Messages from Musicians and the like

I've been thinking a lot about a line from Ani Difranco's new cd:

"Feminism ain't about equality; it's about reprieve."

Obviously, since she named her cd Reprieve, she thought a lot about it too. I've been throwing all sorts of things in the pot with that thought, and I think it's a strange soup that I'm brewing.

Sometimes I think the break will never come. And if it does come, as I think it started to from 1992-2000, how long before the break is over and the punishment starts again? The 1920s and the 1960s saw advancements for women, but those periods were followed by periods of backlash. It seems like we are in another backlash period now.

Because I am a "difference"feminist, I have a certain amount of discomfort with the idea of "equality" as a goal anyway. Sure, I want to be paid well, but I'm not all that interested in pretending that my body is the same as a man's body. I have different capabilities, and I don't think we should pretend that that difference doesn't exist. However, I don't want my rights as a citizen to be based on my biological capabilities, and I don't think that a person must have a penis to be president.

What Ani seems to be saying, and I agree with her, is that women have been systematically held back, put down, and abused for a very long time. Feminism is about finding a break -- finding some relief -- from that history and systemic sexism. In another song on the album she says, "Dear friends, especially the women, are you up to the task of turning the wheel of human history at long last?"

Here is what I've been thinking about: Am I ready to do something?

Action is a whole different story.

I need, we need, a break. That means I have to put my shoulder to the grindstone.

Being a girl

I can't even count the number of times I wished I wasn't a girl. Those moments were not confined to the times when I was told I couldn't have a motorcycle or play soccer or wear pants to church. There were also smaller and less volatile moments that I won't go into here, but they usually involved not liking certain treatments from men (too friendly) and women (too hateful) and wishing my life could be different. I imagine that we all have those feelings. But I do often wonder how often men and boys wish they were not. I would venture that if we could keep track of such things, more women wish they were men than vice versa.

I'm sure that this would translate into race, nationality, class, and sexualities too. I know many more homosexuals who wish they were heterosexual than (I know) vice versa. Again, if this is true, it pans out to be a power thing. Those with the power have no desire to give it up. Why would they? I see this quite often when teaching. It is always the white, male student that writes a paper arguing against affirmative action or pay equality. And until very recently in my 36 years of living, I rarely heard Americans saying they wished they were not American. Even now when some of us say it, we aren't ready to turn in our passports for that of a developing nation. Again, why would we?

Anyway, I've talked to many women in the past five years or so who are raising male children. Many of those women are trying to nuture their boys into the kind of men that "we" want more of in this world. And I keep thinking about my desire to raise a girl child. I have lots of pain tied inside me which stems from my own culture's devaluing of my femaleness, and I am choosing to adopt a child from a country who devalues their girls even more (or at least more openly). She will have to face that for herself someday, I know. But I still have to consider, do I really think I can make her pain less than my own? Is it possible to heal such inflictions of culture on the individual?

My honest answer is probably not.

And yet, I want to try. I want to say to her: you can. I want to say it to myself too.

You can. I can. And not just in spite of being a girl, but also because of it. I want to say, "It's possible," and I want to mean it.

Blogging Danger

I was listening to NPR yesterday on my way to work. One of their pieces was on some of the possible dangers of blogs and “My Space” kind of personal web pages. According to the interviewee, many companies now do web searches on potential employees. That means if your blog/webpage is somehow connected to whatever name or information you use to apply for a job, some suit somewhere might read it and partially use the content of your posts to decide if you will “fit” at their company. While I can understand why a company might want to find out more about people before they hire them, I wonder if they realize how much of what is posted is “performance.” I would venture to guess that most of my blogs really only present a small part of me, and quite possibly a thought or emotion that is fleeting at best. Are these companies actually considering that the personas presented on the blogs are not the complete person? I hope so.

This is even more important to me because I’m now entering the job market (or will next month), and today I received an email from a friend who found this blog by doing a google search. (Hey Les!)

In some sort of synchronicity that I don't understand fully, Twice the Rice and Tiny Can Pants both touched on this subject today.


