my roommate doesn't know what to do with me

In the kitchen two days ago, this happened:

Me: Look at the underoos Kristine stole for me!
Liz: Stole?
Me: *unzips pants to expose girl boxers*
Liz: *awkward*
Me: Aren't they CUTE?
Liz: I don't know if it's worse to look and say they're nice or to look away.


Yesterday, this happened:

Kristine and me: Play [Burning Bridges] again!
Liz:
Me: Play it, or I'll take off my clothes. Usually it works the other way.
Liz: I wish I could get girls to take off their clothes for me by playing guitar.
Me: *takes off pants, drops them on floor*
Liz:
Me: Play it, or I'll take off my shirt, too! Am I wearing a bra?
Kristine: I don't think so.
Me: *takes off shirt*
Liz: I'm telling your girlfriend.
Me: Do it.
Liz: *calls Bri* *talks with Bri* She says she would never tell you to put on clothes.
Me: *smiles triumphantly*

the sacred and the profane

-Katilee Fender, I dub thee Hope.
-And you'll be beauty.

it's a warm stone that i carry along

This summer, when I was having frequent anxiety attacks, and overall did not sleep, my dad took me to Valley Natural Foods (or as he calls it, "Nature Valley") to buy Katefood. While there, he asked, in his sweet and innocent and heart-melting way, if there's a tea to help people relax. And then he bought some for me. Seriously, that man converts my whole being to the perfect mug of hot cocoa on the first day of winter.

on days like this i would just disappear if it weren't for you and your love like nails in my feet

Tonight, I could curl up on this borrowed couch and just stop existing.

If I don't wake up, I'll be fine.

Ohhh... ohhhhhhh...... insert sexgasm sounds here

Recently, I've had a series of musicgasms that have crippled me. Musicgasms that have shot through my ears and traveled through my resonant body at a rate that leaves me panting and crumpled on the floor once it's had its way with me. In order for others to share in this experience, I have decided to list them here from oldest to most recent:

Braille by Regina Spektor
All Across the Universe... the whole soundtrack.
Defying Gravity from Wicked
Take Me or Leave Me from RENT
Hot in Herre cover by Jenny Owen Youngs
Nine Crimes by Damien Rice
X-mas Cake by Rilo Kiley
Rootless Tree by Damien Rice
Burning Bridges by Chris Pureka
Burning Bridges by Chris Pureka
Burning Bridges by Chris Pureka
Burning Bridges by Chris Pureka
Liz's Song That She Wrote by Liz
Burning Bridges by Chris Pureka
Burning Bridges by Chris Pureka
Unedible by Grieves
Porch Songs by Chris Pureka

And have I mentioned Chris Pureka?

Sandalwood

I never thought that I could feel like this.

I didn't even know it was possible.

Adventures with Bri

Today, I spent approximately fourteen hours with Bri. In the past three days, I have hung out with her twice, and have had a myriad of new experiences.

1. She got me drunk.
2. I bought a swim suit to go to the beach with her. (Never been done.)
3. She taught me how to play pool--and I took the winning shots! Two in a row!
4. We smoked hookah.
5. The cops came and took our IDs because they didn't believe that the bong had tobacco in it.
6. Did I mention the cops???
7. We forked at Perkins.

So today we played at the beach, saw Ratatoille, went to her friend's house, ate at Arby's, went to another friend's house, went back to Friend A's house, went to a lake to smoke hookah and harrass frogs, had cops laugh at us for smoking hookah instead of pot (Cop: What is it? Bri: It's, like, tobacco. Cop: It's like tobacco, or it's, like, pot?), and went to Perkins.

It was a beautiful day.

Bri claims that she must be in my top two favourite friends by now. Oh, and she's proud of me for trying new things.

"I didn't realize I was breaking you so much. I'm proud!"
"Proud of you or proud of me?"
"Proud of you! And me. Just a little."

Girl in the War

I think that we all have the right to be mad at God.

