cambios

so, today at school, i was sitting in the cubes, and as usual the homepage comes up as blackle. i did some reading about it, and it seems that it really does reduce kilawatt hours expended. so today i came home and changed my homepage from google to blackle too.

and then i decided to go further. i changed my desktop to a dark picture. i changed the background of my blog and other various websites from light to black. i changed the background of my windows from light to dark. my life is dark now, existing primarily in basements and all.

and its silly and small, but every little bit helps i suppose. or at least it can't hurt.

italia

well, they say knowing spanish helps with italian. and there are a lot of cognates, but it didn't help me much. fortunately, i had my (taller) little sister interpreter with me. the trip was good. very very good. aside from hangovers and allergies i have no complaints. wine was drunk, spaghetti was consumed, sights were seen, asses were made (of ourselves), and now i can hardly contain my anticipation for holidays, just so i can see lou again.

there are many stories to be told, but i will stick to my favorite for now: lou, her friends and i were at a gelateria one evening, drinking wine. we had also had wine with dinner. and lunch. this was probably the 7th or 8th bottle of the day. the five 20 year olds and myself finished the bottle and determined ourselves too drunk to order another, so we headed out the door. they headed off in another direction, and lou and i with our trusty map headed toward what we thought was home. we ended up near the river (the opposite direction), and were rather confused. lou decided she had contained herself long enough, and let it loose, as she seems to be doing more often these days. after the quick pit stop, we headed back the opposite direction, hoping to start over from our original gelateria. but we couldn't even find that. fortunately after roaming in circles for about 10 minutes we came across a taxi stand. we hopped in and after 3 minutes in the cab were at the front door. 5 euro got us home. of course by this point lou had the giggles (which were contageous) and we probably woke up everyone in the hall. it was a good night, but the hangover wasn't really worth it. i'm getting old. that never used to happen!

nava-who? miss navajo!

i finally watched "miss navajo" by billy luther, and it was even better than expected.

aside from making me crave some frybread (with a hole for spider woman of course), its quite wonderful. nice shots of shiprock, window rock, open desert. it makes me crave that dry heat (maybe only becaue my apartment is chilly). its such a beautiful place. "beauty that hurts" as the admiral would say.

the documentary followed a miss navajo contestant, who seemed to be from shiprock, based on shots outside their home. it was a nice overview of historical and current issues as framed through the pageant. the historical knowledge quiz only stumped me once, though i certainly wouldn't have been able to answer as thoroughly as the contestants (or in navajo!). it involved the treaty of 1868 (the long walk), changing woman, coyote, and the n.n. seal.

i also appreciated the nuanced way of addressing sheep butchering (though no visuals of "fat sheep 4 sale" signs). they mention its traumatic for some people. which i can attest to. but also seem to take pride in it as legitimizing the contest as more substantial than other beauty pageants. (i also want to note that the butchering was more offputting for me because it caught me off guard, rather than being "gross." though it did reconfirm my vegetarianism....but i digress). they also had to make fry bread, and exhibit a "traditional" talent.

it did an excellent job of addressing language loss. none of the contestants were fluent. most spoke some navajo, but were not able to answer questions completely in dine'. and a little of the history of this loss was touched on, including boarding schools, which i also found excellent for contextualization.

all in all, it was excellent, highly recommended, etc. but then again, i'm not quite an unbiased observer.

atletas embarazadas

my usual athletics consultant, k, sent me a link today about ncaa athletes that become pregnant.
and i, of course, have many thoughts.
first, i have to say that the glaring problem with the article is the complete absence of reproductive justice discussion. sure, i can imagine why, but there are a variety of topics approached in the article that require mention of rj for thorough discussion.

the very first paragraph begins, "The timing wasn't the greatest," bringing to mind my (mis) quoted statement from the chron, "I think that abortion rights are central to women being able to control their own lives." Followed by (surprisingly appropriately named) Junk's appraisal that my comment "implies that women are neither free nor equal citizens unless they can legally end a pregnancy." And her assessment is pretty right on.

