clenched fists! black eyes!

pulled an all nighter last week. you know, the second week of fucking classes. this shit is ridiculous. my dv seminar is going to annihilate me.

in good news, i had a fun weekend cooking & being with friends & playing in the snow & meeting with the feminist club on campus. i’m also looking forward to finishing second issues of ygafip and hoax – probably this week. i think the celebration will be short-lived. i feel as though i’m ALWAYS doing some kind of zine project and once one is done, there are at least 2 or 3 waiting for my attention. case in point: my 84 page cut n paste journal thing from over break that needs to be scanned into the computer. when i’ll do that, i’m not sure.

here’s me beating seajizzy at super mario kart!

ps. i get to see SWARM OF THE LOTUS this weekend! fuck yeah!

some thoughts

recently, its really irked me that there is a good number of my friends that have been asking me why i haven’t “gotten with” or “started dating” a female friend of mine that i like. knowing that i had been involved with a cisman and identify as queer, its really coming off like they’re just pushing the subject to seem open minded or testing me to see if i really am into females. it seems as if they don’t really care if i believe we would go well together. we’re both got vulvas and she’s attractive, so why the hell not?

i know many of them may mean well, but its just rubbing me the wrong way. i’m still feeling like if i dated a female, my friends would finally believe my sexual identification. then i got to thinking: there’s so much emphasis on sexuality as being based on other people instead of oneself. let me explain: i am a mostly-white mixed female. i pass as white and never really looked into my heritage as being other than white until i came to college and thought critically about the issue of race. people don’t really believe me when i say i’m not “all white” because i am very pale-skinned and have green eyes. so, in effect, i have identified as solely white due to others’ perceptions of me. nevermind what i would want to be known as or my actual ethnic background. my identity has been shaped around how others perceive me to be. i feel similarly about my sexuality. instead of taking my word for it, i’m seen as not wholly encompassing the queer label unless i am involved with someone of my same sex.

i recently saw a picture online of a person holding a sign that read, “how does your lover identify?” this made me think about the different experiences i have had with hetero and homo men as well as bi / queer women. most of the time we’re so caught up in how someone identifies themselves rather than how the person(s) they are with identifies. have the cismen i’ve been with had drastically different experiences with me than with hetero females they’ve been with? has my sexuality impacted them all that much? or could that be attributed to my personality instead?

this kind of “prove it!” mindset really gets to me. in centering things around the sex of the person i am with, personality and other characteristics get lost; as if they’re not as important. i’d be nice for once for someone to ask me what i like about a female instead of blindly saying i should date her. i haven’t had the same done when talking about males. this whole glossing over of individual traits is exactly what i am against. if anything, i’m on the pansexual side of queer and due to this, i value people for more than their bodies. its how everything comes into play, not just one facet.

skewl sux

back at school. crazy so far. just dropped a class, now taking 2 3-credit 200 level courses and 2 4-credit seminars. shit is gonna get ridiculous.

today, i had two classes. in my methods of social research class, we discussed the issue of epistemology and what kind of knowledge is seen as valuable to our society, and by extension how this colors institutions of higher learning as well as research collected by sociologists, which is supposed to be based on hard evidence. this notion conflicts with a field of study my professor is interested in (rural african women’s lives) due to an overwhelming tendency to simply collect data without letting women’s voices come through pieces printed in scientific journals and other outlets deemed legitimate.

in my domestic violence seminar, we did an exercise about blame, responsibility and fault. we were asked to group ourselves into 0, 25, 50, 75 & 100 percent categories based on the amount of fault a person in a story held. they ranged from someone leaving their car unlocked and getting stolen from, to a boy disobeying & stealing money from his parents then getting beaten up & mugged, to a woman being hit by her boyfriend with a bad temper for refusing to stop talking to male friends, to finally a woman being raped by 3 men after a frat party. we discussed how each instance wasn’t simply black & white and how fault and responsibility are viewed depending on the issue. we also talked about the “just world” theory, which holds that bad things do not happen to good people. this line of thinking allows us to separate ourselves from those whom bad things happen to, place some semblance of blame on them and set up boundaries & give examples of how one should act or follow rules. questions were raised about whether or not we can be solely responsible for ourselves and where exactly agency comes into play.

this evening i have a meeting with the group of students i’m working with to set up a formal safe space on campus, then will be catching up with rachel, the co-editor of hoax. to talk about what we want the 2nd issue to look like. then its officially the weekend for me!

love of mine, someday you will die

ugh. just typed a big thing & it all got deleted.

