planning my last semester

how about:

– film theory & culture (req. seminar, only 1 credit, w/ patty)

– film production workshop (hands-on camera experience)

– VAMPIRES in film, lit, and music (!!)

– olde english (learning the lang, man)

die bold!

swarthmore makes it into the new york times, and not in reference to its football team! the article is in the business section, which sucks a little, but it’s also FIVE PAGES LONG. and, if i may say so myself, sympathetic toward the students involved.

�It�s very different from the way that Diebold has been doing things.� Mr. Rubin, who has received a cease-and-desist notice from Diebold because of his research, said, �The solution is to stop selling insecure voting machines and not to continue threatening students who are only trying to protect our democracy.�

that’s right! tell ’em! democracy!

i’m feelin peppery cuz i just saw the one-and-only blacklisted american film, salt of the earth (1954). it deals with so many issues that it’s hard to know which straw broke the projectionist’s back: the mexican-americans demanding equality? the women demanding respect from their men? the workers standing up to the evil white mining bosses? the fact that the film was made by a member of the infamous hollywood 10?

the dvd case says it was the only american film to be shown in china for fifteen years, which probably makes it the most watched movie of all time. it’s funny: of the messages in the film, many of which are revolutionary, especially for 1954 (!!), the one that comes across least strongly to me is communism. it’s about workers’ rights and the power of unions, but not in a What Would Mother Russia Do? kind of way.

how to teach the worst workshop in history

[censored out of worry/wisdom. if you want to see the full text, you can find it as a friends-only entry on my lj. if you REALLY WANT to see it and don’t have a damn lj, leave a comment and i’ll email you the entry.]

november and november and november …

usually november is one of those months where depression claims me, like february. by “usually” i mean “habitually,” at least here. the past three years i’ve gotten beaten down by november, by assassins or paranoia or plain old american malaise.

come to think of it, novembers in high skool were never too hot. one november i fought with my best friend on and off and passionately all month, culminating in a letter that went on longer than the month itself that i wrote over thanksgiving weekend at my cousins’ house in westchester.

another november — november 19th, to be exact — i asked out a male friend of mine over the phone. he laughed and said no. later, when he realized i hadn’t been joking, he apologized to me, chagrined.

yeah, november. up to no good.

the weather hints otherwise, to the point where i’m not sure what to believe. the store i wanted to go to today was closed. the movie i saw was mediocre. i missed my train by three minutes. the next movie i saw was mediocre too. none of it made me sad, though, ameoliorated as it was by company, the afore-mentioned weather, and frank o’hara’s lunch poems.

the smartest course of action seems to be, Stay low, don’t try anything risky, don’t play assassins, don’t give in to the feeling that your friends have stopped liking you, and enjoy the unseasonable warmth.

it feels like june!

or at least may. it’s AMAZING. i almost regret not getting up til 2. almost.

at around 2 last night my body had definitely had enough. it was enough of a rough week (what with my exorcist-type relationship with the toilet that one morning, and the two nights made possible by NyQuil) that even though i was feeling up to celebrating halloween by halloween, i reached my tolerance early-ish. this made an unfortunate shivery walk back to my dorm from ross-n-reb-n-ian’s place.

but the party at ross-n-reb-n-ian’s place was largely delightful. my costume went over well. the glasses, as it turned out, MADE the costume: what’s a nerdy half-earnest superhero without glasses? i carried around a vinnie’s tampon case — black and red, it matched the rest of me: red stockings, topped with red’n’black thigh-high socks, my red’n’black velvet suit, a red’n’black tablecloth cum cape — filled with Consciousness Raising slogans.

when people asked who i was, i presented them with a notecard that read something along the lines of “What would bell hooks do?” or “Look at your vagina in a mirror!” with the exception of one person who merely Looked at me, as though to say, What, do you think you’re funny?, it was a hit.

terrific costumes abounded. reb made a frighteningly accurate droog. kross flitted around as a neon bug man. we had 2 greek philosophers, several characters from harry potter including a basilisk, donatella versace, charlie chaplin, buffy and willow, AND, my favorite, little adam as eminem.