Life is fun, isn’t it?

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Special Note: In looking for the NPR link, I came across today's story on Auburn. I, of course, can't find the piece I heard. I'm still looking.

Loving in the post-modern world

Jeff and I once had a long discussion about "post-modern" in which he told me (if I remember correctly) that such a term is strange, if not impossible, because of what the term "modern" means.

But I (probably unsuccessfully) argued that in the art/literature world, there is a era called "modernism" which is a movement in which artists began to think about art for its own sake, to paint colors (single primary ones) so that we might think about colors, to write words so that we might think about words. Art was no longer only the means of telling/showing stories.

So, a "post-modern" era might, on one hand, be the era after the "modern" era. And, it is. But it is also something else. Once artists moved through art for itself, they found themselves asking, why bother anyway? I mean, if we've told all of our stories, and we've highlighted the tools with which we make the art, what is left to tell? What is now called post-modern art/literature is a piece that considers that there is not only one way to look at the world; there may be many ways to experience time, and space, and even a single moment. The post-modern view is splintered, fragmented. It is cubist without a sense that cubism could matter. It is a human being with no sense of assurance that anything exists or matters.

I am a post-modern girl. My point of view is one (or two or three or...) among all of the points of view of all of the people out there.

Yet I laugh sometimes. Sometimes I hit the dashboard of my car when a person cuts me off.

And I love.

I love it when Tyson writes a poem. I love it when I see that I am not alone in my sense of embarrassment about my words or my choices. I love Tyson because he usually doesn't make as many mistakes as he thinks he does.

I love it when Jeff includes quotes from Ani and Fiona and I know them without their citations. I love that I am part of a group of people that have certain knowledge in common. I love Jeff because he jumps into the deep end of the pool without worrying about the tempature.

I love it when Angela posts. I love that a little push from her friends and she's trying to do something that she doesn't really want to do. I love Angela because she listens to the people around her and really does care about what they say.

What I see in people changes moment to moment, day to day. That's the post-modern me. But, I cannot help but think that there is more to us than that. Love is a funny thing in a post-modern world. But it is still love.

Life Questions

Is it that keeping busy really does keep us from thinking about "deep stuff?"

I mean I can't even force myself to come up with any political, social, or personal questions today. And believe me, I'm sitting here trying.

I'm reading all of these great posts from other bloggers, and I'm thinking, I have a million things to complain about, but I don't really want to complain. I have a million (okay, so it is a little bit of an exaggeration) things to ask, but I don't really want to ask them. I am still mad at this patriarchal world, and this war-bent country, but right now I need to make myself some lunch and sit with the dog for a few minutes before I jump from "teacher" to "student" and work on that last chapter.

Is this the root of the work-ethic? Keep us busy and we will forget to question?

I wonder...

Frustrations with the new

Well, as I mentioned before, I have two new jobs, both with smaller schools than I'm accustomed to -- much smaller. I'm ready to pull out my hair, and I really have to think long and hard about my job search for next year.

There are advantages to smaller schools: people know each other, red tape is significantly less, we can teach a more varied course load, and then there is the lack of game-day headaches.

But big universities work like big companies, and there are advantages to this. Systems are in place to catch mistakes; there are entire departments dedicated to things like IT, email, WebCT, and Human Resources. Websites are updated promptly because a big university has people whose job it is to update everything.

I'm losing my hair here. These small schools still have final exam schedules online for last spring, and I can't find one for the fall (so that I can put the dates on my syllabus). I can't get an email account at one school because the single person that is in charge of getting my information into the computer system has "misplaced" or "hasn't received" my transcripts which both schools mailed on August 1st. So, I can't put an email address on my syllabus for that class.

I went to an "In-Service" meeting last night for the community college, and I had to sit in a room with other "newbies" and be told that it is my job to plan the class, teach the class, give tests, and grade the students. I kept wondering, what teacher in this room needs to be told that this is his/her job?

