Reporting Live from McAllen-Miller International Airport!

Dear Readers (whomever you may be, real or in my imagination),

Hurray for free wireless at the fabulous airport in McAllen, Texas. I have been "straight-chillin'" here, a few miles from the border, watching airport on-goings since 5:30 AM this morning. Around me I see fellow-fliers, some frustrated, some calm; through the big glass windows, I see...not much... thanks, thick fog. One flight out of here has been canceled, but I am still hopeful that I will be flying out in an hour--three hours later than I'd hoped, but moving towards home nonetheless.

This time yesterday, I was learning the rules to middle-school dodgeball. At school, they had a bunch of "stuff" for the kiddies to do--a dance, movies, various sports (including bowling!), snacks for purchase, board games--and, of course, we teachers got to supervise. I initially was responsible for selling at the concession stand, but was offered a trade to dodgeball by one of my co-workers. Figuring that physical activity would be more exciting than preparing hot cheetos with cheese* all day, I agreed.

I spent more time during dodgeball screaming at kids than I have all year. It was chaotic, but fun. I was told, "Miss, you throw like a girl"; broke up what could have bubbled into a fight; and canceled dodgeball after one kid hit another with one of the bright orange cones that cornered off the dodgeball area. I was pleasantly surprised that when I ran into the dodgeball crossfire, yelling "TIME OUT! GIVE ME ALL THE BALLS NOW", the boys stopped and handed me the balls. For most of the day, as I ran in and out of the dodgeball "court" telling boys who were out that they needed to get off the court, the boys on the sidelines would pull me out of the way if I were going to get pegged; it was very sweet of them. I had kind of expected they would try to hit me with the balls most of the day, so it was really nice that they kept an eye out for me instead.

It was fun, but I might grow up and be one of those moms at the PTA that makes the school stop playing dodgeball. From what I saw, it's not much of a sport when 8th graders play it--it's more of a "how hard can I hit the lame kid without getting caught?" game. Well, actually, I'd advocate for kids to play whatever sports, but also require some sort of sportmanship/sportswomanship/sportspersonship? curriculum.

* To those of you who don't live in the Valley, hot cheetos with cheese is, unfortunately, exactly what it sounds like: a bag of spicy hot cheetos, with nacho cheese poured on. It tastes like one would expect: delicious but horrible. The school sells this stuff, in addition to soft drinks, candy, nachos, and other junk, to raise money. Texas schools can only sell/give junk food to kids on certain days (like before breaks), or after lunch. The school makes a ton of money off of it, but I really don't think that my students should be exposed to such unhealthy food just so we can afford field trips (the sales don't generally raise funds for stuff like books). My students definitely don't eat healthy at home, if they eat much at all. Why give them such horribly fattening food? In a country with an obesity epidemic, it makes no sense. We may as well let them roll around in raw chicken.


Now, I am going to start watching Arrested Development, and then move on to Planet Earth. I figure I can have both series finished by the time I get home tonight at 10:30 PM.

Happy Travels!

peppermint

Dear World,

If you must inundate me with a holiday I don't celebrate, the least you could do is make sure there is peppermint bark available for purchase in the chaos that is the grocery store. I expect better the next time I brave H.E.B.

Love,
Gulu



Dear Readers,

When the World gyps you and you can't buy any peppermint bark, do not despair. The winter/holiday season can still be full of minty goodness! Of course, peppermint is with us all year long: it's in our toothpastes and shampoo; it adds a kick to chicken skewers and samosas; it calms our tummies as tea when we have too much chicken and too many samosas (and even too much toothpaste, yikes).

Why, though, does peppermint make such a not-so-subtle appearance in the wintertime? I made up a completely unfounded answer to this question, which is as follows: Peppermint is an invasive species (fact). It chokes out all the other plants in the neighborhood, and when the harvest season comes, it's all that's usable from our gardens in the winter. We extract its oils, dry its leaves, and call it holiday cheer.

Since we have such a plethora of peppermint, I have some suggestions on the best ways to get a peppermint fix:

1. Starbucks' Peppermint Mocha. Get it hot, unless you live in the Valley. Then, an ice-cold peppermint mocha hits spot on a sunny, 80-degree December day. It's a good trick to convince your body that it is technically winter.

