two years too late

irritating how the ny times reveals all of this now:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/nyregion/31protest.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=nyregion

i was part of the whole anti-rnc protest movement; an exhausting week filled with cheering, shouting, screaming, friends getting arrested (and worrying over them until they got out)

this woman said it right: The system is a political system, not a permitting system, said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, one of the lawyers. The fact of the mayors involvement, the extraordinary lengths officials went through to justify it, makes it clear that free-speech rights are doled out based on politics and viewpoint, and thats clearly unconstitutional.

i hate sexual harassers

im sick of all of my runs being interrupted and disturbed by assholes who feel the need to honk their horn, lean out their car window and leer at me, stop walking and stare at me, shout at me, whistle at me, yell, "bend over" at me...among other things.

this post is a giant FUCK YOU to every sexual harasser. it's not a compliment; it's harassment.

We believe in diversity in America; we seem to include assholes in that definition

“Marriage is not about love. It is about a love that can bear children.” –Todd Akin, Republican Congressman (MO), calling for the House to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The measure failed.

So a couple who cannot bear children should not get married; a couple who is too old to have children should not get married; so a couple who love each other but do not want children should not get married?

Yes, we seem to never be lacking for idiots in our country.

it's quite awkward when...

someone is trying to date you and you are clearly not interested but they keep trying to hang out with you and etcetera and you are like, "really, must it drag on like this?"

yes.

or else i must be mean.

the funniest thing anyone has ever said to me when i was running...

as i was about to cross over the bridge to roosevelt island, a man starting singing to me, "let's get physical...physical...i wanna get physical...let's get physical" and i joined in for, "lemme hear your body talk..."

lissy, me and gram

i wish you could see my hair better in this picture

nearly two years ago, nothing has changed.

gentrification means forgetting about the people who lived there in the first place

while i really enjoyed all aspects of the art show, i tried not to be critical of the art; instead, appreciated it for what it was. most of the art really grabbed me, or if it didn't do that, it at least entertained and entranced me.

there was one piece of art whose artist's mission pissed me off. the exhibit was of photos being projected in a large scale onto the building next door. the theme was "yearbook" so there was a background in the photos (of a particular type of crushed fabric, something that i've never seen in any yearbook photos) and people appeared in sometimes yearbook poses, other times, silly poses. it didn't make me think of the yearbooks, actually. but anyway, i enjoyed the art for what it was.

the artist's statement really pissed me off. she said she's lived in bushwick since 2005 (so at the most, a year and a half) and she's been amazed at the creative changes in the neighborhood and the vibrancy of the artists since she's moved there and she used her yearbook project to capture these artists. (the east w'burg hood is somewhere i never would have gone six years ago; i went three years ago and it still wasn't the nicest, but slowly...) her tone in her statement irritated me. i dated a guy from bushwick (who was not white, like most of the people in his hood) and he was constantly complaining about what a terrible neighborhood it was, how it sucked everyone under, how he never wanted me to visit him there, etc. and this woman is glorifying the gentrification, the raising of the rents, and ignoring the people that live there--people that are traditionally people of colour while her yearbook photo project captured mostly white people. you have to acknowledge where you are. it's like i can't talk about my hood-- greenpoint-- without acknowledging the strong polish presence. my neighborhood has slowly become more gentrified since i first moved here six years ago and i like some of the things that this has brought--more young people, i have friends in the hood, more cafes, bars, restaurants, etc.--but i acknowledge the changes.

you have to acknowledge the creativity that already exists, the history, when you invoke something as powerful as a neighborhood. just becuase they aren't at the same studio as you or the same bars, doesn't mean they don't exist.

last night

yesterday i went to the art lab party for the bushwick arts project at 3rd ward in bushwick/east williamsburg. it was pretty cool; a lot of interactive art, some stuff that really blew my mind and other stuff i was like, "oh that's kinda cool." there were all these small rooms and studios filled with installations, a lot of interactive stuff (thus the viewer becomes part of the art, and by extension, an artist herself) and sometimes the artists were there which was really neat. one dj was playing this really crazy experimental electronica and had these images to correlate with it, which was nice but there wasn't space to dance--yet it wasn't for dancing, it was more for absorbing and feeling the art. i spoke with some of the artists, most who seemed really nice and earnest about what they did. upstairs, they had several different areas. one area had these djs with crazy visuals and really intense and unusual electronica--and when i speak of electronica, i don't mean techno you would hear at a club. it's this really rare and unusual stuff that combines sounds that are annoying and intense and it's more of an art thing than a dancing thing. still, we danced. in another room, people sat watching visuals on a huge screen, listening to again, eclectic electronica. the biggest room had djs playing bizarre electronica feeding off of outside sources--for example, a woman played on a gameboy and somehow the sounds in it were linked and influencing the music you heard. it was pretty rad.

