you know that shit is fucked up when you stop giving it your all because when you do, it gets appropriated and someone turns around and still asks for more. there are spaces in univeristy where i cannot be who i used to be, who i am, the passion i am because it gets sucked dry. and when i call it out, i get those looks. i am transformed into an angry person of color that should just shut up, because people are startin' to look scared. i get those looks. do you know the looks? the squinting, the dismissal, the subtle punishments. and you can't call out the punishments either, cuz the rap sheet just grows. on both sides. i can call on myself to search for some inner peace, some shield, some protection and in the end, the more i learn, the thicker the shield gets, and the easier it is to crack. have you been here? the population of this land, the land of the knowing, the disatisfied, the angry, the peaceful, the fighters, the raised fists, the screaming, the families, we're growing.
i go to class, and i have to remind myself to not let the contradiction and the pain and the isms interfere with my needs. i used to keep shut up in the face of these things, because i knew nothing else. i am learning other things now. i am learning that when you call out your prof for being racist and call out the need for some self work first...sure, i can step up onto the box, but that box ain't the thing that makes it to my gpa is it? that box, those backs, those with me, we know. things aren't made easy for us, ever. ever. we get the roadblocks. we put up our own barricades too.
so i can fight these profs, this university, this system...i fight what i fight, and i keep an eye on my knees, cuz everyone i fight knows how to cut me off there.
course i don't have time to fight if i'm not eatin' right.
course i don't have time to fight if i can't sleep.
course i don't have time to fight if the racism classism ageism nationalism sexism and heterosexism i encounter in one day leaves me exhausted.
course i don't have time to fight if i take the self change serious and can't give a pat answer because where i was born, that's what fucks you up first.
and so i fight.

do you?

this is sorta what i felt like when i could put in my name on the university database.
and what mexico was like, 'passing' for me. not someone else.
and playing futbol with kids on basketball courts.
and coffee dregs in chiapas even if i don't drink it that much.

learn yourself
about
atenco
acteal
oaxaca
our use of ethanol
petrochina
police states
and eeuu

word.

oh and ps, if you drink coffee, where does it come from?

check her out.


mexico tomorra.

word.

the 'hawk is back.

and i am making a ditto to give to a class so discussing tlgb identity is less painful and vulnerable in a classroom space
and i am thinking about spittin' and wanting to do it well
and what it means to be authentic
and chicago
and chiapas and that trip that will be amazing in several different ways
and how to work for my life without wearing out my life..



HOW DO YOU SPEAK TRUTH?

i am so distracted. can you tell?
i have two papers to write for this week
and one exam and more for the week after and i cannot focus
for anything...
except her.

(damn grad students).

will the analysis ever end?

what happens when you have a poetry slam about masculinity, violence and social justice and the stage is predominately male, hetero and white?

things everyone should check out

movie-the namesake
book- the other campaign by subcomandante marcos
place/project-sylvia rivera law project, nyc and FIERCE nyc
food-homemade dumplings and anything made at a potluck
music-native guns, detroit summer project, invincible (from detroit) dilated peoples...
other random things
is your coffee really fair trade? all of it? certain coffee places will purchase one crate of like ninety and label all of it fair trade
what do you know about community organizing? teachers in oaxaca?
when was the last time you considered christian privilege?
when was the last time you really considered ableism?
when was the last time you ran in rain puddles barefoot?

...when the wind blows i can feel you/through the weather...
word.
played by carlos santana.

these disparities in these spaces
make my life, their life
hier life
into a self-effacing parody
and the only way to
make it better
is if i do all the work
myself
and you step back
and support me
without pinching my spine.
(acca)

word.

i am writing a bit again. yay.
i am learning self-boundaries.
i am reading.
i am cooking dumplings. yay.
i am eating strawberry-rhubarb jam and learning the leaves are poisonous.
i am being.


word.

growing.

the vagina monologues owned. just owned.
being on stage...wow. not addictive, just a way to see how we can choose to show up ya know...
i love every single one of those beautiful women. and i miss them all too.


walked home from work in the cold and slush and decided that the next girlfriend should have a warm apartment or house to snuggle in. dorms suck. except when the neighbors do sex surveys...oh, to be in soc classes...

oh. and if you haven't...alixa and naima. ammunition. listen to it. now.

things to look forward to

purple mohawk
performing the monologues
a haircut
organic green tea
maps
roadtripping to arizona
working in the kitchen
using chopsticks
letter writing
poetry slams
old clothing
seeing family
living in a coop
big changes
dialogue

be heard.

'only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us'

i read this in a pema chrodon book today while wasting my life away at the airport waiting to return to ann arbor.

i want to apologize to those i did not see over the break. however, this does not seem as if it will do much other than provoke ire, so i will try writing letters soon...i hope that whatever the new year started as, whether enjoyed or not, was a learning experience in some way...my break was.

my roommate and i just rearranged the room and i ma learning how to deal with sharing spaces again. i will live in a shared room in a coop next year...

anyways, since the tradition standing seems to be longass posts, this shall go on...
watched a dvd that made me consider the law of attraction and how it plays into daily life, and the frequency of thoughts... (scientifically speaking)
and it takes me back to that quote aforementioned...

do you ever lean into sharp things, or pull back?
if you were to lean, what would you learn, do you think?

i think i'll write letters instead.

there is an article in the ny times about 'supporting boys and girls when the line isn't clear' the idea is the dialogue around what to do with gender variant children if/as they identify as such at a very young age.

read it. now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/02/us/02child.html?ex=1165726800&en=69cd42a41396606e&ei=5070&emc=eta1


if you had a child that identified as gender variant...(and since i have no pronoun to use, i will use the grammatically incorrect plural third person..)

would you think they were too young to 'decide' such a thing?
would you let them dress and act the way they identified, even with (extremely possible) social repercussions?
would you let them use hormone blockers to offset puberty?
do you think their sexual identity is different from their gender identity?
just how accepting could you be?


think about it.