2. Candy canes-we tend to get gifted tons of these. Fact: they are adorable. Fact: they are messy and sticky and annoying and get slobbery when you eat them. Solution: for a holiday Scrabble party, make your guests each a mug of hot chocolate. Unwrap a candy cane for each mug, and put it in each glass as a stirrer. They melt into the hot drink giving it a minty kick, look adorable curling out of the mug, and are a great way to unload all those candy canes!

3. Candy canes can also be smashed up and used to top icecream, brownies, cupcakes--most anything sweet.

4. Let's be honest, sometimes you buy peppermint bark without totally thinking (peppermint bark is exciting). You bring it home, and uh-oh, it's not REAL peppermint bark---it was made with WHITE CHOCOLATE which ISN'T EVEN CHOCOLATE because it has NO COCOA in it. What to do? Brave the obscene return lines at the store? Absolutely not. Break off a few pieces and let it melt into your morning coffee. Deeeeelectable.

I hope your winter and Christmas and New Year and Hanukkah are full of fresh, peppermint breath! Let me know if you have any other uses of my favorite essential oil.

Love,
Gulu

I am thankful...

1. that I am not a turkey
2. that I am not a Native American during the colonial era or around when everyone was all Manifest Destiny about stuff
3. for my students being awesome, and knowing that saying "I love Harry Potter" is a good way to get extra points during a game
4. that unlike most of those mentioned above, I have a wealth of opportunity, and can, therefore, really truly look forward to a wonderful future
5. for my family and Neema
6. for #5 helping me help #3 avoid the fate similar to that of #1 and #2
7. for my having the sense to say: I'm not minimizing how awful it must have been to have been on the losing side of America's expansion by comparing it to the life of a turkey. I'm just saying either would be pretty awful.

munching meat

At first, I hesitated a little to write about this. I feel like, for some reason, meat-eating can be a volatile issue. That said, I am writing this as a choosy meat-eater. Even if my words aren't worth a read, I'd say everyone should get the book I am discussing, because I want to know what you think.

After reading about it in reviews in the New Yorker and New York Times, I picked up Eating Animals by Johnathon Safron Foer last night. It's been as tough to read as it has been to put down and I'm not sure that I'll easily digest it either. I would say that it's a book about vegetarianism, but I think that would do it a disservice, not to say there would be anything wrong with a book about vegetarianism. However, I say it's "not about vegetarianism" because it's not about vegetarianism. It's more of an exploration of how and why and if we should eat animals.

I find the book challenging because I eat meat. I have not finished the book, nor have I thought through everything I have read. I do, however, have thoughts.


I only eat halaal meat, which means that the animals I eat are presumably raised and killed according to Islamic ethical guidelines.
Going into the book, I:

1) always had problems with the fact that I couldn't be sure (hence, I used the word 'presumably') that Islamic guidelines are being followed (animals raised nicely and killed nicely... what does nicely even mean?)
and
2) believe Islamic guidelines for ethical eating need to be revisited anyways.


As for number 1, in Kentucky, our imam would go to some person's farm and slaughter the animals we ate by hand. I felt comfortable about that situation. Now, I eat halaal meat from Houston. Who knows how they were killed? Maybe my idea of "nice" is not this butcher's?

For number 2, it is currently "halaal" to eat friend chicken at the specific KFCs that sell "halaal" fried chicken. I say it's "halaal" because really, can KFC, which treats its chickens pretty abysmally, really be halaal? Even if the ones I eat were not treated badly?
The spirit behind Islamic dietary laws is to eat with a conscience, humanely, and ethically. So even if KFC kills a few chickens the "right" way, is it still "right" to eat there? Should we indirectly support what happens to those other chickens?
Similarly, it's "halaal" to eat chocolate made from cocoa beans harvested by children who are effectively enslaved in Cote d'Ivore. Can my eating Nestle really be true to the Quran? It say in that book (Surah 42, Verses 41-42, to be exact) first, that one should struggle against oppression, and that "blame attaches but to those who oppress [other] people and behave outrageously on earth, offending against all right." I think we can all agree that child-slavery is oppression in this day and age. Eating the fruits of their free labor is not really struggling against oppression; rather, it is indulging in its melt-in-your-mouth glory.

