in the same situation, I would be a little uncomfortable meself. Though I wouldn't say "Oh my gad, gross, I think I'm going to be sick." I'd put it more like "Um. Okay. Excuse me." and leave quickly. I would wait until later to say "Hey Muffin, could you go somewhere else with that stuff, or at least lock the door? Thanks."

And now I have a cold. Oh, the misery.

Pro-choice, pro-woman...pro-life

2007-01-22T13:09:00.000-05:00

Today is the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Being rather less than 34, I have grown up in a world that is, at least in part, a consequence of this decision. This blog is why I--a young Christian girl raised in a fairly conservative Baptist church--am firmly pro-choice.

I believe that being pro-choice does not mean being anti-life. Being pro-choice does not even mean being particularly pro-abortion; I think that having an abortion is a huge decision, one that shouldn't be taken lightly, and in a lot of cases it's probably morally wrong according to the creed of my faith. All life is sacred, life is a gift. We don't have the right to say whose life is worth more--the life of a baby, of a sweet old grandma, of a rapist or a killer or a terrorist.

Or the life of a woman who doesn't want to be pregnant anymore.

You see, a woman who is desperate, who knows she just can't have a child right now--if she can't get a safe, legal abortion performed by a trained doctor--if abortion isn't legal--what is she going to do? Is she going to shrug her shoulders and say "oh well, guess I'll have the damn baby anyway"?

If this woman does what I think she would (and, I must admit, what I damn well might do in her situation) and goes somewhere else, finds another method--she could get hurt, she could get sick, she could die. And what makes her life worth less than that of the child inside her?

I once brought up this imagined scenario in a Bible study I was in. The discussion as I remember went something as follows (excuse the Xian jargon):

Seraph: So what if this woman, this desperate woman who truly believes she has no other choice, goes and gets an illegal abortion--some coat-hanger deal in a back alley somewhere? And suppose she gets some terrible infection and dies? And suppose this woman isn't a Believer, and when she dies she does indeed go to hell? And what if, if she'd been able to have a safe, legal abortion, she could have lived long enough for someone to share Christ with her? Are you going to send a woman who doesn't know Christ to hell for one mistake?

Other Girl*: Well that would be her problem, not mine--she deserves to go to hell!

I nearly threw up, or got up and left. At any rate, my jaw hit the floor. Way to be loving and Christlike, Other Girl. Aren't we all deserving of hell? Isn't that kind of a big point in our faith--we don't deserve God's love, but he gives it to us anyway? Isn't every time you look at someone (like our hypothetical woman) with hatred in your heart--isn't that murder in the eyes of our Savior? Do you really think you'd never, ever consider having an abortion, you fucking hypocrite?

To sum up (oh no, I'm going into school-essay mode) I'm pro-choice. I'm pro-anything that helps women get by in a world that often seems to hate us. I'm pro-life--even the life of an evil evil floozy who wants to kill her innocent unborn child. Ha.

I've never had to live in a world where the option to abort a pregnancy, safely and humanely, hasn't been there, if I need it. And I hope I never have to.

*name changed to protect the aggravating.

Scandalous!

2007-01-20T20:30:00.000-05:00

It's taken me a few days to get this post written--but hurrah, the financial gauntlet has been passed and I am once again in the college town I affectionately refer to as Hippieville. Or HippieVegas--some churchpeople in my small hometown refer to it as if it's Sin Central, so I suppose it fits.

Along that vein, I went out to a gay club Friday night, and had about the best time I've ever had without feeling like shit in the morning for it.

Note: I'm not gay. I get mistaken for a lesbian a lot and it's a bit of a touchy subject so I feel as if I should make that clear.

But the club was entirely awesomely fun--danced with all my group of friends, including Thyme and a boy I'm currently pursuing, Beowulf. Beowulf is a Preacher's Kid, and kind of inhibited, so he was a little uncomfortable with the entire thing, as was my similarly inhibited suitemate, Rapunzel. Rapunzel had once even said that she would never, ever go to this particular club--oh, it's so scandalous. But she got dumped not long ago and really needed the lift, so for once she was up for a little more life than usual. And both of them ended up having a wonderful time and being glad they went. Well, Rapunzel is, Beowulf is still unsure--as he says, "well, I didn't mind the dancing, but I'd rather not have to go to that place again." Funny sheltered boy.

