The Death Of Romance

Romance is dead.
Or persistently vegetative.

Either way, its time has past. And that's fine.

It's cute to pretend that sweeping gestures, breathless vows, and hearts, flowers, and passionate self-sacrifice are not only relevant, but appropriate and effective methods of conducting sexual business contemporarily.

It's also cute to pretend that a pretzel is a cigar, and your finger is a gun, but try developing a sourdough carcinoma, studded with kosher salt, or defend yourself from a mugger with a fresh French manicure.

Not gonna happen.

Romance is an adaptive response to sexual inequity. Despite what the fine departed Ms. Dworkin made a career whinging about, American society is currently suffering from a dearth of sexual inequity. While it may be true that women bear more costs of childbearing and rearing, hit glass ceilings now and again, are finding it harder to get into college, and are beginning to lose control over their own bodies, the experience of an American woman is more similar to that of an American man than that of an American man of today to an American man of good ole' Scotty Fitzgerald glittering 1920's.

Similarity of experience results in common ground between the sexes. Common ground between the sexes and the contraceptive revolution (which granted the possibility of shared interests in heterosexual relationships by distributing more evenly the consequences of recreational coitus), has drawn creaking romance down into obsolescence.

In English-
Romance is what there was before men and women had things in common.

Picture Tristan and Isolde. Romeo and Juliet. Desdemona and Othello. Portia and Bassiano. Dante and his Beatrice. Petrarch and Laura.

Did they linger over coffee, sharing stories, hopes, memories of childhood, and fall deeply in love upon finally finding someone who, like themselves, is deeply moved by iams, trochees, spondees, and gets off on dying young? Did they share a single common interest or ability? Even in the one example, above, where the female of the couple had both a character trait and an ability, the guy didn't. (Portia and Bassiano- she's a brilliant princess, whipsmart with a talent for law and oration, he's a pretty social climber with credit problems and a venetian sugar daddy). There's a story in the Decameron about the most desireable woman in the world- men kill, die, and go to war over her- and she's entirely mute and passive.

Lest you think I'm a feminist, about to go on about the male gaze for two hundred words and finish up with a chorus of recriminations on the publishers of hustler and barely legal...I remind you...I hates the womens. But I go on.

At the time our modern/premodern/postmodern/zblarb idea of romance was born, women's worlds were entirely separate from men's, at least among the aristocracy and high bourgoisie, where there was the cleanliness and leisure time to engage in the practice. Secular men were becoming educated, becoming consumers of media and literature. Women were still having babies and running households. There were two solutions to the intellectually mobile man searching for the sexual companionship of someone to have a conversation with: concubine or catamite.

But buttfucking and paying for it aren't systemically sustainable. Energies, money, and genetic material spent on boys and unmarriageable women are time, spoo, and ducats lost to the family.

So romance was invented. Romance is the interest men have in women when they have nothing in common, and the actions and gestures that interest manifests as. (Genders did reverse occasionally, by the way. There's some lovely romantic poetry written by women during the early rennaissance period, and Eleanor of Aquitaine made an honest effort to codify romantic interactions during her time in France.) Romatic love is what you do when you love someone you can't have a real conversation with. Flowers, candy, dancing, even standing underneath a window with a tape player- our contemporary gestures that reference old cadaveric romance all share one thing in common: in general, they suit one individual as well as another. Romance dresses up in ribbons and meter a completely irrational obsession with someone you don't know very well.

But now, there's no excuse.

Men and women have as many things in common as men used to have with their catamites. Plans and freedoms, responsibilities, concerns and toils are gender non-specific. Instead of writing a sonnet about the sweet breath and silky hair of a beloved, there's an opportunity to find out if that cute waitress likes Star Wars, nougat and titfucking as much as you do.

You can suck it up and say "Hey, how 'bout I buy you a snickers and slip my wookie between your death stars and see if I can make it a milky way?" And if she doesn't hit you, you've found some common ground.

Conversations must happen. Entertainment. Recreation. Consent. Love can grow out of familiarity and shared goals. Just like between a greek man and a willing young boy.

So romance is dead. That's why trashy magazines redefine it every month, in between a hardhitting piece on hemlines and some thoughtless fluff on date rape. If romance was a necessary componant of interaction between sexual partners, we'd know what it was. Instead, we try to redefine it, in a post-modern, new-age, consumerist sensibility that turns it inside out: romance is now finding something the person you're fucking has said would be significant to them, remembering it a month later, and buying a present based on that.

Of course, with all of this, you have to keep in mind, that I'm entirely full of shit.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

But it exists.

And it's not a big deal. But it is a quality that some women have and some women don't. It is a current myth, nearly as potent as "there is someone for everyone", that all women are beautiful.
To those who genuinely believe that, I have one thing to say: Ride a fucking subway.

One time.

Not all women are beautiful. And it's fine. The current myth, the current platitude, the current Eve Ensler-type self-love, girl power, "Every girl is beautiful" is a lie. And it's a damaging lie. And that lie, meant to comfort girls, and women, who are not beautiful, just perpetuates the power that "beauty" has.