My point, though: what is halaal to eat needs to be reconsidered by "the scholars." That said, I don't have to listen to the scholars. I just need to listen to my heart and not my tummy and work harder to think before I eat.

Which brings me back to Eating Animals.
My favorite thing about the book is that it does not proselytize. It just sets out the horrors of factory farming (which I knew, but can afford be reminded) but then also raises questions about... eating animals, even the ones we treat nicely. It doesn't tell me not to eat them. It asks me to think about it.

That said, the information it offers me to digest is pretty much "wow look at horrible things that have to do with meat-eating". I would like someone who eats meat (all kinds of it) to read this book and tell me what they think.


Also, just to clarify, just because vegetarians don't eat meat, it doesn't mean they don't think meat is/can be delicious. That's why we eat fake meat. It's like how you wouldn't kill someone in real life, but you would in a video game. I think...

the awesomest kid

Yesterday was the homecoming dance at my school, which I had the pleasure of chaperoning for 3 hours. Mostly, I amused myself at how well or awful my students dance. They dance to Mexican/Tejano music as easily as they do pop music. The Kumbia Kings caused as much excitement as Justin Timberlake. I was never remotely excited about Indian music; it makes me happy that my students love their own and mainstream American culture together.

Either way, my point in writing is to tell you about the most awesomest kid.

I stood to the back of the cafeteria for most of the dance, leaning up against a half-wall thing because my feet hurt. At some point, I heard a kid talking behind me. I turned, and he was just there alone, hopping around animatedly. I turned back around, pointed out to a co-worker/friend that the kid behind us was talking to himself and we laughed.

A while later, I felt someone tapping my back. It was the kid, and he was asking me to move over a bit and bending over to get something at my feet. I was standing on one of those plasticy strings that holds up balloons. Balloons had been popped and deflated all over the place; so, of course, those strings were littered all over the floor. He reached for the one I was standing on and I asked him what he was doing.

"I'm making the longest rope," he replied.

He had, in his hand, a half-deflated balloon, tied to a string tied to a string tied to a string. He tied the string I was standing on to it, and walked away, half-deflated balloon trailing behind him. I turned around and heard him saying, "Awesome. This is awesome. Awesome..."

I'm not sure that I love teaching because I'm helping fix the achievement gap. But I know I love teaching because I get to work with the most random people ever.

oh, and I forgot to mention

The story's called Best Friend to Worst Enemy. The tiger's shift from best to worst actually never happens in the story, because I ended the story before then. Oops.

BUT I STILL WON

Young Author

In third or second grade, I was a proud recipient of the prestigious Young Author's Award, which maybe a zillion other kids also received in the state of Wisconsin. I found the winning piece today, in a box of old stuff. I had an excellent time re-reading what is clearly the first major stepping stone towards what will hopefully be a long, successful career writing.

The story's main character is a lion, Raja, who live in a jungle in Delhi, which I subsequently learned is actually kind of sort of full of humans and not jungle.

Here are some excerpts, a preview of what will maybe someday be published in full in my Collected Works:

One rainy, rainy day Raja heard some thumping coming toward him. He jumped up and growled.

Then the thing that was thumping said "It is okay," in a crying voice, "It is only me, Share (Raja's BFF, a tiger). I have some very bad news, but you have to promise not to ry."

"Me? Cry?," he answered. "I'm a full grown lion."
...
"Our parents, even mine, have died because they got sucked up by quick sand."

The reader then learns the parents were chased into the quicksand by two evil snakes. I remember pretty distinctly knowing the parents needed to die, and being unwilling to give them a more violent ending than quick sand. Either way, that night, Raja hardly ate dinner, "even though it was his favorite food, deer meat."

After Raja's announcement that he is now king of the jungle

... an elephant came to their house and asked for Raja...

"I heard how your parents died.," said the elepahnt, "Do you think you need a guard? Because I can be yours."

Well why," asked Raja, "I'm not trying to be mean or any thing but I just want to know.

That sentence is probably the only one without proper use of quotation marks. When I was in a creative writing class at Tulane, we had to review quotation marks because some of my classmates didn't get how to do dialouge. Major props to my elementary teachers for having covered that so well! (Oh, and the elephant's parents were sucked up by quicksand--because of the snakes--in case you're wondering why he offered to protect the lions.)

