flighty white girl syndrome

I am not the next big thing. To preserve my psyche I turn to positive self-illusion and think otherwise, and it's popular psychology so don't you judge me you heathens, you do it too. I do not mean next big superstar, I mean next big women's activist; next big community organizer; next big group leader; next big volunteer. I am still trying to be the wunderkind I kinda sorta was predicted to be, at least by my family's standards, before I stopped at 5'6" (high school athlete, model) and stopped working so hard in school (Bs, Cs, went to a high school with higher standards and a sadistic Italian English teacher so no more easy As in the language arts). It's like I learned to read, started writing poetry, got into music and alternative media and comedy (and hockey - yes, I said it) and slid to a halt. I was way, way too fucking cool to be a hipster snob, but I never had a full-on 100% cliche to cling to. My art school friends are indeed in expensive art schools, texting me with stupid, overdramatic bullshit on a daily basis. I was supposed to be so artistically gifted - in some random artistic field - that I could get a scholarship to a privileged art school. My overachiever friends are in some of the most expensive and well-known universities on the east coast and in the midwest, save for any real Ivy Leaguers. The same teacher who refused to give me anything higher than a B (or below, thank God) told me to apply to Columbia's journalism school, of which I really had no chance of getting in unless my creative juices somehow turned sour and I became a fucking elitist snob but man I'd have a biting wit. I have been interested in film and directing since I was a kid. I'd taken my high school's film classes since 10th grade, taught by a director from Pittsburgh Filmmakers, and went through a free summer program also taught by two awesome PF women with a good friend of mine. I watched her go into her other, more practical field choice at Pitt, and I decided not to make a portfolio because - and this is as true as ever - I cannot handle the shitheads who go into film. Not all! Most. Plus, unfortunately, I need a partner to get ideas going. I could just never get anything going in my own head.

I never get anything going in my own head. When someone asks, "Any questions?", my mind goes blank, even though I want to raise my hand and ask something great. Of course, you know, who doesn't! Every day in high school - well, I could do philosophy. I could do politics. Well, I should do film. Or, I like journalism, I like reporting. I'm kinda funny, aren't I? Huh? Yeah, c'mon!

I have a pretentiousness that doesn't quite match my intellect. I have thought I was better than everyone around me probably since puberty, but this complex has disappeared since my emotionally, mentally, physically, academically, sexually and financially shitty first year of university, where I failed at everything but being a total fucking asshole. I still have it over my parents. My parents are homely Pittsburgh people. My dad's an asshole, but my mom is great. I had always figured - because I was told it for so long, or heard while I looked up at my grandparents and they marvelled over something about me - that I would go to college and get a great, great arty job, because the easiest thing to do for me was writing and talking about the technical side of movies through movies while people wanted to punch me in the fucking neck, presumably. (And I still use douchey words like 'presumably'.) I lost my ability to write in an exciting, humorous and 'different' way, a la Sarah Vowell (who I fuckin' love) or like, Lauren Weedman. I had applied to Boston College and was rejected. Although I am told from a friend in Boston that I would have killed myself there, I would have hated it, I just figured he was telling me that I was arty and liberal but I was still simple.

I am not going back on my social worker/activist aspirations, I've already discovered that being holier-than-thou is fucking PERFECT for my ass. No, no. I hate that shit. I do want to whip it out all the time, but that doesn't mean I should. I can't function day to day without thinking how someday I will be making real change. I know that I'm not one of the people who can talk about it and do something else because empowering people and advocating is the shit that draws me, and film and music and writing are relaxers - or second sources of income.