((Peter said to Paul,
"You know, all those words that we wrote
Are just the rules of the game, and the rules are the first to go."))

For telling us what to believe, but not how.

((But now talkin' to God is Laurel beggin' Hardy for a gun.
I gotta girl in the war, man, I wonder what it is we've done.))

...I think that God has the right to be mad at us, too. I think we've hurt God.

But I'm still mad at God.

((Paul said to Peter,
"You gotta rock yourself a little harder.
Pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire."
But I got a girl in the war, Paul the only thing I know to do
Is turn up the music and pray that she makes it through.))

For telling us to maintain our faith, when all we can do is helplessly and resignedly hope that we'll get through all this.

((Because the keys to the kingdom got locked inside the kingdom,
And the angels fly around in there, but we can't see them.
And I got a girl in the war, Paul, I know that they can hear me yell.
If they can't find a way to help her, they can go to Hell.
If they can't find a way to help her, they can go to Hell.))

For telling us about heaven and salvation, but not showing us.

((Paul to Peter, "You gotta rock yourself a little harder.
Pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire."
But I got a girl in the war, Paul, her eyes are like champagne—
They sparkle, bubble over, and in the morning all you got is rain.
Sparkle, bubble over, and in the morning all you got is rain.
They sparkle, bubble over, and in the morning all you got is rain.))

For giving us an ephemeral wonder and hope, and knowing they will go flat before we can do anything with them.

If God has a feeling, I think it is sorrow.

My dad is the most innocent person I have ever known.

Dissidence, Sedition, and Radicalism... brought to you by Kate

This is my frustration:

That I dissent against a government that claims to both protect and represent me, a government purportedly "of the people, by the people, and for the people" (Gettysburg Address).

That a government which claimed from its inception to separate church and state has never truly done so, and that now, under the oligarchical and theocratic rule of the conservative Supreme Court (supreme—we wouldn't be suggesting hierarchy and inequality, would we?) the government can fund faith-based initiatives. When has Bush EVER, as he now claims to do with this decision, supported a level playing field?

That patriotism is a representation of patrilineal patriarchy systematically upheld by erect flags splattered with the blood of soldiers who believed that they were fighting for FREEDOM.

That women account for 30% of people dishonorably discharged under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, while they comprise only 14% of the armed forces.

That the armed forces have a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

That in forty states, transgender people can legally be fired on the basis of being transgender.

That same-sex marriage is not legally recognized.

That women make approximately eighty-one cents to a man's dollar.

That corporations sport enormous US flags and faith in a Christian god and talk about hard work and independence while simultaneously accepting huge government subsidies to train their employees that are not actually used to train their employees.

That racism is an epidemic in this country.

That heterosexism and homophobia are an epidemic in this country.

That people actually actively oppose immigration.

That a country which so ardently supports globalization attempts to control its borders to keep people out, when in today's economy the greater divide is not between nations, but between socio-economic classes.


That freedom is associated with independence.

That independence is associated with happiness.

That independence is considered paramount to success, and that because I support communes, collectives, and equity in trade policies, people will venemously call me a Communist.

That at my new job I will have to wear a baseball hat that advertises Coca-Cola—a uniform item about which I was not informed prior to being hired, to which I was not offered the chance to give my consent, and about which no one else seems to care.

That people could hear about any number of egregious acts committed by multi-national corporations and still patronize these corporations.

That war is patriotic.

That big business is patriotic.

That Christianity is patriotic.

That opposing immigration is patriotic.

That speaking ONLY English is patriotic.

That joining the armed forces is patriotic.

That drinking Coke is patriotic.

That eating at McDonalds is patriotic.

That social activism...
is NOT patriotic.

That patriotism is a divisive term of exclusivity.

That the Patriot Act overtly taps into people's fear (and phone and Internet records) to garner support for it while building... patriotism. It is thusly patriotic to not support our right to free speech. And now an act originally inspired by fear has been signed by the president into law, so that our government has the legal right to search our homes and businesses without our prior knowledge or permission. This has me confused as to who is the terrorist, and who the victim.

