ay dios

i'm guessing the number of people who read both this and the monkeyhippy's blog is between 0 & 1, so i'm not feeling guilty about reposting.

this is just ridiculous. but at least it demonstrates in one fell swoop how incompetent our healthcare and immigration systems are.

hablando sobre genero en nueva york

jster was in bklyn for a conference this weekend, so ee & i decided to take a little road trip. friday night, we had dinner with fiend, the r___, his relatively new ladyfriend, and scamz. of course, during dinner ee mentioned his research, followed by scamz engaging in a curious, interested conversation on the topic. but of course, others had to jump in with "biological" reasoning. now, this might be interesting in a case in which present at the table would be say, a biologist who studies the hormonal differences between men and women. but listening to a law student and a formerly radically libertarian anthro student defend the "naturalness" of the sex/gender system was rather unfortunate and uninformed.

The latter claimed along the way "i've read the same literature you have"--obviously not, and the former suggested "well, then i can just say i'm black." Ok, interesting reasoning, and at least this takes into account the socially constructed essence of race (though i'm not sure that was part of his reasoning). But what i really think would be a better analogy would be someone born in New Jersey claiming to be a New Yorker. Or perhaps someone who liked to listen to jam bands in their youth now claiming to be part of indie music culture. i think the point is that gender, like other forms of identity, has nothing to do with the past. it is instantiated in the moment and solidified by repeated iteration. much like the way "being a new yorker" doesn't necessarily mean you had to have been born somewhere between van cortlandt park and coney island, but relies more on an intimate knowledge of the subway system, or ability to wear stupid hipster clothes while taking oneself completely seriously.

And while ee is usually the first to get aggressive in the face of such attacks, i was rather shocked at his composure. he also didn't bring up the personal nature of the conversation, and i can't help but wonder how the conversation would have gone if this had been part of the mix. in the end, i'm not sure much was accomplished, but i was heartened by the way scamz seemed genuinely curious, and open to questioning his perceptions, even if the other two were not.

interestingly enough, today i came across this article on gay marriage in mexico city. sidestepping the marriage argument as a whole (and you might guess how i fall on this one) what i find most interesting about the article is the thought that marriage be defined as a union between “two biologically distinct persons.” now, this may be a product of poor translation, but i'm not sure, even if we don't question the ideology behind science and "biology," what two people would not be biologically distinct. identical twins? a cloned person?

and then further assuming that there is something "biologically" similar about certain people, wouldn't this mean that a black man and a white man could be married? or someone who is xxy could marry someone who is either xy or xx? or perhaps, like we all did in 6th grade science we should be paying more attention to who can roll their tongue and who has loose vs. attached ear lobes (yes i can roll my tongue and yes my ear lobes are attached, for those who might be interested).

saturday at dinner, i joined a less heterosexual, but just as normative crowd. they had just been to see mr. russell's casting genius in wig out (based loosely on paris is burning and ball culture), and mr. rhodes greeted me with "the legendary!" when i walked in. apparently dwt had mentioned dinner would involve a mystery guest, but hadn't told them who. later in the dinner, rhodes mentioned jk, and the table erupted in laughter. russell defended his previous statements. though i certainly have my own opinions about what actually happened (and those opinions certainly grant little legitimacy to the words of a man who lied about visiting his sister for a year and a half), i think this is at least demonstrates how, even for some of the most bourgeoise, homonormative, fabulous, bitchy (and i use that word, not in degradation, but because they do) men i know, sexual identity and practice do not necessarily coincide at all times.

ok, so yes, sexuality is very different from gender, and i don't mean to conflate the two. in fact, i think one thing that this weekend really solidified in my mind is how completely divergent sexuality, desire, love, and compatibility really are. and all for the best.

el sol

i was lying in bed this afternoon, listening to music, sort of "napping." I was listening to Kate Nash and her lyrics really struck me

I can be alone, yeah
I can watch a sunset on my own

how very appropriate.

of course, only my anthropology nouveau folks in the dale would really understand. and they don't read this, but i wanted to somehow commit it to memory. i should probably call mom and make sure she's fed the lizard too.

mapas

since i'm kinda obsessed with maps, and since we've all still got the election on our minds, here's a little eye candy.

