This is a piece I had in my end of semester creative writing folio which went surprisingly well. It remains a mystery to me why. However as you know, I am not above double usage so here you go. It is clearly non fiction although certainly not entirely the truth (a piece of truthiness, you might say). It had a ridiculously wanky title which I can't bring myself to reproduce here.
My father had come to visit me; he’d decided at the last possible moment that he would. Over the weekend, when I didn’t have to teach, we took the train up to the mountains, so different to the flat brown noise of Hanoi. Here there are picture postcard mountains reaching towards the sky, topped with thick, creamy clouds. Even here there are rice paddies though, the Hmong (and other hill tribes) carve steps into the sides of the mountain and dig channels to keep the seedlings irrigated. The rice paddies chime bright green against the deeper green of the steeper, unusable mountain tops.
The town of Sapa is losing its rustic charm. There are some pretty almost Swiss style guest houses and there’s the market, filled with vegetables and strange looking powdered substances. However, the thing most visitors to Sapa remember isn’t any of this; it’s the hordes of hill tribe girls who patrol the streets. They are dressed in their traditional clothes, heavily embroidered velvet tunics with lashings of silver jewelry. As we leave our guest house they pounce.
“Hello, what’s your name? Where are you from?” they trill, some venturing to grab an arm. They have learnt that unlike the Vietnamese who happily barter over everything and push past vendors a hundred times a day we westerners are hostages to our inbuilt politeness.
“Hello.” I offer, putting on my best ‘I am not a fool, and also I have places to be’ face. My father, enamored by the authenticity of it all, picks up where I left off.
“We’re from Australia.” he says.
“Oh Australia, the crocodile hunter, g’day mate!” says one of the older looking girls. Her English is unaccented, here learning English is the way to earn money and this is more incentive than my students back in Hanoi have. My father laughs mildly back at her and I push him up the road as the inevitable happens.
“You should buy some jewelry for your daughter.” the girl continues, shoving a collection of bangles, necklaces and earrings into our faces. My father looks imploringly at me.
“I already have enough, thank you.” I say, politely but firmly and I grab my father’s hand and pull him up the road. The girls spot another group of westerners and give up on us.
We wander up the slight incline of the main road, keeping our eyes averted from anyone wielding jewelry. Choosing a café, we are ushered to a table.
“You have to ignore them.” I say.
“It’s worse than in Hanoi, or Halong Bay.” My father replies with a shake of his head. He’s smiling though; in my family we celebrate this kind of thing. My parents met while traveling, they adore culture and they had quietly lobbied for me to take a ‘gap year’ while my friends’ parents pushed their children headlong into further study or work.
***
The next day we have booked to go on a two day walk in the mountains. Our guide shows up wearing the uniform of young men in this part of the world: well pressed, slightly flared dark slacks with a t-shirt and dress shoes. He collects us from the front desk of our guest house and like school children and we obediently follow him out. His name is Tam he tells us as we make our way down a steep and muddy track. We pass people working in the rice paddies, pulling out seemingly random chunks of the vegetation. They are mostly wearing their traditional dress and I wonder cynically if the owners of the guest houses in Sapa rush down early in the morning to make sure no one’s wearing any Nike t-shirts.
The set of huts we come to is obviously a well worn part of the tourist trail. There is a water powered mill, slowly grounding an improbably small amount of rice. There is a small child selling small embroidered bags. The hill tribes look so different to the ethnic Vietnamese. Their skin is darker, their hair more brown less back. This little girl has slightly curling hair and a large smudge of dirt on her cheek. My father buys a bag, the walking tour was very cheap and it’s probably financed from kickbacks. If we were to make a brave stand against the cute little girl holding bags and friendship bracelets it would be unlikely to make any difference. The sternly worded passage in the Lonely Plant guide which urges travelers to only buy from the shops in Sapa has yielded little response.
By the time we reach the homestay where we’ll be staying the night there are flecks of mud up the back of my legs and I have fallen down twice. For dinner we sit at a low table outside with the family who live in the house and Tam. The middle of the table is filled with plates piled with food there are spring rolls, vegetables cut into shapes and a variety of meat dishes with lots of garlic and onion, and of course the ever present potato chips. Halfway through the meal someone produces a drinking bottle filled with rice wine. I am caught between wanting to impress my father with my already well honed ability to handle rice wine and an equally childish desire to remain innocent in his eyes.
***
On the train ride back to Hanoi the carriage jolts along the track and I entertain thoughts of my immediate demise.