That fear is now patriotic.

That the freedoms upon which this country was supposedly based have NEVER been fully upheld, and only by challenging our system en masse have we ever had partial recognition of Constitutional rights. And the ERA? It still hasn't passed (despite being re-introduced to every Congress since 1982).

That schools can restrict students' first amendment right.

That in 2002 Joseph Frederick was suspended from his high school and went to court for holding up a banner sporting "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." And that the illegalization of cannabis, and even the popularization of the word marijuana, is based primarily upon racism against Mexican immigrants of the early twentieth century and against African-Americans, and was publicized by blatant misinformation supported by the government.

That in Utah, students may not be allowed to form Gay-Straight Alliances if they venture beyond "the boundaries of socially appropriate behavior."

That Mike Cameron got suspended from Greenbrier High School in 1998 for wearing a Pepsi tee shirt on a day when he was supposed to participate in a school-wide photograph to promote Coca-Cola.

That our government promulgates ideas of independence and work ethic while subsidizing multi-billion dollar MNC's that are belligerently anti-union, and somehow tells us that we should be responsible for our own healthcare.

That the lower classes pay a disproportionate percentage of their income in taxes.

That 51% of our country's budget goes to military spending.

That this country is increasingly becoming a theocracy—the type of government it opposes in the Middle East. I guess they're the wrong religion.

That the first time around, Bush became president despite the popular vote. And even more alarmingly, that the second time around... he had it.

And most significantly and inclusively: that being a social activist means that I must FIGHT my government rather than work with it.

:D

:D!

if i were to say that...

if i were to say that
today is:

...beautiful

then that is my prerogative

i will follow beauty
across the arcing day
in the wake
of Apollo's chariot,
borrowing expired light
to guide my pedaled wandering

and if the smell of asphalt
thickly snakes up
from the smooth-paved blackness
of unfamiliar streets
and fills my nose
with humid memories
of easier days

then i will let it


but as Night drifts westward
in the high-domed twilight,
baring scattered stars
and a luminous moon
I am
Woman
once more

born into the fullness of the moon
and throbbing with the pulse of Artemis,
i curve my naked feet
to match the roundness
of the deepblack Earth
and call her
Mother

if i were to fly...

if i were to fly
i would sprout supple wings
of warmly melting wax
and the fallen feathers
of flighty fluttering birds
floating on the waves of the wind,
and freeing myself
from this land-locked life
i would swim in the pale-blue iris
of the arch-backed sky
and bathe in the halo
of that day-time star
and fall with the Night
through the dilating pupil
of a deepening sea

My dad eats cake with a spoon.

Interesting.

tryingtospeaktryingtospeaktryingtospeak the pain

Sometimes, I hate being queer.

((Harriet there was always somebody calling us crazy
or mean or stuck-up or evil or black
or black))

I hate that we must first prove our existence before we can petition for rights, and that we've yet to prove our existence.

((and we were))

I hate that we must first accept that others do not accept us before they will begin to accept us.

((nappy girls quick as cuttlefish
scurrying for cover))

I hate that our parents tell us that they did not raise us to be gay, that conservatives tell us that it is an abnormal abomination, and that society tells us that it is a crime.

((trying to speak trying to speak
trying to speak
the pain in each other's mouths))

I hate that people are killed for being gay, lesbian, transgender, transsexual, intersex, or a member of any prescribed category of Other, and that there will be protestors at their funeral.

((until we learned
on the edge of a lash
or a tongue
on the edge of the other's betrayal))

I hate that sixty percent of teen suicides are by queer people.

((that respect
meant keeping our distance
in silence))

I hate that when someone finds out that I'm gay, and then leaves shortly thereafter, I wonder if it is because I am gay.

((averting our eyes
from each other's face in the street))

I hate that I am expected to be proud of people who support my existence, to appreciate their awareness of my sexuality.