costume

i’m going to be CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING GIRL for halloween. i have a whole superhero outfit planned. first i thought i’d go ahead and be PROBLEMATIC MAN! but, i mean, you know, i am a girl and all, and this isn’t sager. kross might be PROBLEMATIC MAN! together, we’ll be a team, fight injustice and randy goldstein wherever they may hide.

and if someone shows up in blackface to THIS YEAR’s halloween party, PROBLEMATIC MAN! and I will handle it, the PROBLEMATIC! and CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING way.

points

point 1.: it’s exciting that the campus has finally gotten itself into a controversy that has nothing to do with either issues of queer identity/representation or israel/palestine. it doesn’t even matter what i think, particularly, although after reading various opinions, pro and con, including professor tim burke’s, i still don’t have a strong opinion. that’s okay! this isn’t queer issues! this isn’t israel! i CAN be kinda here, kinda there, not totally invested. and what a relief that is.

point 2.: i have abscesses in the cornea of my left eye. no, i don’t know what abscesses mean, or how to spell the word. i had to go to chester/crozer yesterday to have a cheerful doctor tell me to keep wearing my glasses at least until saturday and put in two kind of eye drops ten thousand times a day. he did say whether this will cure me; i can only assume it will.

meanwhile this has rather affected my week. constant headaches, in one instance exorcist-type projectile vomiting (green, no less!), & lots and lots of sleep because my vision in my dreams at least is not impaired. i always wonder in these situations whether i’m being punished for vanity, or pride, or one of the other seven deadly sins in which we jews do not believe.

in fact, i only believe in a punitive god when it seems i’m being punished. i try to take it meekly: i’m wearing the glasses and even somewhat getting used to them, though i once declared i would not leave the room in them. now i need only design a holloween costume around them …

fish are jumping, and the cotton is high …

is that how you spell cotton? oh well. we high-an-mighty authors do not have time to check piddling potential spelling errors.

my biggest coup of the weekend, easily, was finding one of my favorite cereals at the dollar store. it wasn’t even expired! cereal = the best food you can eat straight out of the box.

the rest of the weekend was fun too. ben recounts it in detail. yes, once again, he came up this weekend, rather than even allow for the possibility that in my loneliness and frustration i run off with someone else. except, here at swarthmore, who would that be? my male friends are gay. my female friends are gay, and in relationships. attractive strangers don’t exist here. you think you see one, and it turns out to be a tree.

the capitol steps, my first political/satirical influence, made that joke several times when they played here saturday evening. twelve years after i last saw them, i still found them funny. the packed auditorium seemed to agree with me, and seemed to appreciate, as i did, that they — in particular one group member, the father of a swattie sophomore — made such an effort to personalize the second act.

granted, that boiled down to, You all are ugly and have no sex and will never make money in the real world! You should have gone to Harvard! but, like, in a funny way.

calendar girl

i am going to be swarthmore college’s ms. december.

or rather, the woman in charge of the december parents’ newsletter has decided to do a thing on me and my poitri. she’s going to print “our visit,” aka the t. s. eliot poem, as well as my poitical inspirations, plans for the future (ha), and a picture. the picture scares me. after all, ich ne look like this pas:

although wouldn’t it be great if i did? i mean, wow.

an xiety

i’ve resisted this for some reason. now i give in. witness!: margaret cho’s blog. she has a beautiful tribute to elliott smith, who everyone in america and his mother must realize recused himself yesterday.

when i was little, one of my good friends told me a story repeatedly about her aunt who stepped in front of a metro train. the story drove me crazy cuz the aunt’s name seemed to be ester — was my friend telling me this story to prepare me for my own future? was she dooming me?

turns out the aunt’s name was hester, or hesty, or zesty, maybe, something different enuf from mere ester that i didn’t need to worry.

that is my first association with suicide. i am very, very lucky.

lately i’ve been having dreams where i’m so tense i wake up scared i’ll twist my neck again and have to drag my sheepish self back to the chiropractor. it doesn’t make sense to me. in waking life, i’m calm — honestly — even happy. in dreams, the small stuff i don’t usually sweat is all there to haunt me.

also, via the nytimes, another kind of coming out altogether. i guess i’m glad for these women, that they can be proud of themselves and flaunt their bodies, regardless of what methods they used to obtain them. the suicide rate for women with breast implants, however, is astronomical. reading the article, particularly the doctor’s warning that your life may not change that much, i could understand why.