Something happened to me this weekend. My mind rebelled against school. Or my body, or both. I didn't do anywork at all compared to my normal hours and hours of reading and writng. On Friday I watched a Project Runway marathon for way to many hours. Yesterday I went to Niagara Falls with my cousin and her boyfriend. Today I feeling anxious, knowing that I didn't do the work I should have done for tomorrow's classes. Everytime I pick up a book I can't concentrate. I know that this is all created...I think I decided on Thursday night that I wouldn't be doing any work this weekend and I am sitting in that decision right now. There is some strange feeling of liberation however...since school started I have been dedicated. always doing all the readings, all the work, spending my weekends and free time immersed in school work, and now this. I can't say if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Next week Felly and I are attempting a trip to New Paltz...I have basically 2 weeks until hell descends upon me...hell being final papers due...3 20 pages papers in a matter of 4 days. I should be preparing for this. Getting my research together, working on outlines, blahdee blah. I can't quite come to grips with the fact that the first semester is almost over. This is a constant problem for me...recognizing that reality is right now, not some far off place that I can't point to.

so I have definetly become one of those people who reads other people's journals, but never writes one of my own. It's true, I do read, or at least skim the site everyday or everyother, but I never sign in...ah well.

Today was my scariest driving day in Buffalo, and I have an inkling that I haven't seen shit. I was literally at a dead stop on 33 because there was a truck that had gone over the railing and looked like it was dangling, but it was not, over I-90. The bizarro snow/sleet balls that were pelting my car made switching lanes rather dangerous and gasp! there is some accumulation on the sides of the roads tonight.

So uh, I have 5 weeks of class left That means 5 weeks till ALL my finals are due! holy effin shit. that amounds to about 60 pages I have to write on top of two "creative" projects that are also due. Isn't procrastination a wonderful thing!

I have an urge to post, but I don't really have anything to post about. I could talk about Planet in Peril or the California Fires or the party on Saturday. I could talk about the cat on my lap who just jumped in front of my monitor, blocking my view. I could talk about the weather. But, I think I am going to talk about dancing.

I have always loved to dance. I remember when I was young, grade school, middle school...my female cousins and I would put on shows. I would choreograph and then we would perform for the family. In middle school I would go to "activity nights" (they were dances and there was also volley ball or a movie) and I would get down to the Macarena and the Electric Slide. In highschool I kinda stopped...I was too cool for school dances and too busy getting stoned to care. In college I got back into it a little, but it was only encouraged by drunkeness. Dancing sober was out of the question. Now, I am sooo happy to be dancing again. I forgot that I could actually do it. I do have rythym. My musical past has given me the knowledge of counting and keeping the beat.

But the greatest thing, I think, is a kind of communication with the body. A kind feeling empowered with using the body to create. And feeling my body move and be moved. I don't hurt today, and many of you remember Felly and I's constant bitching after the first few weeks of class about the pain. Today I feel tired, maybe sore, but it is good. I am aware of my body rather than just floating around in it unnoticed. I was never one to excercise...and although I certainly am "excercsing" now, it doesn't feel like that. It feels like fun. I look forward to class, look forward to learning something new each time. Look forward to rockin out.

So yeah. I like dancing. And shit...who cares if you are good or not really? It isn't about that at all. I think in many ways it is similiar to music, the universal language. People have been dancing for...shit, I don't know how long...a long ass time I would presume. If you can get someone to dance, you can have a good time with anybody.

So, in conclusion, if you want to be inspired, come to the Battle on Saturday...and if not, I hope to see you all at Halloween party later that evening!

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Ok so, this guy, uh "James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA" ( ) has basically said that africans are not as intelligent as white westerners because of genes.
My first instinct is to say, of course they are not as smart because WE have denied them the ability to learn, exploited them, colonized them, enslaved them, and continue to do so. My next argument being that "intelligence" is relative. We as white americans have been trained to think in certain ways that is quite distinct from many cultures and this could easily be reflected in how we measure our intelligence vs. other culture's.
I thought Ok, maybe this guy did some "testing" and maybe his tests show some kind of difference, but as I kept reading, more and more information about this guy is revealed and not only is he racist asshole, he is also homophobic and mysogynistic. IE:

"In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical" choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that " stupidity" could one day be cured. He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would great."

There are toooo many connections here. Doesn't he know that "libido's" of black women and men have been used as a TOOL agaist them for hundreds of years? Does he have any idea that this kind of bullshit has allowed white men and black men to rape black women with the excuse that they are much more sexual than white women? Doesn't he know that the "black male rapist" was just another way to keep black men as predators to be feared? If this guy is so smart maybe he should know when to keep his goddam thoughts to himself.
And one more thing. I am always always always weary of science. Sometimes I really do think we are sticking our dirty little noses where they don't belong and that we are doing something terribly terribly wrong. What would happen if we made "all girls pretty"? What the fuck would that solve? And what would happen if we were able to screen out stupidity? It sounds more and more like a SciFi remake of the Holocaust to me. It makes me sick to my stomach that we are messing with nature's (god of you want) plan of who are are and what we are going to be.

On that note, don't forget about CNN's special report: PLANET IN PERIL premieres Oct. 23 & 24 at 8pm on CNN and stars 3 of my most favoritist men, Anderson Copper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Jeff Corwin from Animal Planet.