4 de noviembre

tuesday when i got home from class i did laundry and watched cnn. but of course, nothing much was happening before polls closed, so there wasn't much point, except to see wolf blitzer and anderson cooper say the same things over and over. lou called shortly after i arrived, to say that she wasn't going to grant park as planned. i told her i was disappointed because i wanted to live vicariously through her.

but at 7:30 i went to julie's to watch the returns. the truth is though, i wasn't paying much attention to the tv. rumagin, ezra & i made some predictions as to timing and electoral numbers, but mostly i was concentrated more on my whisky and a conversation about umphrey's mcgee.

then ohio went to obama. and florida. and virginia. i had said to rumagin earlier, that if ohio goes blue, i'd be pretty convinced of victory. but somehow when the cnn powers that be announce such things with 14% of precincts reporting, it just doesn't feel real yet. so we continued to watch. the crowd of 15 slowly dwindled until it was just julie, phil, ee, and I.

and then mccain conceeded. i had a bottle of champagne that dvine gave me for my birthday, which we opened during his speech. However, we had to sort of work the cork out. no popping across the room. which is, unfortunately, how the announcement felt. but we toasted. it looked like obama wasn't going to speak for a while, so ee and i hopped in my car and i started to take him home.

but as we neared his place, the streets were getting crowded and we decided we should probably head down 16th street. we got to M and we were seeing more and more people, so we parked and walked to the white house. and there was a small crowd. there's a fence along the back side of the house, across the street from Lafayette Sq. and we worked our way through a few hundred people to it. there wasn't much going on other than chanting and singing and really we were both sort of tired and just taking in everything around us.

we stayed for about an hour, both running into students in the classes we TA. But things weren't too crazy. when we decided to leave, we realized the crowd had grown exponentially around us. by the time we got back to the car, and npr, they were announcing that the crowd had reached "several thousand." there were GW cross country team members running and singing, a guy wandering around in his underwear, people in suits, people with cameras, off duty security guards, kids who looked 15, old hippie activist types, young punk activist types. but everybody was happy and yelling. the streets were basically a constant stream of cars honking continuously, and pedestrians running with their arms up down the middle of the street shouting happily.

dc returned 92% in favor of obama by the last count i saw. and on the streets last night you could certainly tell. everyone was out. everyone was shouting or honking. and for once, nobody seemed to care how slowly traffic was moving.

jesus

i watched jesus camp tonight. which was a bad idea. (i'm not going to give a full recap, but there's interesting commentary here)

but first, the bright side. i noted during the credits that both directors, both producers, and both DPs were women. Assuming these people are normatively named, that's quite a feat. and that, in itself is a little depressing. what does it say about the state of affairs in film that i watch a fairly low budget doc, though well-distributed, and get excited that these 6 positions are filled by women?

but on to the real scary part. i think my timing in watching the film was a bit masochistic. Pastor Ted Haggard, President of the National Association of Evangelicals, representative of 30 million people, and advisor to President Bush said "Its an awful lot of people and we're growing...its got enough growth to essentially sway every election. if the evangelicals vote, they determine the election." Now, of course, I'm not taking ol' Haggard at his word, but it does give one pause. And I'm not about to write off the 2000 election as a time when the hidden masses of evangelicals made their voices heard, or even error. But it makes me question my faith in democracy in some ways (different ways from when i question whether one could really call the U.S. a democracy). Do I believe in a system in which a majority, no matter how oppressive or poorly guided their principles are allowed to make decisions for all, simply based on numbers (a la Hamas)? I suppose the one thing that Youth Pastor Becky Fischer and I agree on is "I think that Democracy is the greatest political system on earth but that's the problem. It's earth." Of course, she goes on to say, "It is ultimately designed to destroy itself because we have to give everyone equal freedom and ultimately that is going to destroy us." which I wouldn't really agree with.

This all of course reminds me of tanasha reemer. I wonder how she's doing, whether she and her husband and children ever made it to Africa to spread the word. Oh, excuse me...the Word. I wonder how her family is, and I hope they are all well. But moving back to the democracy issue, I truly hope they don't vote on Tuesday. And I hope that JeFF and Brewski don't vote on Tuesday. And those guys from Florida who lived in my hall sophomore year (2000). And for me that's scary. Because I believe so firmly that we should all have a say, but I guess deep down I'm a hypocrite. I only want the people who think like me to really be enfranchised. Maybe I should just go find a commune of like-minded people and cut myself off from the outside world.