I am not beautiful. I am fat, but that wouldn't exclude me, automatically, from being beautiful. These two facts, when I acknowledge either of them, cause people to immediately pipe in with free-to-be-you-and-me choruses. It's as if I had said "I am worthless" or "I want to die", or another entirely self-negating statement. I am many things. I am smart (very). Funny (very) Kind (sometimes). Charming (occasionally). Sexy (damn straight!). Fun. Tall. Brunette. I make a great cappuccino. I'm a decent writer. I have lots of friends, never been hurting to find a relationship. At times I'm cute or stylish. Once I was well-dressed. I am a lot of things.

But people won't let me be what I am. They have to make me believe that I'm something I'm not. Why? If appearance isn't important, why can't people let me be not beautiful? I have a big nose, often red, easily flushing skin, bucked teeth, and a round, soft face, and my eyes are very close together. So? This won't hold me back. I'm loved. I'm secure. I clean up good. Let me be.

Why do we tell little girls that appearances don't matter, but keep it so paramount, so sacred, that not being beautiful can't be mentioned? We tell every little girl she will grow up beautiful. I'd rather tell them they'd grow up smart. Because if they fail at smart, if they keep trying, they might at least be well-read.

Beauty is a certain symmetry of features and clarity of skin, indicating a lack of parasites, accurate gene expression, fertile, robust health and good nutrition, combined with several cultural factors that vary from place to place and person to person. While the cultural factors may influence a narrowing of the most accepted definitions of the height of beauty, a general lack of the trait can be observed in a plurality, if not the majority, of individuals in any given population. This variation is natural, defineable, and not deleterious to individuals if we do not place such obscene emphasis on it that we refuse to acknowledge it.

Non-traditional students.

Depending on where you go to school, the words "Non-traditional" mean different things. If you're in western massachusetts or the pacific northwest, it means someone who smokes a lot of marijuana, dresses inappropriately for their gender, and designed their own major to incorporate their twin passions: ceramics and maoism, from a post-foucalt psuedo-neo-modernist perspective, and expects to graduate without taking freshman english.

However.

At large, urban universities, the term "Non-traditional student" means "old fucker, getting a degree for no discernable reason, probably with undiagnosed asperger's syndrome"

I've got two in my animal behavior class.

One is a very, very sweet woman in her mid forties, dressed with the confused good-nature of a blind four year old raised in the basement of a k-mart. She wears the type of sneakers without fasteners designed for the elderly and stroke victims who have lost the manual dexterity to do laces or velcro, despite daily displaying the flexibility to take painstaking notes in four colors of pen, of everything the professor says regardless of the relevence. I once watched her take down the professors personal, off-topic reverie on the subject of how nice it is to have a classroom with a window.

She is very, very concerned about the topic of animal behavior. As it relates to her cats. She was openly disappointed that the professor considered "Why don't my cats like it when I bring men home?" an inadequate topic for a term paper. She was very frustrated that, deciding to do a project on Chickadees at the bird feeder, that no one had done any serious scientific studies concerning backyard birds in her neighborhood. Not that she could read any, because she doesn't have high-speed internet at home, and doesn't have the time to download PDFs over dial up. In fact, she's very confused as to what a PDF is. And, not too clear on the whole "database" and "scientific journal" and "peer-reviewed" or, for that matter...the scientific method.

The other is an eager yet slow man in his late forties. He has the resentful, passive-agressive air of a deeply immature individual, crushed by high expectations, leading to an unspoken distrust and objectification of the opposite sex. What I mean is, I'm pretty sure he's about one more thwarted gesture away from murdering a prostitute, covering her body in the snapped stems of thirty years of long-stem roses, and being discovered by the police at his mother's house, nude and sipping tea in the kitchen as she launders his blood-stained clothes.

In other words, He's the type of man that would describe himself as a nice guy . He's probably once divorced and since can't understand why 18 year old girls don't find his sweaty, desperate attentions charming, or so terrified of the purported machinations of females that he's a an angry virgin at 47. He has the chubby, grimy childishness of a priest. If he read Lolita, he wouldn't know not to be on Humbert's side.

I don't dislike him; it's just that he's so discomfiting.

Normally I don't get so much insight into the psychosexual dynamic of strangers. However, for the past few weeks, we've been studying sexual selection, mating systems, and the like. Evolution is about sex and death, and animal behavior is about evolution. It's a small class, and the professor runs it openendedly enough that human behavior and unspoken prejudices are easily observed.

Very early in the class we read a study on out of pair mating in mountain bluebirds. It was meant as a diagnostic critique. As students, we were meant to notice deficiencies in the article, chief among them the unfounded comparison the author was making to adultery in humans. This guy was visibly confused. The thought of cheating on a partner not being adultery, even in bluebirds, or being natural...was upsetting to him. He couldn't understand it. He has trouble not referring to mating pairs as "Mother and Father" or "Mummy and Daddy" whatevers...