7 more pages left in the six weeks journal zine thing i’ve been doing. gonna call it well (g)rounded because a) i got really grounded and laid back and intense being in PA and b) one night while taking a bath i looked at myself and thought, “i’m really well rounded”. true story. was going to write a piece on racial policing to put in it but i’ll save it for hoax #2. there’s a ton of pressure on me to make this next issue even more successful and comprehensive than the last one thanks to all of the trading, promotion, reviews and general e-mails we’ve gotten. we’ve got to keep making sure we keep up the good work.

speaking of, just got an e-mail that a review of hoax. #1 will be featured in the next issue of Zine World (undergroundpress.org), which is totally huge. its an awesome publication. i am really looking forward to reading the issue, regardless if we’re given a smashing review or not.

just a couple days left in the 717. hoping to see em & the beautiful girls, maybe johnny or steph. pretty much packed up. i also still have dis’ body to bury in the woods on campus. she didn’t like life in PA so much, so i want her remains to lie where she called home: baltimore.

sunday: drive to bmore, move in, bury dis, watch monster squad. lots of ups & downs in there. here’s to hoping i’ll make it through.

[ i am missing you terribly tonight]

love is tough, time is rough

finished “yes means yes”, it was excellent. was e-mailed by a member of community living at my college a few days ago about doing something about feminist zines during our month-long set of activities for women’s history month. hoping to do something radical (no pun intended).

lately i’ve been sewing a lot. its calming my nerves, like it always does. i never really understood why it was so important to have a so-totally-punx jacket or vest or whatever, all covered in “obscure” band patches to prove the wearer’s legitimacy. i just like sewing shit onto other shit. its more of a means than an end for me.

finished a piece about straight female friends, dug up some old pictures and clipped some stuff out of magazines for the cut & paste zine. last night i wrote a piece for ten songs #2, which asa & i decided would actually be 5 albums. we now need a new title. sheesh. anyway, the piece is about a small series of events that took place when i was volunteering in new orleans. considering writing one about childhood, but that’s dangerous territory.

i’m sweating all over everything.

i can’t figure you out.

today was emerson’s first birthday. celebrated by playing “throw the kong” for about 4 hours and feeding him a hamburger cake. whatever makes him happy. also spent a significant amount of time reading “yes means yes”; i’m now on page 230 or so in just 2 days. this book is fucking amazing and a lot more comprehensive than i would have expected (especially coming from co-editor jessica valenti).

um, okay, news stuff: sending ygafip to a distro (or two), still owe trades (eeek!), in the midst of writing a piece on my experiences with straight females & their interpretations of my sexuality, and planning out a piece on racial policing with focus on interracial relationships.

more moving this weekend. back to goucher in 8 days, may be in bmore sooner than that. not sure if i’m up for it or not.

always getting ready.

only two weeks left until i move back into my apartment. i’ve become accustomed to living in pa again and now i’m getting restless. been dreaming about faraway places and seas of faces that i don’t recognize. while i do often feel antsy and confused, i feel free. occasionally a few friends pass on through but only one has been consistent.

my six-week zine is taking definitive shape since i dug my typewriter out of a closet at the house my parents are moving out of. its been years since i’ve been able to do constructive cut & paste stuff and make collage-type things. also been thinking about tattoo designs since i’m crazy about making sure to get only what i will be happy with for the better part of the rest of my life.

this week i’m going to write some pieces, read as much as possible, run errands for my grandmother, catch up with friends (maybe one i thought i’d never see again), cook stuff and plan out when i’m leaving my beautiful home state.

edit: fuck! i ran out of copies of you’ve got a friend…! and i only have 3 issues of hoax. left and one envelope! i better get to bmore soon to print them out: i have at least two trades that i owe! shiiiiiiiiiiiit!