Either way, I apparently didn't have time to finish writing the story, because the narrator ends the story with (Yes! There is a narrator! I must have read some Kipling around when I wrote this, because I seemed to have imitated his narrative voice.) this:

Now you will have to figure the rest out yourself because I do not remember the rest.


Awesome. I'm kind of awesome. I really hate sharing my writing with people (like, non-blog writing, of course); but if you come over and ask about my writing, I will let you read the whole thing!!!

scary.

Once I took a class on the archaeology of gender, and, since then, I have been scared of contracting cribra orbitalia aka porotic hyperostosis. Basically, if you are malnutritioned (is this a verb?), your bones can start to get spongey. And the spongey marrow in your head can start sponging all over the place... including your eye sockets, as shown in the above photograph.

Sometimes, my eyes hurts and I am scared. I worry that the skull sponge marrow is growing into my eyeball and if I touch my eyelids, I will feel it under them. I didn't eat any vegetables today. What if I am malnutritioned? What if bone sponge grows all up in my eye sockets? I'm going to eat a children's chewable vitamin before I go to bed in hopes of preventing such an awful fate.

Can you prevent fate?


Once, I took an online quiz to see if I had adult ADD (or rather, to see if I should bother seeing a doctor about it to be for-real diagnosed). I remember it asked if I ever felt like more than a couple TV channels were on in my head. I said yes then, and still say yes now. But what's good is that each individual channel has a clearer signal these days than ever before.

oh, and just because I go to Starbucks, it doesn't mean I would ever buy one of these things

A guide to downtown Denver's hotspots. THIS IS JUST DOWNTOWN DENVER.

That said, today, upon getting to a too-packed Starbucks in Barnes and Noble, I said, "They should just build a free-standing Starbucks over there", pointing to the strip mall (fancy one) behind the Barnes and Noble (the one with the Starbucks). I used to be too principled to go to Starbucks. Now I am too principled to plan a poor lesson because I sat at home and couldn't focus. Starbucks helps me focus because it doesn't have a TV and it does have a bunch of high schoolers from the fancy school district doing their homework. The non-Starbucks coffee is far and gross and full of college kids talking about their opinions way way way too loudly. Hey college kids, I don't care.

OHHHEMMMGGGEEE

FORGET CANYON DE CHELLY NEEMA AND I HAVE TO GO HERE AFTER GETTING MARRIED:




IT IS NEXT TO THE JURASSIC PARK SECTION OF UNIVERSAL STUDIOS.

YES THIS NEEDS TO BE IN ALL CAPS

recent observations

1. My new thematic facebook album is on layers (I'm also working on one highlighting the underrated color grey). I took this picture yesterday on my way out of the school parking lot. I loved how you could see my car, the school's concrete, the road's concrete, grass on the side of the road, shrubs/weeds, plowed (harvested?) farmland (brown), unplowed (unharvested?) farmland (green), darker green, trees, sky, powerline. From the car, it all stacked up like a cross-section of off-color tiramisu. In the photo, it's nowhere near as dramatic. I'm just sharing because now all of the green has been plowed (harvested?) away and so this picture cannot be attempted again.
I can't wait until it's not still in the high 90s every day, temperature-wise, and people wear layers and I can have a reason to photograph clothing.






2. Some gems from the Sept. 28, 2009 issue of Time

"We're going to have no paper, no printing plants, no unions. It's going to be great."
-Rupert Murdoch on the future of the newspaper/my future career

"The national parks--and The National Parks--are based on ideas that are classically, if not radically, communitarian. That the free market doesn't always act in the public interest...And that it is right for people--through government--to protect [national parks] from business interests and even from the people themselves... A series on a public TV network that calls a government program America's best idea? Has no one alerted Rush Limbaugh?"
--James Poniewozik, on Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea

After presenting both liberal and conservative estimates of the size of a crowd at a recent protest, David Von Drehle writes, "Either way, you may not be inclined to believe what we say about numbers, according to a recent poll that found record-low levels of public trust of the mainstream media." --an article on Glenn Beck

This statement, from an article on the swine flu, totally blew my mind, "We're living through an unprecedented opportunity for civilization--a chance to pre-empt a catastrophic pandemic influenza rather than just react to it."