As we've been getting more into sexual selection, mate preference, and mating systems, he's seemed more and more confused and upset. He can't quite understand how differing mating systems work. He's carrying his rigid romantic structures into the animal kingdom; he can't beleive that, naturally, some males never mate, and almost all females will. He can't imagine mating occurring in a value neutral world. He's constantly asking "What kind of sex ratio would lead to that system- (polyandry, polygyny, polygynandry)?", no matter how many times the professor reminds him that in nearly all animals, there is a 1:1 sex ratio.

He can't believe that polygyny would occur when there are enough males for each female to have their own mate, because that would go against one of the founding principles of the great American self-comforting romantic myth; that there is someone out there for everyone. It's a fairy tale for children, fat girls and short boys, and acne'd and awkward adolescents of both genders, administered sparingly to adults after breakups, like neosporin after a bagel-slicing accident.

And the reason he's going to kill a whore some day (et cetera, lipstick, weeping, mommy, the house is surrounded 'not my baby!' by the time the police got there he'd already, foreskin in a jar, religous upbringing, sponge baths, real doll...he was always so quiet, the perfect neighbor, really) is because he's unable to distinguish the natural world from his personal world. He gets this look on his face when the professor discusses the female need for resources and the male need for mating- it's as if you can already see the green glow of the public school surplus 386 computer monitor as he's posting to usenet later that night, about how science proves that all women are whores, but not all put out.

To him, a crop full of partially disected insects and a kenmore microwave are the same, and should entitle the givers to the same priveleges. But, he'd never be honest enough to use an escort, and pay and tip her, and understand the limits of the transaction. No. He'd pay her, and expect her to fall in love with him. He'd present some flowers from the supermarket, or his mother's yard, stems partially crushed from a death-like grip in his palm. He'd be polite, nervous. He'd do things he'd think of as chivalrous. But he'd expect her to bend the rules, treat him as special as his mother told him he deserves. He'd expect her to stop him on the way out, give him back his money, kiss him deeply and be his. And when she didn't, because it's her job, he'd strangle her, blank faced.

Second Acceptance in

and they've offerred me 25,500. Total.

So, in the scheme of things, not so much. I'd really rather go there than anywhere, though. It has many lovely points, such as

1. co-op program
2. focus on public service
   
3. wouldn't have to move to Philadelphia, which, rumor has it, smells like pee and is near new jersey.
4. could move out of my apartment, quit my job, and still not be homeless.

but I also don't want to be paying off student loans until I die. Which, theoretically, I'd do at Northeastern.

Temple is also higher-ranked than Northeastern. And has a trial advocacy program that is one of the best in the country. I'm visiting two weeks from yesterday. Just to see.

Still haven't heard from: Drake, Roger Williams, BU and Nebraska.

Let's hope for that nice thin rejection letter to come from BU tomorrow while I'm at work. And a nice, thick, hopeful package from Roger Williams the next day. And let's also hope that Drake doesn't give me that scholarship they invited me to apply for, because that would make it really hard not to go there.

I have two papers due tomorrow.

One on ketamine therapy treatment for opiate addiction, and one as a systems analysis of the family structure in the movie "The Royal Tennenbaums".

So I'm drinking hot chocolate and scratching my hives.

Temple offered me a full scholarship.

Two basic principles of reciprocity.

There are two basic principles in life that can be depended on for comfort in states of extreme annoyance:

• If someone does something that drives you absolutely fucking up the wall, even the extent that if you're subjected to it for one more moment you're going to start doing harm to yourself in order to overload your psychic pain with physical pain, it is almost guaranteed that you are unknowingly doing something that bothers them just as much.

Which is good. Because fuck those annoying bastards. There is a new person at work, we'll call her "Premium Bathroom Fixtures" or P.B.F. for short (A reference to her most unfortunate name, which makes her, a solid black woman in her fifties, sound like the infant daughter of a stripper named Tiphanni). This person is so consummately annoying that the lapsed and fleeing catholic within me may be invited back so she can light candles, get down on her knees, and pray that P.B.F. just suddenly stops coming to work. And if P.B.F. is not getting annoyed back, then there is no justice in the world.

• With very few exceptions, your idea of clean is someone else's idea of squalor, just as your idea of squalor is someone else's idea of clean.

This leads to something I've decided to call "November 20th Syndrome", after the week that precedes thanksgiving. The only way to prevent offending those you know may have more rigorous constructs surrounding what is "clean", and to prevent subconscious judgements by relatives who may visit for the holidays, women (and very few men) drive everyone they live with absolutely crazy turning the household upside down, purchasing febreeze, scented candles, foaming cleansers, organic floor wax, and brand-name paper towels in such volumes as to displace furniture.

This occurs to me as I'm cleaning my apartment, to prepare for the arrival of a friend. My idea of clean is his idea of squalor, most definitely. However, there is only so much that can be done, our ideas of clean differ so greatly. I've hauled the futon into the other room, bought a new fitted sheet for it, and am using my roommate's ill-gotten Dyson to suck the inscrutable remnants of my fetid lifestyle from the carpet.