I don't know where this started out. Today I got a small assignment back with a kick-ass grade and aced a sociology test, but I know I'm just passing by. I want to excel and grow this giant fucking lame-ass brain and be the envy of all the critical thinkers in the land and get into Harvard, like my history teacher, who was this young guy who came from as unprivileged a background as I. And I'm sick to death of comparing my damn self to all those assholes cuz I know education's what you make it. My sense is kicking in, though, cuz that sick feeling is disappearing. And the audacity of me - I'm middle class and from white folks. I'm paying for my entire education with loans, even though my heart starts racing when I think about the $80,000 and up in debt I'll be to become a fucking BSW social worker and maybe teacher, which includes an education certificate (read: will never pay off, bitch), but I've had a bigass leg up from the beginning, and I got a stable family.

I got flighty white girl syndrome, and I miss Toronto. I had to get that shit off my chest about not living up to the expectations of anyone, but comparably - I have my shit together. Peace!

york rapists update

They've arrested and charged both alleged rapists up at York University. I'm surprised at the swiftness of the whole situation but damn, am I glad they think they've got the guys. They've got evidence that made one of the suspects chew their bottom lip. Hoo, boy! I know I don't chew my lip unless I think I've been caught. Of course, I'm not a fuckin' rapist! Touche, TO sex crime unit!

on boobs

From Jezebel, a blonde girl from Laguna Beach or The Hills (I do not watch either) got boob and nose jobs because boys "tormented" her when she was younger for being flat and having a huge nose. I'm flat and I have a long, skinny nose. I've heard many comments about my tiny breasts - I was lucky, though, I didn't go to a bigass high school where I was ever "rated" as I walked down the fucking hallway - and none about my nose, but thankfully I know not to let the boys win. On the cover it says she talks about "the pain of hating her body". She hated her body because these boys didn't like it. That's great! There's nothing about this bitch that doesn't scream "I'm willing to change fucking dumbass things about myself to fit the male ideal". So, yeah, that's pretty cool. It reminds me of junior high when I was an ugly duckling and girls would assure me that, as per the trend at the time, I would one day be on Jenny Jones showing off my awesome new look.

Man! I take a lot of shit for having small titties too, okay, and when I was a younger teen I dreamed of a boob job. I am not and never will consider breast implants again, unless I turn into a fucking asshole and reverse my views on everything.


Hey, wow, yeah! I love WTAE! I love local news, mmm, yummy! The last two consecutive news stories were, as follows, what the fuck is going on on Dancing With the Stars and WHAT big-screen HD TV to buy this holiday season! Hey, everybody!! Suck my dick! As if there's some shortage of news. We have to come up with shit that isn't news AT ALL. Howevvies, the nerd in me is excited for the new dinosaur exhibit at the Carnegs.


Also, this NY Times article about a well-off white woman weighing the pros and cons of, and eventually going through with, a mastectomy. I'll get this out of the way first: This article, like so much of the NY Times (I don't know why I bother reading it, I always end up going "GOD!" like six times), portrays a woman whose healthcare abilities are seemingly endless. So there's that.


If I knew there was a huge probability for my developing breast cancer, and that I carried a defective gene that upped my chances, and a mastectomy would decrease my chances of developing the cancer by 90%, I would, no doubt about it, get the mastect. It's taken my boobs and I a while, but we are at long last on the same page. I love my bod and I'd encourage all women, men, transgenders and the like to feel safe and secure in their natural bodies. If I had my way, that's the way shit would be. Then again, I'm completely normal aside from the A breasts and the flat ass. God must hate me!!!


It's typical to spin it on the reverse, but I'd rather have the smaller breasts. My mother had a reduction for health reasons - back pain and, whatever else - and I know girls with tiny bodies and huge breasts. They're INSANELY ogled, crudely commented on and everything low-cut shows loads of cleavage no matter what. I'm not saying they should be ashamed - not at fucking all! Own that shit! I'm saying I'd rather stick with my itty bitty titties. I mean these things are fucking adorable.


