Monday, October 20, 2008

i can't spell it out for you

I got the email telling me I don't find out about Lyon until Wednesday, which made me pathetically grateful because I have been pushing this decision back so hard already.

What else is there to say? I am still feeling the burnout from midterms (which went over fine, thankfully), and this constant exhaustion is nipping at my shoulders whenever I turn around. I am a class-skipper, a lazy lieabout, a girl who avoids conversations because they make my head pound, swimming with feelings and with apathy.

And how long has it been since I've felt normal, without the blood rushing to my head, without starry wind cutting against me, without the ache settling deep somewhere at the base of my spine? My fingers are going from brown to purple at the tips because the heat still isn't on here, despite the frost from the past two nights, and the familiar pulsating ache is building behind my eyes.

Coffee with Nora tonight, looking forward to that. Perhaps I will lie about, indulge, be decadent, read Emile Zola in translation (I swear that Late Victorian Fiction is ruining any moral judgment I had left, and any barriers to desire), and then head to Alderman.

Speaking of decadence, here are my current indulgences: Au Bonheur des Dames. Art chocolate. Long showers just to stay warm. Eye makeup. The Pussycat Dolls song entitled "I Don't Need a Man". Instructions.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

it'll take more than just a breeze to make me fall overboard

It's already October? How did the summer get away from us and fall rush in so quickly?

My Lyon application is due a week from yesterday -- how terrifying and fascinating all at once. I've been truly reticient to discuss this, mostly because I am terrified that if one person manages to talk me out of it, I won't ever be brave enough to go.

At the same time, I can't help but see the lure of stepping out of this life and these life-things and doing something radically different.

For now, I am skimping on my DMP reading and looking forward very much to this afternoon, when I will not have to worry about classes until Tuesday. Yay, fall reading days! Unfortunately, I really will be reading for most of them, since the Late Victorian Fiction midterm is the Wednesday we get back.

I am so glad I took that class. It might be my favorite this semester.

For now, I am a little bit thinking of how to begin to pursue something that I've wanted to speak out on for a long time -- the distressingly negative and repressive attitudes of our culture toward menstruation. This discussion of course brings in issues about parenting, female puberty, sexuality and sexual development, birth control, fertility, pregnancy & childbirth, and menopause, to name a few. All of these are important parts of feminist discourse, but I want to focus on the straightforward physical phenomenon of monthly bleeding and the range of attitudes surrounding it.

Here are the things I want to change: shame, secrecy, and negativity about menstruation. Unfounded fears and stereotypes about menstruating women (including the infamous diagnosis of PMS). The disdain many (most?) women feel about their cycles, and the corresponding lack of interest in alternative menstruation options.

And most importantly, I want to see a radical shift in the way that we teach our daughters (the inheritors of third wave feminism and the succeeding generation to ourselves) about the incredibly creative power of their bodies.