My relationship with Beowulf is one of the more ambiguous and angst-ridden aspects of my life right now. He doesn't know quite what to think of me--I'm quite honest, sometimes brutally, and certainly more so than a lot of girls my age will be with guys. I'm also very open about my sexuality, which is a personality trait rather foreign to the church people I seem to end up hanging around. I'm still as pure, if not more so, than any of them...but I'm honest about the fact that yes, I have a sex drive, and hey, Beowulf, if I were a different sort of person I'd probably be fucking you.

Note: I do enjoy thinking up handles for my friends here--it adds a little more anonymity and sometimes humor. Like Rapunzel...you should see this girl's hair. Good gad. And Beowulf, who is actually a shy, timid sort due to an anxiety disorder (what is with me and neurotic people?)

Anyway...the blogging for choice thing. I don't have many (if any!) readers here, so no one was able to attempt to throttle me for not believing abortion is a heinous act of cold-blooded murder, but I posted it (edited for swear words) on a site most of my friends are on. And boy, have I caught hell from two of my girlfriends--especially the one I used as an example, who denies that I gave the argument that way, and that she answered in that fashion. Possibly my memory of that night have been twisted over time, but I could swear she said what she said. And what's funny is that she is a really sweet and loving person...It's just she can't seem to see past what she's been taught. Namely, she's been taught that, when a woman chooses to have sex, she gives up her right to choose if she has a child.

It's too early in the morning for me to start writing about that again...especially as I just answered OtherGirl's rather offended email attacking my position.

I Don't Want to Grow Up

2007-01-13T23:37:00.000-05:00

I am in dire financial straits. Or rather, my whole family is--most of "my" money is really my parents' still.

And we don't have enough for my school this semester.

My mom handles our finances. Usually she's way better with money than the rest of us...but she's been struggling with depression for a while now, and she's tried to hide how bad it is from everyone, and she let our finances slide...and now she's really depressed because she feels like she's failed us, especially me. And I mean, she has...but it's not like we love her any less. She's a great mom, it's just her brain chemistry is getting the best of her.

Apparently, depression runs in her side of the family. I'll bet my grandmother has some sort of mental problems along that line--she's at least got some anxiety disorder or other--and my mom is clinically depressed, and I've struggled with the same on and off since I was about thirteen. Ah, the joys of adolescence, right? One thing that's really keeping me from being just pissed at my mom for this is knowing what it's like.

My friend Thyme is telling me to "have faith" that everything will work out. I know that a lot of people think I'm rather stupid for my beliefs--the whole Christianity bit isn't really popular where I live, I mean even a simple belief in a higher power will occasionally draw a sneer--but I don't think God has ever let me down. He (I wish there was a less gendered pronoun for a being who goes so far beyong male and female...) has gotten me through the darkest times in my life. I wouldn't be here without him...so I can't help but believe he'll get me through this.

Gee, that sounds cheesy. But it's true, and I'm tired and, yes, worried, and I can't think of a better way to put it right now.

I guess that's all I have to say.

Bewbz

2007-01-13T00:09:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I've noticed a great deal of turmoil in the Kingdom of Blog lately, especially among the feminists. I get what it's about...despite the kind of confusing bee analogy...but I'm going to stay out of it. I'm not a part of it. I'm going to keep my mouth shut. Or rather, my keyboard.

What I really want to talk about is boobs.

Ah, boobs. How we love them. They're so soft and squishy-bouncy and fun. Too bad I don't have any.

Okay, well I do technically have breasts, but not much. A former romantic interest of mine once described the size of them as a "mouthful." It was cute at the time...