That said, I completely understand the hesitation to get a seemingly non-essential mastectomy. I would be extremely fucking upset to part with my breasts. I wouldn't reconstruct them, though. I have an "all natural" viewpoint to everything, and I'd accept it. Err - I can see myself accepting it. Okay, you "never know" until you're in it, but it would be extremely uncharacteristic of me to give in in that way. Would I be able to find a man? Maybe, maybe not. If this man is unable to love me because I don't have tits to offer him he's not worth my fucking time. I, and the rest of humankind, should not be forced to settle for less just to have a partner, or just to have children, or just to whatever. And I don't mean compromise - compromising and "settling for" are two different things.


The woman in this article had the right idea; she'd rather live than risk developing cancer that she was almost certain to get just to keep her natural breasts. A woman's - a person's - health is the priority above all other things. It's a damn shame how long we pause before deciding on a mastectomy (cutting this lady's chances of developing breast cancer by NINETY! PERCENT!) because most of our value is in our breasts, we attract mates through our breasts. Well y'all, I doubt my sultry A cups will ever be the deciding factor in whether some assmunch wants to be with me or not - um, I sure would hope that they wouldn't be - so that's not really something that affects me. I do put the girls on display when I want to impress but they can only go so far, good Lord.


Anyway, I don't know. It's hard. For me, my health, the preservation of my life, is much more important than my breasts, whatever shape and size they may be. It would be a fucking heartbreaker to part with them - they're so connected to my femininity and my nipples especially, as I can only assume is pretty much a norm, are a huge part of my sexual experiences - but shit, do what the fuck you have to do. The best choices are hardly the easiest to go through with, but I am one of those dumbass women who puts my life above that of a fertilized egg or a foetus.

I had more to this, but I lost my train of thought.


What I love: Bridget Moynahan's baby gets her last name, not Tom Brady's. Yeeeeah!

in response....

In response to a crazy comment from this morning, Au contraire! I adore the local news, I hardly ever miss it at one point in the day and I never watch any but WTAE, though the coverage sometimes makes me cringe, and I was geeked out when Andrew Stockey was promoted to the news desk. I just wondered if there were forces keeping my girl Kelly on the right that were out of her control.

Peace!

york rapists, not wasting any time

Last week, Friday morning - Thursday night, pub night - at York University in Toronto, where I attended last year, two white men in their 20s gained access to Vanier residence, raped two separate women in their two separate unlocked dorm rooms, and attempted to sexually assault a third. (Whether that means she was only sexually assaulted, and not raped, is not made clear.) Then they split after trying to rape some more.

A friend back at York sent me the story from the National Post, and I read further on the YorkU LiveJournal and at the Toronto Star. In my first months there (Aug-Dec '06), there were two separate reports of sexual assault (I may be wrong - it may have been three) in the Village, a group of houses rented as apartments not owned by York but by individual landlords about, say, a 15 minute walk from Vari Hall, the center of York's campus. As the year went on I heard stories of robberies in plain day behind the Accolade buildings and an old-fashioned "stick-up" in one of the Accolades. There were two more sexual assaults right before I left at the end of April of this year.

From the Star article:

"York spokesperson Alex Bilyk said officials will be reviewing campus security – a standard practice after such incidents. 'Our dormitories are safe,' he said. 'Someone gained entry. Normally it isn't easy to gain access. Police are working to try to figure out how that happened.'"

Let me help them out. I lived in Stong residence, where I regularly held the door open after swiping my card to let me into the residence for people behind me, and others did the same. Could I have let in a sexual assaulter? Yes. I'm one of the people who gives the once-over to someone before I let them in behind me, but I know plenty of assholes who would let anybody in. They could've known someone in Vanier and that dude could've come down and let them in. I thought I'd been to Vanier but it was Winters that I'd been before, but if their get-ups are anything at all alike, these guys were there past porter hours (3 AM) and it's not fucking hard to get into these buildings. Shit's not safe!

More shat from the Star:

"Students require an entry card to get past the locked front doors of the residence. Once inside, they must sign in any guests they invite in. 'Dons,' mature students with residence responsibilities, and porters scrutinize people coming and going, students said."