"Did he do it just to show the big TV that there are still some flesh-and-blood players in this game?"
--Richard Lacayo/Arlington, on whether A.J. Trapasso of the TN Titans purposefully punted a football into the Jumbo-Tron at the new Cowboy's stadim, in

Usually, nothing in Time stands out. I am happy that so much did today.


3. I found an old mix of some acoustic Saves the Day. It sounds like how I want the dinner/sit down and eat portion of my wedding to sound.

I wonder...

if the half-popped kernels of popcorn are only delicious because they are so rare.

I wish I could figure out how to make only half-popped kernels and find out.

you look just like buddy holly and i'm mary tyler moore

1) I found all my high school/early college cds. I am happy to report that this discovery supports my firm belief that my teenage self made few poor decisions outside the wardrobe department. I had my head on straight those days.

2) Point #1 above has revolutionized my drive to school with the reintroduction of Weezer's The Blue Album to my cd player. I sing now for the whole 20 minute drive, often with the endearingly sexist* "No One Else" on repeat. I'm sure anyone who sees me rocking out would conclude that I have a couple of loose screws.

3) In class, I am teaching figurative language. I am letting you know so you don't seem to think that my frequent and strategic use of idioms is totally out of the blue. I am trying to use figurative language like T-Pain uses autotune.**

4) Re: class--it's going so so so so so so well. Maybe it's because I'm pumped up by #2 above, but even though I wake up exhausted, I get to school and have tons of energy and a great time with the kids. In their vernacular, it's off the hook.

5) And now, a metaphor--
Driving home from school today, I could feel the sunlight burning through the window onto my arm. To my surprise, it began raining and I could see lightening in the grey distance. I am always perplexed and amused by rain on a sunny day, especially when the drops seem to sizzle like water on hot oil as they hit the blindingly bright pavement. That is my life right now: there is rain, but it is outshone by the sun. Sure I get wet and have to turn on the wipers, but that changes neither the heat on my skin nor my high vitaman D intake.


* This is probably not a reasonable thing.
** I realized almost immediately upon typing these words the potential for my use/overuse of figurative language to be as obnoxious as the radio these days.

(500) Days of Summer

is a downer. Don't see it unless you want to feel emotions.

Today I sensed Forever. He is not, as feared, a jump into a black and endless pit; but rather he is reaching, reaching reaching, getting past your own fingertips, into blue steel grey.

I haven't known a place to have such a clear demarcation between cloudy and not cloudy; here, today, it is monster and not monster, the difference.


A little after crossing from Louisiana into Texas, I noticed it was there--the sky again a tangible entity above me. You know in elementary school PE, the day you play with a parachute? You get a chance to run underneath the billowing cloth while your classmates hold it up. And then above you something is breathing and the space is aglow with the red, turquoise light filtering through. You want that moment t
o last forever, before the fabric deflates around you, slowly and then faster and closer.
Driving into Texas, I didn't notice the parachute surging up, but suddenly I am under its blue blue blue. I cannot shake the sensation that it will collapse around me.

Today, the blue made way for grey. It is the shade of grey you feel when you hold thumb to thumb, finger to finger, pushing them together up and down. And it's as if you're rubbing your fingers against a sheet of metal when you do it long enough. It is Forever.

New Style Icon--Bloggling Superficiality

I went shopping today and happily I am past looking at only "teacher clothes." I'm secure enough about work/kids to go to school not necessarily dressed "like a teacher"; I want lightweight florals to take the role of pencil skirts in my current day-to-day wear. Part of this is because I will soon be moving away from the warmth of Texas and love the idea of having an expansive stockpile of summer dresses to adapt to the winter weather with leggings and boots and scarves and jackets. (Almost bought a faux-leather jacket today, by the way.)

As I looked past teaching clothes and towards winter clothes, I saw a little further towards the possibility of journalist clothes. The Rolodex of TV Journalists flipped through my head and I was disappointed at the prospect of matching pencil skirts and suit jackets with old lady necklaces.

