How to Survive It

1. It is important to watch the political debates.

-1. In preparation secure a small bag of caramels and go to your favorite places, the library, to feel relaxed and be productive before your brain is clogged by hatespew.

2. Watch the debate and also keep peeping Twitter to cut the tension via Lindy West's tweets.

3. Donate money to Hilary's campaign after Trump interrupts her for the tenth time.

4. Discuss what you saw with a loved one.

5. Out down your phone.

6. Watch a scary movie (The Boy) and get creeped and forget for two hours about this election.

7. Keep the windows open. Let autumn on in.

8. Sleep tight, sleep right, go back to the fight in the morning.

Jr. Asparagus

"They make delicious food. They're a private company. They can run their business however they want."

This is what Dizz said when we passed a Chic-Fil-A and I frowned at it from inside Jamin's car last November. Chic-Fil-A's company policy: Queer? Get out of here. If employees are found to be gay, they are suddenly found unemployed. For this reason, I will never give Chic-Fil-A any money. I encourage others to do the same, and sometimes they do. But Jamin in the champion of not caring about human rights on a micro level, so it's not a surprise he tells me leeringly how delicious the chicken "nugz" are as we pass. I honestly don't think this is funny. Maybe I need more of a sense of humor. I've been told I need to get a sense of humor. I don't think I do. (That's what someone without a sense of humor would say.)

Then, Dizz reminds me of where I went to school--a Christian college with a homosexuality policy. I obviously gave that hateful place a ton of money. She had a point. But so did I. BUT I decide that we're having a nice Sunday morning, and this is a rare occasion where I am able to remind myself that sometimes arguing just isn't worth it even though I REALLY THINK I AM RIGHT AND ALSO MEANWHILE THERE'S A MEAT INDUSTRY.

Here's the truth now: I gave that hateful institution (my college) my money because it was not a hateful institution at all. It was a loving and wonderful place to go to school, but it had a giant hang-up about gay issues. And that sucks. And that's why I spent a pretty large chunk of my college career fighting the policy.

We can't expect everyone and every institution to be perfect all the time, but if we involve ourselves with imperfection, it's our job to point it out. To say, "I agree with everything except..." To get inside and wheedle out the sooty little specks. To demand better in a good thing.

Ethical eating club meeting. April. Vegan salads.

So, I guess, maybe if I were writing letters to Chic-Fil-A daily and organizing a campaign for their corporate offices to note, I would buy their waffle fries. But I'm not going to do that. So the next best thing is to pass. Avoid or confront. I think those are the options.

I remember stand! (Stand up, stand up)

For what you believe in--believe in--believe in!

Please Communicate

On Wednesday everyone was happily piling into the big classroom we hold our sketch writing meetings at school. There's a bunch of us, and we get together joyfully--laughing, making cracks, bubbling. And suddenly a stern woman--probably my mother's age--stomped into the doorway and asked Sid--sitting at the front of the room--pointedly, "Are you even a real class? Do you even have this room reserved?" Yes, he answered. We have this room reserved. "Because I don't think you do. I don't think you do. People are trying to work here, and you're all very loud, and there is a lot of profanity." She was steaming at us, but to us, hyped up on creative promise, she appeared as a deflated balloon.

Sid tried to pull up the room reservation, but the system was down. The woman stood, actually rudely since...we did have a right to be in that room. Even if we hadn't reserved the room, which we had, people are allowed to be in a space, and if they are converging, it's pretty unloving to insert oneself abrasively. She hissed, "There have been lots of complaints!" I smoothed my shirt and said calmly, "Who has complained? You are the first person who has ever talked to us."

"People have complained. Lots of people have complained to me!" We couldn't show her the reservation, but, again, even if we hadn't had one, what could she say, "You're not allowed to be in this classroom that no one else is using right now"? She started stumbling in her anger, murmured to keep the noise and profanity down, and exited disdainfully.

She knew her actions were not appropriate, you could tell the way she backed down but didn't back down. She very clearly had simply been annoyed with us before and bottled it up until she couldn't take it anymore and exploded on a group unknowing young people.

Takeaways:
1. Going in angry usually makes you look like a fruit basket.
2. COMMUNICATE AT THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY. PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW!

