Satchmo

In an attempt to bring a little bit of New Orleans spirit back to Atlanta and to my blog, I'm in a Louis Armstrong mood today. There is something about the sound of his trumpet that makes me smile and want to start the day fresh and happy. Because hey, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, right?





Here is another one of my favorites, Black and Blue, a jazzy and awesome commentary on racism in the U.S.

Pop Music Meets Stephen King

Pink's song, Please Don't Leave Me is one of my favorite's right now. Today, I watched the YouTube video and was blown away by the utter creep factor in this video: It's like Pink had Stephen King direct it. Two of the scenes are taken straight from his movies, one from Misery and the other from the Shining. Regardless of the creepy video content, this is a really good artistic representation of Borderline Personality Disorder. A friend of mine who is writing her dissertation on BPD made this observation and I completely agree with it.



Pink's video for Sober is also a bit disturbing, but for other (more perverse) reasons. Sober is my favorite Pink song, its pretty damned amazing. I am posting it here for your viewing pleasure: 

The Journey Home

Thanksgiving weekend was a success. Yesterday I made the long trek back to Atlanta with a stop in Birmingham to pick up my roomie.

Here are a few highlights and observations.
1. Do not go to an outlet mall the weekend of Thanksgiving. The ladies at the coach store seem to grow fangs and extra arms for pushing you out of the way. Plus, since everything at the outlet mall is always on sale anyway, they seem to raise their prices rather than lower them on big shopping weekends. I mean, that's just a theory, but it seemed to be the case.

2. Everyone in Alabama seems to wear camouflage. Its freaky when you are just stopping at the nearest gas station to relieve yourself and all of the other patrons are decked out like they are about to go to war. Who knows, maybe this weekend everyone in Alabama was just getting out of black Friday shopping, it is a bit of a jungle out there. 

3. If you roll through Alabama blasting Lady Gaga and wearing a funky hat, sequin scarf and boots up to your knee, everyone you encounter in Alabama will ask you where you came from as though you just stepped out of an alien spacecraft. Its so funny, that I make an effort to dress extra funky just to see the looks on their faces when I hop out of my truck for coffee breaks.

Why I Love New Orleans

I arrived in New Orleans on Wednesday night to visit my mom for Thanksgiving. Every time I come here, I remember how much I love this place.  Here are a few reasons:

First, its late November and its humid. I know I am here when I smell the salt air and feel the humidity in the car. This Thanksgiving I have been thankful for the nice weather in New Orleans. Considering that I got locked out of my mom's house last night and had to sleep in my truck, I was very thankful that she doesn't live somewhere cold, because sleeping outside would have been miserable otherwise.

Second, people in New Orleans are really friendly. If people in Atlanta were half as cool as they are here, I would probably like my life there a lot better. But they suck. As such, I am always happy to come and visit my mom here. Folks here are very welcoming and happy to meet new people. No one gave me a hard time when I played pool yesterday and I appreciated that. I was immediately invited to join a game of (3 player) cut throat when I put my quarters up, and became engulfed in the jolly shenanigans that usually ensue when you hang with a big group of drunk people. Good times.

New Orleans is a big city with a small town kind of feel. Not the backwards marry your cousin kind of small town feel, but the "its nice to meet you, come to my house for turkey dinner and meet my grandparents" type of vibe.

Tomorrow then plan is to drag my mom to get some beignets, do some shopping, and check out some live music. As for now, I am happy that I am not locked out of the house and can go to sleep in a big comfy bed.

Chick Flicks

Last night I had a mini-chick flick marathon. After a full day of reading masculinist debates concerning Marx, Weber, violence and state formation, some good old fashioned excessive femininity was in order.

Chick Flick#1 Legally Blonde
Elle Woods is awesome. I love the whole concept of the west coast girl feeling completely out of place among east coast university folks. Not that I have ever been at Harvard, but I kind of know how she feels. More importantly, her consistent retreat to the nail salon is right up my alley, I personally think that there are very few problems that can't be alleviated by a trip to the nail salon! Here is my favorite scene, when Elle uses her knowledge of beauty to trip up the witness on the stand.



And this is how I often felt my first two years in an east coast grad school, this poor girl!