Well, if there is a god, i hope that god is a sensible one and uses their godly powers to shape positive change in the world, because as i've mentioned before, its so screwed up i'm pretty sure only some supernatural power could make much progress.

bigotes

i am reexamining my lack of belief in a benevolent divine being.

halloween

and what a halloween it was...

i hadn't dressed up since 2004. and i didn't plan on it today. i left the house and 9 so i could get to school, write a welcome speech, and do some reading before class. i got the speech done, but i ended up collecting pictures for the remaining gill for his media room. after class i rushed to butler for the opening session and to give my welcome speech (it went fine). after the radical cheerleaders did their business, i rushed to battelle to meet with despina. instead i sat outside her office with julia & catherine for almost an hour. it was there that i learned that no one likes yellow scarf girl. finally catherine & i got in and we discussed everything from austrian performance art politics of the 70s to why americans like conquest movies to much, and even the historical trajectory of cindy sherman's art. strangely, though, i left feeling still bewildered. but charging ahead, i rushed back to butler to make sure there was water in nina's session. there was. finally, the conference ended and i went back to the basement of battelle to get my shit together for the panel i'm facilitating tomorrow. but of course the printers weren't working at first, and it took me almost 20 minutes of fiddling to fix one. then i walked to guapos.

there things got better. i had my first sustenance (aside from a reeses peanut butter cup) of the day, along with 2 margaritas. i ended up talking to naomi, david, & his prof from Wesleyan for a long time, before going to rumagin's party.

the geico caveman outfit was quite a success. in fact, it looked way better than i had expected. ee & i felt left out so we decided to exchange clothing and go as each other. someone donated a blonde wig, and we used rumagin's fake hair scraps to fashion facial hair for me. it was quite the experiment in embodiment. the jeans were very tight on my hips, but having so much shit in my pocket definitely made me stand differently. and facial hair (or maybe just fake facial hair) certainly changes the way i drank and ate. though, i'm not sure ee got the full nell-embodiment effect, because i wore a skirt today, which generally throws me off as well. its just so damn hard to sit in those things! but i think this may play well into our binding video we make for our "creative project" for despina. we shall see.

in the end, i ripped the hair off my face, and drove home. the places where the sideburns were glued feel a little raw. hopefully, i won't wake up tomorrow, bright and early, ready to facilitate my anthropology and activism panel with giant red splotches on my cheeks.

regalos de cumpleaños

an especially large & unexpected gift this year got me thinking about the amazing gifts i've been given in the past. i'm always amazed by the generosity of my friends. i generally try to put a lot of thought into the gifts i give, and my mom often tells me that i'm "such a good gift-giver." but these things go far beyond that. so in a gesture of appreciation to both those wonderful friends, and the grand generosity of the universe, here are the 10 best birthday gifts i've received since 1999

10. the family guy evil monkey patch & jesus coloring book, from the cladistics, age 23
9. a white russian (because it directly followed a 3 wise men shot), from the 409 crew, age 21
8. entrance to the co-op's halloween party, from dwt, age 19
7. a fetish necklace from the rez, from biijihbah, age 25
6. a poem and thai food, from scamz, age 20
5. a hand constructed bar, from dwt, age 21
4. a ring made from polish amber, from lou, age 26
3. a vintage 1965 french bike, freshly painted mint green, from ee, age 27
2. my purpleish scarf, i bought it for myself, age 23
1. the navy hoodie that i call home, from mom, age 18

i'm either paranoid or too intuitive for my own good

please excuse the vagueness. i have my reasons.

i'm feeling like i'm about to be very disappointed and i'm not sure i can take it. i've already had my heart ripped out twice in the last year, and i'm sick of it. i keep telling myself that good things happen to people all the time, and i shouldn't be so suspicious, and damn, just look around...

and when this all started, likely due to the previous rippings, i proceeded cautiously. but after what seemed like some perfect communication i started to throw caution to the wind. now i think that probably wasn't the best idea. i'm usually far more reserved, but after countless gchats with kj, it seemed like that was the way to go. maybe that's what we had been missing all along.