I considered finding her office and apologizing--but I didn't because I suspected she would be understanding, but if she wasn't...I would have been extremely rude, which is a rarity for me, but definitely possible, and to be avoided. Here's why I would have been rude: our classroom is in the women and gender studies wing. The woman was most definitely a women/gender studies professor. Hence, she was probably so annoyed by some of the things she heard spilling out of our student sketch team pitch meetings, but she honestly has NO IDEA what really happens in those meetings. Because for every time someone screams an offensive slur in a script, we have a ten minute conversation about how the desperate single character at the Valentine's party should be a male so the sketch can be more progressive and less stereotypical. Lady, I would have yelled, I care so much about the stuff you care about it makes me sick!

So, I just left. But, Chelle did apologize. And, the woman was very understanding and apologetic herself. Also, we're moving rooms.


Baby chicks. State Fair 2011.

I did scream on campus this week. I yelled at a pro-life protester who stopped me on my way to work to tell me about how all fetus must live. I asked her if she was a vegetarian. Nope. I walked away. She stopped me. Bad move, girl. Bad move. Insert: 20 minute debate about the ethics of killing animals versus embryos. I believe everything I said was Right, but it definitely wasn't Good. She's not going to stop eating meat. She's still going to support over-population and starving children via her beliefs. Plus, I believe what I believe to encourage a sense of Love in this earth, and probs me literally pointing at her. yelling "HYPOCRITE!" with raised voice and hellfire eyes was not in accord with the whole promotion of Love thing. I'm working on it, you guys. I'm working on it.

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe.

Push Back

On Tuesday, Pookie and I went to a Cards game. I was excited to see The Giants because I have fond memories of many of them winning the World Series last fall. One of Pookie's friends was with us--a longtime Cards fan. I said, "Oh, yeah, well we're Giants fans."

I don't know why I felt like I needed to do that.

For some reason, we sometimes believe that pushing back harder than we need to is cool? Is helpful? Gets the ball rolling? Not like when we do it we MEAN to be accomplishing some side goal. It's just this mistake we make, and I'm not sure why we make it.

Like, I'm not even that big of a Giants fan anyway! Let's be real--it took Pookie and I a few minutes to make sure we were even reading the scoreboard correctly.


The baseball princess.

I know it's not the end of the world that we get defensive about random stuff that doesn't matter. (For some reason I am imagining the boy who lived across the street from me in middle school always arguing with me that cheesecake was GROSS and HOW could I LIKE it. I mean, he wasn't going to change my mind.) But, maybe it does matter. Because maybe if we stop pushing back in those little inane ways some good stuff will start to happen:

1. We'll talk about something more important.
2. We will exercise our ability to have a positive and educational mindset instead of an arbitrarily abrasive one. Even if we're joking.
3. The things we really do push back about will be accentuated. It's kind of screwed up that I can argue about how horrible pantyhose is with the same conviction I debate gay rights.

But, then again, I really do hate pantyhose.

EffIng North Korea

I'm really miffed by the current Public Forum debate topic for NFL Speech and Debate. It's basically "Resolved: north Korea is a bigger threat to the safety of the US than Iran."

So basically I've seen like a billion kids arguing over which country is crazier and full of the most horrible people. Usually I will forever and a HALF defend why Speech and Debate is so good for the world, but this? This is suck-town.

High schoolers who probably aren't the most understanding of world events should not be researching all the reasons other cultures are dangerous. They should be researching topics that promote considering other cultures in a positive light. Like, for real, who thought of thus stupid topic?

All the debates just turn into yelling matches about which countries' nukes are deadlier and which leader is more unreasonable.

After a full day of Districts yesterday (I'm currently between rounds now) I hung out with Dusty. Almost as soon as I got to his apartment, he sat me down. Very serious. He exhaled: "I have something to tell you..."

He was staring blankly forward, hands clasped together.

"Okay," I said.

"I'm not sure..." he winced. He shifted his shoulders back. "I'm not sure what I think about North Korea's current role in international politics--"

I punched him!

Secrets Shared

Library books 2011

Last night I went to my improv group's weekly open shortform jam. I haven't been in a while. I had a good time--even though I was a tad rusty. I met Gie, a young woman who has been doing improv in St. Louis for years and years but who now has a busy life and thus, only comes around from time to time.

So we chat, chat, chat, and something we chat, chat is body beauty womanhood. That conversation. She's trying to lose weight, how do you lose weight? What works? Isn't that annoying! Not eating fried food! What about exercise? Oh, yeah? What kind? Chat chat. It's really hard when you grow up and get a job isn't it? Metabolism chat.