With all due respect to my Don, an awesome gal, she wouldn't have ever spotted a weirdo unless they intersected - I doubt it, she was never really out and about, and as a senior she wasn't really in her room much - or if there had been yelling or screaming, if they had brought attention to themselves. And on a crazy floor (mine was relatively quiet), who can tell the difference? And it depended on the porter. Additionally, these guys got in past porter hours. There are no rezes with all-night porters.

Two gals in the Star article say they've become "desensitized" to sexual assault at York (although they're first-years, sooooooo, yeah whatever), but what can I say except can you please try and fight it? Lock your doors, y'all. Constantly, the reaction I get when I mention my time in Canada is is it as safe as it seems? And I'm like no, not completely. Lock your doors, lock them. You can't get in from the outside if they're locked without making noise, if you can at all. Please, please please. I'm thinking of you, York.

Theory: When women are less visible, or assertive, they are generally thought to be left-leaning, politically. I went to therapy briefly this summer because of a rough time I had in my second semester at school and the therapist guessed after like 20 minutes that my views "leaned to the right," and I was like "Hells yeah they do". When I speak to people I keep eye contact and I try to very vocal, because I used to be very shy and I'd get confused or I'd be too scared to ask a question if I didn't understand something. I never said a word about anything political and he guessed that. So, I don't know. Maybe he's wonna them mens who Jesus speak to!

i'm trying this without swearing

I've been lectured by a few folks on using the word "hate" as rampantly as I do, but often times I mean it. I feel strongly. About everything. Ever.

But I think this usage is warranted: I don't think there's anything I hate worse than Desperate Housewives. I watch nothing on the three major networks but Supernanny, or whichever has Miss Jo (or whatever), because it's all crap. It's crap. Cuhhhrrap. It's crap. When I heard the title "Desperate Housewives" the first time I wanted to break a window, I knew it'd be a gem of misconception and ripe old white woman sexism and other stupid junk. And housewives? Really. Hey gay men writing this crap - QUIT IT. I'm starting to think these are the doods that hate women. We're not at a point where we can comfortably bring housewives up. Yes, educated women are leaving the workforce voluntarily, because they're forced out by a variety of pressures, internal and external. So go away.

Anyway, I have my TV up at school but no cable, but I do have rabbit ears, and the only channel I get is ABC, which is the local news I prefer (WTAE whaaat), and I just saw a big-bootied (you might say an exaggerated booty tooch (see America's Next Top Model)) piece of crap ad for the next DespWives season. It had the ladies doing that open-mouthed kind of modeling that makes you look like you're dumb, like you haven't a thought in your head, like you're oblivious to the world and all you do is sit around and look good, then walking down a street in gorgeous gowns. Oh, well Nicolette Whatevvy had on lingerie, or whatever. And let me tell you, yeah. Yeah, that's a new image for women to think about. For sure. It's totally FRESH. FRRRRRRRESH.

What that does to older women I don't even know. It doesn't put any pressure on me because that's not the life that I strive for, but for a woman who wants to get to that superficial point - being wealthy and looking pretty and, I don't know, juggling men? What do these brats do? - what, I mean, what do they think, or what do they not know that they think? When I complain about my mom watching these ridic reality shows (of course I love all of mine) and orig TV like DespWives she's like "It's an escape from my real life." And I'm like WHY DO YOU WANT TO ESCAPE FROM YOUR REAL LIFE??!!?! WHAT is so awful about it? We shouldn't be escaping, we should be CHANGING and DOING! No entertainment's not a bad thing, but God, make it constructive or support some quality! I'm all for the entertainment industry, I've taken a break from it but I still consider myself a filmmaker in the making. I made shorts in high school. Music and movies and books and pop cult are my thing, but I keep it classy. You don't see me on Perez Hilton, though I will look over a shoulder (and it's usually a gay one, lits). And that's my limit. God, that shitty website is a whole other post and I've got homework. I swore, I had to make a point.

Although I'm sure my mother would disagree with me that the ent I enjoy is of a far higher quality than hers, it's usuals the stuff flying under the radar on the independent circuit that's the superior product. Apolos, but it's furreal.