However, the image of a prominent journalist from my
childhood suddenly appeared in my head, and I had my new style icon: April O'Neil from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Basically, I need a belted yellow jumpsuit and a pair of white leather boots as soon as I get out of graduate school and into the work force.
In all seriousness, a yellow windbreaker with the sleeves rolled up and some skinny jeans would be a hell of look for me. ASAP, at that.

Oh, and I need the white boots for sure.

New York Times, Orientalism, are you kidding me?

I'll be honest, Mr. Kristof, I didn't read all of your article The Women's Crusade, so maybe I don't have the right to criticize it. The thing is, I got so disgusted with its new-fangled orientalism, that I couldn't do more than skim most of the piece. I don't mean this to mean precisely what Edward Said meant by the term Orientalism, but effectively what he meant by it: the West portrays the East as an inferior Other, the Orient embodying all the awful that the Occident is not, creating a "system is not that it is a misrepresentation of some Oriental essence... but that it operates as representations usually do, for a purpose, according to a tendency, in a specific historical, intellectual, and even economic setting" (Said, Orientalism). The "purpose" being another reason for the U.S. and "the West" to continue its paternal push for cultural, political, and economic hegemony. Kristof does, after all, ultimately argue that the U.S. should throw money at women in developing countries to give them a boost, help them become part of the global economy. Remember how Jane Eyre decided not to go to India to help the Hindustanis? Remember how she had her own patriarchy to contend with? Yeah, exactly.

The article opens with the above photo of some dejected-looking Pakistani females. It goes on to explain how the woman was abused by her dead-beat husband until she got a microloan and made a ton of money embroidering. Now she "She exudes self-confidence... doesn’t even pretend to be subordinate to her husband." Then why the photo of her looking so godawfulmiserable? Because a vieled brown woman looking hopeless better serves your purposes? In a similar was as does describing an Indian girl as having "chocolate skin" and the African woman as having a "high forehead and tight cornrows". None of the American women in the really great article on women in the military are described with such painstaking physicality. There are photographs of the two women alongside the article and yet their exotic, swarthy physiques preceed their acheivement and ambitions.

What got me first and gets me most about the article, however, is that in their description of "a large slice of the world" where "girls are uneducated and women marginalized", any chunk of the United States where this occurs is not remotely mentioned. Of course, with me not being a complete idiot, I know that the United States wouldn't be in the scope of an article aiming to promote the spending American foriegn aid dollars on women and girls. That said, as an avid reader of the New York Times, I also know that doesn't often focus on the plight, the oppression, and oft-miserable situation of American women and girls. For example, a sidebar in this article declares that "there are 5 thousand honor killings a year, the majority in the Muslim world." Ignoring the fact that "the Muslim world" is a ridiculous notion (I'm Muslim; Paris has a ton of Muslims; India has a TON of Muslims and isn't remotely a Muslim country; etc); ignoring the fact that non-Muslim women die from honor killings (but it's implied that honor-killings are Muslim); I have yet to see the Nytimes mention that over 1100 women (about three each day, according the the National Organization of Women) in the United States are killed by abusive spouses or boyfriends. Considering that the vague notion of "the Muslim World" has a significantly larger population than the United States, I'd say it's ridiculous to harp on one (and oh, American news loves harping on honor killings, which are regionally and culturally defined) and not much mention the other. And speaking of political and legal systems that work against women (which of course exist sooo much in the Third World), just read this article, When Domestic Violence Laws Don't Work from O Magazine, and you'll see that we have one of them.

All of this is not to say, of course, that a lot of the awful sexist stuff that goes down in Third World countries isn't a bunch of bullshit that we should just let happen. It is just astounding to me how much awful sexist stuff goes down here that we just let happen. Why the constant outrage over honor killings and so little against domestic violence? Why so much focus on educating poor women around the world, and so little on making sure my female students feel empowered enough to make sound sexual decisions and become effective heads-of-household in the future (they're more likely to end up young, high school dropouts, unmarried with children)? For goodness' sake, the books girls eat up in this country, the Twilight series, are about a girl who choses marriage and a violent vampire pregnancy over college. Let's not even bring up the trafficking of women and girls being so epidemic around the world, when Shelbyville, Kentucky had its very own brothel of sex-slaves from Latin America. And we want to help other countries with gender egalitarism and female empowerment?