“I had a really good time,” my father says. “I was impressed that you kept up, with the hiking.” I realize he’s probably referencing the photo albums full of me at different ages looking morose and unimpressed by various holiday locals, sitting on park benches refusing to go any further.
“Good and yeah, I’m a grown up now.” I say, laughing at him. Of course, the ridiculous happiness I felt at the end of the well planed and executed trip said otherwise.
Sunday, 6 January 2008
I am open minded, if by open you mean closed.
The level to which I can NOT cope with uncertainty is quite ridiculous. I like to believe that this is due to my independent and forward thinking attitude and not because I am a crazy person. Clearly the latter is true. The fact that I even vaguely function in society is astounding. See, I thought one of my housemates was getting home today so whenever I left the house today I left her little notes saying where I was/when I'd be back. Each time I'd have this massive internal debate about whether a note was required. But she still isn't here so I think she must have got the day wrong...? Anyway, increasingly irrational thoughts followed to the affect that she'd clearly decided not to come home because she finds me annoying. So irrational.
Anyway. Christmas was nice. I don't think I'll recap much because anyone who's reading this already knows the details or is able to ask if they want to know. It was a very secular holiday for me this year which I consider A Good Thing. Falls was also enjoyable, although less great at times. Damn other people messing up my plans/event. What really annoys me at Falls is that it's not considered okay to do anything alone. The only child in me really enjoys being able to do stuff without running it past the committee of people I'm with, I am quite happy getting some food by myself, you needn't look at me in a way implies that you are shocked and horrified by my loner-dom. Humph.
Anyway moving off the "What I Did Over My Summer Holidays" theme to the the "Stuff that I Thought" theme.
I pride myself on my ability to be able to see both sides of an argument (Thank you Mr. Martin, debating teacher to the stars). However, more and more I find myself simply unable to deal with people who hold different opinions to me on some things. I can't respect them, I can't focus on the things we have in common, I even find sometimes I can't argue with them. It's as if I get some kind of error message telling me our brains are running on different software (I know this is a stupid analogy and I'm embarrassed about it already). This really bothers me because I think understanding is important. I believe in negotiating. And negotiating only works if you can try and find common ground with those who seemingly you don't have any with. I don't know why this is, maybe I feel more confident in my beliefs now? I have become more liberal towards things in recent years (what with no longer be a stupid 16 year old [and now being a stupid twenty year old]. Whenever I feel like just yelling at someone that they are stupid I have this image of my mother poking me with a stick and casting her guilt eyes of motherly doom on me while saying "be understanding, show some empathy". This is Very Concerning. In an attempt to reduce the ridiculous vagueness of this point let me tell you (dear reader) that I find it difficult to cope with people who: are "pro-life", pro death penalty (and so often both at once! Stupid people why must you torment me!?), anti gay marriage, people who believe climate change is influenced by humans and that we can save the world through a reliance on coal technologies (Mr. Giuliani, I am looking at you), people who think that you should choose what degree you do at uni based on how much money you could earn... etc.
Anyway. Christmas was nice. I don't think I'll recap much because anyone who's reading this already knows the details or is able to ask if they want to know. It was a very secular holiday for me this year which I consider A Good Thing. Falls was also enjoyable, although less great at times. Damn other people messing up my plans/event. What really annoys me at Falls is that it's not considered okay to do anything alone. The only child in me really enjoys being able to do stuff without running it past the committee of people I'm with, I am quite happy getting some food by myself, you needn't look at me in a way implies that you are shocked and horrified by my loner-dom. Humph.
Anyway moving off the "What I Did Over My Summer Holidays" theme to the the "Stuff that I Thought" theme.
I pride myself on my ability to be able to see both sides of an argument (Thank you Mr. Martin, debating teacher to the stars). However, more and more I find myself simply unable to deal with people who hold different opinions to me on some things. I can't respect them, I can't focus on the things we have in common, I even find sometimes I can't argue with them. It's as if I get some kind of error message telling me our brains are running on different software (I know this is a stupid analogy and I'm embarrassed about it already). This really bothers me because I think understanding is important. I believe in negotiating. And negotiating only works if you can try and find common ground with those who seemingly you don't have any with. I don't know why this is, maybe I feel more confident in my beliefs now? I have become more liberal towards things in recent years (what with no longer be a stupid 16 year old [and now being a stupid twenty year old]. Whenever I feel like just yelling at someone that they are stupid I have this image of my mother poking me with a stick and casting her guilt eyes of motherly doom on me while saying "be understanding, show some empathy". This is Very Concerning. In an attempt to reduce the ridiculous vagueness of this point let me tell you (dear reader) that I find it difficult to cope with people who: are "pro-life", pro death penalty (and so often both at once! Stupid people why must you torment me!?), anti gay marriage, people who believe climate change is influenced by humans and that we can save the world through a reliance on coal technologies (Mr. Giuliani, I am looking at you), people who think that you should choose what degree you do at uni based on how much money you could earn... etc.
