then I came back and called someone who does a lot of nutrition programming in the schools here and we talked on the phone for like an hour about school gardens and local food systems and that was awesome and hopefully soon I can be of use to teachers getting food system. I think what I want is just the campus farm to be a resource to park hall elem and sharing tools and ideas and knowledge and time and energy and so on. so. thats awesome.

theennnnn the campus farm had a meeting and we’re still working on funding and all of this but its still exciting. so. but. there is. so. much to do all the time. then it was club fair and we got some more emails but its club fair.

and this week has been overwhelming also because I’ve moved and I’ve done a lot of work to get my indp study off the ground and already a shit ton of reading for the twain class. so I’m dropping tolstoy which is fine. masculinity in christianity and judaism is gonna be hella awesome….

and vag monologs rehearsal and burlesque workshop

living in wgsx house is really nice so far but of course a little disorienting, and also seeing people has been really nice but I do feel a weird conflict between getting work done and hanging out as always.

and behind all this is the constant fretting over how people perceive me and how I’m always doing things wrong and the lists of things that I’ve done or acted wrong or come off wrong and so on which is also really tiring because its always background noise undermining whatever I try to do and telling me I’m dumb and weird and bad and everyone hates me. so theres that. but thats better.

had a really intense talk with my dad right before I left that I’m still reeling from, it was about my brother and the line between concern and judgement, anger, frustration. obviously my parents are concerned about my brother but that manifests in resentful silence and frustration and anger and judgement and disappointment. and my parents just aren’t good at all at being supportive or being there… and my dad said, sarcastically, that everything is so bad for us because we were beaten, and that hurts too because obviously I know thats not the case but?? what about how I feel? I don’t know. it makes me really sad because I don’t know what to do and I don’t like the anger and its a way of touching more clearly and really solidly the total lack of love that is real and supportive. like, there is just really nothing there basically for me or for my brother. except money. ugh.

so thats bad. but the other stuff is really good!

apparently linda’s perspective on me going to counseling is that it will essentially clear up all my misconceptions about my relationship with my parents and make me see the error of my ways so that I can relate to them more fully [without being a stuck up, snobby, sullen and too withdrawn to bother to care asshole anymore]. so, thats upsetting.

on the other hand, that would be my approach to reccomending that she go to counseling: so she actually takes some responsibility for being the adult in the relationship…

but, upon reflection, I can see that it wouldn’t be reasonable to ask her to go therapy to stop being such as asshole to me, just like I don’t like it that she thinks I go to therapy to stop being such an asshole to them….because ultimately, she’s an incredibly insecure person that isn’t naturally good at social interactions, she was insecure about her place in the family, she was convinced we didn’t care about her anyways, she has strange ideas about families and child-parent relationships…..so even though she does carry a lot of the responsibility for our relationship because she was the adult and I was the child, what would be best for her would be to work on her insecurities, like how to overcome some of the harmful ideas she has about herself and her place in the world—things that aren’t serving her well anyways.

just like, yes, I need some of the same things, and it is for the general purpose, maybe, of improving my relationships with my parents and in the world at large….but thats a much more supportive way of looking at it then just saying that I need to go to therapy to get over my ‘anti-authority’ tendencies or my general snobbiness…..
but I am still annoyed that I can realize that linda really just needs support for her insecurities and has seemed to never occur to either of my parents that I’m actually not a bad person; just that I have a lot of anxiety and depression that I need help with! they just don’t get that. WAT. oh well.

don’t know who originally said it—but I hope that that isn’t the reason that I’m not, for example, an insurrectionist anarchist. because I do believe that the system we live in so wrong and racism is wrong. but the ways I choose to think I want to do something about that tend to be in community building or education, and maybe thats allowing the status quo to inform my life a little too much—I don’t know.

1. during the feminism and religion class I took last semester with von kellenbach one thing that I was thinking about was how I really do hate birth control, its like we haven’t really come up with anything that feels good–I personally don’t like hormonal birth control of any type, I know several others who have had awful depressive episodes upon taking the pill, I don’t like how the hormones mess with your cycle (I actually like getting my period!), condoms work to an extent, but yeah, its not really ideal. haven’t tried diaphragms, might like to, but also, not really ideal….

basically, where is the solution to the desire to fufill all the opportunities our bodies offer us, while regulating our fertility? and part of what I was thinking is that as a culture or even as a species we put way too much emphasis on hetero intercourse and hetero people have a lot to learn from queer sexualities. penis-in-vagina intercourse is not the most fulfilling sexual experience, its only one sexual experience among so many others, and maybe its one we could do a lot less and put special emphasis on its ability to create children sometimes (without denigrating also the many other ways to have children!)

but of course I don’t want to dictate anyone’s sexuality for them. but for me, that feels right. when I want to have a child, I wonder if intercourse will have an extra symbolic dimension for me, of fertility and bodilyness and so on—which is only to say that I think thats one way of recognizing penis-in-vagina intercourse as a specific type of sexual experience, like any other type of sexual experience, but not better, with its own implications, rather than ‘the’ sexual experience—- and sex education (about all the types of sex people have) is necessarily part of birth control and fertility and stuff.