((from the beautiful dark mouth
and cautious familiar eyes
passing alone.))

I hate that, when I am honest about who I am, people tell me that they would be okay with homosexuals if only we wouldn't make such a big deal out of it. In the meantime, I am consistently bombarded with the icons and idols of heterosexuality.

((I remember you Harriet))

I hate that when I attend a reunion for veterans to support my grandpa, even though I practice a different set of values, the veterans will speak for three consecutive days about the freedom of this country but make gay jokes about fairies and closets as if they have the right to degrade us, as if patronizing us is their territory. I hate that I silence myself for their comfort with a scathing awareness that if they knew that I am gay, they would not speak to me.

((before we were broken apart))

I hate the blithe advice I receive on marriage, when it is not in fact an option for me.

((we dreamed the crossed swords
of warrior queens))

I hate the way that some men will stare at me, as if I exist for their enjoyment, as if I might submissively participate in whatever sexual fantasy they have concocted.

((while we avoided each other's eyes))

I hate that my friends are afraid to acknowledge their sexual identities to the point that they deny it even to themselves, because it is just too hard to be gay.

((and we learned to know lonely
as the earth learns to know dead))

I hate the information management that I experience every time I meet someone or talk with someone—the anxiety of indecision: to reveal or not to reveal? To correct someone asking about all of my suitors, or to smilingly let it slide in the demure fashion typical of my socialized gender role?

((Harriet Harriet))

I hate that I feel a surge of relief when my ex-boyfriend writes to me to tell me that he wants to meet my "girl," and that every time I have a message on facebook from someone with whom I don't usually speak, I worry that they are writing to ask if I'm gay (yes, it happens).

((what name shall we call our selves now
our mother is gone?))

I hate that when I talk about my friends, people will ask me if these friends are gay or straight (already assuming both a gender binary and dichotomized sexuality), but that they do not ask this of my heterosexual peers.




An ethical query emerges in light of such an analysis: how might we encounter the difference that calls our grids of intelligibility into question without trying to foreclose the challenge that the difference delivers? What might it mean to learn to live in the anxiety of that challenge, to feel the surety of one's epistemological and ontological anchor go, but to be willing, in the name of the human, to allow the human to become something other than what it is traditionally assumed to be? This means that we must learn to live and to embrace the destruction and rearticulation of the human in the name of a more capacious and, finally, less violent world, not knowing in advance what precise form our humanness does and will take.

--Judith Butler, from Undoing Gender

Goddess Bless Inga

Today, I felt:

Peace.

Absolute

Embracing

Fulfilling

...Peace.

Ironically, this stemmed from reading Cunt, an otherwise incendiary book that gets my heart pumping faster rather than slower. But today, she nailed it, that feeling of being nurtured. That feeling I would like to provide to anyone who approaches me. If we would but nurture one another, and forgive each other for whatever it is we're holding against ourselves, all of these fabricated complications would dissipate.



"Ammachi seized me gently--if you can imagine that--and pulled me into her lap. She cradled me, murmuring sweet chanting sounds into my ear. Her body engulfed mine and I relaxed--almost melted--into her. My face buried in her shoulder and neck, I breathed in her smell.

This is when I really, truly started to freak on the wonder of Ammachi. After holding hundreds of people in this manner, you would think she'd start to kinda stink. I was nowhere near the begining of the line. The sun set and went down, down, down to Australia while I stood in that line. A lot of people were in her arms before me, but the woman smelled like flowers. Not perfumey at all. Like if you covered every inch of your bedroom floor with freshly cut bouquets of jasmine, gardenia, roses, hyacinth, carnations, sweet peas and freesia is what she smelled like. And this smell wasn't coming from the flowers around her, it exuded from her skin, the fabrics of her sari and veils. It filled my whole body, permeated my pores. Her smell made me so giddy the attendant had to help me stand back up again. She stared deeply into my eyes and pressed flower petals and chocolate kisses into my hand.