I guess I want to encourage ladies not to disappear into some fantasy world of cliche and shit, and where are the women of a darker hue on DespWives? Wasn't it Alfre Woodard who guest starred? I can't take another thing like Knocked Up (it's weird how I get so worked up about language when I use such harsh words but that offends the shit out of me, I'm not knocked up you dick I'm keeping the human race going) where abortion is totally out of the ques. I'm not a big fan of, I can't even remember his name. Judd Apatow. The funniest shit about 40 Year Old Virgin were the scenes in his work with Paul Rudd and the Indian guys and in the car with Apatow's hilarious wife. The rest of the movie was mediocre. And guess what?

Seth Rogen isn't funny. He doesn't make me laugh. I don't find him charming, I thought he was annoying in 40yo Virg. Now dealies.

Although I am a huge fan of Superbad, co-written by Rogen, for reasons that should be obvies to the gen public. People calling that movie a "gross out" are over 40 or they haven't seen it at all. Kids need to go see that shit. Not little kids, teenage kids. The word "fuck" shouldn't gross you out, especially since you probably taught it to your fucking kids in the first place. This is my favourite modern teen comedy of all timesies. And Evan and Becca are Canadians in real life, haaay!

I digress! I'll get around to putting up a list of media approved by this bitch soon.

all i wanna do is....

(Title from the wicked "Paper Planes" off MIA's newest, Kala. Listen to it!)



I'm now at this Catholic university and today, at the opening liturgy, I realized the air I was breathing wasn't air after all - it was hypocrisy! It seeps out of the cracks and it gets pushed through the ventilation and to some it's oxygen, but um, it's actually carbon dioxide. And you'll die from it. Sucks, I know!



I did not know what a liturgy was until today. I've been to church like five times in my entire life, with friends because I happened to sleep over on a Saturday or whatev, and there was a time when as a young woman I wanted to get into relig, but it's never been my scene. I'm really into studying Islam right now, though. Anywaysies, they were standing up and sitting down and singing and these two kids sang with these hilarious operatic voices and people took Communion and I was like whatevvy, let's just do this. We had to read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, in which she, a journalist, works minimum wage jobs and tries to survive. She barely does, probably because she knows she has the upper-class to return to. Her coworkers probably survive because they have a ridiculous amount of inner strength (or they were trained by America's charming racist capitalist patriarchy to be a silent little worker bee, or both).



I don't have the energy right now to get into the whole thing, my communicating abilities are on the downslide for some reez but we had a discussion about it, myself and two other students (a freshman, a gay Republican from what I could gather, and a freshwoman) and two white male professors.



Did anyone else know that in the welfare reform bill Clinton signed in 1996 was included abstinence training for impoverished women? Boy, that's not racist. Why don't they just go ahead and sterilize those assholes making under $30,000 (the projected amount a family needs to make a year to live okay, it's no doubt gone up since 2001 or whenevvies) a year? Fuck them.



One of the professors made sure we knew he was a Christian, GOD FORBID IT ESCAPE US, and said he was unable to warm up to Ehrenreich because of a passing joke she made about abortion and that he felt she was self-absorbed to a point, which I'm pretty sure ALL OF US ARE, but he seemed like a nice guy and said he appreciated the work that she did.



I don't even want to repeat the whole fucking story, I've done it twice already. Here's my point:



I don't know the entire history of women's activism. I'm about to turn 19, give me a fucking break. But as a politically and socially aware young woman, I have a few ideas for how shit can shape up. They're undeveloped and so far they're unpolluted by any substantial university education. But I'm not the kind of person who'll ever be an "educated" type. I'll be able to speak clearly and intelligently (that's my goal), but my personality's too weird, and different, to fit into the mold of talking head academic douche.

