Let me tell you something. Sometimes I wonder if I am lying. If I fabricate .. Were we really that broke growing up? Was I really so displaced by the divorce? Didn't I have it good? Using my cunt and empty wallet as some backstage pass to gain credibility in social circles where you're only as good as your last anecdote validating the corruptive influence of capitalism?
The understanding is that the personal is political and if you're going to be political- your personal life better have been effected by the social constructs you're fighting against.
I sit in meetings where well-off professors and struggling students theorize and strategize about the issue of Class. And there's a push, just like at an evangelical healing ... to come forth, kneel down, and beg for an answer to all of your social ills. Now is when I take my life and put it behind a a frosted glass... recognizable, but blurry. I talk about my childhood, my school growing up, my mother. I always feel dirty afterwards, exploitative.

Three men and one woman have congregated in the back of the car. They are from Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama. I listen to their accents and think of my own, never noticeable in Jersey, but always a topic of conversation when I travel. I recall the feeling I get when it happens - the pride in being assosciated with a larger group, with a home. And it always leads to the romanticism of my home, a faraway look when describing it -- the traveler's relationship the home.
Each time I describe all of this at a meeting or in conversation about politics.. I get that look. Even though I have not traveled far, I am 20 minutes away from home, but Mahwah might as well be a different state to me. Maybe that is the issue, I feel like I stick out. But I don't, do I? I am white .. I can go unnoticed. And as generally futile as I believe "white guilt" to be, I participate during these moments.

We pass through Paterson and I look out the window on my "home".. or at least a town away from my home. I have evoked this name often -- as another badge, another indicator seperating me from the those well-off professors I sit in those groups with. I look out at warehouses with broken windows, yards crowded with garbage, and auto part stores with rusted bumpers piled on their roofs.
I never claimed to live this reality. I am honest, I have to be. I can only talk about what I know.

Looking out this window I feel distant and removed from this scene. Is it my whiteness that removes me? That makes this scene feel like it must be a movie and the window a projector screen? Have I taken any of this on as my own? Is this a disservice to them or shouldn't more people be doing the same: Writing painful scenarios into their life's narration?

It is beautiful out today, the first in awhile. It finally feels like spring. The feeling is tricky, though, seeing as how I felt the same thing in the fall. I wish the weather would pick a mood and stick to it. I went for a run today. Out of the need to exercise and desperation.
I've been experiencing pains in my stomach, headaches, and some other ailments due to stress. My body hasn't been cooperative since January and I'm trying to find some balance. Hopefully moving around a little will help the situation. I went to the doctor the other week and she said I need to exercise more to alleviate the stress because that is what's causing all this stuff.
As frustrating as it is, I'm amazed at the human body and how attuned it is with the brain.

This past Thursday was the last Female Friendly Funk that I will ever be in charge of. It's going to be put on next semester too and it feels good to have something I have cultivated go on after I will be gone.
I decided on Thursday that I cannot go to Mexico. It's all well and good to throw out the obligatory "When will you get a chance like this again?", but there was the other chorus running through my brain "When will you get a chance to save up money so that you can actually move to Philly with Nora if you go to Mexico?" Romanticism and the "fly by the seat of your pants" mentality has its place in life definitely, but practicality reigns when it comes to having a roof over my head.
So, I'll be here all summer working 35 hours a week at the women's center and taking classes. Well 1 class actually and 1 co-op w/ the Women's Center. I'm actually very happy about this decision. I will not be as rushed. I will have time to get things together for PA.

In its own right, this is my best semester. I'm glad it's also my last.

I'm all business in my head these days.
Lists of things to do, names I have to remember, numbers I have to call. People I get to see ... but that last part is the best.. Seeing Pat tonight for a dinner, Sarah tomorrow, then Alisa. And Melanie in two weeks. And Dan is coming up from MD in three weeks.
I'm happier to be staying home this summer. .. I want to be immersed in my friends, they ground me. and I need to feel rooted. I guess there are some people who do not like that feeling, but I haven't felt grounded at all in my life. This home that I am about to make with Nora . .with our things and our music playing and our food .. I am looking forward to it so much.. I am hungering for that sense of stability; a home that I will not have to leave after a semester or a break.

bernice mulch - fastidious lunch eater

Bernice Mulch, a woman with a fortunate shape but unfortunate name, sat in her office comprised of walls and a window. She had just eaten lunch and before her lay a tupperware wasteland watched over by a coffee thermos tower. She sighed and felt the piece of leftover turkey settle and expand in her stomach - mixing with creamed corn and banana.
Her desk sat opposite the door to her office - requiring that she turn around anytime she wished to catch more than a peripherary glance outside. The poster facing her depicted a dozen faceless tiny people bowing down to a gargantuan coffee pot raised on a pedestal. It was a poster that Ted from downstairs found hilarious. So, he printed 20 of them and distributed them throughout the department. Bernice knew of 10 employees who still had the poster up - herself included. Bernice Mulch only drank tea, but kept it up for the sole reason that Ted had thought to give it to her. A week prior he had made a joke about Lara From Across The Hall's ass, while Bernice was in earshot.
She liked to pretend the poster was a small beg for forgiveness.
The office held few decorations so she had a lot of time to meditate on the poster and manufacture such improbable little stories for herself. People like Ted do not apologize and mass distributed posters have never been a good peace offering.
On her desk was a (what else?) desk calendar - its ability to encompass the whole desk lent an air of dignity, of managerial manifest destiny to the little room, so Bernice liked to think.