I stumbled away like a drunk.

Like I just had one 'dem orgasms to raise the dead.

Lordisa.

For a whole week afterwards, my entire apartment smelled like Ammachi. Everywhere I went, I smelled her smell. Walking down the street with one of my friends, the smell of Ammachi would assail me. I'd go, "Damn, do you smell that?" And my friend'd go, "Car exhaust? What?"

As Ammachi's smell faded from my life, I started thinking about what happened when she blessed me.

It was the first time in my life I felt /loved/. Physically, emotionally, psychically, spiritually, /deeply loved/ from the epidermis of my skin that featured a couple of ugly zits, to the core of my heart that is still traumatized by the death of my brother, abortions, meanspirited lovergirls and other nasty hurts. It is a consciousness-broadening freak-out to feel love in this way."

--from the chapter "Whores"

Mirrors...

I don't own a mirror.

As such, I have no idea what my body looks like.

When I see a mirror, I'm fully clothed and only see myself from the waist up.

Today, I discovered that I have a mirror in my room here. And I stood in front of it. Naked.

Duly, I screamed.

We're made out of blood and rust...

I know that I cannot believe them.

Any of them.

But can I trust them? Can I trust them with me, even when I know not to believe them about each other?



We're made out of blood and rust,
Looking for someone to trust
Without a fight.

--Joseph Arthur, "Honey and the Moon"

We generate our own light...

night falls like people into love,
and we generate our own light to compensate
for the lack of light from above.
every time we fight, a cold wind blows our way,
but we can learn, like the trees, how to bend,
how to sway.



Tonight, Ben and I talked for two hours and forty five minutes. We exchanged book suggestions (he has read quite a few Feminist theorists), and talked about our relationships with Mom and with Dad. We discussed theories on life and swapped mutually counter-cultural stories on the pretentious people we meet--I go to a private university and he works in a ritzy restaurant, so one can imagine the types of encounters we explore. And we kept telling each other how excited we were to talk with each other, which we both cited as our first real conversation in over five years. And he repeatedly mentioned how proud he is of me.

First, I was born into a family. And then they left, and I left, and we all shattered to each other. And then I made my own family, constructed of close friends and mentors. And now, I have that constructed family, but I also have this faint and terrifying hope that maybe there can be something with that original set, with Dad and Ben. Maybe there's something there.

Can I slip into this love for them so easily? It frightens me, but I am so excited to be talking with Dad and Ben. It brings to mind Heraclitus: "You cannot step twice into the same river." This love we have, I once felt it surrounding me, holding me afloat in its motion, and at some point we jumped out of that. Now I'm testing the water again, after five years of parched anger, stepping in a bit eagerly, and I know that this water is different, that this current has shifted, and that we, especially, have changed, but it feels similar and welcoming and vaguely consistent, and my feet have been so long dry.



i, i think i understand
what all this fighting is for-
and i just want you to understand:
i'm not angry anymore.
no, i'm not angry anymore.

--Ani DiFranco, "Angry Anymore"

Everyone's got to face down the demons...

Everyone's got to face down the demons-
Maybe today we can put the past away.

--Third Eye Blind



For the past twelve days, I have spent countless hours with friends trying to put away the past. It hasn't quite worked, since I've been using them as more of a distraction than anything else, but I will say that through the desperation, through these terrible days, I have felt the love of my friends, and it has cushioned me against the many-cornered emptiness that threatens us.

So thank you.

Thank you, Sarahschwarz. Thank you, Kristine. Thank you, Danny. Thank you, Mallory. Thank you, James.

And thank you, Seth, for being stronger than I am. I'm sorry that I cannot help you through this; I hope that you know how much I love you.



And when I chose to live,
There was no joy, it's just a line I crossed.
I wasn't worth the pain my death would cost,
So I was not lost or found.

And if I was to sleep...
I knew my family had more truth to tell,
And so I travelled down a whispering well
To know myself through them.

...