My entire argument rests on this theory that I've got: None of the problems that are keeping women of all colours and creeds from reaching success - or achieving full control over themselves, or receiving a sexual education free of inaccuracies (lies, basically, to both sexes), etc etc etc - or people of many genders and sexual orientations from facing verbal and physical assault whenever they act and look the way they want to, or the African-Americans (and West Indian- and etc Americans), black folks, from reaching an equal success - white women already have it much, much better than they - or any, any of these problems, none of them will be solved with a fucking bill or a law. These are structural damages within the American government. Yes it's the patriarchy, the old fallback of white feminism, it's the racism that we can recognize and the racism we don't even know we're being taught. It's the way every fucking thing in this country is run like a goddamn business. It's the money, it's that green baby.

My school adapted Nickle and Dimed into a play (that looks like it paints Ehrenreich as a troublemaking bitch from the scene we saw today) but before they put that on, this prissy fucker, the president of the campus Republicans, gets up there and has to have her say. Why, if we raise minimum wage the bosses will have to cut back on expenses. They'll have to fire you - and it'll be you, the struggling college student! Aren't you mad?

Hey bitch! Why don't the bosses stop paying themselves all the fucking money, pay their employees something they can LIVE ON in this country and we'd all be a lot happier? That was preceded by some shit DRIPPING with hypocrisy about how she (or "we" as a society) can't sleep well knowing kids are going hungry and people are actually homeless.

White privilege has never been shoved so fucking far into my orifices, I swear to God. I hope that prissy little coot gets punched for having the goddamn audacity for standing up there and actually saying that shit. You. Sleep. FINE. And so do I, but now that I'm in school again - in my class yesterday I heard some shit I didn't like - I'm wondering how much I'll have to pay at the end of the day, and I'm studying social work and I'm wondering if I'll ever get to the fucking point where I can have a conversation without wanting to kick the shit out of somebody and crying. I'm a big crier. I have a shitload of anxiety. I don't sleep that well. I feel like I should walk the fuck out of here and start the activism.

If there were a revolution, even if it began slowly, with lots of strikes and protests, I'd be one of the first bitches out on the street. I'd probably pack a bag and I'd be off. I don't have a lot of other interests right now. I know activism and community support is where people are needed so I'm going there. Apparently, I need to be trained to be a community leader, so I'm willing to take out loans every fucking year to get to that place.

And it seems to me that that prissy coot, the Christian White Man in my discussion group, and everyone else - they want things to stay the same so they take small steps. When that dood asked us what the solution to the poverty problem is, he wasn't looking for "mass capitalist and financial reform". He wants his life to be very calm, very ideal, very American, very comfortable, he wants to retire and die in his sleep, and this is impossible. There is no way we can stop the piles, and piles, and piles, of issues, with these baby steps. I want this solved, I want everyone to have it fair, I want to dispell the myth of the hardworking American regardless of colour or gender, but I want to live my happy life. I can only come to the conclusion that if people actually felt genuinely about making shit better for the people who are born black or poor into a society who values white and wealthy above all - these are structural and theological, sociological racisms in our society, we need a HUGE revolt against that shit - they'd be a lot more pro-active. I'm going to have to fake learning these tiny bitty changes for four years, I fucking guess. Hopefully next year I can get into the University of Pittsburgh, who has no fucked-up religious affiliation, and women's groups coming out of their "vag-es," as a friend put it. But I'm going to do as much shit as I can here, I'm not giving up.

Little changes don't mean shit if you don't mean it, you fucking tards. And I know you don't.

class

I'm not an admirer of Jerry Lewis at all, and yesterday on his abysmal marathon he made a joke about his cameraman's hypothetical family, introducing his made-up son as "Jesse, the illiterate fag" before realizing he was on live television and doing the playful "no" before moving on. People are saying he stopped himself but I watched it, and the 'g' is enunciated quite clearly. Even if he HAD stopped himself, A Bigot Is A Bigot Is A Bigot. Fuck you, Jerry Lewis!

Good morning, everyone else. :)

Link to clip (with very low volume): http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=5194