“you want a life experience? ride the fucking bus.”

when my sister and i were kids, we fought relentlessly. we were always finding injustice in the way we were treated by our parents; we were both wracked by feelings of favoritism, superiority and worthiness over the other. we could never be happy for one another on birthdays or report card days or after sporting events. we were always trying to cut each other down. to put it lightly, our competitive nature drove our parents crazy. fortunately we grew out of it in our teenage years. by the time i was 17 and could drive, we didn’t have power struggles anymore. our relationship flowered even more when i moved out of the house at age 19.  now we get along great when i come home. yet another dyadic relationship in the household has suffered.

my mom and my sister fight like their lives depend on it half the time. i’m always being asked to step in or doing it of my own accord to try to ease the tension and bring their arguements to a close. even when i’m at school one or both of them will call me, tell me their side of the story and ask me to “talk to her about it. she’s driving me insane. i can’t live like this anymore.” not only do i now know how my parents felt but i’m made to feel like a parent myself. when my parents split up, i had to grow up fast. i took care of my sister and looked after her when my mom worked long hours at her job to support us. i never had a problem with that because i accepted it as an inevitability. i had to do my share.

but now its just getting out of hand. its not that i don’t want to be in a “parent” role. i just want people to chill the fuck out, you know?

so this is the new year.

still reeling from dis’ death. immersing myself in the overwhelming sadness that is life in pennsylvania and trying to channel it for creativity. mailed seageorge a package out today. spent 2 hours with my grandmother hearing stories about life before i was born, family members i didn’t know existed and what my biological father’s side of the family was like. still convinced i didn’t miss much.

been thinking a lot lately about what i would like to happen in my life when school picks up again. besides tackling all the work effectively, zine stuff, goho work, volunteering and other extra-curriculars, i’ve been wondering what will happen in my personal life. hasan’s really been on my mind the past few days and i think i would be interested in seeing him once more. considering i’ve been an emotionally-removed dick about it for the past month, i don’t expect him to go for it. i really feel guilty for not realizing how sweet he’s been to me. but all the same, i’m still terrified of being hurt again. my heart’s already broken due to losing dis. i guess i should just cut myself off from feelings once again.

the big sleep.

my baby girl dis passed away of natural causes last night.

i was informed this afternoon by my parents, who went to my grandmother’s to pick up her body. she had been staying there due to my father’s fear that she would give some kind of sickness to their dogs. if you have met dis, you should be aware that she has been ill for some time now. in october i took her to the vet for weight loss as well as having rat lice. the lice cleared up but she never seemed to gain the body mass back that she originally had. i was prepared for the worst since i had heard from several sources that the two main causes of death for rats are cancer or respiratory infections. the last time i saw her she was breathing very heavily and it sounded as if she had some kind of liquid in her lungs – most likely a respiratory infection. i had been on the fence about putting her to sleep but i wanted to wait until she gave me some kind of sign before i did so. like the independent girl she was, she went along on her own without telling anyone.

dis saved me on august 20th, 2009 after i picked her up from an animal shelter in lancaster, pa. i literally put her in the car and we headed right for baltimore so she could live with me on campus. she was skitchy at first, very frightened by loud noises and sudden movements. over the semester she became accustomed to people and ever had a few favorite friends of her own. many days i would come back to my room exhaused from class, only to be greeted by her sweet face poking through her cage bars, recognizing my scent and voice.

dis had a complex personality and was full of life, even the last time i saw her. she loved bananas, tortillas, soy milk, mint-flavored things, peanuts, sunflower seeds, burrowing down people’s shirts, cuddling, naps and, of course, applesauce. she was a daredevil, an explorer, a homebody, a pushy broad and punk as fuck. she wore her heart on her sleeve and would let you know right away if she was ill-tempered about something. one of the fondest memories i had with her was the only time she slept in bed with me – she snuggled up to the side of my face before nestling in my shirt, on my chest, and falling asleep. i was afraid i’d roll over on her. as if she wouldn’t be able to handle herself!

i loved this girl so fucking much. she touched my life in a way that only other animal guardians could possibly understand. i thank each and every one of you that cared for or spent time with dis. i know she appreciated it. if anything, i would like you all to know that adopting a shelter animal is one of the most rewarding things you could possibly do in life. in doing so you not only save a life but gain a best friend.

rest in peace, disrat. i love you. january ?, 2009 – january 1, 2010