When you live in a world,
Well, it gets into who you thought you'd be,
And now I laugh at how the world changed me:
I think life chose me after all.

--Dar Williams, "After All"

Virginia Tech Candlelight Vigil

The event was touching. People read verses from the Bible, and two women from MSA read from the Qu'ran, the first woman speaking in Arabic and the second (Saddyna) reading an English translation. At first, the microphone didn't work, and everyone shuffled closer to the podium to better hear, causing us to reduce our "personal space." What kinds of situations facilitate, and permit, this breach of such a strongly held taboo as our distance between our bodies?

Word of Truth led us in singing Amazing Grace as we lit our candles, a process which began on the inside of the arc of people and spread to the back in a wave of increasing light, each person sharing the flame of their candle with the unlit wick of the person behind them, and together we sang. To see the light spreading, to hear people lifting their voices, together, in song to the same god...it made me cry.

I cried because we expressed this unity in the aftermath of such a tragedy rather than before it. In the context of tragedy, we were willing to pray together, to sing together, to bow our heads in a moment of silence together, to stand, together, with our candles, lit by the willing assistance of a stranger whom we may or may not see again.

I ponder the metaphor of the candle. I see it as a representation of the self, a symbol of our vital energy that we our selves hold, and at first I wondered to what extent this enforced individualism, but then I saw the paper disc that someone had pushed the candle through, now catching hot wax that dripped from around the wick just as tears slid from the eyes of my peers. And I saw how many candles depended on others to be lit. And I saw how, when we each held these candles, the light overlapped and collaborated and spread outward into something we shared, and we could see it and feel its heat, and if anyone had walked by, they would have felt it, too, and would have been welcome to join us. And I saw how that light would not have been observable had it not been night. And I wondered why the shooter felt compelled to harm others, wondered what forces led him to that sense of isolation, for he surely felt as one in the night. And I see him as holding his own candle, but by himself, a solitary light meek and feeble, and when it blew out, no one was around to lend him their light. Each person scurried past, hands cupped around their meager flames because of their fear that it would go out. But if we would support each other, we would recognize that we do not need to protect our selves so much, that when we focus so much on our own selves, we are actually neglecting our true selves. When we look so anxiously at our flames, we fail to see that a fellow person's has become extinguished. But if we walk together, our light can show the way for our selves, our unified self, and others, who should be welcome to join us or just use us momentarily. And because we have the confidence of our numbers, none need protect their flame over-zealously, because if one goes out, several others can offer help. And the beauty full thing, the truly beauty full thing, is that no one gives anything up for the sharing; on the contrary, all benefit from it.

During the readings from holy books, during prayer, and during Amazing Grace, I thought of god for the first time in terms of a key metaphor, this common thread to unite a diverse people and provide them with a framework for understanding. In this way, a seeker, one searching for a line-of-best-fit religion, can, I believe, fully believe a sought-and-found religion, partially because they can claim an appeal to faith and point out that it was always true and they simply hadn't known it, but beyond that is the sense that a seeker is not looking for something to believe in, but for a way to believe in that essence, a way to express that belief through ritualism and have a community to share that.

I don't know how we would have communicated tonight if not through religion. I don't know how we would have understood each other. Thinking of the word communicate, I see that it means something like 'to create unity together,' that community means (approximately) 'with unity.' Communication, then, if truly observed, is a process whereby we unify, and community is a result of that process which requires ongoing communication, ongoing creation and definition.

Day of Silence

This is part of a poem I wrote the morning we left for Chicago. I thought it appropriate to share today:

...

and life is a series of easy defeats
that people deny with their subtle conceit,
'cause this illusion is quiet,
this illusion's discreet,
and if there were truth
then we'd still choose deceit

...

and the best we can do
is just to charge on,
without hope for glory,
expectations gone,
and if there is hope, then it's in the dawn,
and if there is hope, then it's in our lawn—
that small patch of land that we all dismissed
'cause the lure of the tv's too much to resist,
and we forget how to speak but we memorize lists
of shows that display all these guns, all these fists,
and we'll watch people killed, we'll watch people die,
without making a grimace or blinking an eye.
and somewhere in this mess we forgot how to cry,
but we learned to not eat, to make ourselves thin,
and we learned how to dress, to look just like them,
because the most important thing is for us to fit in.
the most important thing is for us to give in.