I went bra shopping today. There isn't much that will make me feel more physically inadequate than shopping for bras. I wear a 34 A. It's hard to find a good bra in that size...and they never make it to sale prices. America loves big boobs, and, apparently, so does whoever decides how many bras of each size get put on the rack. Members of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee kind of get the short end of the stick in this regard.

A lot of fleshier girls complain about how society likes bony skinny women. They look at me with a mix of envy and hatred. When men praise women who "look like real women," I feel left out. When a woman says "ew, look at that model, you can see the bones in her chest," I look down at my own ribcage and sigh. The slimness of my body--it's natural, too, my family got stuck with some skinny gene or other--is reviled as looking ghostly, cadaverous, prepubescent, or anorexic. Voluptuous girls are told they should love their curves, their healthy, womanly bodies. Skinny girls don't get told to love their bony hips and collarbones; we're told to gain weight. We're asked if we've got an eating disorder; "it's okay, you can talk about it, we can help." Thinness has been disease-ified.

Yes, my fleshy friends get taunted for their round asses and full chests and soft thighs. I know it's hard to grow up feeling fat. But middle school gym class was hell for me too...getting told "damn girl, eat a hamburger or something." Knowing the end to the rhyme, "Roses are red, violets are black..."

I guess what I'm saying is that even women who are "ideal"--model-thin, fine-boned as a bird, like I am--are held to standards we can't uphold. It's just as hard to learn to love ourselves, to be able to stand in front of a mirror and say, "damn...I'm not half bad, am I?"

Most of the time, I can do that.

But not when I go bra shopping.

Oh, by the way. I did find a few bras that I liked...I recommend Lily of France and l.e.i, for my small-boobed sisters. And has anyone else noticed how unreliable the sizing at Vicky's Secret is? Not to mention the pricing...remind me not to return any time soon.

Almost an Angel

2007-01-10T23:50:00.000-05:00

So, this will be my blog for the world to see, the face I show to the world, my soapbox and my soap opera. I guess I had better watch my grammar.

I suppose an introduction is in order:

-On this blog, I will be referring to myself as Seraph. Previous internet incarnations of myself include Reb (on AO-hell message boards) and GingerRose (on dA).

-I'm young. How young, I don't think you need to know--but I'm a good bit past sneaking into R-rated movies.

-I define myself as a Christian (or Xian, as I dorkily like to type it) but I'm not one of those Christians. You know what I mean.

-I'm a feminist. My male friends occasionally call me a feminazi...but I do shave and wear makeup and all that patriarchy-approved nonsense. I can feel pretty if I want to, right?

I think the rest of my character will come out eventually. I'll never reveal my real name, or the real names of my friends, or where I live. Now, down to the posting.

Why do I even set up these blog thingies, anyway? What sort of abnormal need for communication and approval do we bloggers have, that we air our dirty laundry online for the world to see? I do have friends out there in the "real" world, friends I can talk to and laugh with, some of whom I can tell everything. But there's something about a stranger...probably the impulse to blog is the same impulse that occasionally leads me to pour out my life story to people I've just met--an impulse that has occasionally landed me in uncomfortable places. Especially since the moment a guy my age hears a girl say "oh, my last boyfriend came out of the closet this summer..." he immediately retreats inside himself and closes the door. Oh noes, he thinks to himself, she'll turn me gay too! Aaaaaagh!

So yes, I dated a gay dude. Oh the horror. *rolls eyes* What gets me is that he's such an utterly fagtastic gay man, I don't know exactly how I missed it. I'll refer to him as Jai, because that's almost his name.

I have a tendency to get off topic, forgive me...it is rather late/early here. Back to the subject of blogging: I am a writer by nature. I have been making up stories since before I could write--at that time, I dictated to my grandmother. I fell in love with poetry around the age of eight, and have kept a fairly consistent journal since I was twelve or so. There is something in me that won't let me go without my writing. It's a force like gravity, or the pull of the moon on the ocean. And many of my friends don't understand...so I turn to the faceless crowd of the Interweb. Ha.

I think that will do for a first post.