Wow. There were lots of things about Auburn that made me crazy: mainly the bureaucracy of paperwork required to do anything, and the stringent rules that made any slight changes nearly impossible. Now I see that there are reasons.

I also think that being "adjunct" puts me in a category that no one cares about helping. I mean, I think most adjunct teachers don't even try to use WebCT for their classes, so why would anyone bother to help me get a password?

Argggh.

The students will be a happy change from this.

Another Ad -- Reprieve

re·prieve (r-prv)
tr.v. re·prieved, re·priev·ing, re·prieves

1. To postpone or cancel the punishment of.
2. To bring relief to.

n.

1. 1. Postponement or cancellation of a punishment.
   2. A warrant for such an action.
2. Temporary relief, as from danger or pain.

Ani's new cd, Reprieve, is her first album where I fell in love with the music before the words. My love for the words came with time, and I now find myself singing the songs when I wake up in the morning:

just show me a moment that is mine
its beauty blinding and unsurpassed
make me forget every moment that went by
and left me so half-hearted
cuz i felt it so half-assed

It is different for her. But I like it.

Thus, the advertisement.

Back to life

The worst part about having a really good vacation is that it has to end. I've always had more than my fair share of sadness at the endings of good things: concerts, holidays, hanging out with friends, and now vacations.

So, I'm back to work today whether I want to be or not. I am finishing syllabi and the chapter that was to be finished before we left. Oh well, life can't be fun and beautiful all of the time.

I've been searching my brain for some political, clever, or even interesting news. Nothing comes. The world news is even worse than I can think about. Some days I just have to choose not to think about it.


I think I'm still in Wyoming, anyway. I think I'll just throw up another photo or two:

I didn't get photographs of the bear (and cub) or the buffalo that we saw. Both times I was too stunned by seeing such animals in the wild and so dangerously close to my body to even think about the camera. I took lots of pictures of Moose, but none turned out well.

In addition, as I look at the pictures of the mountains, none seem to capture how big and impressive they really were. It seems like a photo makes everything too tiny, to easily consumed by our little brains.

View from the top

This is the last year of operation for this tram... 1966 to 2006. Not sure how we feel about being on the tail end of the metal fatigue curve. What is the life of 3" steel cable used for trams? 40 years, you say? Really? That is interesting. My stomach hurts. No, we are not really adventerous risk takers, we just found out about this AFTER we got to the top of the mountain (10k above sea level), and we sure as hell weren't going to walk back down. Especially after a short three mile hike in thin air at the top left feet hurting and lungs burning. Had a great day. We are going to keep the elevation differential minimal tomorrow by going down the Snake River in a raft.

Day Two

This photo is of a thermal pool in Yellowstone National Park.

'nuf said

New job, vacation, and other last minute stuff

I always hear people say that more gets done in the day before a vacation than a typical two week period. I am beginning to see some truth in this.

Reinhardt College (a small, private, four-year liberal arts college in Waleska, GA) had a faculty member suddenly resign. They called me on Thursday of last week, and today I am a new part-time member of their faculty. This is great news for me and my vita, however, it meant several days of running around and doing paperwork, and it means that I may be more busy than I planned to be this fall. I've contacted the community college that I had agreed to work for, and they are trying to do some shifting to lighten my load. Either way, I'm excited to be working at a four-year school.

Plus, we are leaving Saturday for our week long trek into the big sky western section of the U.S. This means that I have to drive Phoenix to Alabama tomorrow to be taken care of by a family member rather than a vet's office. While I'm there, I'll try to see Allison, Lesley, Connor, and Sydney and turn in my keys at Auburn. When I get home tomorrow night, I'll need to pack.

Between checking email and running around, I've been continuing to write. I wanted to be finished with the chapter before we left on Saturday. It is not going to happen. However, it is amazing how much faster the words come when I'm under such a deadline.

So, with less than 48 hours to go, I'm running on all cylinders.

Look out, 'cause I may run you over (accidentally, of course). :)

okGo - Here it Goes Again (Threadmills)

Dancing in a whole new way. Love this.