2. I think I am starting to get why its not okay to ask oppressed people to be compassionate to their oppressors, even if we value empathy and compassion normally. when someone is hurting you and then asking you to be compassionate about why they’re hurting you because they aren’t intentionally doing so, that is the worst. they need to stop hurting you, and one of the options you have to survive is to forcibly stop them from hurting you through anger or violence. and that is a good option, not a morally neutral or a bad option. anger can be healthy; aggression can be healthy also.

but this still upsets me a little bit because I don’t think anger is the final answer and I don’t think its the most productive thing and ultimately we gotta live with each other and account for all the truly awful and disturbing things in human nature–and violence, anger only goes so far. it seems to be best on a personal, stop hurting me! level but on a societal level?

I believe most people are good and I don’t want to hurt them, and thats the problem, its mostly good people that are date rapists and sexist, and oppressors, I think, because oppression is the default and unless you’re actively resisting it all the time, you’re oppressing and hurting people. so thats really hard.

I’m also saying this as a privileged person who has little reason to feel anger so this may be incredibly imperialistic but its hard for me to tell–is it even my place to legitimize or question other people’s anger or reactions to oppression?? I guess I need to listen a lot more, but if you asked me right now, these would be my thoughts, and in this space I think its okay to express my thoughts as I work through them.

but I do need to sit down and listen and witness other people’s experiences and anger before really being able to work together with people against oppression.

(all this stuff also came up in feminism and religion via a book about violently resisting rape that I had a lot of trouble with while I was reading it…but ultimately I agree with it. basically, the main idea was that women do need to violently resist rape if that is empowering for them, and taught to do so, without victim-blaming…but also as a society we need to not rape each other, and that means non-violent strategies of resistance also)

3. high fidelity was really offensive to me! just watched it and didn’t like it, which surprised me, since a lot of people do like it. I liked certain elements of say anything, and don’t hate john cusack movies on the whole, but high fidelity really pissed me off. totally, utterly and unapologetically sexist in some really insidious and sickening ways, in my opinion.

4. isn’t saying someone sucks not really the best way to insult them? or even saying like fuck you, or fucking this or fucking that or stuff? is that too sensitive of me? isn’t that perpetuating the standard that anyone who gets fucked/ or sucks cock (traditionally women or gay males) is weak/bad etc? or are these insults somehow transcendent of that?

i thought we were supposed to leave tomorrow to go to massachusetts but we aren’t and spending more time at home when I thought we were leaving is hard. its kind of hard to explain what its like when I’m at home, because I just feel lazy and awful. but its more than just lethargy/laziness/guilt. I don’t like to leave my room unless my parents aren’t around. I don’t like for them to see me eating in particular, but I also don’t like for them to see me doing anything. I don’t know why really yet. I guess its because I get anxious about having to talk to them (or if I don’t talk to them then thats also not okay), and I get anxious about their criticisms, judgments and assumptions that seem to bubble up later sometimes when I’ve shared something.

I know this all is stupid and I have so, so much privilege and money and opportunity and so on. but I do feel this way! anyways. so I feel guilty and unloved and lazy and useless and resentful sometimes.

and I just talked to my aunt and usually that helps but for whatever reason it didn’t. and I’m excited to go to the pacific northwest with my family, especially my aunt who lives in oregon, but when I get so down like this it takes a lot of energy to see anything as being good or fun. and I wish that peter and I could go camping even though its cold and wet because I don’t actually like traveling unless its camping, it makes me really anxious and upset and lost and lonely, even with family/friends/peter. I don’t think I’ve ever felt comfortable in a city in my life. well, oxford, but that is so, so different that it doesn’t really count. I just want to hole up where-ever I am and read, and then I feel even worse about myself because I’m not going out and having a good time.

oh man. this is such a pity party. but thats what its like most of the time, unless I actively resist it, like everyone else does….

so the point of this is that these overwhelming narratives that I tell myself, I notice now, sometimes, that these are not necessarily who I am but are just part of dealing with the depression and anxiety that gallops through my family lines, and its not necessarily something I have to listen to or believe or maybe it actually will be okay if I don’t dwell too much on these things, these episodes, and instead do something that might make me happy, because its not all horrible or so what if it is, sometimes even if you’ve been laying in bed all day anyways you have to do things that are good for you because laying in bed all day is not necessarily good for you and its a sign of ill-being for me and not just laziness

coincidentally I got straight a’s this semester and I am summa cum laude bound! which really shouldn’t matter to me as much as it does and I’ll freely admit that its just really a matter of ill-conceived, stupid, silly, feeding-the-kyriarchy spite at this point. I may not have liked college but god damn it I will succeed by conventional standards. even if in other more important and more positive ways I may have failed miserably.

