In response to (e:joshua)

ug. i have to disagree with you. I will confess that she certainly was not the most inspiring reader on the planet, but the poem is beautiful and appropriate. also, elizabeth alexander is an extremely well known and highly regarded poet, theorist, academic, etc. perhaps it is a surprise to the (white) american public that there was a black poet reading at the inauguration that they had never heard of.


In general

"Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here."

How many people were crying tears of joy? How many tears of pain for the many who died for that day, and I speak not of the men and women in the military, but the men and women who were brought to this country in the bowels of slave ships. who were not counted as entire human beings. who were beaten and murdered for protesting segregation. i am not being dramatic or sentimental but we have to ask ourselves what the tears are really about, and where have they been hiding? electing president obama, swearing him into office does almost nothing in the face of all that history. i kept asking myself yesterday, why... why is this such a "historical moment"? because the whites have opened the door and 'allowed' a black person in? i cried yesterday and i have to ask myself the same question. chances are there will be differing, but deeply connected answers.

i probably shouldn't have started this entry because i don't have the time to finish it properly. lets just say that i watched cnn for five hours and it made me tired. the complexities of this situation are too much for my brain and my heart to handle sometimes.

I forget who, but someone said that racism basically decides who gets to live and who gets to die.

"Say it plain, that many have died for this day."

So (e:fellyconnelly) and I got a Wii. Ralphie hates it. He barks and growls and hides under the couch. I don't get it. He usually doesn't pay too much attention to the TV but even when he does he just tends to cock his head, stare, and lose interest in seconds. But not with the Wii. And it's mostly when the Miis are on the screen. Weird.

I went to the gynecologist today. Don't worry, I won't talk about it. But I did want to mention the little packet I got about Guardisil. This is the HPV vaccine that there are commercials for. But this little packet comes with headphones and an audio player so you can listen to "a girl like you" talk about her experiences. Really? What happened to reading? There is an on/off button, and play/pause button and sound adjustment, and it is all just a little larger than a credit card. A little thicker obviously, but compact nonetheless. Strange indeed.

I also have to take an antibiotic. No Alcohol for like 9 days. Seriously?

Grumble.

I have taken back my not so nice things i said about the job i am now working. I have a lot of respect for people who do this kind of work. I know and love many people who work in this field. I also have a lot of respect for babysitters, although i do not wish to conflate the two.

so i might have done a search yesterday for "free tetris" leaving our computer with the same or similar virusy thingy that effs up google that we had...oh, a while ago. grumble. we have been running our own anti virus whatever and free online ones, but no luck so far. i am asking for suggestions aka pleading for help.

i have to do loads of laundry one at a time because, although there are two washers and two dryers in my basement, only one of the dryers sufficiently drys (dries?) clothes. i have three loads today. thats three and a half hours. plus folding. grumble.

felly and i had a loverly post christmas day together. as in, we spent all the gift cards we got for christmas. felly had a 50 for Old Navy, we both got a 30 for Olive Garden from my rents, and I had 70 for Barnes and Noble. we spent a lot of other people's money, and it was awesome.

I bought four books with my 70 schmackers. Four. Well, one of the books has four novels in one, so I guess, if I wanted to get technical about it, I got 7 books. Not bad.

For Pleasure (aka, non-fiction)

Octavia Butler - From Seed to Harvest (Includes Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark and Patternmaster)

Octavia Butler - Kindred

For those of you who don't know, Octavia Butler is one of the first Black Female "Science Fiction" writers...although to classify her work as such is a little misleading. She does deal with some out there stuff like vampires, the future, space travel and the like, but its always very socially progressive and fabulously interesting. I heart her like whoa.

For School

Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to be White - Ed. David Roediger with contributors such as W.E.B. Du Bois, bell hooks, Zora Neale Hurston, Amiri Baraka, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Alice Walker and a lot of other authors you should read.

The Michael Eric Dyson Reader by. (you guessed it) Michael Eric Dyson.

---

this book includes sections such as Theories of Race, Affirmative Action, Whiteness Studies, Afro-Baptist Radicalism and Rhetoric, Religion and Sexuality, Biocriticism and Black Icons, The Soul Musics of Black Folk, and Hip-Hop Culture, to name a few. It's a big book. I have never read or even heard of this guy before, but I have a strong appreciation for people who are both deeply intellectually theoretical and up to date on current cultural phenomena and are able to connect and intertwine them. I think this guy is one of those people.

I like books. A lot.

