how it feels when we're fighting.

my body is numb, like I can't talk or walk or eat. I'm moving on autopilot. I can't eat, everything will take too much effort to chew. all I want to do is crawl into bed and shut off the light, call it an early night.

day one of internships

day one: cold, lots of worms.

not a lot to write about. more thoughts will come as they percolate, fret not.

caution: this post is about sexual things.

okay, sorry for not posting in a few days! it's funny that not having my computer for a few days made me really miss blogging. I know, I'm a nerd.

so I was looking at the course catalog for sociology at hunter and I really have never seen a conglomeration of things that I'm so interested in on one page. it's amazing. I hope that I stay enrolled as this major or at least minor in sociology just because the theory of it is so interesting. it's funny that dan was saying that he likes street photography and wants to start doing performance pieces because he likes studying people and I was like oh hey that's what I want to do with my life, just not make art out of it. hm.

so I was thinking about how taboo it is to talk about things like masturbation today with sarah gottesman and she said that sex and the city really made sex and masturbation and female body parts a normal thing to talk about -- and I was struck with the reality of that comment. it's just so interesting that one television show really revolutionized an entire generation of women and made their bodies and pleasuring their bodies an available topic of discussion. I don't really watch tv very much but (from what I've seen of) sex and the city establishes a balance between raunch culture (male-inspired behavior) and traditional female behavior and nature.

as I was thinking about it right now, because that balance is pretty hard to establish in one individual, maybe this happened because of the archetypal characters on the show. you have carrie, the one who is struggling to balance her "feminine" emotions along with sleeping with numerous men, samantha who has no feminine emotions and is solely interested in the physicalities of relationships (sad that I have been referred to as samantha in by my friends when we're playing the which-sex-and-the-city-character-are-you game?), charlotte who REALLY embraces her feminine side and rarely (if ever?) has the one-night-stand because she's always looking for a relationship not just good sex.
and then there's miranda who's just annoying and everyone's least favorite character and just likes her career and has a baby. like, what?

so in working on my I-am-woman-hear-me-roar, a la helen reddy, I need to identify myself with a sex in the city character. maybe now that I'm in a relationship I want to disassociate myself with samantha because, apparently (according to sarah gottesman) I DO have emotions. I am not miranda who is just annoying and I am not charlotte because really just wants a husband.

no, I think I'd be more comfortable being carrie, caring about physical relationships but appreciating the emotional aspects of relationships too. and remember that talking about masturbation and sex IS okay for girls too. it shouldn't be weird, it should be something you're comfortable with. I mean I guess even reading this post would be weird for some people considering the content is pretty raunchy, but honestly it's something that you need to be comfortable talking to your girlfriends about. it is allowed, everyone does it (or has someone else do it to them) at one point or another so there's no need in trying to hide it.

the most satisfyingly confusing conclusion ever.

natan, my grade dean and all-around teacher crush (please, he's shomer negiah, married and has 4 kids), said today at the conclusion of seminar to "live your life as if it were an epic." having been a lit major at yu, natan teaches (and has taught) about seeing tanach as epic poetry -- think homer's the iliad and the odyssey. he's obsessed with fantasy genre and all things that fall under its subsets, including dragons, knights, swordfights and destiny.

so today, to close seminar, natan spoke about destiny (in hasidic judaism, b'sheret -- but he didn't really call it that, for the most part he just called it destiny). he said that in a good epic, each character has a destiny. this pretty much falls into my basic philosophy that everything-happens-for-a-reason (that's what I think god, per se, is) but it was interesting to hear natan talk about it nonetheless. anyway, this whole destiny thing is pretty often overlooked (give or take politics & sports) but each character in an epic tale/novel has a destiny -- a role to fill. again, like I think, it doesn't really matter how said character goes about fulfilling this role, rather that he or she meets the end goal and desired outcome.

that being said, natan's basic philosophy was that life should be lived as an epic, meaning that each of us has a role. not self-aggrandizement, but empowerment. we each can affect change, can cause things to happen, can make a difference -- provided we work for it. and that got me to thinking: I may not care so much about israel as a homeland, as something I can really, truly, passionately fight for, I may not care so much about global warming, I may not care so much about the food industry. so I challenged myself to head back to square one. what do I care about? and, how can I create change in that specific sector? how can I be empowered and take action for something I care about?

this year I've spent a lot of time exploring feminism and the empowerment of women. that is something I care about. that is something I want to focus my time on. I think that far too often women are submissive, become caretakers (because we're more "compassionate" and "caring" apparently -- two words I would most certainly not use to describe myself, nor would I expect others to apply them to me), lose sight of their hopes and goals and dreams to satisfy the needs of others. and while some women are happy with this, I refuse to believe that the majority of women are. the fact that I can predict that my (very far in the) future marriage will most likely fail because I know now that I want to be the breadwinner in the family is a sad truth. and why is it that society has to be that way? or that relationships have to be run that way? because it's a societal norm.