(although leaving the campus with a farm and a contingency plan for that farm and its involvement with the larger SOMD community, and holding onto, however tenously, the thread of pseudo-radical activism on campus, and various FUSE campaigns about real things like abortion clinics and sexual assault laws in the county that I have participated in are actually, by my standards, quite okay, and maybe by friends/partying standards I didn’t do so well, and maybe by personal relationships with professors I could have done better, or passion for speakers and lectures and all the opportunities and so on…engagement with the larger world, could have done better too. oh well….at least I got good grades thats whats REALLY important )

a few of my ideas so far:
1. shaving! pretending to shave in my undies, not sexual, and then dressing up in the usual trappings of femininity, only to slip and fall in heels or trip over my razor or something gaggy and silly and pouty. and then taking it all off to embrace a hairy, personal brand of gender identity.
—I like this because its easy to understand, its consistent in itself, its clearly relevant to strip-tease or public sexuality, it critiques the constructed nature of femininity etc, its clearly my choice, it also is somewhat unexpected because of the whole getting dressed first thing (rather than getting on stage to undress)……but its kind of shallow i feel, its too easy really.

2. grotesque bodies/sexuality—not sure what exactly but I have a couple ideas to emphasize the ways in which bodies are really strange and problematic and interesting —taking off a traditonally feminine outfit to reveal scales or snakes or something drawn or painted on my body, for instance, combined with an emphasis on the weirdness of flexibility and even tassel twirling, or the sheer physical flesh moving and rippling haha…….and how that is sexy—or also/alternatively, casting off traditonally feminine clothes to reveal emphasized bodily traits, like drawn on body hair, stretch marks, even blood on my thighs or something equally grotesque…..and having that be ‘sexy’
—i like this idea because its a little bit more abstract and conceptual and challenging. it goes well with a sort of gorgon or medusa kind of theme, that what has been described as ugly, predatory or horrifying to a male audience can actually be read or reclaimed as something within the realm of possibility, desireability and femininity—that all bodies are frightening and strange and sexy and thats okay!

3. no body is illegal—again, not sure quite how this would happen but my most basic thoughts so far have been like wrapping myself in the caution tape you see at crime scenes etc and discarding that to reveal ‘no body is illegal’ written in spanish and english on my body, or, getting tripped up and confined by the tape, again, taking care to emphasize the surprising ways that bodies exist in the world (flexibility, tassel twirling, what else?)

—this is my favorite but also the most problematic and hardest to convey. so I would want it to comment on how no body can be ‘illegal’ or against the law, commenting on abortion and sex work and slut-shaming and so on, laws about bodies, but I’m not really sure how to visualize that and make it clear and coherent and consistent. like how to make it clear why laws about the body are ridiculous (why? because bodies are born, they’re unique and personal and lived experience and in itself, no body can be against the law….what people do with them can be, I guess? well I need to think this through more)

also, as a white person, I’m not sure if it would be appropriate to comment on police and immigration and brown people and how our laws affect brown people??? my gut tells me that the no body illegal part written on my body might be okay, that could be useful solidarity, but the acting out of interacting with the law via crime scene tape….not sure, which usually means, not okay. it feels like it could be appropriation or making light of a truly horrible and unjust experience that I, through my whiteness, help to perpetuate.

but on the other hand, if I’m acting out laws on bodies in general and the no body is illegal in spanish is an added element to remind people of the very relevant and political applications of that, then that could maybe be okay.

or sex work, given that is a very classed reality, is acting out sex work in some way problematic? I think yes but I think it can be done as solidarity without having to be problematic…but not sure.

theres also the unwritten laws that are harmful too, which, ugh.