and i've decided that friends forseeing happy things in my future, usually means brief bouts of happiness followed by disappointment. last year when the now short-haired dirty hippie suggested something good would happen in the next 6 months, i only had to wait 2 weeks. then two months later i felt like i had been trampled.

this summer, gina cottone-divito-cottone's former future ex-husband told me something would be "seriously wrong with the world" if something good didn't happen soon. and a few weeks later, something did. but am i so terribly cynical and bitter that i can't just be happy and enjoy it. why am i so suspicious that things couldn't possibly work out. why must i read too far into simple things that should make a giant smile spread across my face. instead, i call the lou frantically saying i'm sure its a method of avoidance. i wish i could just let go and enjoy things as they happen, for better or worse. maybe this time, things are different.

i must be totally insane.

but then i think back to instances when i tried to convince myself i was just paranoid, but really, i was just seeing the first inclings of bad news. the spell right before finals. that conversation so many years ago about mcCait while lying on the floor of the zbt chapter room. or worse, the "i think i just need to deal with the tension" phonecall (though that one i really wasn't all that upset about). that look accompanied by "oh, dj nellie." its always subtle, but i can always see right through it. and damn, i really hope this is not that.

mejor

today was a much better day than expected. especially considering the fact that my archaeology midterm was due tonight.

it started like any other. i woke up later than planned and tried to throw some more ideas about marxist archaeology on the page. then off to the class i TA. afterwards, i had had a lot of archaeology reading to do and a project proposal to turn in by 5. i decided my desk at school was the place i was least likely to be productive (especially with rumagin around), and scoffing at the coffeehouse options near campus i headed to admo. basically, after hearing mention of unicorn two weeks ago, and then walking past it last saturday, i've realized i crave a space like that here. i wasn't a frequent patron of the 'corn, but i have fond memories of it. i'm pretty sure i composed a few poems there, back in my bard-esque days. but here, the options are couches in the student center, starbucks, or the "mud box" in the basement of the library. rumagin actually suggested there's a coffeeshop in the arts center, which i didn't know, but i thought today wasn't right for exploring. i needed something reliable. so i hopped on the red line and headed to tryst. i called e.e. on my way, and he met me there. i got a decent amount of reading done, finished my proposal, and had a tasty sandwich too.

at 5, we left, and i decided to take the bus back since it was running more frequently. on our walk east, we stopped into city bikes, where e.e. wanted to get some sort of elusive bolt for otto's bike. they didn't have it, but the guy behind the counter said if he brought the stem in they could figure something out. behind the counter there was a half full bottle of vodka. they had a little feat cd playing. i like that place....if only i had a bike. but i do have a suspicion that i might be getting one soon. i was confused as to what gift would require my inseam length but not my waist size. but when i mentioned that e.e. should build me a bike, he reacted strangely. then he said he had been painting today, and when i asked what was being painted he responded "just something i needed to paint." i'm suspicious. or maybe its just wishful thinking. i suppose i'll find out soon though.

after all this, i took the bus back to campus, finished reading, did one quick last edit of the midterm, and printed it, using the secret hidden toner stash.

finally, at 8 it was time for class. archaeology is usually the bane of my existence. its been almost 7 years that i've been saying "never trust an archaeologist" (and i keep finding new reasons why its true). i find the discipline marginally interesting on good days, and dreadfully mundane anytime after 6pm (and the class is 8-10:30pm). but instead of meeting in our usual classroom, we have moved our class to d-say's new lab. sure, its in the basement, but its littered with paul simon posters, and maps of the great dismal swamp (sounds so upbeat!). and to celebrate our new location, we had a lab-warming party with pastries, pakistani potato balls, cookies, and pumpkin bread. our new seating arrangement was far more conducive to discussion, and i was more awake than usual tonight. perhaps because we were discussing inequality and resistance as visible in the archaeological record. dan even asked if anyone really got into resistance. his example was "you know, when you hear the word resistance, do you say 'fuck yeah!'?" I responded that maybe i didn't say those exact words, but i did get into resistance. of course slight ironies were not lost on me. i noticed every liquid in the room was a coca cola product. a 2 liter of coke. a 2 liter of sprite. a 16 oz coke. a 16 oz diet coke. a McDonald's medium cup full of coke. a 20 oz dasani (porcupine) water bottle. a 16 oz dasani (porcupine) water bottle. and i even drank some coke, but only because rafi poured a cup for marvine, but she already had one. i simply offered to consume what would have otherwise gone to waste....