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Insert suitably obtuse and wanky post title here.
Is it just me or is there a totally hot cowboy style guy on the Commonwealth Bank website? He is like a smoother skinned Heath Ledger. I bet you're glad you're reading this aren't you? So I did attempt to leave the house today. Well I left and came back. I waited 30 mins for a bus to come, the whole time it was raining and freezing plus my skirt kept blowing up (I was wearing a skirt on a freezing day because we don't have a washing machine yet, hence I haven't washed my jeans recently. Too much information? Therefore I am totally going to be a typical student who brings her dirty clothes home over the holidays. Ok this bracket has got a little out of control). I took the whole thing as a sign that instead of going to a goodbye bash for a girl from work where I wouldn't know anyone I should come home and put on my ugg boots and watch Angel. I'm pretty pleased with the decision. Of course I'll never know if my soulmate was at that party and I've missed him/her now...
Sorry I keep getting distracted by Angel's brooding gaze, you know how it is.
The other day I was watching the final of Six Feet Under. There's this bit in it where Clare is lying on her bed saying that she has no idea what she wants to do with her life. It occurred to me that I've never really had that feeling. I've always had a couple of plans on the go, sometimes I wasn't sure which plan to go with but I had a plan. I had things that I wanted to do. Sure there are times when I wasn't exactly overjoyed by what I was doing but I've never seriously considered giving up on it... Anyway this is clearly a symptom of my nerdy, feel-good attitude to life. (And why, sadly, even if I had been born a few years later and despite kind of thinking My Chemical romance are ok I could never really be an emo). The concern is that sometime in the future I will have some kind of crisis about the direction of my life.
Speaking of sub-cultures, I feel like I need one. Since becoming the kind of person who buys stuff at opp-shops I have discovered this: while I don't mind the odd hippy clothing item, generally I'm all about the preppy look. I suppose this is because I've always dressed rather conservatively... One of my friend's in 'Nam, who we shall call HK was really into the preppy look. But being from London she was a little better at it and from what I can tell it was very much a statement. The whole Belle and Sebastian twee pop thing? Which we don't really have here... well there are some traces of it in the indie scene. The point of this particular ramble is as follows: I know I'm wearing a Ralph Loren shirt, a knee length skirt, flat shoes and a top that looks like part of a twin-set but I'm doing it ironically.
Ooooooh zombie cops! yay!
Ok my stomach just made a rumble that sounded like thunder so I'm going to eat (a tres exotic meal of rice, tuna, corn and parmesan cheese).
Sorry I keep getting distracted by Angel's brooding gaze, you know how it is.
The other day I was watching the final of Six Feet Under. There's this bit in it where Clare is lying on her bed saying that she has no idea what she wants to do with her life. It occurred to me that I've never really had that feeling. I've always had a couple of plans on the go, sometimes I wasn't sure which plan to go with but I had a plan. I had things that I wanted to do. Sure there are times when I wasn't exactly overjoyed by what I was doing but I've never seriously considered giving up on it... Anyway this is clearly a symptom of my nerdy, feel-good attitude to life. (And why, sadly, even if I had been born a few years later and despite kind of thinking My Chemical romance are ok I could never really be an emo). The concern is that sometime in the future I will have some kind of crisis about the direction of my life.
Speaking of sub-cultures, I feel like I need one. Since becoming the kind of person who buys stuff at opp-shops I have discovered this: while I don't mind the odd hippy clothing item, generally I'm all about the preppy look. I suppose this is because I've always dressed rather conservatively... One of my friend's in 'Nam, who we shall call HK was really into the preppy look. But being from London she was a little better at it and from what I can tell it was very much a statement. The whole Belle and Sebastian twee pop thing? Which we don't really have here... well there are some traces of it in the indie scene. The point of this particular ramble is as follows: I know I'm wearing a Ralph Loren shirt, a knee length skirt, flat shoes and a top that looks like part of a twin-set but I'm doing it ironically.