Of course, being a man, this guest would neither say anything about the state of my apartment, nor judge me for it. He knew me when my old roommate would leave open cans of fish about, and there was something perpetually oozing on the floor that we christened "the indoor mud puddle". (Later investigation revealed that it was the combination of a broken canister of instant hot chocolate, moistened by condensation from the radiator, given bulk and body by some real mud shaken from Vermont-heavy boots and some discarded and forgotten pairs of Ames brand panties)

I should let the memory of trying to sanitize my home for a guest fortify and comfort me in my experiences with a certain person's apartment.

That was a trick question, by the way.

"Baby Got Back" is about class, not gender...leaving "Push it" as the default document of female liberation.

Yo, baby papi.

Something to think about

and discuss with your family.

Is "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-lot a more positive message about female sexuality and self image than "Push it" by Salt N Peppa?

First Acceptance In: Temple University

By email, no less.

They want me to go to Philly next week for the accepted students' weekend. Can't go. Painting faces. Two year anniversary of the opening of my cafe. Fun times, guys. I hate children.

Working on the front lines of the coffee (culture) wars

I'm your pusher man.

Or I'm not. Depending on how you like your coffee.

Actually, not.

Let's drop the pretense, why not? Bitches? Beuller? Let's not pretend that the coffee war is more than tangentially about coffee. It's about class. It's about money. It's about identity. And let's not just pretend that there are just two players. How about about the third group of combatents, the morally unassailable independant cafe? "Mom and pop" shops aren't the innocent bystanders, the non-coms, the civilians, the casualties that they'd so to be believed.

What do people get from a cup of coffee?
A slight, almost imperceptible buzz. Eyes a little wider open. Mind a little clearer. But as a heavy user, myself, I can assure you that most of it is psychological. It takes about four shots of espresso for me to feel any effects. And caffeine is not subject to tolerance effects, so I can assure you, it's not just because I've been soaking my neurons with the stuff. So why do people buy it? Why is it such a big fucking deal? Why does my working at one of the three types (corporate upscale, corporate downscale, independent) make such a difference to who I am and what I do and who I serve?

People get identity. Reassurance. People get a luxury item. Coffee is, and always has been, a luxury item. Before it became gourmet, it was a luxury and a vice. Coffee shops began proliferating on the streets of London hundreds of years ago. They were an exotic alternative to brain-numbing pubs and quasi-legal gin shops. Nobody needed to drink it then, nobody does now. But coffee is something you can always afford somewhere, and justify, and customize. It's something you do for yourself. And because it's a manifestation of personal whim and custom, it's become a tool of self-definition. So it says who you are. And what you think about yourself.

Who drinks corporate downscale coffee? Self-identified blue collar types. No-frills. Of the people. Hates pretense. Hates extras. Regulah, black, cream and two, dark with one, lahge, small, just so it's hot. But don't take this burnt orange and magenta identity at face value. It's as much a costume as any other.

Who drinks corporate upscale coffee? The earnestly upwardly mobile, the unapologetic social climber, the middle class pretender. It's for people who don't care what other people think they think they are, as long as they don't think they're poor, classless, or ignorant. Quasi-informed, quasi-progressive, quasi-gourmet. They're perhaps the most honest of any type, because they buy the coffee they can afford, in a comfortable, predictable setting from pleasant, consistently attired employees.

Who drinks independent upscale coffee? The self-consciously upscale, the psuedo-socialist intelligentsia, the anti-corporate crusader, the whole-foods shopper and former salvation-army dresser. The navel gazing hipster, the anti-corporate funkster, the unconsummated bisexual and the macrobiotic mom. They care very much what you think about them. They are the type of people who call ahead to see whether you're brewing fair trade coffee. They want to bring their own rice milk and stevia.

And yet the myth is that people are choosing their coffee shop based on the flavor of the coffee. I hate some of the coffee I brew. Our french roast tastes like cabbage, caraway seeds, and sorrow. Some of our espresso drinks are sweeter than candy, with any espresso flavor smothered in syrup and milk. Some of the coffee is especially tasty. And some of the drinks are balanced and perfect. I'm not ignorant enough to believe that either of these selections, the nasty or the tasty bring anyone to or keep anyone out of my coffee shop.

They come or go based on who they think they are and what they think I have for them.

Rage

A good friend of mine got his first law school rejection yesterday.

This system is fucked up. The LSATs matter more than everything else combined; except that they don't. Grades, reccommendations, essay- if you don't have the LSAT's, fuck you. Of course, because the whole world wants to go to law school now, LSATS only get you into the door. And if I don't have the grades and the reccommendations, fuck me.

168. 97th percentile. What the fuck does it mean? Am I smarter than him. Fuck no. I refer you to my shoes, untied. I refer you to my apartment, neglected. I refer you to ancient greek, which I do not speak, and he does.

Work and effort. Four years, seven, five. What the fuck does it all matter, compared to three hours in december? I'm in a rage about this shit.

I don't want to be an adult for a while.

I really don't.

Spring break has been too much for me. I've slept late. I've had dinner at my parent's house. I've gone out, and stayed out late. Before I got to stop and breathe for a while, I was just pushing through everything so hard (and driving myself and other people crazy) that I didn't even notice what I'm putting myself through.