SO INTERESTING AAHHH I can’t help it. making a rag-rug and also thinking about this helps me to avoid thinking about other things! hooray!

also, interesting articles:
how to create a feminist burlesque scene
article about political chicana burlesque
scathing criticism of burlesque
article about neo-burlesque, gets interesting about halfway down
ugh I had some more interesting things on burlesque acts done to comment on immigration reform and queerlesque and boylesque but I lost them! oh no! oh well. enough for now to get things thinking.

but I do find burlesque problematic because it claims to be a more political space, or a parodying space, or a space where the norms that usually apply about men and women and bodies don’t apply.

and yeah its empowering to be explicitly sexual and the humor is sometimes interesting and who doesn’t love all shapes and sizes and colors of women feeling sexy and having control of the gaze on their bodies and so on but ULTIMATELY, it sometimes feels like just a lot of women perpetuating the female/object, male/objectifier thing in vintage sparkly frilly clothing and we’re all saying they aren’t perpetuating harmful norms, which is what makes that especially difficult.

and as I was thinking sort of preliminarily about what I wanted to do that was what was tripping me up. you can problematize the male gaze on female sexuality as much as you want (by being medusa or by being seriously grotesque or by being a firefighter or a unicorn or WHATEVER, all of which I have seen btw) but it seems like ultimately, still, you’re exposing yourself for people, you’re teasing, you’re saying that
“I have sex and you want my sex I’ll let you think you might get it but you won’t” or that mystery and temptation are what sexiness is and I don’t believe that at all. I was really liking some fan dances I saw because its all about being in control of who sees what when and its pretty and sexy—but its still saying: yo I’ve got sexiness and you want it but I’m going to make it hard for you to get it! not that I don’t love the fan dances anyways, or that I think these people are perpetuating rape culture or whatever. they’re good, they’re lovely, but they are not ultimately radical.

but ultimately what is sexy to me?? and I’m not sure. but something along the lines of consent! explicit verbal consent! freedom of desires to play and question and explore; invitations; fantasies; etc. that is sexy to me.

but that is rather abstract I think and not very funny or particularly flashy—although I certainly think it can be.

there was an article about it in the UK Guardian that was pretty dismissive of burlesque—”if you want to feel sexy, have sex, if you want to feel empowered, then join a political movement,” and I also do agree with that but only to a point. because we aren’t just political movements and personal relationships, there are all these areas in between where we perform and act out gender and empowerment and its a very public thing. and sexiness is a very public thing….and that is what intrigues me about burlesque. the shades of grey between having sex/personal relationships, and the political context around that.

and I also think there are people that do find it absolutely empowering and fun and awesome to reveal their bodies for viewers and that is a good thing. and I may or may not be one of those people, not sure.

but how to do radical burlesque, is the main question, how to do queer burlesque, how to do funny and sexy and interesting burlesque that is reflective and positive? not sure. but thinking about it. I might post some links to the resources I’ve found that explore burlesque as a feminist, queer art form, and some that focus on burlesque and people of color too once I get around to reading them all!

so while its nice that she let me know that even though they don’t ask me about my life they still care, it also is really stressful for me. because I’m not comfortable talking to them; it feels like talking to strangers sometimes, or talking to people who hate you; or talking to people who are looking for an excuse to hate you; or I don’t know. it just isn’t easy to go downstairs and talk to my dad about anything. or linda. I don’t know exactly why. but I haven’t said more than five words to my dad since coming home, although I did manage a fairly lengthy conversation with linda today.

but the burden is on me to be friendly, open, communicative. so then I feel like they are silently angry that I don’t do things that are even polite or that I don’t care or that I hate them and don’t talk to them because I don’t like them. I don’t even know how to have conversations! I feel like most of my childhood and teenage years were spent in my room reading (this is somewhat true), not learning from parental models how to be polite and talk to people…including them.

and my dad today was stomping around the house huffing about his concern about tom because tom was maybe supposed to come home today but didn’t and then he wasn’t answering his phone. and its like, at this point, what would it matter to them if something bad happened to one of us? its not like they are that involved in our emotional, personal lives—I feel like it would just sort of confirm the underlying knowledge that something in this family is very wrong. which would be bad.

and my dad’s sister has been reaching out to tom and me but I’m not really sure what to do about that either. sometimes I feel like I’m the center of this web of failed, meaningless relationships and sadness and estrangement. ugh.

and I don’t even want to get into the weird relationship linda and my dad have. I don’t know. I know I should just get over all this and spend more time not moping in my bed, too depressed and anxious to get up and go eat, but it is hard. but maybe I should try more, it would make everyone happier.

anyways, combine this with the psychological emotional whirlwind that is the black swan (SO. MANY. FEELINGS!!) , plus general feelings of hopelessness/powerlessness about all the shitty things that happen in the world (ALL OF THEM), plus stress about next semester and life after college, plus lonelieness and friend anxiety, and I am not a happy camper at all. but movies and fanfiction (OH HELL YEAH) do some to ameliorate that.