Again, this is not to say that Kristof or the New York Times are misrepresenting or wrong about the women they seek to help. I have no doubt I am significantly better off with my family in the United States as a woman than I would have been with my family in India. But had I been raised in India, with most any middle or upper class family, I'd be likely be better off, socially, academically, and economically, than if I'd been born into a coal-mining family in Appalachia. But I don't think these things warrant such comparisons because that's a slippery slope to racist, regionalist, classist, untestable generalizations. Well actually I'm already down that slope, but whatever.

Kristof writes, "Traditionally, the status of women was seen as a “soft” issue — worthy but marginal. We initially reflected that view ourselves in our work as journalists. We preferred to focus instead on the “serious” international issues, like trade disputes or arms proliferation." I think it's awesome the women's issues make front-page news. But not when it's only about the horrible conditions brown and black women live in around the world. Not at the expense of the man women lurking in our own attics. Again, it is orientalist that this happens--the portrayal of "Eastern" women as needing our help, as being ruled over by tyrants hasn't changed in centuries. It's an unreasonable and unwarranted focus, but its one that distracts us from our own problems.

I'm losing steam. It just makes me so mad.

"Atticus Finch and the Limits of Southern Liberalism"

This awesome article from the New Yorker is immensely worth reading. Gender and race in the South? A reference to Charles Dickens? Now these are a few of my favorite things.

Things I have recently observed...

1. Lightening striking the Sears Tower at night. There was a cracking noise and sparks!
2. Indiana, at times, smells like hotdog water.
3. A removed mountain top.
4. A crow of a rooster waking me up in the morning.
5. The taste of unwashed, Appalachian blackberries, as fresh as a bear would eat.

Omar Souleyman

The other day I heard Bjork on NPR. She oh-so-whimsically introduced me to Omar Souleyman, a Syrian musician. I could listen to his distinctly Arab take on techno probably forever. I don't know the name of the traditional stringed instrument you usually hear in Arabic music, but Souleyman replaces it with a synth. Further, as you see in this rock and roll video , another man often whispers lyrics in his ears, which are then added to the song.

In Bjork's significantly more endearing words:

When they are really warmed up and going for it at a good-times party, Harbi stands next to him on stage and chain-smokes. Then he will whisper poetry in his ear that he's writing at the moment. Omar will sing it immediately in the microphone and run around the room, exciting people there. I thought it was quite exciting for a poet and an emcee to work together.

The collaboroation, however, doesn't strike me as particularly innovative--I grew up watching qawalli videos with my dad, where they often write-sing poetry as they go. That said, those performers didn't wear leather jackets and aviators with their old school mustaches and dishdashas (they also didn't really wear dishdashas, since qawals aren't Arab). It's also a little like freestyling, except that Souleyman uses someone else's lyrics.

To summarize:
1) expect to hear the song "Leh Jani" on repeat in my precense and at my wedding. I might even try to get everyone to do the dance--it will be a "good-times party".
2) listen to Bjork on NPR's You Must Hear This; even if you don't care for Souleyman's music, her voice is so irresistably sweet and cute.

JT's Blog

http://www.justintimberlake.com/news/


Justin Timberlake's blog is full of actually interesting things. I'm not saying that because I am in love with Justin Timberlake. Particularly, I thought this was awesome. I've also decided that JT's song "Damn Girl" will play as I walk into my wedding reception. I don't care who it offends, because it'll be soooo accurate in reflecting everyone's thoughts at that very moment. (In case you don't want to hear it, it basically goes like this, "Damn girl, you're so fine" and "I said there something bout the way you do the things you do when you do the things you do its got me Oh! Oh! Oh!")


Wouldn't it be so perfect if he could be there singing it? Perfect for everyone but Neema.

China Patterns

I keep expecting that x or y about the getting married process will be fun or exciting, but so far everything's just frustrating. It's frustrating because everything about marriage is pretty conventional, which is frustrating because conventional
1) bores Neema,
2) tends to be patriarchal/capitalist,
3) is nonetheless unavoidable,
4) makes both our moms sooooo happy,
5) and is actually appealing, if only #2 didn't bug me so much.