I want someone else to do the cooking and the bill paying and the grocery shopping and the cleaning and the dishes and put the trash out. I want to sleep late and I want to do irresponsible things. I want to watch television and read books and not have to think about what I should do.

I am so tired of doing things for myself, deciding every stupid little bullshit detail- what to eat for dinner, what to buy for lunch. I don't know. I don't know. It's all a guess, a theory. I don't want to open tomorrow. I'm too tired. I don't want to figure out what I'm good at or what I should do or what's going to happen with my life or what I want.

I want to crawl under the blankets and sleep until 8am. But at 8am tomorrow, I'll already be 4 hours into my workday.

"Dumb, useless, fugly skank"

How would you describe someone you didn't like?

Weeks ago, a coworker said that the way it's done in her part of the world (American Samoa) is to say "I don't know (that person) very well."

My sainted grandmother would say "She does the best she can." If someone was really blindingly stupid on top of it all, she would say "She means well".

If my grandmother wanted to indicate that the person in question was near-vomit inducing ugly, she'd say "Frightfully plain, but cheerful"

I think we need more obfuscation. Because I've got a whole lot of well-meaning, plain but cheerful, customers that I don't know very well, but I'm sure are doing the best they can.

And if I can't get a better attitude about it, I'm going to start licking and fraying, licking and fraying, anything electrical and job related, cross my fingers, and hope for short-term disability.

Strange little compulsion...

A few weeks ago, I found out that I make 40 cents an hour less than my most analogous coworker. Ever since, instead of going to the cafe where I work for a cup of coffee (more likely a triple espresso), I've been going to Dunkin' Donuts.

I've been getting a Dunkin' Donuts, medium french vanilla. It's not good coffee. It's not even consistent. But it's comfort food. And, it's turned into my way of damning the man. I get a bagel with it, as an excuse...the bagels taste like soft flabby bandaids, bleached and pillowy and utterly sanitized. The cream cheese is more of an emulsified. dairy derived, fortified, edible ointment. It's shelf-stable, you know. Terrifying thing in a soft cheese.

My excuse for going to Dunkin' Donuts is because my cafe doesn't have sesame bagels, and wouldn't toast them, even if they did. My secondary excuse is that I don't know how to make coffee "regulah", since I don't put milk and sugar into our drip coffee. These are thin, sad excuses, based on equivocation, and only vaguely credible if you buy that I enjoy how the coffee
and bagel taste. And I don't.

Nerve.com has published a peppy little dialogue on rape. It's quite bold, seven years ago. Right now, it's moderately sassy, like a forty year old woman in a mini skirt with no bra, drunk on lo-carb margaritas, and looking for action. Some may object, some may see controversy, others might just see an interesting conversation-starter. (hey, patsy h.!)

The nerve dialogue does make some interesting points, the primary one being that 'no means no' is not necessarily the best test for lawful vs. unlawful sex. The current legal hoodangy is that while no always means no, sometimes yes means no, too; an overexpansion that has perhaps lead to the soft goo that current dialogues on rape seem to be mired in. In order to protect women (and men, too, and teenagers) from coerced consent, 'yes' in circumstances of power imbalance has begun to be treated as 'no'. Which is reasonable only if the coercer is aware of their coercive power over the submitter, and is able to determine what the submitter's actual wishes are.

Which brings us to date rape, and then back to my bagel. Stick with me, it'll be fun.

Do circumstances exist that one partner has power over the other, and is able to use that to obtain sexual consent, with knowledge that it would otherwise not be granted?

The person (person A) who wants sex would have to know-

• Whether Person B wants to have sex.
  
• That they, Person A, have a way to force/coerce Person B
• And, before having sex, that Person B still does not want to have sex.

In that situation, with that knowledge, person A can be held responsible, to whatever society decides are the consequences for violating person B's free consent to sex.

However, the asumption that these points are always knowable by both or either party before any sexual act occurs, especially between people who are acquainted with each other, is unfounded. (A lovely point hinted at by the Nerve folks). Human interaction is so variable, communication so fallible, that the majority of sex acts probably occur in some optimistic fog.

I don't know why I do anything. I just spent three dollars. (my last three dollars) on a bagel and coffee that I barely consider food and bev. And I'll do it again when I have three dollars again. I don't like this coffee. I didn't like that bagel. I am openly disdainful of people who order french vanilla anything. Did I buy this coffee because I am mad at my coffee shop? Because I can't get in and out of my cafe in under twenty minutes? Because I want my coworkers to think that I have a life? Did I buy the coffee because of advertising? Did I buy it because of class discomfort, as I'm considering going to law school, a significant divergence from my working-class roots? Did I even want this coffee, that bagel?

It is reasonable to consider that my sexual decisions would be less clear, less reasonably thought out, and less easily communicated then my breakfast choices. If you think I know why I do what I do, in any aspect of my life, even law school, you're giving me far too much credit.