Ooooooh zombie cops! yay!
Ok my stomach just made a rumble that sounded like thunder so I'm going to eat (a tres exotic meal of rice, tuna, corn and parmesan cheese).
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Billion year old carbon
So I'm going to try for a less confessional tone in this entry. But if you feel like complaining about this sudden avalanche of mediocre prose you should be sure to realise that I got an 83 in auto fictions, at Melbourne University no less. It's actually a quite bizarre experience to be able to make that kind of comment after all my years of chip-on-my shoulderness about going to state schools. Of course now I have the double whammy of "I got into Melbourne Uni after going to state school". Having said all this I really only think Melbourne Uni is all that great for comedic effect.
I am thinking of taking up yoga. And I have only been living in Brunswick for one week. I mostly just like the idea. It would also give me a legitimate reason to buy yoga pants. Perhaps it will help shift my extra three kilos? I'm not sure, I have a feeling it is more about aligning chakras and so forth than something as superficial as weight loss. Classes start January 10, we'll have to wait and see if I'm still enthused then.
Other things I plan to do:
Read:
Fear of Flying
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Beauty Myth
No Logo
Lady Chatterley's Lover
+ all the books on my reading list for my lit subject (which I just tried to access and couldn't, making me feel both annoyed and like a loser)
Watch:
Casablanca
Festival
Sicko
Ok so now I've written a shopping list style entry. Oups.
I am thinking of taking up yoga. And I have only been living in Brunswick for one week. I mostly just like the idea. It would also give me a legitimate reason to buy yoga pants. Perhaps it will help shift my extra three kilos? I'm not sure, I have a feeling it is more about aligning chakras and so forth than something as superficial as weight loss. Classes start January 10, we'll have to wait and see if I'm still enthused then.
Other things I plan to do:
Read:
Fear of Flying
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Beauty Myth
No Logo
Lady Chatterley's Lover
+ all the books on my reading list for my lit subject (which I just tried to access and couldn't, making me feel both annoyed and like a loser)
Watch:
Casablanca
Festival
Sicko
Ok so now I've written a shopping list style entry. Oups.
Friday, 7 December 2007
Tyre tracks across my back
Hello, once again time has passed quite without my permission and it is December. Today at work I listened to some truly awful Christmas carols while on hold (it did impress me that they change the music, or maybe it's Jingle Bells all year round?). I'm not going to talk much about moving stuff because that's pretty boring. The new house is feeling less "new" though which is good. I have been working so much that I haven't really had time to properly get to know it yet. It still smells are little like paint too. But here I am in my large "California Style" bungalow, on the route 55 tram line, Brunswick West. Do you ever stop and wonder how this (by which I mean life) happened?
I continually have these realisations about myself. I realise that's terribly self involved and teenager-ish of me but whatever (plus, I have a blog, this didn't tip you off to the fact you'd be subjected to this behaviour?). Today I was involved in a ridiculous flurry of texting on the way home. When I left work I had 7 messages in my inbox, when I got home? 18. Anyway, one of these conversations was between myself and a friend from uni, who we shall call D. D is really cool, a little bit older than me and we had a lot of classes together. We have done the meeting up for study sessions thing, the getting a beer/coffee thing and the getting quite drunk together thing (after exams). We text, email and occasionally even call. Not regularly or anything but we are in contact. The friendship context is important. So I sent her a quite amusing (I thought) message saying we should get together to commiserate over/celebrate our results. She replied pretty much immediately saying that sounded perfect, that she was working this weekend but did I want to catch up for a drink on Monday? So now, objectively I realise that that message is really very nice and friendly. However when I first got it there was this voice in my head that interpreted it as her saying "I'm clearly way too busy and important to meet up with you". Which makes NO SENSE. I hadn't even suggested we meet up this weekend so she wasn't turning me down. Plus work is a pretty valid reason given she's a waitress who often works weekend shifts. So the question is, what the hell is wrong with me?
It is perhaps worth noting that the voice I heard sound a little like queen of my little group of primary school bullies. I am relatively happy with blaming her for this. Although I'm not convinced that I was bursting with self confidence before that point, I'm pretty sure that's why I got bullied. Plus it's not like I'm a ridiculous puddle of nerves on the floor. I am a relatively functional individual... I do stuff. I just assume that people hate me/are trying to give me the brush off. I suppose it could be worse, I could be great at social stuff and never DO anything. I find those kind of people insufferable. The way my brain works is a mystery (of course it would make life very boring if it wasn't). I'm sure my insane need to plan fits in here somewhere (and if you're reading this, person who I had that conversation with you should really have let me know you're reading this when I saw you).