class ended with a rousing tale of how d-say didn't drop out of college due to one amazing archaeology professor. the story also included the fact that he graduated from high school 4th from the bottom of his class of 2000, and at one point in his college career had a 1.65 gpa. i guess that gives one hope that no matter where you start, you can get a ph.d.....and a job....

after class we all hung around a bit finishing off the last of the snacks, and i ended up offering k squared a ride home. i've decided he's my new favorite friend. along the way he told me stories about when he and his wife were in the peace corps in romania. and he made a joke about celeine dion music.

so maybe the day wasn't quite so remarkable, but the paper is finished, and all i have to do tomorrow is go to class and write my (now 2 days overdue) questions for the panel i'm facilitating next weekend. and then on to birthday partying this weekend....

constitución

just in case you're not paying particularly close attention to bolivia, the draft constitution was ratified!

gracias a dios

there is a lot i want to write about my weekend, but this is more important for the moment.

i'll only say this.

there is a person i have found supremely annoying, insincere, and abrasive for a little over a year. however, it seemed that no one else saw those qualities in this person. in fact, most of my friends were quite fond of this person, so i've been biting my tongue and trying to deal with the hours i spend with this person daily.

however, tonight i discovered that an entire cadre of people feel exactly the same way. and its so relieving. so vindicating. i feel like a burden has been lifted, and like i'm not such a bitch for having negative feelings about this person.

las políticas de zappatos

this weekend i went to a wedding. while it hasn't been uncommon for me in the last few years to end up at the weddings of people I only vaguely know, i had never met either the bride or groom this time. i'd like to think this gives me a unique perspective.

weddings always hit me in a strange way. partially because for so many years i was pretty convinced that i had no marriage (nor the desire for one) in my future. partially because wedding ceremonies make so clear the ways in which "traditional" gender ideology continues to be reinscribed. i'm not the biggest fan of phrases like "man and wife" or all the talk about the aim or marriage being reproduction. and to all of that add the blatant commodification of desire.

not to say i don't enjoy weddings. other people's grotesque overspending usually results in me having a pretty fantastic time (and this wedding was in no way any exception). and the truth is, though i wouldn't be particularly concerned with the save the date magnets matching the bridesmaids' hair-dos, if i ever get married i can imagine myself eating every angsty word i've ever muttered about the ridiculousness of weddings (though thankfully, consueloZ, from the midst of wedding planning, assures me that it is possible to keep a level head about these things--no sand art!).

but this i will never take back...the ceremony had already begun when we found a pew on the wrong side of the aisle. the priest launched into a long metaphor of the ephemerality of flowers and the necessity of roots for lasting love. and then he turned to meaning of sacrifice in a relationship. here i will try to loosely quote: "John, sometimes you'll just want to come home and watch TV, but Casey will want to talk about her day, and you'll have to sacrifice. And Casey, when you're out shoe shopping and John just wants to go home, you'll have to sacrifice and take him home."

what struck me as so brialliant about the phrase was the complex interweaving of gender, consumption, and identity. the priest constructed the neoliberal formations at work here as naturalized (see lancaster 2003) and traditional enough to be in what many consider to be a sacred ceremony.

i'll side-step the television reference, and focus exclusively on the shoes. shoes represent a particuarly feminized realm of consumption, even in an age in which men's clothing style as become important and indicaive of lifestyle (see mort 1996). shoe shopping also connotes a level of wealth which allows for shopping as a leisure activity, rather than the procurement of a necessity. Finally, the positions of quitting shopping as "sacrifice" positions it as not only normative, but a right.

and so, in this most important of moments, neoliberal gender ideology forms the way we conceputalize partnerships, the family and the meanings we associate with "love."

la política electoral

I had a meeting today for our conference on supporting social movements, during which, among many other things, we discussed who would moderate the closing panel. some people felt this was a particularly important decision because a) the topic is political b) the panel includes at least one politically outspoken person c) Laura Nader (Ralph's big sis) is on the panel and d) it takes place a mere 3 days before the election. a democratic party leaning professor was decided upon.