I had such a wonderful conversation with my mom last night on the phone. she called me...just to tell me she loved me...and we started chatting about whatever...

first she asked if i had had any more beers with the presbyterian minister...i said no but that we had been talking a bit about homosexuality and the church...and she started talking about how it might actually split the church....

and then she brought up how when she was in oklahoma (where she and I and my older brother were born and were her/my uber christian family still lives) she felt like my homosexuality was "the pink elephant in the room". they would ask if i had a boyfriend and she would reply..."well, no boyfriends". i think maybe she might understand a little more why I was so hesitant to tell her in the first place...its amazing to see your parents grow.

we also talked about how my little brother, who still lives at home at the age of 19, and spends all his money on "poker and pot". i told her i would rather him be buying pot than alcohol...she of course said she'd rather him buy neither, but holy shit...sometimes i have a twinge of guilt because I feel like we (my older brother and I) have taken down her ability to resist...she just lets it go now....maybe this is good, maybe not, I don't know.

I also talked to my dad a little while...he had just returned from grandparents house and it seems my grandmother is losing her memory...asking about me and my older brother, wondering what it is that we are doing when she "should" know that I am in school and he is in Seattle...its weird...my grandfather was really sick a while ago, first mentally then physically, but now he is on some good medication and now my grandmother is the one who needs help. I feel way guilty about not seeing them as often as I should...both of my mom's parents are dead...they lived in OKlahoma so I rarely saw them...and my dad's parents live across town and I rarely see them still....meh.

So yeah...I guess what all this boils down to is that I am absolutely blessed with my parents...I don't think I could have ever imagined having such an open, honest relatioship with them... I guess this is one of those growing up kinda things, although I certainly know that not everyone has what I have and I am grateful.

I know that writing about the weather is kinda lame-o but I am upset. Just a week ago I was in a tank top and now the wind is blowing like crazy and it is downright cold. I don't like it. Grrrrrr.

In other extremely exciting news, my cat's anal glands leak. Its lovely, really.

As many of you already know, Felly and I went to dance class again last night and we learned how to "knee rock". Basically this involves any move where you are on your knees. We had to step out with our left leg and pull the right knee down and slide it into place next to the left foot on the floor. It looks super difficult and indeed isn't that hard, but I managed to pull some muscle in my left thigh in the process. At least I look cool.


Moving on to my favorite subject...Feminism.

I just finished reading Profit and Pleasure by Rosemay Hennessy which is basically a book connecting the effects of late capitalism to the promotion of different sexual identities. She talks a lot about how lesbians and gay men are becoming "chic" and how this is allowed and even encouraged in late capitalism because it is a marketing niche that is profitable. Furthermore, because gender roles are becoming less segragated in the fact that women are working outside of the house much more lately, this creates an environment where gender and sexual deviance is permitted by what she calls the ruling bloc. Basically her argument is that we cannot dismiss capitalism in favor of culture because capitalism is equally if not more so involved in shaping and creating various idenitites, including sexual orientation, and that the new identity politics which are extremely prevelant in queer ciricles and academic theory often does just that. Fascinating.

I would also like to take a moment to talk about the noose that was found on an African American female professor's door at Columbia University on Tuesday. Of course they have the president or provost of Columbia talking, who is a white male, and then they had a white student talking and then later they had light skinned black woman student talking... I didn't watch CNN much that day, but that is what I saw. I couldn't help wondering where the black students where in all this. And I couldn't help wondering about allllllll the hate crimes that are committed against black people that go unreported. This happened at a high profile university to a distinguished professor. Not to say that it is any less offensive, but I can't help but wonder why we get to see hate crimes against educated, middle to upper class blacks when we certainly wouldn't hear about many other instances that certainly occur on a daily basis and are indeed perhaps much more violent than this one. It seems to me that by covering only high profile hate crimes against, for lack of a better word, "good" blacks, and not showing these other types of hate crimes, the media creates and perpetuates the invisibility of racially motivated hate crimes against "bad" blacks. Making sense? What systems are at work here? Who benefits and bares the burden of visibility and invisibility? Just a thought.....

I was up last night till something like 3:30am. Weird...I used to have insomnia pretty bad but that was because I could sleep all day and paid the price come night time, but this is no longer the case. Although I do sleep till 10:30/11 most days, it is not what it used to be. But either way, I was awake last night and funny enough, I got a text from my younger brother asking if I was awake. Like I said, most nights I would have been fasssst asleep but that time.

So my little brother who is not so little anymore, called me and we chatted about stuff. It was actually really nice, like he was calling for advice almost. Talking about his girlfriend that he is falling for and how her Dad might kill him. She is 16 and he is 19 so there could be some trouble. We talked about how weird it is that I am in Grad school and we even talking about taking a plan to Seattle next summer to visit my older brother.

He usually doesn't open up like this. He won't give very much as to his personal shit...but I felt honored that I was the one he talked to last night. And before he hung hung up he told me he loved me... first even!

Awwwww.

I am still in pain. I kinda feel like someone karate kicked my stomach, put me in handcuffs then made me squat for hours without letting me actually sit down. Awesome.

Sooooo, I really really really like Halloween and want desperatly to go to the Haunted Catacombs thingy
and I wanna know if anyone has been and if it is indeed worth the $20 bucks it costs to enter. Looks good on the internet :) I am assuming it is, but I always enjoy the comments of those who have gone before me.

Today is read read read, write paper, clean apt, hang out with my cats kinda day. I am so cool.