Chick Flick#2 Confessions of a Shopaholic

With my latest fashion obsession, I couldn't help myself. The clothes in this movie are fantastic and give me a lot of great ideas. It makes me want to run to H&M like its about to go out of business. This movie is also a lesson in what not to do with my credit cards...

Discovering My Inner Fashionista

Once upon a time, I was a hippie, goth, anti-fashion bohemian--I hated shopping with a passion. Nothing fit right, I didn't want to look like everyone else, and I was radically opposed to the whole Los Angeles, rich-trendy-skinny scene. Things have changed. About 3 years ago I dropped 70 pounds. The clothes that I had left over from my teen years that fit me were no longer my style and I had to learn how to dress all over again. Thanks to the help of my awesome friends in L.A. (forget Georgia, they have the fashion sense of banjo players) I learned and got a whole new wardrobe.

Lately, getting dressed is my favorite part of my day. Shopping is the highlight of my week. I mean, with all of this academic weight on my shoulders, I deserve an outlet right? Granted I feel a little out of place in banjo-ville with all of my sweet clothes and good style, but I am enjoying finding my inner fashionista.

Here is my latest buy from H&M, my favorite place to find fashion on my pathetic student budget.

It’s Not You, Its Me

Why changing my dissertation is like going through a break-up…








Today I realized that switching my dissertation project is similar to going through a breakup. Actually, its more like leaving one person for another, younger, more successful, better looking person who is on the news all the time.


I keep conjuring this scene in my head where I look into my former dissertations’ eyes and say, “its not you its me. I still think you are beautiful and smart and interesting. We have been together for a very long time, but I need to grow as a person and you are stunting me. Maybe some day in the future we can try it again, but for now, we need to go our separate ways.”


But really, it is like going through a breakup. I read the news, see movies, hear music, look through old photos, notebooks and papers, and I think of my old project. Sometimes I sit down with my new one and wish I was still with the old one.


I feel like I broke up with my project because my elders didn’t approve of its artsy-ness. They wanted me to be with a more staid, theoretical type. And so it goes. I broke up with my project to please others, and now I miss my old one. Sometimes I just want to tell it that I am sorry for the way I treated it, that maybe if I was more grown up I would have done better for us. But really, I gave it all I could give at this point in my life.


What is even more silly, is that since I dumped my old dissertation for a younger more exciting one, I have been losing weight, rockin a push-up bra, paying extra attention to my make up and buying clothes compulsively. I mean, hell, I just got out of a seven year relationship with this project that in its absence feels like a person is missing from my life. 

Does this qualify as unrequited love?

Fear and Loathing in Feminist-ville

I am too analytical for my own good. I ponder what it means to be a woman, especially in light of the feminist ideals that I openly embrace. But when I consider the realities of my existence in comparison to feminist notions that I espouse as well as teach, I can't reconcile them.

The end result is pure confusion: disheartening self deprecation that makes me want to curl into a ball and die. How is it that the mind leads me in one direction but the heart takes 15 steps backwards towards a space of contradiction? The only mode of communication in the land of feminist tropes is stifled self-expression codified into nonsense jargon of obfuscation. Inhabitants such as myself know nothing in the space of feminist contradiction except for the split object of ambivalence.

I could write endless examples: I am a feminist's worst nightmare who sees the world through a feminist lens. I live for clothes, shoes, purses and makeup. I am on a perpetual diet. I dye my hair to cover the 5 grays on my head. I am in a heterosexual relationship. I have aspirations to make tons of money because being poor doesn't afford me the luxuries of Clinique, Louis Vuitton, Coach, Estee Lauder and Gucci. I would get Lipo if I could afford it. I love rap music (west coast rap, that is). The nail shop is my comfort zone. The contradictions go on and on.

On the contrary, I hate cooking, cleaning, and anything domestic. I have no desire to marry. I don't even know if I want to have kids. I pay someone else to do my laundry, I eat at restaurants most of the time (that is, when I actually decide to eat in spite of my perpetual diet), and absolutely hate the grocery store. I don't even want a pet to care for in lieu of children. Every time I encounter someone of the opposite sex, all I can think of is the unequal power dynamics between men and women and analyze how their operative force influences that given moment.

So the question remains, how can contradictions be reconciled when they characterize every moment of lived experience? Is feminism eating me alive, or are the unbalanced scales of gender in society and interpersonal relationships making me insane?