There is considerable ambiguity to human desire and motivation. The only solution is clear communication. So what about rape, then? If you can't know what someone wants, what are you to do when they don't tell you? Clear cut cases of rape- violent rape, incest, real coercion- the disparity between the rapist's aim and the victim's objection is known to both. So when "yes" means "no", what has really happened?

It depends. Who knows? I don't.

Weird things I eat.

I must eat certain foods only when they are symmetrical.

McDonald's Egg McMuffins- The canadian bacon slice must be shifted to the other side of the egg from the cheese. Because the ham and the cheese are both mainly sweet and salty, and the egg is mainly savory and sour. So the ham and the cheese must be separated.

Cupcakes- if no one is watching, I must split the cupcake down the middle, horizontally, then put the bottom half on top of the frosting.

Other things I must eat in ways that no one else will eat them:

I eat all cereal dry. Especially plain cheerios. And corn flakes.

I eat my hot dogs plain. But I can't eat hot dogs alone, because I only like plain hot dogs when they've sat next to hot dogs with everything on them.

I add uncooked tomatoes to pasta right before I eat it.

When I get a mocha, I get the espresso on the side, down it quickly, then drink the milk and mocha syrup like a hot chocolate.


And there are somethings that I won't eat that are paradoxically similar to things I will eat.

I won't eat american cheese, ever, except on cheeseburgers, but I will eat cheetos, doritos, and mac n cheese. I won't even eat grilled cheese made with american cheese.

I won't eat fettucine, angel hair, spaghetti, fusilli, or linguine; but I will eat penne, farfalle, rigatoni, shells, and ziti. I will not eat ziti without lines, or elbow macaroni, except in mac n cheese.

I won't eat white rice, but will eat fried rice, rice pilaf, cous cous, and basmati rice (but only at restaurants)

I won't eat ham, ever. Or salami. Or pepperoni. Or balogna, but I will eat pork loin, bacon, smoked shoulder, and pulled pork.

I won't eat baked beans, ever. I will eat refried beans, black beans, pinto beans, and chickpeas.

I buy microwave popcorn, unbuttered flavor, and add my own butter at home.

I buttered my french fries in college.

Let's make a separation, kiddies.

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$1545

That's my expected yearly contribution to my legal education.
Yes, I'm poor. Very, very poor.

And this time, it makes me win.

I encountered a quote that sums up, nearly perfectly, why I'm going to law school.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
-John Adams

Of course, John Adams was talking about the progressive necessity of nation-building; I'm talking about class fluidity. He meant that in order for a generation to have the freedom and security to pursue the arts, generations before them must lay more practical foundations. And his grandchildren were free to pursue the arts. And anything they felt like. Because by then, they had the connections and the economic power.

My great grandparents were laborers, nannies, prostitutes, auto-didacts and pious catholics. My grandfathers were a postman and a prolific drunk, former navy diver, my grandmothers were a homemaker and a bar singer. My father never graduated high school; my mother has a degree in education.

In order to progress, in order to be mobile, I must enter a profession. Theoretically, if I were to reproduce, then my children might have the money, and I might acquire the connections, in order for them to do things that are creative and meaningful. Or they could put it all up their noses. I'm not having kids. So law school will simply make me a nice living. But it's the only way to achieve.

I went to an elite, decadent, private college before the public brick and cement edutentiary I attend currently. The idea was that with the right education, I would end up on equal footing with anyone. If I worked hard, I would be able to do anything. I could be an artist, an actor, a filmmaker, a painter. (tapestry, poetry, music and porcelain) Anything.

Not actually. Now, two years after graduation (my class at ole' B graduated in 2004), the illusion of elevation through education has finally dissipated. The mistaken, hopeful impression given to middle class students from working class backgrounds, that they too could one day be entirely useless- gone. The students who came in, from prestigious "Day Schools" (Any school that feels it must specify that nobody lives there is obviously elite) with rich parents of rich parentage, are all working in the fabulous low-paying jobs that lead to creative, high-paying jobs. The students who came in like me, without connections, are working in administrative jobs, or dairy queen, or public school systems. The children of teachers and secretaries become teachers and secretaries in slightly more interesting cities with slightly more forgiving dress codes.

If I went to (art,graduate, journalism, film, school), I would come out and work in a coffee shop. It would be just like my current life, but with more debt. If I go to law school, I will come out a lawyer. I will be employable. If I work hard, and make the right choices, someday I may own a home. I may go on vacation. I may be able to retire before my tits hit ankle level. Someday, I may do something that matters. I can spend my entire life pretending that drive, not class, determines what I can achieve, and what is a vocational rather than avocational interest.

Let's not pretend that the professions (law and medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, etc) aren't a traditional entree into the upper classes. Let's not pretend that everyone studies law for a love of the law.

sunt lacrimae rerum...

There seem to be times in life when the past feels closer and more vivid than in other times. I've been walking in a fog of quasi-nostalgia (know what's a fucked up concept? Ostalgie. Hey, remember the time when the secret police killed your uncle? And there was no toilet paper for 20 years?) There's no longing for times past, but the moments of years ago carry this intoxicating salience...

