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| On Fighting Pre-First-Class AnxietyOne of my favorite writers (and my new best friend, if I can catch her) Sarah Vowell participated in an experiment in which a group of San Francisco goths gave regular civilians a goth makeover and sent them out into goth clubs to see if they would "pass." The prerequisite to the makeover was doing some homework--picking a goth name, listening to angry songs, writing dark poetry, etc.
Vowell writes,
Before anyone breaks out the eyeliner, we all sit in a circle and go through my homework. The whole thing reminds me of graduate school seminars, except these people are smart and funny and have something interesting to say.
(Take the Cannoli, p. 214). Now that's the attitude I need on the first day of school. Also, a little bit of goth make-up wouldn't hurt either. You know, to look intimidating and all. | | |
| Sexism and SuchAlice Walker, writing in 1983:
Every
affront to human dignity necessarily affects me as a human being on the
planet, because I know every single thing on earth is connected.
--From In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, p. 353
James Cone, an ex-sexist, writing in 1986:
When people make jokes out of someone else's pain, it is an insult to the humanity of all and thus cannot be tolerated. It does not matter how things appear from my vantage point, it is not legitimate for me to make my experience the final criterion for judging the nature and extent of somebody else's suffering. If I have not been a victim of sexism, how do I know that the pain of racism is greater than the one arising from sexism?
--From My Soul Looks Back, p. 117
Question: Why aren't we there yet?
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| Dead-AgainLast poem for this weekend. I promise.
Funny how
I am now
Less afraid of burning in hell
Than I was when I was "saved"
And I'd rather be dead-again
Than believe in heaven and fade | | |
| Another PoemApparently procrastination on this particular day means posting or writing cheesy poetry. But that's okay because Barbara Christian says it is:
What I write and how I write is done in order to save my own life. And I mean that literally. For me literature is a way of knowing that I am not hallucinating, that whatever I feel/know is. It is an affirmation that sensuality is intelligence, that sensual language is language that makes sense.
--Barbara Christian, The Race for Theory, p. 61
So, here we go. Another poem. This one from today.
Seven time zones away
I supposedly have a home
Seven times zones away
Is where I kind of sort of come from
The problem with that
Is that I don't belong
Seven time zones away
Where I supposedly have a home
Last night at 12:22 in the morning
I locked myself out of my apartment
As I sat on the floor in the hallway
Listening to my neighbor sing opera
To the crackling sound of popcorn
I wondered if there was even a chance
If there was even a way
To break through the lock
Break through the chain
Break my own pride
Break my own shame
Come home and say:
I'm not the same
Please, try to love me
Anyway | | |
| AngryOne of my friends frequently calls herself an angry bitch. Aside from the fact that she is one of the most delightful human beings to be around, she lives up to the title. She is angry and honest and bold. And if that makes her a bitch, then so be it.
I've been censoring myself on this blog for too long. I'm working past that. I want to be myself. And for the first time in my life, I feel like I'm in a place where I can let go and breathe. Who I am is no longer controlled by what others think of me. I'm still terribly insecure and rely on the opinions of others for reassurance, but at least I've learned to listen only to the voices that I trust and respect.
This is the most disorganized thing I've written in a long time. To make it even more disjointed, I offer you this short little poem I wrote one night when I was… well, angry. (I guess there is a theme to this after all!) I work as an audio-visual student assistant at Yale Divinity School. So frequently I set up mics and such for chapel and other churchy services. One night, when I was packing stuff up after a service, this came to me.
Tonight the building smells like a crematorium
With their incense and candles
They are burning and burying
Every last glimpse of hope
In my dark greying soul
I used to honestly like you, Jesus
Sometimes I still think I do
But it's not gonna work out between us
Oh, and it's not me
It's you
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