Drive-by

You know, despite my yen to have a bigger readership, there are definitely some advantages to running a small-time blog. Case in point: bigger blogs probably have to deal with comments like this all the time:

So what, people can’t have sexual attractions to specific people? Oh, I know, I should stop going after people I find attractive, suppress my desires and live a ‘normal’ life. OH WAIT WHERE HAVE I HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE? Jesus Christ, you have such a double standard.

Thanks, random commenter!

Not just anybody

The other day I was about to part ways with a friend when she said, “Let me know if you need anything.” I said I would and she looked me right in the eye and said she didn’t believe me.

“I think one of the reasons we’re friends is that we’re both really self-sufficient,” she said, “and kind of stubborn about that.”

I amended my statement–I said I’d try–and then I got on the subway.

Guess I Must Be Having Fun

The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along…

I was in high school when that sunscreen song came out. You know, the Baz Luhrmann song that was actually a Chicago Tribune column by Mary Schmich but still got falsely attributed to a commencement speech that Kurt Vonnegut didn’t actually give at MIT?

Yeah, that one.

I’ve been thinking about it lately, as I’ve waded through working and living in a college town during commencement season, having never really left my alma mater. I hear snippets here and there of the bleak economic forecast for graduates, the speakers urging all those fresh young faces to buckle down and weather the storm.

But I think if I were speaking to a group of graduates–even better, if I were speaking to myself three years ago–I wouldn’t say anything about the economy, or hard work, or even sunscreen.

I would say You are not alone. And even if you are, you’re still in good company.

Born of bad-ass women

My grandmother died on Wednesday.

This wasn’t unexpected, but expected earthquakes still shake the buildings.

The Blue and White

(This will be a short post because I’m on a mini-vacation. The kind where I’m theoretically supposed to not be glued to my laptop. Which is, of course, why I brought my laptop with me.)

It’s graduation season, and for the first time I’ve noticed how many schools have different colored gowns for male and female graduates. This wasn’t true for me in high school or college, so I suppose I didn’t have much reason to think about it until now.

What’s the point of separating the men from the women (or the boys from the girls) in this way? I don’t know if this is a case of me reading too much into something, but I’ve noticed that if one of the color options is white, the girls wear it. Why are the boys never in white? (My high school’s colors were blue and white, so if we’d had two different colors, I would’ve been in white, and I think I would’ve been really jealous of the blue robes.)

And what does that mean for anyone who might identify as genderqueer, or otherwise outside of the binary gender norm?

I Don’t Feel Like Watching This

It’s only very recently that I’ve started giving up on books before the end. In the past, no matter how much trouble I was having or how bored I was, I’d still try to plow through. It’s still tough for me to abandon hope, but it’s a strangely liberating feeling to give myself permission to not finish something. And now, thanks to the wonders of the DVD player, I can do that with movies, too.

I’m less likely to stop watching a movie, though, both because I have a different set of standards–I’ll watch just about anything–and because something about the more passive nature of sitting and watching a movie makes me somehow less bothered to be watching a sub-par one. I also multitask when I’m watching things on a screen, so sometimes the screen action is really just background noise.

I’ve discovered that the two things most likely to make me stop watching a movie are domestic abuse and rape. [Spoilers after the jump.]

Breaking Development: National Bacon Examiner

Regular (and bored) readers may notice I’ve just added a new link to the Other Places I Write section. No joke–I’m now kind of professionally writing about bacon.

So far I’ve only written two posts–my recipe for chocolate covered bacon and some tips on buying bacon to suit your needs–but I have a Lot of ideas for material. Later today I’ll be trying out a bizarre new recipe that popped into my head. Stay tuned!

I probably won’t always cross-post or link here, although I am aware that I have a small fan-base here and I’d love it if you’d check out my bacon musings. Full disclosure: unlike this blog, over yonder I do get paid very modestly based on some kind of page view matrix that I’ll never fully understand. So clicks to my links do, in fact, help me make money. I hope that doesn’t offend anybody, and I’m definitely not going to turn this blog into a big PR vehicle or anything.

An Ode to Our Hairy Feminist Selves

Earlier today I realized that I’d been seriously entertaining the notion of shaving my armpits. This is pretty significant for me. It’s rare that I even have the impulse, and I haven’t gone through with it since my senior year of college. With that one exception, I haven’t shaved them since I was 16 or so.

Naturally, my first step was to tweet.

One of my friends, bless her heart, responded thusly:

Well, isn’t the bottom line of feminism doing whatever the hell you want? Shave em, baby. Trust me, it’ll grow back if you dislike.

Could it really be that simple? Is shaving, which I know is linked with standards of fashion and propriety, just another choice? All too often I see women recoiling in horror from the spectre of the feminist as hairy lesbian and I want to say you’re not doing me any favors! There’s actually nothing wrong with being a hairy lesbian, either!

And let’s not forget–my hairy feminist self got me into college.

Review: Ghazal

…And while we’re at belated reviews, how about the newest addition to JP’s Indian offerings?

Review: La Verdad

I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to review La Verdad. Perhaps I was too busy stuffing my face with tacos at La Verdad.