I can't stop thinking about times past. A thinned out mo-town themed muzak cd at work made me think of a potent time of other people's romantic intrigue. Two of the people involved will be married by the end of the year. The third, I am convinced, will beat me out for the romantic ambivalance award. Yes, it was a love triangle. And yes, I was only an observer.

My own exes aren't far from my mind, though. I just don't like to write about them as much. I had this extraordinarily vivid memory of a moment, in my old roommate's bed, when a certain person pulled up my shirt- it was the first time I had ever been alone, in private, with a person who wanted to take my clothes off. I cannot convey how absolutely terrifying and wonderful it was to realize that. Anything could have happened. For the first time, ending that moment was up to me, not a park ranger or police officer or girl scout or rattlesnake.

I'm thinking that there's something special about that moment, something not culturally recognised. We're so obsessed with virginity and teen oral sex and herpes and pregnancy, physical milestones obscure all others. Dick breaches pussy, dick breaches lips, anus, armpit. These are our markers of innocence lost, experience gained. Carnal knowledge, penetration, the consumption of one body by another.

But what about the moments, few or hundreds, where anything could happen? The sudden, absurd plenipotentiality of body heat, contained by walls and soft surfaces and a locking door and no supervision- does it matter? I don't think it's possible to forget that moment, the first time with the lights on, the first time with someone who would have done anything you let them do; no matter what the outcome, there is a line crossed.

It's for this reason I've become, for the first time in my life, sympathetic to the arguments of abstinence before marriage. I continue, however, thinking that waiting for marriage is for most people ill-advised, prohibitively difficult, and out-dated. I was eighteen, that day in the hideous dorm room with the indoor mud puddle, on my roommate's sheetless bed. I was with the man in the bed because I wanted to see what would happen; not because I liked or loved him. It was exciting. It was wrong (I had another boyfriend at the time). He would like me, love me, in the end. I would hide from him. I was cruel to him. I wish I could apologise, actually, for the way I treated him.

I wonder what it would be like to be alone for the first time with someone significant, at the precise moment of beginning something new together. To suddenly be able to take vulgar liberties, completely sanctioned, with someone else's body, for the first time- when love is a factor- would be pretty nice. I can imagine a wedding night, a hotel room, a honeymoon- a wonderful first time to be alone with a beloved willing body.

But that moment, that first closed door, doesn't belong at 28. You're too old. Men are already losing testosterone. Women's breasts are already making that long knee-ward journey. Unless anyone is willing to propose propagating a formal system of time-limited starter marriages, the wedding night and honeymoon are things of the past. I won't spend time telling teenagers that they'll regret at my old age what they are dying to do right now. They'd never listen and it's not my business to say. And that's the problem of adulthood. You're presented with an outline of post-post-post-hoc regrets, and the sudden impulse to prevent those regrets (delicious as they were at the time) in other people.

I don't know if I'd give up the years I've spent in bedrooms and livingrooms and snug in arms to recapture an unplanned moment in a dank room, in a reeking dorm, in a muddy spring, in vermont.

And my bit...Emergency Contraception.

A while ago, I began an investigation into the target boycott.

Here's a recap and analysis. Don't mind me if I repeat myself- this is a combination of notes and crushed up freelance pieces and parts of my law school personal statement. It has a lot of research I didn't fully get into here.



This past fall, Planned Parenthood of America urged people to boycott Target scores. This boycott was inspired by the refusal of a Target pharmacist Fenton, MO to fill a prescription for emergency contraception. Supporters of Planned Parenthood participated in a protest at Target offices in Missouri. A press release blasted Target for a policy that Planned Parenthood said differed from those of all other major pharmacy chains. Dan Savage, a popular syndicated sex and relationship columnist and editor of “The Stranger” a Seattle-based independent weekly, broke the story to his readers on November 1st. He, too, quoted the Planned Parenthood Press release. I wanted more information but there seemed to be none. Major newspapers didn’t mention either the boycott or the incident in Fenton. All internet information could be traced back, blog by blog, to the press release from Planned Parenthood. The press release itself was short on actual information about the incident. I talked to a pharmacy technician, and she raised further questions that could not be answered with the information Planned Parenthood Provided. When I was finally able to find limited coverage by a Missouri paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the additional information confused rather than clarified the situation.

First, in the article, the patient, Rachel Pourchot is identified as a St. Louis resident. Fenton, Missouri, is more than fifteen miles from St. Louis. Women, in general, do not fill prescriptions for birth control pills, a prescription that needs to be refilled frequently, that far from home. Second, Pourchot says that she uses two forms of birth control with her long-term boyfriend. Birth control pills are the first, so it may be assumed that the second method is a barrier or chemical method of contraception. Plan B would be a third line of defense, far from urgent. Third, she lists fear of assault as a reason to keep the pills on hand. It is true that hospitals generally give rape victims Plan B. Plan B is very effective at preventing a pregnancy after unprotected sex, and most rapes are unprotected. However, Rachel Pourchot was also filling a prescription for birth control pills that day. In case of assault, she would already be protected. There is no additional protection afforded by emergency contraception, as compared to the birth control pill. Plan B is levonorgestrel, the same estrogen as in Seasonale, Allese, Tri-Phasil, and other popular pill formulations. Finally, it is very odd, given that Rachel Pourchot was so casually filling her prescriptions that day, so far from home, that she did not just decide to fill the Plan B prescription another time or at another pharmacy, when told Plan B was out of stock. T
arget agrees that store had no Planned B in stock that day; they dispute whether the pharmacist confronted Ms. Pourchot. If the facts of the situation are as Ms. Pourchot reported them, the situation is still imperfect. A refusal of a prescription that was not urgent, and was out of stock, is thin premise for a national boycott.