I do believe that a woman who is unable to decide when, where, and how to get pregnant is neither free nor equal. The Daily Herald article illustrates both of these aspects. First, women who are not free to choose between abortion and a child are not free from several constraints. They are not free from biology. They are not free from economic consequences. They are not free from social consequences. They are not free to pursue a future of their choosing. But, by this argument really no one is "free," we all make choices within constraints not of our choosing (to loosely paraphrase Marx). And since what sort of "free" is not specified in Junk's article, I'll move on to the second point.

Women are not equal citizens if they are unable to choose. Now, since I've been reading a lot of Altusser, Ong, and other such citizenship theorists lately, I should mention that here I use the term "citizenship" to mean the full rights associated with being an official member of a group. I do not mean mere "belonging," nor do I mean simply the right to vote. Citizenship is hailed by the state and ensured through Ideological State Apparatuses. It includes the full protection of the state, the right to participation in the public sphere, and all benefits associated with membership. And it is not "merely cultural" (Judith Butler, 1997), but implies real material consequences. In the case of pregnant athletes these consequences are the scholarships they receive to attend school. When these scholarships are taken away, at best they are left with paying tuition. At worst, these women will be financially forced to quit school, and may also miss out on a promising professional athletic career (and I'm now resisting the urge to switch gears and launch into a critique of gender inequality in professional athletics).

Of course the consequences for women are only one half of the equality equation (haha). As the article mentions, many college athletes have children. While an undergrad myself, one of nu's star football players was the father of no less than 3 children. he went on to the nfl. Even one child for a female athlete, on the other hand, would not only preclude playing in what could be a pivotal season to be able to play professional sports. Perhaps I verge too closely to equating pregnancy with injury, which in some ways may be appropriate but from a legal standpoint gets, well, "sticky."

It is also important to note that members of a Clemson team did terminate pregnancy out of fear of losing scholarships. Now at risk of sounding like I'm anti-choice (bear with me here), it is an atrocity that a person would be compelled to terminate a pregnancy for such reasons. Of course, it happens all the time, and there are plenty of women who simply cannot afford a(nother) child and terminate pregnancies. Which points to the vast array of underlying problems, with healthcare systems, welfare states, maternity/paternity leaves, day care systems, and plenty of other institutions. All this is simply to say, that perhaps de Beauvoir was too quick to assert that "biology is not destiny." Unfortunately the current state of reproductive justice and the aforementioned institutions do leave women unequally equipped to claim the rights associated with citizenship.

Alright, now...moving on. In large part I agree with the article, but I find it too apologetic. Aside from her complete sidestep of rj issues, Babcock McGraw says she can "see both sides." Female athletes engaging in unprotected sex are being irresponsible, and this behavior is equated with drinking and driving or snowboarding. Sure, unprotected sex is never a good idea, but if female athletes are held responsible for such acts to an extent that they are dropped from rosters (and funding), to maintain equality, male athletes who father children should be held to the same standard. If we regard athletes as having a primary commitment to their institution (as the author implies), a child constitutes a breach of that contract whether the fetus is physically growing in the athletes womb or simply takes half of its dna from the athlete. Any distinction between to the two privileges male-boded athletes (as if they're not privileged enough). If athletes are dropped from rosters for "irresponsibility" this should include all bodily injury or change, drugs or drinking, or anything else that may get the athlete into legal trouble (even a misdemeanor arrest). Isn't this why we have Title IX?

the espnU website has a nice write up of outside the lines that includes a little video.

Ok, so now i'm just rambling on and i've spent too much time writing this instead of my paper on german anthropology. ah, procrastination...

una hag de nuevo

well, perhaps it was inevitable, but all of my new school friends, other than the jag, are gay men. the last 5 people i entered into my phone were gay men.

but it feels like home. i haven't really been in that little world since my days of hanging at roscoe's and charlie's (and unfortunately, spin). sure, i saw dwt a few times in queens, plus leo and upside in the dale. but really, since 2003 i've been very absent from the gay bar scene. for better or worse.

so i have the option of going to an 18 & over gay club tomorrow night after class. i'll probably pass. but i am attending a gay dinner party friday night. i think i'm destined to never have female friends again...

cumpleanos

the weekend was a success overall. though we did miss out on wwe cyber sunday.

instead we checked out the crab shack, and really i can't imagine anything more perfect for a birthday. we drank vodka out of pint glasses, ate greasy food (poppers, grilled cheese & curly fries for me), and met what jr would call "a couple of characters."

we also saw handjob earlier in the day after he ran a marathon. we met him at a bar, and not surprisingly he was a little bit tuned. he spilled some beer on k, but all was in good fun. the final key moment of the birthday sunday would have to be watching the cmt show, dallas coyboy cheerleader auditions, or whatever the official name is. really, that's what kept us from wwe. but how often is it that three people of such divergent interests find a show they all want to watch in marathon form on cmt. it couldn't be helped!

el mismo

the more things change, the more they stay the same.

i couldn't help but notice the similarity of my living room to the one i had 3 years ago. and i couldn't help but make an ode to what is probably my greatest photographic work (at least in an egotistical sense).

the lighting's not as good, and it took me quite a few tries to get the expression similar to the original. which perhaps is not shocking, but realize that the original was taken on a film camera. i took 2 pictures. no retakes. no testing the lighting to see how it shows up. and i still think they're better. but maybe its the enigma that makes me like them more. maybe its the context, the positionality. the knowledge of what happened before, and especially after those pictures were taken.

the unfortunate part of it all is that i don't even have a reason to get dressed up for halloween this year.

anthropolog@s alemanes

tonight in class we discussed german anthropology. yes, basically the entire history of german anthropology, at least up to post-wwii era. and most of what we realized was that it wasn't so different from u.s., british, or french anthropology (and probably lesser studied disciplines as well). there was tension between post-enlightenment universalism and relativistic romanticism. the diffusionist school and the functionalists competed. physical and socio-cultural began to merge (as in the us). so how were the anthros so easily swayed to the nazi cause.

many people argued it had a lot to do with the escapism necessary after wwi, or something along those lines. and i didn't fully formulate this in class, but the more i think about it, i think it was only a matter of the completeness of control.

around the same time, the us was coercively sterrilizing puerto rican women. clearly a product of eugenics. and no, to my (admittedly very limited knowledge) there were no anthropologists clamouring to get in on the action. but my guess someone had been reading some anthropology work on p.r. now, by no means am i equating the two. certainly there are huge differences and i don't mean to minimize the nazi's practices with a comparison to sterilization. but the point is, lets not pretend we are so innocent with our boasian tradition. i'm sure this is just one example among many that could be used. and that's completely leaving aside vietnam era anthropology of the vietcong. and now we've got this human terrain mapping. again, i'm not in any way saying it is the same magnitude. but it is something to ponder...

piensos extranos

1. i acquired a tiny thing of grey pupon mustard recently, and damn its good. i mean, yes, i like mustard a lot. but the g.p. beats the hell out of safeway/shoprite brand dijon mustard. mmmmm...

2. i ran two miles on tuesday with the kronner. it was pretty pathetic at the end. there was a very slow but steady upwards hill that just killed me. but hey, at least i'm trying. we did get to discuss his thoughts on moving to chicago though.

3. my internet went down yesterday, and was fixed today. they guy who fixed it was from chicago, and we discussed the beloved windy city. then i got an email from smoyer who just moved to chicago. i'm now putting together something to send, but i have to find a few more things. its all making me miss chi town. and i won't ever fly through there for the holidays. i'll have to make a trip sometime soon.

4. it was a crappy rainy day, and my allergies were bad, but i decided i had to get out and go to the grocery story before consuelo z arrives. and when i left the apt, i had something very exciting from method in the mail. just a bag, no cleaning goodies, but still. it lightened my day.

5. as did this
i was especially heartened because a few months ago i made an ill-advised attempt to argue in class that the butter cow had something to do with citizenship. at the time i basically conceded that it really was only about belonging. but this proves the point. speaking of which, i should call duff.

juanito

i had a weird dream this afternoon (when i was supposed to be reading).
i was talking to the leap in an office, which seemed to be more like a storage closet under a set of stairs. then johnny c., of hey hi '98 fame, asked me if i wanted to get lunch. he just sort of barged in to the office. and was wearing an argyle sweater. but his hair was still all spikey. i told him i couldn't, and then the leap asked if he was my high school boyfriend. i said no, and explained the politics of our non existant relationship. basically, that i was (am) a nerd.

that's about all there was to it, but its just so weird. what the hell is he doing in my dreams? what could have brought this on? and really, if i'm going to dream about being asked out to lunch by some hey hi alumn, couldn't it at least be a cute one like ar or mn or hb?

speaking of which...the fox sent me a text message this weekend. the stars must be aligned for some sort of heyworthian cosmic connection or something. weird.

bars and bad press

5 years ago, on 27 october 2002, a whipped up some yummy thai curry and rice in davey's rice maker, and had a lovely sit down dinner with my roommates. then we moved the table into the kitchen. then davey & i went to home depot.


we bought some long boards, some marble looking contact paper. some battery operated lights, some shelving. some 2x4s. we loaded it into the trunk of my rez-mobile, somehow, and drove back to hamlin street. we unloaded, took everything up the 3 flights of stairs, and pulled out my tool box (he certainly didn't have one). we nailed and leveled and covered and hung my painting behind it and stood back to admire our new bar.


this bar was the home to beloved space prom. it was home to the rainbow alliance party that ended in an ambulance call. it was home to a vagina monologues after party, a few improvisational parties, the party i threw when i finished my thesis.


so, here i am getting all nostalgic about a piece of wood perched against the wall with the vag mon. stools surrounding it. but the point is that bar was a central point to my senior year of college. as seemingly background as it was, without it things would have been different. all because of home depot.



(now here's where i get to the feminist ranting part of the blog)


but of course home depot has to go and decide that its stores aren't woman friendly enough. and i'm pissed. hell i spent a good number of lunch breaks when i worked at the arch. firm wandering around the h.d. on 23rd street. i was at home depot about 5 times this summer. i love the place. rather, i loved.


no more. home depot is dead to me. don't insult me! treat me like a human being with a brain and the ability to construct simple structures. come on! i guess i'll have to start going to lowes.

from ironing to leaping

the leap is quickly becomming my new hero. aside from the moodiness, he's way cool. and his drink of choice is vodka. what more could a girl want in a prof. maybe less moodiness.

this all came about in a very awkward meeting i attended this evening. there was supposed to be a wrap up/reflexivity/pre-planning meeting for pub anth. i hung around after class, and showed up in the appropriate place at the appropriate time. so did the vine and the leap. that is all. so here i am with the dept chair and the conference organizer, discussing what went well and not so well. what the hell was i doing there? sure, i helped. i attended. but i didn't attend a single planning meeting. i basically didn't do anything until the night before when i showed up to meet people at the bar. i guess i did put up with mr. book deal.

well, i tried to contribute in the meeting, and ended up with 2 boxes of cookies to take home. but all in all, i'd rather avoid that sort of thing in the future. which is unfortunate, because i like being involved in that sort of thing.

in other news, i officially have 8.25 pages for my 8-10 page paper. i need to do some more editing tomorrow during the day, but i'm feeling fair about it. i think its at least a b. now that i've put that in writing, of course, it will not be true. but i'll complain about that at a later date, when i know for sure. man, i can't wait until 24 hours from now!

lengua, sexualidad, y cuidadania

on my way to class tonight, i caught part of an npr story on a transgender woman who claimed her gender reassignment surgery as a tax deduction and the irs is denying the deduction.

what really got to me was the comparison with anorexia that was drawn by an "expert." "we need to fix the mind" i believe is the quote.

sigh.

speaking of sexuality and citizenship, i spoke to my wife tonight. although i think she's my ex wife. or maybe we're polygamous. well "we" meaning "she" because i certainly don't have a new wife.

we talked about nostalgia in class too. in freudian/lacanian terms. perhaps it is the past tense of desire. but i have a more complex relationship with the idea i believe. i've been thinking that i'm always concerned with playing things out. what would have happened. i need to learn to be ok with not knowing. i wouldn't say that i ever really regret. but i long to know. and why? if i'm happy now, why is it important what might have happened. what's important is what did happen. right? does this even make sense? probably not. but that is my new attempt at zen. not worrying about the might/could/should/would. "be here now" i guess.

i say this, of course, as i sit at my desk, staring at a picture of my bilagaanas & howard. & manu. how do you say indian (of the south asian sort) in dine'?

soy una gasfitera

last thanksgiving, i found myself at pit row with papa H. this is not a surprising occurance, nor is the fact that i saw a number of old classmates there. one, who happened to be my homecoming date sophormore year (we'll see if anyone reads this that's known me that long), told me he had just passed his plumber's licensing exam. it depressed me a little, realizing that here i was employee of the illustrious New York Review of Books, making probably half of what he was making. now c.m. was always a smart kid, and i hope the best for him. but still, one likes to think that they go off to the big city, get a swell (sounding) job, and then they get to come back and brag to their old classmates about what fun they're having. or something like that. but instead, i was just depressed.


of course, many things have changed since then, and i'm a much more fulfilled person these days, but i was reminded of it today, when i decided to get down on the floor and figure out what the hell was wrong with my kitchen sink. and i fixed it! it took some dismantling of pipes, draining in buckets, a very feces-like smell, plastic gloves (which I conveniently found under the sink), and some draino, but right now, my sink is draining properly, and the gray water chilling in the bottom of the dishwasher is gone! the kitchen still smells a little funny, but hopefully that will dissipate.


last night, i couldn't sleep and ended up moving a bunch of furniture around. so, in celebration of my now mostly-functional kitchen, here's a picture of the new set up. woohoo!

anthropologia y guerra

if you're further interested, the diane rehm show had an interesting discussion of military anthropologists yesterday.

soy una anthropologa

today was a very anthropological day

it started with taking notes on boas and malinowski. later, in class, i was asked which i preferred. i hadn't really considered the question before, but i had to reply malinowski. yes, little ol' boasian department trained me. i'd still consider myself pretty adamantly 3 field (and when my archaeologist friends are particularly engaging, perhaps even 4 field), and i'm in no way durkheimian. but the more i think about it, the more i'm sure. yes, i'd rather read argonauts than race, language, culture. but that's not the extent. perhaps its a product of my embeddedness in exoticism, but there's a certain charisma to malinowski. he's somewhat of an enigma in a way i would argue boas is not. perhaps that's just a product of the diary, but i also like his longterm fieldwork. his interrelatedness. i like the way he defines (or at least uses the term) material conditions. plus he's polish. and who doesn't like a good pole?



i wrote for 4 hours today and only came up with 2 1/2 pages. but i think they're solid. i mean, as solid as they could be considering the topic. which, by the way, is applying durkheimian and weberian theory to this.

i also turned in an application for research funding, and wrote a call for papers today. after class tonight, i ended up talking to the jag and tudy about anthropologists in the military. we were mostly just noting things that we had already discussed yesterday at the roundtable, but i had one of those moments where i realized i had found what i was looking for.

i guess, one of my complaints about the dale was that i was looking for more community. i wanted to sit in the lounge and discuss anthropological notions. i wanted involvement and discourse, not just classes. and certainly i found that with certain people, like my wife and prof. ponger (who i may be co-authoring a paper with, our 300th of course) at times, but it wasn't an overarching theme in my life there. but i already feel in the midst of it here. so, tonight, i'm feeling content.

plus, its officially scarf weather now!

soy sola

i don't work well with others. perhaps this comes as no surprise to a whole host of people. my parents, former teachers, friends, co-workers, classmates. but it just sort of dawned on me today. sure, i've always been more content to play by myself. i like living by myself. i'm quiet, introverted, and perhaps selfish.

but its just now dawning on me that i didn't like working with another person on the discussion today. i'm quite pleased that my ethnography presentation is alone. biij & i didn't get along when we worked together.

i tend to do ok with team sports. and drinking (though i do that alone too) with others. but working on projects is an entirely other situation. who knew? probably a lot of people.....

solo 20 dias...

i did a disappointing amount of work today, but i did get some RA research done, so that was productive.
the kitchen sink is in worse shape. still draining into the dishwasher, which is now draining all over the floor. i went to safeway to get draino (or whatever you use these days), and totally forgot it. i did get some granola bars on sale though. really not much exciting has happened lately. PAD was good, because at least i ate a few meals away from my home and imbibed some alcohol. i probably won't do that again until my birthday.