Okay, this is all so self obsessed I may vomit.
The take home message from this entry is you should download Old Men by Chris T - T. (I think you have to download this podcost to get that track).
I continually have these realisations about myself. I realise that's terribly self involved and teenager-ish of me but whatever (plus, I have a blog, this didn't tip you off to the fact you'd be subjected to this behaviour?). Today I was involved in a ridiculous flurry of texting on the way home. When I left work I had 7 messages in my inbox, when I got home? 18. Anyway, one of these conversations was between myself and a friend from uni, who we shall call D. D is really cool, a little bit older than me and we had a lot of classes together. We have done the meeting up for study sessions thing, the getting a beer/coffee thing and the getting quite drunk together thing (after exams). We text, email and occasionally even call. Not regularly or anything but we are in contact. The friendship context is important. So I sent her a quite amusing (I thought) message saying we should get together to commiserate over/celebrate our results. She replied pretty much immediately saying that sounded perfect, that she was working this weekend but did I want to catch up for a drink on Monday? So now, objectively I realise that that message is really very nice and friendly. However when I first got it there was this voice in my head that interpreted it as her saying "I'm clearly way too busy and important to meet up with you". Which makes NO SENSE. I hadn't even suggested we meet up this weekend so she wasn't turning me down. Plus work is a pretty valid reason given she's a waitress who often works weekend shifts. So the question is, what the hell is wrong with me?
It is perhaps worth noting that the voice I heard sound a little like queen of my little group of primary school bullies. I am relatively happy with blaming her for this. Although I'm not convinced that I was bursting with self confidence before that point, I'm pretty sure that's why I got bullied. Plus it's not like I'm a ridiculous puddle of nerves on the floor. I am a relatively functional individual... I do stuff. I just assume that people hate me/are trying to give me the brush off. I suppose it could be worse, I could be great at social stuff and never DO anything. I find those kind of people insufferable. The way my brain works is a mystery (of course it would make life very boring if it wasn't). I'm sure my insane need to plan fits in here somewhere (and if you're reading this, person who I had that conversation with you should really have let me know you're reading this when I saw you).
Okay, this is all so self obsessed I may vomit.
The take home message from this entry is you should download Old Men by Chris T - T. (I think you have to download this podcost to get that track).
Monday, 19 November 2007
Anxious- ness
Hello dear readers. I am having one of those ridiculous mornings before an exam. I felt that I should get up early because... well I don't know, it just seemed the right thing to do. Really though it just means more stress-time because I think I'm past the time when I can really absorb anything. So instead I took pictures of myself a gazed around anxiously. I have given up on both activities now though. Mostly *gazes anxiously around the room*. So yes, life continues. There is very little going on right now that I have any desire to rehash here, but here it is: exchange applications are shite, my mother was here - eeek, I need to get another job, open houses are shite and I'm really not as clever as I once thought. Woe. I have no desire to become one of those depressing blogs though so I shall try for a more sunny tone. Really life is good but I have stuff to do, and after that life will be excellent. It should be noted that there are days when I don't enjoy being a poor student nearly as much as the Secret Life of Us suggested I would. I wonder if we ever completely get to a point where you can actually think "this is exactly what I want to be doing, I don't want to be in Tassie, or Vietnam or... Paris or whatnot". Paris is a big problem, I'd pretty much always prefer to be there, I really should have learnt French, *le sigh*. Parents have this strange ability to reverse any development of their children in about 5 minutes. Seriously. Just so you know: my mother thinks I should cut my hair and can say "it was fine" in a way that suggests it was horrible and all my fault. Sunny! It is in fact sunny here today which is nice, although I'm not sure what to wear to the exam. At the moment i am wearing a dress which actually kind of gives me cleavage. This is very exciting and so unusual that I find it kind of distracting. Whenever I look down I'm like "hah, boobs, that's right".
Monday, 5 November 2007
Me and Jesus Don't Talk Anymore
Warning: medium level atheism and traces of Anderson Cooper.
