i’ve been terribly tardy on this blog with updating about… everything.
i do promise that, starting next week, this blog will come alive again. i could blame a series of annoying occurrences, but i will instead blame myself. afterall, it IS possible to blog at 3am after every annoying occurrence can’t possibly be dealt with and must rest for the night.
in the interim, i leave you with a life goal that i have discovered today:
to attend hedgebrook and stay in the “owl” cabin.
i’m still feeling quite crappy. i thought i was over the sickness hurdle, but it seems like whateverihave is lingering around for a bit longer.
i did, however, get uptown last night to a lecture at the barnard center for research on women. it’s recently come to my attention how many wonderful, FREE lectures they have. last night, i went to one on “trans politics on a neo-liberal landscape”. the speaker defined neo-liberalism as a kind of umbrella term that encompasses thought that has developed over the past few decades that borrows language from social justice movements and acts to “help” issues, but really just hurts the issue by reinforcing a “you’re on your own” view of the world. an example used was the domestic violence movement pushing to have stricter laws that placed more abusive partners in jail… when jail is very often not the solution to domestic violence issues at all.
the speaker made some very, very excellent points regarding our society, the stories we create about gender, individual responsibility, and law (especially in relation to the trans community), but there were some parts that seemed a little too abstract after they were stated. the speaker wasn’t particularly thrilled with non-profits, and i think there is a legitimate argument to be made about the “non-profit industrial complex”. however, there was no alternative offered. the alternative seemed to be the “street resistance” that the speaker kept referencing… but “the street” only exists in conjunction to the “not-street”… at some point, if “the man” is eliminated, the “not-man” becomes “the man”. at another point, the speaker recommended that what we really need to do is all get into a room and not leave until we’ve solved all of the issues that come up– working from the most vulnerable up, and letting those who represent a demographic be their own expert because of their experiences, not necessarily because they have written twelve papers or gone to college.
i don’t think this is a bad approach, at all. but overall, this kind of sit-down-and-figure-it-out is what many non-profits DO. i think a lot of ego, a lot of politics have to be checked at the door at many non-profits. i have PLENTY to say about the hypocrisy that goes on at many large-scale non-profit organizations. but the grassroots community organizing that has blossomed through non-profits all over the world is far too important and has come too far to just disregard completely. i think we can criticize non-profits without eliminating them, i think we can recognize all the good they have done, and continue to re-mold them as thoughts about the world change. the concept behind non-profits come from a good place, and as humans err, we have to correct ourselves, not necessarily burn something to the ground that IS doing so much good. we don’t have to completely shatter something that more likely than not would be replaced in its image anyway.
point being, i enjoyed myself. the lecture got me taking notes, thinking about many, many things.
some that i’ll be attending in the near future:
“boys and girls in post-conflict societies”, april 13th
“prose, poetry, and the art of the political”, april 28th
now for getting better.
i have been sick since late friday night. as such, my weekend has mostly consisted of lying in bed, drinking cold tea, watching smatterings of movies between naps, and trying to feel better.
this illness hit me randomly, and hard– on friday night, when i was traveling up to sL’s (as i will affectionately refer to the wonderfully snarky person i am dating) apartment, i was shaking and hunched over the entire subway ride up. the “feeling sick? don’t get on the train,” ad campaign came to mind, but so did its implications: do i pay a car for the ride from brooklyn to harlem? do i just sit in brooklyn until the illness passes? there has always been something slightly ridiculous and classist about the whole campaign.
the aforementioned sL did a bang-up job on saturday of providing pasta, more than adequate angling of computer screens to the bed for “gossip girl” and movie watching, tea, and medication. i feel like, because of this careful caring, i very well might be on the mend. also, today was wildly warm out for the season, so the wide-open windows, the stirrings outside, the blue, blue, blue that hinted at seasons i’ve all but forgotten might be helping, as well.
as i was sitting here, open windows, clean floors, clean sheets (because i also might haul myself out of bed while sick and clean things around me in an effort to make myself feel better), i was thinking about how much of my recent time has been spent looking back. in the past few weeks, ever since i made my final sprint toward applying for graduate school, i’ve collapsed back on myself, in a way.
i’ve been pulling out old, old photos, old, old writings, and therefore, old, old memories. i’ve always been a nostalgic sort of person, in the sense that i tap into parts of my past frequently, as i believe that they are an important part of my whole person. but recently, i feel like i’ve been turning things over and over in my hands. a lot of this may have to do with the fact that, in the next few months, i will get answers back from schools that will drastically alter the next few years of my life. it could be because, now that i have accomplished this thing that has been looming over my head for months, i’m not quite sure what to do.
and so, this random and hard illness feels like the culmination of a few weeks of floundering, emotionally and physically. i am done, i am here. i am moving forward.
i have, for a very long time, wanted to keep a consistent blog. i haven’t been able to do so because i haven’t really felt like the space has existed for me to do so. i’ve waded through private and semi-private blogs for years now, toying with the idea of creating a more public place to roam. i realized that this space, which was supposed to exist for a much more finite reason, might be the best place of all.
so here it goes. i’m opening it up, i’m feeling it out. three, two, one, lift-off.