all i have

Spent some time with Melanie. Wandering around New York City lost, but not caring too much. As lost as we thought we were, ends up we were walking in circles. True to life, right?
A lot of things have come full circle lately. I've ended up where I was before, but different. A year and a half ago I spent time with Melanie, walked my 36o and here I am again, but different. A year and a half ago I was alone. A whole circle, later and I am "alone" again, but different. The goal is to walk up to your starting point as a better person.
My hair is gone again, resting in big clumps in the bathroom garbage. So, there's no more hair to hide behind. I laugh when I think of some of the trite cliches I live my life by, but if it's worth living your life by in the first place ... maybe it's not so trivial. I feel like a different person when my face is so out in the open, when I cannot put any hair in front of my eyes. Hair is important, historically, personally. I notice that when it is longer, I tend to act more demure without thinking about it. I smile more when my hair is shorter.
Got pancakes this morning at Stateline and talked with Melanie about coming out and being comfortable with ourselves. I've taken some big steps towards the latter these past few months. Gradually, every now and then, I purposefully let something slip in conversation, although I notice how much I censor myself as well. I guess this is a half-ass way of doing it to my small readership. Well, it's all about convenience these days.
But the point, right: Talking with her .. identifying with her, sharing funny stories - it felt right. Something I have to get used to, but right. I know that if I didn't live in the heterosexist world I grew up in/exist in ... I think I would've come to this place a lot sooner. The fear I had to explore this part of myself would never have been planted so deep inside of me.
Because I've realized, All my life I have sought approval from men, but only found genuine comfort,love,solace from women.
Maybe I will meet a man one day who will fulfill these basic needs.. who knows. That's not the point, because the point being made is pretty obvious.
__

I leave tomorrow morning for Asheville. I consumed a little today: bought a new bathing suit, jeans, and misc. travel stuff. I started reading No Logo on the shuttle ride over there. I think it's going to benefit me a lot. Considering I freaked out after going to Paramus Park Mall last week with Vanessa, this will help me mend my ways and probably be very therapeutic, hah. Seriously, though, I hadn't been in a mall for over a year and I hadn't bought anything anywhere else besides Sal. Army. What was most jarring, were the mannequins everywhere .. and how thin they were and how incredibly reinforced "The image" was. Lifesize pictures of women with hip bones that jut out, stomachs that sucked in, and breasts that jut out straight ahead and weren't any discernable shape. On the bright side, I must not be exposing myself to that kind of stuff as much as I had feared if I had that reaction.

Anyway, I'm really excited about Asheville. And then there's the march in nyc and having hot coacoa with Ali the next day after I come back.
So happy spring break... and if you're not on spring break, have a good week knowing that across the country thousands of 20 something's are being debaucherous, giddy, and happy knowing that for one week, there is a little less stress.

Jean Kilbourne came and spoke at Ramapo today. I'd like to think that the ads aimed at/ about women are getting better, but I do not trust my judgement since it feels as if I live in a bubble here.
Before Dr. Kilbourne came Mandy wanted to redo the bulletin board so I was sent to the bookstore to buy magazines that would have objectifying images of women. I looked through the magazines and kept asking myself what offended me. Not a lot of it. Now, does that mean I'm desensitized or that it's gotten better? Or maybe my habit of making excuses for people has led to explaining away offensive images dreamt up by corporate CEO's?
I brought my purchases back to Mandy (a GQ and some In Touch magazines grabbed out of desperation) and questioned a lot of what she picked. I walked away from her and some other coworkers because I had my own program to run. That's how my day started. Doesn't sound that bad, I know, but most of my days have been garnished with a side of Anxiety and tension.

I walk around with my stomach in knots when I turn corners, but I have found a new lightness that will take the place of any pain in due time. I feel like I have woken up from a 2 years long dream. It's hard to wake up and realize another person's reality was your illusion, but I'm better for the knowing. I am happy to be done with it.

*
I leave on Sunday morning , 7am. Saturday will be spent packing and Friday is all about being with Melanie in NYC. Oh and Nora will be up tomorrow evening. A good start to break. I can't wait to get to Asheville and away from here. I need to get out of my head. (out of this weather)
I'm going to apply for an internship in Philly for the fall. The org. is called Women in Transition, and it's a women's shelter there. I figure I'll take whatever job I can to make rent while I intern there and hopefully that will lead to a good job. My time at the Women's Center has helped me tremendously, but I have not had enough person to person contact/experience with women who are actually in need of services and not just who need condoms. There have been a few times when I have been able to really help a client who was experiencing abuse in a relationship or suffering from an eating disorder, but they have been few and far between and I need more work like that.
Right now I'm pretty swamped with programs at the Women's Center. Mainly two.. first, the most important one to me Bodies Not Voices Vigil .. to raise awareness about eating disorders, to remember those who have died and are suffering from them. That's finalized for April 17th as of today (event/conferences meetings are frightening at ramapo. ) And then there's Female Friendly Funk on 3/22. This should be really good and I'm excited about it. It'll be the, um.., fifth and last FFF I will put on. I am motivated by this being my last semester. All but two of my semesters here have been bad, and I'm hoping this semester can be added to those two.



And make some noise about this: