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 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.

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.