well isn't that strange? not really at all considering that we live in a society that has oppressed women, limited rights and refused to see them as full equals for many hundreds of years. (kind of humorous, actually, that communism, that whole "red scare" nonsense gave women more rights than american democracy did...) and now I want to fight back because I care. I don't want a failed marriage (when & if I do get married), I don't want to hear anti-feminist slurs or anti-sexual openness for women. I'm just sick of it. I know that the workplace has been so heavily monitored by the government that women are able to make it in the workplace, but it simply shouldn't be that a woman has to choose between a successful career or a successful marriage.

so how do I live my life as an epic? how do I affect change for women who have to fight societal norms? how do I prove that being the breadwinner, or simply high-powered, and having a successful marriage are not mutually exclusive and can, really, coexist? I need to take action. I need to get my point across. I need to make others see the beauty of this situation, whether a woman is a self-declared feminist or not. it's time that I do my part in making this situation fair because, in the end, it IS a generational issue. I have been taught to be empowered, but to also be a mother. if society is preaching an impossibility than I need to remedy that. and that is me living my life as if it were an epic.

sorry about lack of posting!

hi friends

sorry about not posting in a few days -- just a VERY brief update (nothing to even think about, sorry)

yesterday was the birthday, the big 1-8 (yippidee!) & senior cut day, tomorrow is sarah g's birthday, today was sally rose's birthday.

big night out with the girls on tuesday, lots of fun.

sorry about being back about posting, I've just been sleeping out of the house a lot. I'll come up with some more things tomorrow, lots of thoughts have been percolating.

more about pictures!

I FOUND THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT THAT DAN HID IN MY ROOM LAST WEEKEND. VICTORY.

really though I spent 27 minutes looking for it. I tore my room apart. he told me it would be a hunt. granted, it was only at the bottom of my pajama drawer but considering there are 4 pairs of pajamas I wear and I usually just throw them in my hamper, I guess that's a great place to hide it.

I kinda feel let down now that I found it. I should have waited for him to tell me where it was instead of being sneaky. this is what I get for being impatient.

well, if you're at all wondering what the present was...

backstory: when dan came home for spring break we spent one saturday together -- the entire day -- burgers for lunch at burger joint with 2 of his kivufriends, I returned a pair of jeans to bloomingdales, went to see the skin fruit exhibit at the new museum, walked around the village, he met my dad at dinner and we had a sleepover. great day. anyway, when we were taking the train downtown from the upper east side, dan (who took an analog film photography course this semester and carried around his camera when he came home to take pictures in the city) took a picture of me as an express train was going behind me. he told me that he loved the print when it came out and it went over really well with his photography class. he wouldn't let me see it though. when he came home last weekend (wow, was it really only last weekend?) he said he had forgotten the print at school...

anyway the present was the print with a super nice note written on the back. perfect, much?

proud of myself for winning the scavenger hunt I had with myself...haha. nice.

"a picture is worth a thousand words" has never rung truer.

word up. so I'm sitting at work today on my computer, store's fuckin' dead as shit and I look on my facebook and there are pictures of two people (who will remain nameless) and it's all friendly and suddenly I'm hit with this overwhelming urge to throw up all the delicious naan that coco and I had just eaten. and as I'm thinking about this throughout the day, a few things come into my head:

#1. why do I care about there pictures that were posted in december?
#2. since when have photos become so indicative of relationships or powerfully emotional?
#3. why am I acting like a baby when I usually don't give a fuck?

so now I'm trying to answer those questions.

#1. I care because they tell me something about the nature of a relationship that, even though it existed many months ago and has since ended, is still something that gets to me.
#2. I guess the nature of photography has been to aid in nostalgia, to give you the ability to recall memories more vividly. they're freeze-frames of whatever you want them to see, as far as the camera can see (which is why it's hard sometimes to put emotional depth in a photograph and easy at other times). it's pretty much a snapshot of whatever is going on at the moment, the expressions made, the general feeling in the room -- so naturally they're emotional.
#3. I'm acting like a baby because I care. because those powerful emotions were hurtful ones. I guess that's a new thing because I'm used to being a lot more stoic in my emotions (less easily moved to feelings of vomit and disgust, I suppose). this is just a different side of my personality that hasn't come out in a very long time.

so maybe I'm happy to be a bit of a baby since it shows that I care? but it's totally contradictory to the person that I see myself as and understand myself to be. so I'll just hang out here in emotional limbo for a little bit. nice.

and for some good grooving, check out mc luscious, my classic 90's throwback. word up.