I'm figuring out what needs to go on my registry. I thought picking things out that others will buy for me would be super exciting. Yet, I'm encountering a host of problems.*
I've mostly been focusing on dinnerware, and it's overwhelming.
1. The few things I really like are
a) seasonal or something, and therefore soon-to-be-discontinued
b) made to be used in the outdoors, and therefore plastic
c) for kids, not married adults


Puelba Dinnerware, Pottery Barn




Outdoor Dinnerware, Pottery Barn




Ceramic Animal Plate, Pottery Barn Kids



2. Honestly, I would just register for animal plates; but not only are they technically for kids, they are on sale. This means they're gone in a month or so. And I'm getting married next year. And no one in my family would buy kids' plates for me anyways. And they're $23 each. Why are plates so expensive? In class we would talk about how women of color often face multiple oppressions--an example being that of an African-American woman having to turn to a often-racist/brutal police force to report domestic abuse and risk sending another member of her community to jail. I'm oversimplifying it, nonetheless there is a parallel in my mind between the compacted oppressions many face in the real world and the compacted oppressions I face in the china-choosing world. This juxtaposition in my mind is a gross injustice against real injustice, but I can't help it.


3. I also really, really love this Medallion set from Target, which also is not likely to be around next year. I would have to register for a few sets of it (since I looooove having people over for dinner), and would likely have to get some plain white serving platters, bowls, etc. to go with it. I don't want to think about it much, though, again, because of the good chance I won't be able to register for it. It breaks my heart that it's so affordable/lovely/much like the unaffordable/lovely Hermes Balcons Du Guadalquivir collection:

A five-piece place setting (for one person) is $430. It astounds me that some people in this world can be starving and others can eat off of $125 dinner plates. That said, the 16-piece Target set at $50, I'm sure, is unaffordable and exorbitant for many. Further, given the option between my longtime if-I-had-the-money-and-the-conscience purchase, the Hermes Kelly Bag and the Balcons Du Guadalquivir, I don't know that I could choose.


4. Mostly only traditional (read: boring) china sets at places like Macy's and Williams-Sonoma don't tend to be only seasonal. I'm worried I'll have to settle and eat off of plain, white plates forever.

If so, I prefer some texture:
Pillyvuyt Basketweave Dinnerware, Williams-Sonoma




5. I'm not sure if these will/have been discontinued, but if not, what do you think of
Laurel Canyon by Kate Spade? I mostly like it because of the animal print involved. But will I like it when I get tired of animal prints? Will I get tired of animal prints? Would a boy like these plates? To eat off of forever? Do I have to use these forever?



6. Can you believe that I still haven't covered like a ton of other stuff I need to register for? Linens and whatever.

7. I seriously just spend an hour writing about china patterns on my blog. Ideally, I would just have spent an hour at the flea market with Neema and picked one of each different plates/mugs/tea sets or whatever and eat off/entertain with that stuff. Pottery Barns makes me feel like that's impossible/ugly/not reasonable.

8. If I go all-white, could I get pieces from different collections to make it less boring?

9. Whatever I choose, I will probably break within a couple of days of receiving it. I am clumsy.

*Did I use 'host' correctly in this sentence?"

humidity

Oftentimes, the air, here in my home state of Kentucky, makes the sky different. While a Texan sky is a canopy, a summer Kentucky sky is a wet, warm blanket. The moisture creates a sort of dulling, obscuring mist that settles around everything. The sky no longer seems majestic, a strong still blue hovering above me; rather, it's a moist weight tucked in around reality. Although there is some comfort in being wrapped up, the heat is quickly stifling.

And mostly my mom does not run the air conditioning. I get very sweaty.

mangni

I had an Indian engagement party, mangni, on Saturday, making Neema and me officially official, or something. I took off my engagement ring before everyone came and Neema put it back on me when everyone was there. The Iranian part was when candy pieces were thrown at me without warning. They hurt a little but they also tasted delicious. I put a "traditional" Indian hat on Neema. Most of my huge family was there, laughing. It was lovely having the people who grew up in the same home, ate from the same hands, and slept on the same floors as I did, there with me.*

*I can't really decide how to puncuate or more clearly write this sentence. Suggestions?