Oh and I have an interview on Wednesday. Word.

thanks to (e:janelle) for the chips and dip AND for sending me to the FAIL website. I found this gem there

i heard Gavin Rossdale's new music sometime recently and I was thoroughly disappointed. Bush used to be sooo cool and now he is playing generic poprocks music that is indistinguishable from the rest of the nonsense out there.

Felly had a theory. That once Gavin and Gwen got married they both started to suck. Gwen was also once so very very cool. Remember when No Doubt came onto the scene and there was Gwen with her combat boots and wife beaters (waaaay before Avril Lavigne)? I mean, Gwen sang with Sublime. Now that's punk rock. And now? Harajuku girls or whatever the hell they are and...hmmm...when was the last time we heard from her?

Now don't get me wrong. I like pop music...usually. I recognize it for what it is however, namely that you take these songs and listen to them somewhat consistently for a short period of time until you get to the point where you might have to kill someone if you hear them humming it one more time. Then, you wait. Wait and wait and wait, until you haven't heard the song in, say, two years, and then you listen with fresh ears. If you still like the pop song from back when, its a keeper. I love shitty music from days of yore. I think it speaks volumes about a moment in time. I don't care if people call it fluff or fabricated or whatever. Perhaps that what it is meant to say. At this moment in time the majority of American youth are listening to fabricated cotton candy music. What does that tell you? Think about it.

I will admit though, it seams we are at a loss for the greats these days. Where are our Sublimes? Our Pink Floyds and Led Zeppelins. Nirvana? Operation Ivy? When was the last time someone put out an album that you could listen to alllllll the way through? I am trying to think...there is Radiohead. Weezer. Oasis maybe? I am (perhaps unfairly) talking about hit toppers here. Oh, maybe I got it. People don't buy actual albums anymore, they just download singles on iTunes, watch videos on youtube (cause MTV is gone) and probably only listen to the first minute of the song anyway cause they are all hopped up on prescription drugs and soda pop and Britney Spears.

I am reading a book...one of those whoa is me I am a feminist who is addicted to man sex book. But she (the author, the main character, whoeveR) made a point that I thought was so true. We have it alllll backwards these days. We are more and more isolated from human beings and more and more connected to everything else we don't really need. Connected to the internet, to television, to clothes and shoes and furniture and Britney Spears. Consume consume consume. Feed me. Cause I am starving. But the problem is that what we are eating is...cotton candy. Fluffernutter. Britney Spears. Not our lovers, our friends our family, humanity. So we continue to eat, cause we are still starving. And perhaps whats more, is that such a statement is cliche. I can't even type it without feeling a little silly cause, well, duh, everyone already knows this, but yet, still, here we are.

Anyone scene Wall-E?? Sometimes when I think about the future, thats what I think about. Millions of human beings floating around with television/computer/phones/ipods (all in one of course) implanted into their little mindless brains. Worthless. Scary. Terrifying.

ug. phew. breath in, breath out.

this will not be another rant about how stupid conservative Christians are in their arguments for gay marriage. HOWever, I came across this in one of my "lefty" (as my father would say) email newsletters. the part the newsletter focused on was this :

"Have you not seen the awful similarity between what happened in Mumbai and what's happening right now in our cities?...What troubles me so deeply, and should trouble all thinking Americans, is that there is a real, unbroken line between the jihadist savagery in Mumbai and the hedonistic, irresponsible, blindly selfish goals and tactics of our homegrown sexual jihadists. Hate is hate, no matter where it erupts."

This guy, Pat Boone, basically is comparing what is happening in Mumbai, where there were some 200 plus violent murders, to pro- prop 8 protestors. Uhhhhhhh, no, dumbass.

But it gets better. He goes on to say:

"Slavery was abolished, blacks and women obtained the rights to vote, and these true rights were not obtained by threats and violent demonstrations and civil disruption (though these things did occur, of course), but by due process, congressional deliberations and appropriate ratification. This was democracy in action, not mob rule."

ARE YOU KIDDING GUY?
I wasn't even there and I know there was violence...coming from the OTHER side. there is always violence when oppressed groups are forced to fight for their rights.

Oh oh and one more thing:

"No 'rights' were ever granted to citizens on the basis of their sexual habits or lifestyle. There simply are no such 'rights.'"

Really? Then WTF do you call straight marriage?? Is that not a right based on sexual habits and (god i HATE this word) lifestyle? Please MF please.

You can read the whole article here
I know that this guy is kinda extreme. but i also think that there are logical progressions in thinking that there is no harm in saying that marriage is a definition and man and woman and blahdeeblah to all homos are terrorists. its not that far of a stretch, obviously.

hmmm... you see, I always want to post something I think that others will think is interesting. This is hard for me. You know those people who can kinda just talk about anything...remember the smallest details and make a story out of it? That's not me.