Having spent time at Borders (yes I am aware, I have no life) I am once again inspired to write some stuff. Feel privileged. Or not, really it’s your choice. So having surveyed the bookstores it seems that atheism is very hip these days. Particularly at the trendy (Fullers-style) bookshop. I think there were about 5 books on it. I’m never quite sure of the attraction of these books. Well I do kind of get the attraction, I did buy The God Delusion. Which I enjoyed parts of, but other parts were ridiculously long winded. I can’t imagine that a person who believes in God would be interested in that kind of book, especially with titles like How Religion Poisons Everything. So you really just end up preaching to the converted surely? How much fun can that be. I also amusingly saw something entitled The Atheist's Bible. Sure initially, I was like, that’s cool . Then I remembered that one of the reasons I’m an atheist is because I don’t need a bible, I don’t really like the whole idea of basing my whole life on one book. So this sent me on a whole Why I’m an Atheist meandering. For me its really important that it’s not just that I’m anti-religion, I mean, I’m not a massive fan. I do think religion causes a lot of problems. Most of the people who I admire who are religious are basically disregarding some fairly large bits of the faith (they are not anti choice bigots who have deep seated issues with sexuality for example), which sure, makes me like them more. But really I kind of think if you’re going to go half way with the religion thing why bother at all. However it really isn’t a negative thing. And it’s not that I don’t believe in anything. I believe in science and I believe in the goodness of humanity. Which really is enough for me. Sure I kind of wish I was Jewish, but that’s basically about having something in common with Jon Stewart and the bagels. Also it’s part of my culture-lust which comes from being a white, middle class girl of Christian origin which is a whole other post.
So I’ve been feeling a little feministing lately. (Luckily I’m female because seriously what do straight guys in my position have to get riled up about?). The way I have been expressing this is through firmly circling the Ms. section when filling out applications for rental properties. I am just that hardcore. You know what really annoys me though? The “Women’s Interest” section of the magazine stand. Seriously, it’s filled with, like, Good Housekeeping. If I was even more hardcore I would fill it with all the other magazines: Rolling Stone, The Economist and also porn. Although that’s a whole other thing because THIS woman doesn’t find b-list 'celebrities' with fake boobs wearing bikinis and shooting coy ‘naughty’ looks all that interesting. I did on the other hand spend quite some time staring at the cover of Anderson Coopers book. I know he’s a serious journalist but he’s also seriously hot.
Having spent time at Borders (yes I am aware, I have no life) I am once again inspired to write some stuff. Feel privileged. Or not, really it’s your choice. So having surveyed the bookstores it seems that atheism is very hip these days. Particularly at the trendy (Fullers-style) bookshop. I think there were about 5 books on it. I’m never quite sure of the attraction of these books. Well I do kind of get the attraction, I did buy The God Delusion. Which I enjoyed parts of, but other parts were ridiculously long winded. I can’t imagine that a person who believes in God would be interested in that kind of book, especially with titles like How Religion Poisons Everything. So you really just end up preaching to the converted surely? How much fun can that be. I also amusingly saw something entitled The Atheist's Bible. Sure initially, I was like, that’s cool . Then I remembered that one of the reasons I’m an atheist is because I don’t need a bible, I don’t really like the whole idea of basing my whole life on one book. So this sent me on a whole Why I’m an Atheist meandering. For me its really important that it’s not just that I’m anti-religion, I mean, I’m not a massive fan. I do think religion causes a lot of problems. Most of the people who I admire who are religious are basically disregarding some fairly large bits of the faith (they are not anti choice bigots who have deep seated issues with sexuality for example), which sure, makes me like them more. But really I kind of think if you’re going to go half way with the religion thing why bother at all. However it really isn’t a negative thing. And it’s not that I don’t believe in anything. I believe in science and I believe in the goodness of humanity. Which really is enough for me. Sure I kind of wish I was Jewish, but that’s basically about having something in common with Jon Stewart and the bagels. Also it’s part of my culture-lust which comes from being a white, middle class girl of Christian origin which is a whole other post.
So I’ve been feeling a little feministing lately. (Luckily I’m female because seriously what do straight guys in my position have to get riled up about?). The way I have been expressing this is through firmly circling the Ms. section when filling out applications for rental properties. I am just that hardcore. You know what really annoys me though? The “Women’s Interest” section of the magazine stand. Seriously, it’s filled with, like, Good Housekeeping. If I was even more hardcore I would fill it with all the other magazines: Rolling Stone, The Economist and also porn. Although that’s a whole other thing because THIS woman doesn’t find b-list 'celebrities' with fake boobs wearing bikinis and shooting coy ‘naughty’ looks all that interesting. I did on the other hand spend quite some time staring at the cover of Anderson Coopers book. I know he’s a serious journalist but he’s also seriously hot.
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