what followed really bothered me. there were half joking comments about turning people's mics off if disparaging comments about (or merely disagreements with) Obama or his stances were made. I muttered something under my breath about free speech. the conversation then turned to blaming Nader for Gore's defeat. The Jag said, "Nader should be banned from the ballot in swing states." A lone undergrad spoke up and said "maybe the democratic party should stand for real change." I kept my mouth shut.

i find it really frustrating that people who consider themselves so liberal, the kind of people who dedicate time to a conference on supporting social movements, code pink enthusiasts, radical activists, trans rights workers, people with close relationships and vested interests in subjugated groups around the world, would be so closed-minded. i don't care who they vote for. its none of my business and frankly, if people want to write in Ann Coulter for president I won't judge them for it (well, maybe just a little, but i'm sure they have their reasons). but to limit people's options or access seems to me to be the opposite of democracy. and these are people criticizing Palin for suggesting that a democratic Hamas victory didn't count as democracy.

el comunismo

at the age of 13, i decided my composition class final paper, essentially an 8th grade thesis, would be on "communism." now, as a child of the cold war, my concept of communism certainly had far more to do with stories about east Berlin and the Soviet breadlines than any sort of political or economic philosophy. as part of this exploration, i embarked on the Communist Manifesto and found that communism was not some exotic or even evil philosophy of domination but was actually somewhat sensical. i imagine the paper was a monumental (by my standards of the time) length of 10 pages (10 hand-written pages of course), and how i managed to even delve into something like "communism" is laughable.

well, fortunately, i have now had a chance to read it again. and after having read das Kapital (vol. 1) last year, i felt pretty fluent. in fact, in a class with 11 other silent parties, i felt like the know it all, answering question after question following a pregnant pause.

until last year, i never really contemplated my stance on marxism/socialism/communism. however, after hotboxing althusser, harvey, gramsci, wolf, and voloshinov for a few years, i guess i'd have to admit a pretty marxist leaning in my academic work.

...i guess some things are just inevitable.

la idioma de amor

i've written before about the politics of affectionate nickname usage here, but feministing clued me in to a recent nytimes article that discusses diminutive nicknames used toward the elderly. obviously, this demonstrates parallels between sexism and ageism, but it really makes me wonder how this came to be. how did words that should be wonderful to hear become such a burden? in both cases, i suppose, false or unwelcome affection is taken as offensive. i suppose its all (as usual) about power, and who is able to manipulate others via language.

iglesias bolivianas

sometimes i feel like i've been looking at all the angles. then i see something like this that reminds me just how wide the spectrum is.

so, i guess the one thing we might agree on is that we'd all be happier if bolivia were a little less violent, and relations with the u.s. were a little less strained. of course, i doubt we'd agree on who exactly is at fault in that relationship.

adición

home baked vegan banana bread makes everything better

lluvia

i'm in a shitty mood tonight.

first, i went to the bank today to deposit my giant stipend check, and according to the bank's computer, the account I've had since the fall of 2003 is a "new account" so i must wait 3 days for my funds to become available. the guy let me take out some cash as a "special favor" and then criticized me for wearing a sweater in the 65 degree weather.

class was actually alright, and afterwards, i went with ee & delf to get 1/2 price veggie burgers at a bar in dupont circle. $5 instead of the regular $10. but of course, they were out of veggie burgers, so i ended up paying $7 for a small bowl of lentil soup.

on the way home, i stopped to buy some neosporin (which seems to be the only thing that makes me not itch my crazy dry ankle until it bleeds), and i thought i had a bit of luck. the sign in cvs said it was on sale for $4.49. but, of course when i took it to the register it rung up for its regular price, $8.99. whatever...i was going to buy it anyway.

finally, i got home and found an email from the anthro dept.'s student activities advisor who basically told me that it was "impossible" that the people who were supposed to get reimbursements last year never received them.

i'll deal with it tomorrow when i'm in a more diplomatic mood.

i also had my ipod plugged into my computer to charge all day, and upon returning home found that not only did it not charge at all, the computer isn't recognizing it, and its stuck on the "do not disconnect" screen.

sorry for complaining. hopefully tomorrow will be better. unfortunately, thursdays are the worst day of the week.

ugh.