...

and I always wonder why they choose this fear,
why they fight the love that could save us here,
why they force us to silence,
why they smother our voice,
why they call it a sin,
why they call it a choice.
and this silence?
it's violence.
and this hate crime must end,
'cause more people will break
if others won't bend.

and i have seen people pushed over the top,
and this silence must end,
and this violence must stop,
'cause my friend, she is giving
the pulse of her wrist
to the people whose hatred
will never desist,
and if they saw her scars,
they wouldn't ask why,
because life is easier when life is a lie.


...

and you say god is love,
and you drop to your knees,
and you ask what you want,
and you say pretty please,
but you neglect with willful ease
that queer is a lifestyle and not a disease.
and the hatred you preach
from the pulpit, your sin,
is beading blood on delicate skin
that's not thick enough, no, it's too thin,
and the raised lines that criss-cross
her once-young breasts
aren't there to offend, aren't there to protest:
they're her favourite secret, kept close to her chest,
and the ones who know it—
they know her best.

...


I have so much to say about this day. But that is all for now.

Today, I got online to vote in the USFT elections, and I realized that I'm probably not going to get re-elected.

Oddly enough, I felt relieved.

Because I want to focus more on local action. I want to work with TCU organizations, where I can see people, and touch them, and really work with them. And because I cannot truly see the people on the Coordinating Committee, I end up lagging in my commitments. It tears me apart, how much I cannot do. Why have I not already worked on the newsletter for USFT? Why not the mentorship program with the Advisory Council? Why not established an Interfaith Coalition? At the end of each day, I go to sleep in a state of near-panic (exemplifying the extent of my fatigue), thinking on everything I did not complete, everything for United Students for Fair Trade, for Frogs for Fair Trade, for ideas of on-campus activism that I could achieve through the Fellows Alliance which I could use to reach out from Interfaith to Living Wage, to work with Heal Hunger more, with the Gay Straight Alliance.

Everything I join, I join because it's something I should be able to do. Something I can do. Something I should do. This is the most difficult thing, this sense that I should be doing all of this. To not be on the CC for USFT would weigh heavily on me, but worse than that would be this continual inability to support USFT. Because the truth of the matter can be summed in the first question asked for our self-nominations: How many hours are you able to commit to USFT weekly during the 2007/2008 school year? I put five. The two other women who applied can commit ten to fifteen. This alone puts them above me, leading me to ask the question: Should I vote for myself? More important than my networking opportunities and getting to see Nicaragua, more important than me, is Fair Trade. Can I, in good conscience, choose to vote for myself, when these other women can offer two to three times as many hours as I can?

If I don't get elected, I won't have to make the choice. That would make my life so much easier. Choice, which is so valued by our depressed society as a means to happiness, in fact tends to make people unhappy. Oh, sweet irony.

I can't do this. Every day the impossibility of my commitments manifests itself in some way. In my fatigue. In my overbooking. In my double booking. In the hours of studying that frequently proscribe more than four consecutive REM cycles.

And somehow, I can't picture my life any differently. Perhaps this is because my life has been this intense since ninth grade, and in some ways since middle school, in my commitment to studying and drumline and a myriad of honor societies and extracurricular activities and, more recently, life as a wage laborer. Without the pressure, I doubt if I could function. But I also doubt that I'll ever know.

In other news, I've been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately. What a concept.

"Sometimes I wonder, 'Will God ever forgive us for what we've done to each other? And I look around and I realize, God left this place a long time ago.'" (From Blood Diamond. See it. Or at least this clip: http://youtube.com/watch?v=UVIVtU8mCe4)