the phone number acquiring saga continues....if i didn't mention it before, i'm refusing to send out a mass email to replace all those missing numbers, so i'm waiting until people call me. or at least until i really need to call them. its an interesting experiment. bii jih bah called me this evening, so i've got one more in the phone. i think i still have less than 10 though.

i told myself i was going to paint today, and it didn't happen. maybe tomorrow. but probably not. probably not until this essay is done in a week and a half. sigh. its been too long. but at least its given me time to contemplate the project. i think its going to be fairly good, though derivative. oh, nothing will ever replace the couch picture. maybe when i finish this one, i'll do a dinosaur battle painting as a christmas gift (you know who you are--when i eventually give it to you, act surprised)

cocinar

top chef may be over, but the next iron chef has just begun. and it has one thing top chef doesn't have.

yes, my original celebrity crush, alton brown. at nine minutes into the show i could care less about the contestants, but ab is looking dapper in his dark suit and white shirt. i just hope at some point he dons a white chef's coat. i don't think that's his style. i suppose because he's not really a "chef," but a food scientist. alas, its probably all for the best. i'm not sure i'd be able to handle it.

in other events, it was a more interesting weekend than most. we had the public anthropology day yesterday, and kicked it off friday night at a U street restaurant/bar. i met a student who's starting in the program next year (she deferred), who i think i like, but can't quite tell. there were also a few prospective students there. all nice. no one spectacular. there was a guy from UT who knows the lazy eyed texan and who has a post-doc at UMD. jen got his numero de telephono, so perhaps we'll see him again. also there was this dude who spoke at the conference, who clearly had a bit of a superiority complex. he's negotiating a book deal...blah blah blah...the daily show refuses to have me on...blah, blah, blah....i got fired, but before i left the building, i had 3 new job offers...blah blah blah. then he gave me his card and said i should call him.

um, no.

the conference itself went well. i was there from 8 am to after 5, and then we all went for mexican food, where for once, i was perfectly positioned at the table. near c howe, next to suzie T, kronner on the other side, and right across from the gill. interesting conversations ensued. and mr. bookdeal was all the way at the other end of the table.

i got home around 9pm, and went directly to bed. and it felt sooo good.

today, i woke up early and wrote a proposal for a grant for the summer. i'm not feeling particularly confident about it, but its good practice if anything. and i was forced to decide on bolivia over peru, and do a little research on it. perhaps a foolish choice, considering my knowledge of peru, but we shall see how it turns out.

but while taking a break today i noticed true life, i'm a coney island side show performer was on. i didn't watch it, but it made me think those dudes that pick up heavy things with chain links pierced through their skin would be an interesting study. or something like that. who knows....

or maybe not.

once a year and worth the wait

well, as i mentioned before, it was tough to miss the fair this year. "the fair" being the Iowa State Fair (is there any other? --and to anwer you MN & TX supporters, I'd say "no"). Turns out, for the last 4 years ISF has been doing an erotic corn dog eating contest. And we've totally missed it. i guess we were too busy hanging out at the racing corner tap or gettin' loud with our schlitz ice while driving the campground in our sweet rig harassing the other film crew.




but its been making me crave those sweet, life affirming vegetarian corn dogs at the veggie table.

and marc hansen's got my back. now, i'm not one to ignore the genderist implications here. yes, i find it a bit chauvenistic. but listen, corn dogs are erotic no matter who's eating them. i've watched big bro K devour one, and its not a pleasant sight. but perhaps i'm reproducing the male gaze. though i don't really want to watch the fairest of 15 year old, tight jean wearing, horse showing, bleached haired iowa chicks eat one either.

in the end, its probably best that the contest will be shut down. but for the wrong reasons. i'm sure it will ended because the fair represents "family fun" (now here's a sexuality and citizenship project!) and somehow families and overt sexuality are not compatible (sort of the opposite of the french case-see Provencher, forthcoming). When really I see the problem as one of equality.Men are (self-)excluded. Vegetarians as of now are excluded. Those that adhere to pork dietary restrictions, and perhaps kosher-keepers are excluded. And really, I think by featuring people of all sexualities and genders (and I'm pretty sure a good representation can already be found strolling through the Varied Industries building), we destigmatize sexuality, and all have some good clean fair fun.

besides, we all know what the first rule of the fair is, and the fair board is threatening to break it.