that's what i like about new york; the conscious decision to include art as part of nightlife, art as a complete part of who you are.

my relationship with running is really going well

marathon training? well, our relationship is flourishing. i'm eating lots of carbs, fruit, veggies. i went on a two hour run today. i was hurting a bit at the end, but i feel good after a shower and brunch with rachelle. sure, dating is fun, but it is not happening for me, my ex is still in love with me (and let's not discuss my feelings for him), no one is interested in me--so running is quite a brilliant substitute. it's good for you, and makes a life-long partner. sure, maybe i'll have arthritis in 20 years, but i won't be breaking up at least with anyone.

from ms. hill

another night, slips away
in other words, I should say
there are no words, you should say
there are no words
another night slips away
in other words, I should say
there are no words, you should say
there are no words

(talib kweli)

bosnia, bosnia by june jordan

BOSNIA BOSNIA
by june jordan (an amazing poet, woman, essayist, activist, 1936-2002)

Too bad
there is no oil
between her legs

that 4-year-old Muslim girl and
her 5-year-old sister
and the 16- year-old babysitter
and the 20-year -old mother of that 4-year-old/that
Muslim child gangf raped
from dawn to dark to time become damnation

Too bad
there is no oil
between her legs

Too bad there is no oil
between Sbrenica and Sarajevo
and in-between the standing of a life
and genocide

Too bad
ther is no oil

Too bad
there in no oil
between her legs

the woman in Somalia
who weighs 45 pounds and
who has buried village elders and
who has buried village children

who weighed even less
than she weighs after so many days
of hunger gaping open
to the flies

Too bad
there is no oil
in South Central L.A.
and in between the beaten men and beatup woman
and in between the African and the Asian throwaways
and in between the Spanish and the English speaking
homeless
and in between the dealers and the drugged
and in between the people and criminal police
too bad
there is no oil

Too bad
there is no oil
between her legs
that four-year-old Muslim girl

Too bad
there is no oil
between her legs

breathing is a privilege

today i had an asthma attack at work. one minute, i was sitting there, listening to the discussion about a recent report that was released, fine. then suddenly i felt my lungs constrict, my throat seemed to close and i knew i wasn't getting enough air. i tried to calm myself but immediately felt like i wanted to cry--i often cry during asthma attacks uncontrollably. i ran out of the room (causing my boss to immediately ask after the meeting, "are you okay?") to my desk and took two quick puffs of an asthmatic's best friend, albuterol.

i sat at my desk, shaking, tears in my eyes that i refused to let free. i calmed myself down, slowly, trying to focus on breathing. breathing is such a beautiful, ! wonderful thing and most people i know take it for granted. me, i never do; i have had times where i thought i would never breathe again. so inhale. exhale. it's wonderful that right now i'm doing it and not even thinking of it.

after shaking at my desk for about fifteen minutes, i felt composed enough. i was done shaking, i was breathing again. i splashed some water on my face, and tried to do work, but still felt too scattered. i sat in my chair for the next ten minutes, sitting and breathing.

and enjoying my breath.

what i find hard to believe is how my asthma has gone from strictly exercise-induced asthma to full-blown asthma. i am addicted to many asthma medications, and cut myself off two of them--but i still am on two inhalers and one oral medication per day. it's a lot. my lungs hurt a bit now. i ran for 12 miles or more on saturday, and was fine. my asthma has not bothered me on a daily run in years--races it has bothered me in, but! not my regular run. speed play will hopefully prepare my lungs for th e marathon.

but please, as you are reading this, don't take that beautiful oxygen flowing so easily into your lungs for granted; there are too many asthmatics in this world who wish breathing was simple.

dating in nyc

peter and i were talking about dating in nyc after work today and i thought about it. it seems like one little mistake, you're fucked, you've lost it. half the time you don't know what you've done. like if you stepped on your boss's heel at work accidentally and lost your job; it's that serious, that hardcore. one slip-up, and it's over.

i do not want to enter this insane forcefield known as the nyc dating scene.