Oh and I also have problems with deja vu...did I write that before? Is that how uninteresting I am that I have to repeat the same ol same ol on this blog that I barely write in in the first place? I am awesome.

So here's an idea.

There are three dollar stores in my town. Three. One, two, three. We have the original Dollar Store where everything really is a dollar. Then we have the Dollar General where almost nothing is a dollar. I believe the third is the General Dollar or something along those lines. The third I have not been in yet because, well, the second one is closer to my house. I was talking to my dad about this pseudo monstrosity and he was going on about he was able to get curtains and a curtain rob for my room at one of the dollar stores, i don't know which one, and how great it was because before them they would have to drive all the way to Oneonta, about half hour away, to get things such as these. I get that, really I do, but THREE??

I mean really, you need to picture this. My town sits in a valley. The village is mucho small while the town (i think i have that distinction right) spreads out through the mountains with dairy farmers and whatnot. But the village itself...you can walk from one end to the other in maybe 20 minutes. I might be exaggerating though, its been awhile since I walked from one end of that place to the other. but either way ALL THREE of these Dollar Stores are within LESS THAN ONE MILE of each other in my little shit ass town. Really? Really.

There are small towns and then there are small towns and then even there are smaller towns. I live in a town I would classify as a middle small town. There were about 100 people or less in my graduating class. I have friends from two of the surrounding towns who graduated with 30 or so people. Crazy. The thing about my middle sized town though, is that it allows for the fostering of crazy football maniacs.

Walton almost made it to the state championships this year, but lost after their 30 or so game winning streak. Sucks for them. All over the town there are posters and signs that say things like "Fear the Warriors" and "Walton Warriors All the Way". Sheesh. They lost, take down the stupid signs.

Also, in response to (e:joshua)'s post about deer carcasses... my school would often get the first day of hunting season off simply because more than half of the students wouldn't be there anyway. I had a friend whose step father owned a deer prep place...for those hunters who didn't want to do it themselves...and I distinctly remember walking in there and having to watch where I was going so I didn't walk into a deer face. They were all skinned...and I don't know which is worse, with or without the fur. It is not uncommon to see deer strapped to the top of cars or hanging from trees. Better there than then indented into the front of your car.

I don't have a problem with hunting, or hunters. I do however have a problem with "flatlanders" aka city folk and new jersey-ites who come to the country and shoot at anything that moves. I might have written about this in the past, but once a little old lady was standing on her back porch and was shot dead by a hunter from new jersey who swore she was a deer. Gross.

Oh and, I made the mistake of going to the (only) bar in Walton while I was home. There were so many people there that I had forgotten existed...its weird to see people outside of the ridiculous mindfuck that is high school. I think that perhaps it is only in places like Walton where you can find men dressed from head to toe in camo dancing to the the dj who goes from playing "its getting hot in here" to "she thinks my tractor's sexy". oh and i won't even get into what it means to leave high school as a (chubby) straight girl and come back a slimmer homo. No, I don't have a boyfriend...

oh my oh my. i have to drive the 4 odd hours home today in the yucky wet snow. i only really have two concerns. the first being dumb ass mother fuckers who don't know how to drive on the thruway and, once I get of the safety of the highways and enter into the deep mountainous region i call home, i never really trust my car. oh yeah and its a piece of shit and takes like 20 minutes just to get up a hill that felly's car takes like its pie.

mmm. pie.

technically i shouldn't even be going home today. i find it terribly inconsiderate when professors assign papers for the week after thanksgiving. It's like, here's some time off for you...to do school work! bastards. so yeah i have one paper due on tuesday and another due wednesday with a presentation to go with it. i mean, i guess if i wanted to look at the brightside, at least i will knock out two out of three real quick and only have one left before i am free.

Last night Felly and I watched (another) one of the worst (lesbian) movies ever. I can say that just about 99.9% of "lesbian" movies suck ass. Period. They either have bad plots, bad acting, bad sex, or bad all of the above. They just don't make em like they used to. This one was called "Kate's Addiction" and it was about this psycho bitch (Kate) who murders her best friend's fiance because she wants her for herself. the murder scene should have tipped us off but we continued to watch, only to learn later that the psycho had been drugging the friend all throughout college so that she could rape her in her semi-coherent but not remembering state. GROSS. Oh yeah, and ultimately, the crazy psycho gets killed and the friend and her new boyfriend end up happily ever after. Yeah, like that.

Anyway, I'llllllll be hooooooome for the holidays, so ya'll have a fabulous thanksgiving. Word.