And then she casually mentions, "And then I had my bout with anorexia--" and this statement is not shocking or awkward at all. And that makes me very sad. The anti-shock is inherent because if you're a girl who has ever seen TV, a magazine, or been in a mall, you've probably considered anorexia. It's impossible not to. It's like, "Here's the standard. DIE TRYING TO REACH IT! JUMP, GIRLS! JUMP!"

And seriously, what is anorexia anyway?
"Not eating?" Hmm. What does that mean?
-Last night when I didn't eat the M&Ms in my purse...was that anorexia? No, because I wasn't hungry.
-But what if I were hungry? Then? Just one time not eating M&Ms?
-Is there a some kind of bottom line to anorexia? How many times can you not eat before it's a problem?
-How hungry must you be for it to count as starvation?
-I can almost never tell when I am actually hungry. So, how do we expect little girls to always get it?

I really don't mean to rant about unfair standards of beauty because that's a dead horse. Never mind the fact that at last week's debate tournament I had to give my own 1A construction speech about how unfairly we judge our bodies to two girls who had written "NOTE TO SELF: DON'T EAT" on their hands.

Never mind, never mind!

HERE'S THE REAL POINT Y'ALL:

It's good to be open and honest about our problems. It makes us real and reminds others that having problems is okay. In fact, it's just life. HOWEVER, isn't talking about some problems just, like, making it worse? Instead of tossing our seeds of past secrets like grains over soil, can't we toss out love for ourselves, our bodies, women in general? And then won't that other problem, like, go away?

I really don't know.

I DO know that in high school someone asked me to buy a ribbon to wear to support "Eating Disorder Awareness." And I DO know that I said, "Are you crazy? I don't want to support that!"
And this very busy, highly motivated, award winning student said, "Well, of course you don't support eating disorders. This is about promoting awareness."
And I said, "Gotcha girlfriend. I think it's a bad idea."
And she darn near chucked her bucket of change into the air and throttled me. But, instead, class started.

Yatchy Entry

Sometimes don't you wish someone hadn't taught you how to think? That all you did was enjoy watching Survivor and grinding on guys at bars and reading TMZ every day? I'm not dissing any of those activities, but wouldn't it be nice if that was it? If you were illiterate and didn't believe in global warming and thought trash disintegrated into the ground and human rights were a last priority and money really for real wasn't important and wasn't limited and guilt wasn't a sin and wasn't a reality and everyone who didn't like you needed to get over it and all the work you didn't do right was just whatever because the paycheck keeps coming baby and consumerism was fun again?

Right now the high school Lincoln-Douglass debate resolution is that states ought not own nukes. As I was watching some awkward kids in suits last week I began to day dream I was in the debate with a neg case arguing that the owning of nukes will lead to an accident or use of nukes which would put brains and consciences out of their miseries. Value criterion: utalitiariansim--happiness for all the lil minds and hearts in the world through total destruction.


Tokyo Disney November 2008

This happened to me twice before, won't happen to me anymore.

A New School Year

Resolved: The American school system should move forward to begin in November.

Support One: How beautiful it was tonight as I walked along the canal outside my father's house--cool, crisp, aromas of burning leaves and sweaters coming out of the closet. Students would be free to enjoy the perfect weather and feel grateful to be shoved back into buildings as the climate became more bitter (instead of more beautiful).

Support Two: The holiday schedule of our country would align nicely to the new schedule. Halloween would be a last hurrah before the school year, and Thanksgiving would be a brief beginning break (akin to Labor Day). A half-week Christmas break would serve as a stopping point between quarters, and Spring Break would be longer. A long spring break makes the most sense ever, does it not?

Contention One: Isn't summer the best time to have kids free? Or, late spring for some schools?
Answer: No. Summer is mainly too hot to enjoy. Having a fall break would be much more relaxing, and there is not much wrong with having shorter nights for the bulk of a school's vacation. Spring and early summer are also prone to more allergy-issues than fall. Again, happier children.

Contention Two: But, what about swimming etc?
Why can't everyone swim during the end of the school year for pizza'a sake? We only fill our breaks with children bopping around in pools endlessly because that's a good activity for the time we have off. Plus, most schools will still have August off.

In conclusion, all American schools should begin in November instead of September or August. Thank you.