NOT NEW YORK

i went to not new york this weekend.

this is how i feel when i leave town: panicky, because it's not new york. pizza at four in the morning? they won't have it. a zillion people around you so you feel safe and never bored? got it. familiar and exciting things all the time? that's new york. i also think the whole trapped feeling stems from being outside of new york, if you want to go home, be somewhere familiar you can't: you're stuck someplace that's more than a quick cab or subway ride home. you're not in new york.

i went to port authority (which beats times square as my least favourite new york city place, but it's actually in times square, making it all the more suckier) and waited for a bus. i got on a bus and spent the next 5 hours 15 minutes squashed on a bus--an extra hour and a half than my timetable suggested. (vow to self: never take a bus after work leaving the city. the extra the train charged is worth it!)

when i got to not new york, MA, i felt strange. i went into a cvs...people looked so wholesome, so all-american, so suburban. cars driving, politely waving a car making a left in front of them, bland food, the friendly banter...how not new york.

i know you need to leave new york to really get it but sometimes i think there's the world...and there's new york. there's heaps of places (and you probably think of your town as the main thing, and then the rest of the world. i do the same for new york.) but no place is like new york. no place.

John Rechy Quote, from BENEATH THE SKIN ("Holy Drag!")

"Even greater hypocrisy is revealed daily now,w ith accounts of rampant child molestation, about the men who uphold strictures for others, men who continue to stigmatize homosexuals in an attempt to exorcise their own desires. During the 2004 presidential campaign, a number of priests apparently took time out from molesting children in order to decry as sinful a vote for candidates who suppported a woman's right to abortion."

excitement

she said to me, "you get so excited about these sorts of things." i thought to myself, "what else is better to get excited about?"

and then i realized: emotion, in all of its intense forms, is something to be experienced. yes, i am a bit over the top; yes. i live each moment to the fullest, to the total experience. for me, that is the ultimate excitement...and here i am, excited about a marathon in 16.5 weeks, another marathon in the spring, brazil next feb, a yo la tengo show tonight, a two-hour run on saturday, my bed with my cat at bedtime, a cool shower after a long run, a kiss on a street corner as the rush of bodies flies by--but no matter, the only thing that matters is that kiss.

those are the sorts of things that excite me.

what do doors and windows keep out?

"i hate screens. i had no screens when i lived in florence for a year. i realized that yeah, the bugs came in, but because you have no screens, they just fly out."

training for a marathon: a new way to experience life

i've been feeling like maybe my life is this pointless cycle lately: work during the week at a job i love, run around after work doing errands or grabbing drinks or dinner with friends, and weekends are filled with family time, shopping, and going to various bars, parties, events with friends. it's fun, and i finally have time to have a social life. but is this all?

i went to the complacent party on fri, then woke up early, did errands, went to ps1 for the summer warmup series, danced all day, and then went out with j to the misshapes party--i was so exhausted. drink specials ended at midnight so i ended up getting two drinks really close to each other--and they were strong. i felt exhausted and the music wasn't that great so i bailed at 1.30--j looked annoyed but i felt so ill.

this am i got up at 9.15, and went running for 1 hour: 14 min: 36 sec. my pace was slow, it was hot, but i'm so glad i did it. my body is exhausted; the run took a lot out of me. since then, i've showered, made and eaten whole grain pancakes, washed some dishes, and lazed, reading, importing various cds v made me into itunes.

but i'm thinking, "is this it?"

training for the marathon is going to give me some purpose, some grounding. late nights will not be as frequent as i need to get up at 6am (or earlier) to do some of my training runs. through running, i become more of myself, i learn about the world, i come to terms with things. it's my practice.

rain

she was drinking rain-flavored gatorade in a rainy bus station in a small town--"in the middle of nowhere," she liked to say. cars and homes and people filled the few square miles of the town, which was bordered by fields, mountains, and space.

"oooh, to have space," she whispered to herself, hugging her knees to her small chest. she had physical space with the land, but not from her life, her relationship.

she had started, though, started creating more space. she had turned off the phone, removed the battery, and threw it away. the battery she threw atway in a separate trash receptacle--"so it will be very hard." very hard for anyone to find her, to even get in touch with her.

distancewise, she was so close to the place she called home for so many years; but she was here, waiting for the bus, ticket in her pocket--she knew she was already miles from home.

and miles from their hearts.

and miles towards her own heart.

my favourite graffiti (on the bqe between the williamsburg bridge and the mcguinness blvd exit)

con$ervative
government

these late nights...

will these late nights, complete with alcohol, approaches by members of the same and opposite sex for romantic endeavors, cabs, subways, running all over in heels, screeching--will it ever end? is this what i want?