Target is a strange choice of target, as well. Despite Planned Parenthood’s claims, their pharmacist refusal policy is not much different than that of other major pharmacy chains. I wrote to Walgreens, Brooks/Eckerd, Kmart, Target, and CVS, and asked what their policy was. Kmart declined to comment. Walgreens has a nearly identical policy to Target’s. CVS’s only differs in that they require a pharmacist to notify superiors of a refusal before it occurs, and it is doubtful that this would have any practical effect. Brooks/Eckerd was the only pharmacy that does not allow pharmacists to refuse to fill a legitimate prescription for any reason. Fenton aside, there’s no reason to single out Target as an offender.

So why would Planned Parenthood choose that specific pharmacist refusal, at that store, to launch a national anti-Target campaign? It could be that it happened in Missouri. Planned Parenthood has not been having an easy time in Missouri. Reproductive rights have not been having an easy time in Missouri. There is only one abortion clinic left in the state. Planned Parenthood has been ordered to pay back millions of dollars of family planning funding to the state. They have been targeted by legislation that would make it illegal to aid Missouri minors in obtaining abortions, even out of state. Governor Blunt has made a personal crusade of restricting access to abortion and contraception. In fact, at the same time as Ms. Pourchot was being refused her prescription, Governor Blunt was proposing legislation to protect pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions from being fired. The day before Planned Parenthood demonstrated at the Target district office in Bridgeton, Missouri, a group called “The Coalition against Governor Blunt’s War on Women” protested at the capital against the proposed legislation. Why protest a corporate policy rather than a law? It seems illogical, even useless, to protest against a corporation for following a policy that will soon be legally mandated. However, by centering the campaign against Target in Missouri, Planned Parenthood may have been able to turn the energy of local supporters towards a national target. Thus, they maintain an impression of advocacy on a local level, without spending any energy lobbying an unsympathetic legislature.

Why would Planned Parenthood of America care more about the accessability of emergency contraception to Target customers than the accessability of emergency contraception to every resident of Missouri? Being a Target customer is a choice. It is simple to simply go somewhere else for prescriptions, housewares, clothing, groceries, and all the other goods that Target supplies. While Missouri is not a prison, there are many reasons a person cannot easily move to another state when laws threaten their freedoms. Missouri is a state, growing socially more and more conservative, and more politically hostile to reproductive rights. Target is a store, beloved of young, socially progressive, middle-class, coastal and urban, women. Planned Parenthood put so much energy into changing Target’s policy, and so little advocating for Missourians, perhaps because Planned Parenthood supporters are more likely to shop at Target than live in Missouri. Their mission statement says they support the reproductive rights of everyone regardless of “income, marital status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or residence.” However, they seem to be changing their mission to preserving convenient access to needed services for their key demographic, while ignoring the growing restrictions on choice for those unfortunate enough to live in more conservative areas. This shift could be tragic. By prioritizing the desire of current and potential Target customers to have emergency contraceptive prescriptions filled at they same store where they can purchase enameled toasters in mod colors, Planned Parenthood becomes little more than a consumer advocacy group.

Very, very important.

If you think you're a feminist, if you think you're pro-choice, you must read this

This is the most important bit of feminist writing I've ever read. This is practical. This is political. This is personal.

I am not, as you recall, any kind of traditional feminist. I am, however, rabidly pro-choice. In fact, I'm pro-abortion. This woman details, completely, how to perform an abortion.

If Roe is overturned, if women in red states lose legal rights to bodily integrity- this is what will need to be known.

If Roe stays, this piece is still important. It is important to any woman or man who has sex and can imagine a circumstance in which there cannot be a child at the end of a pregnancy. This is abortion. This is what it is. There's nothing else. Dilation. Curretage.

The anti-abortion movement has always held the procedure itself hostage, as an ace in the hole. They feel it's so brutal, so complicated, so inhumane to mother and fetus, that knowledge of the procedure is enough to turn one from pro-abortion to anti-abortion. And, even if women want abortions, keeping the knowledge of what is involved in medical hands (hands with careers and reputations to lose) means that it's not the woman who needs to be persuaded not to have one, it's a doctor that needs to be persuaded not to give one.

I'm not saying women should perform their own abortions (or their friends'). I'm saying that it might be something that becomes necessary, and that if we fear the facts of a procedure we support, for even a minute, we're sad advocates for it.