FightLikeAGirl

It's Alright, It's Alright, It's Alright

2009-01-22T22:45:00.004-05:00

Dar Williams' song "It's Alright" from her Promised Land CD album is rollicking along on my stereo tonight, and I find that, indeed, "it's all alright." After a first semester of graduate school in which I took a bit of a walloping and struggled to keep on kicking, I've found my stride here, in more ways than one. I actually love that phrase because when I'm feeling out of sorts, stressed, or a little lost I oftentimes walk great distances, and even though it is something I frequently do as someone who backpacks, it always takes a bit of walking and a bit of struggling before I finally find my stride.

Our second semester began last week, a fact I can hardly fathom. The way my graduate program works, the second semester blows into the summer (which is filled with research - for me, a summer-long trip to Asia), which blows right back into the fall. It feels a little bit like all that time is already lost to me, as I know the pace at which things will move once this weekend passes. But so it goes. Time always goes more quickly than I would will it to.

I reviewed my old blog posts earlier tonight, and was reminded of a friend I met this summer while working in Costa Rica. He was a videographer on the field research project with which I assisted, and we shared a bunkbed in a family vacation house out of which we were based. I had the luckless upper bunk, and every night after I stepped off his heavy duty camera box (locked by a heavy silver chain to the bed itself during our days in the field) and up onto the rungs of the bed, he would take a few minutes to scribble something in a small notebook before shutting the light and wishing me a good night.

Not known for my recalcitrance (not one bit!), I asked him what he was up to, and was caught very much off guard by his answer that it was his "diary." Now, this is not some skinny hipster boy, and not some soulful, introverted nerdy boy (at least not on the outside) either. This is a strong, rather attractive, outdoorsy type. The solid built, Nordic skiing, wrap-your-arms-around-my-chest-and-hang-on-little-lady, type of guy. Consummate professional, passionate about his craft, committed to nailing the shot. No way would I have guessed that under his pillow was a five year diary.

It turns out that his father and I believe grandfather before him had kept these diaries, scribbling down not what the day felt like, but mostly what happened, where, and with whom. He told me that his father had a diary entry for most of the days of his life, including his wedding to this fellow's mother, and the days he and his sibling were born. When the kids became old enough his dad shared what he had written on those life-changing days, and it was something my friend had always valued and respected. So there he was, 27 some odd years old this summer, a committed diarist, recording the days' events for his own recollection, if not public posterity. Come to think of it, there's a day or two I would be curious to read his thoughts on...

I thought of that little bound book of personal history today as I reviewed this site, mulling over a conversation with a friend about where and how we share our thoughts and reflection, and caught myself grinning (still!) at the story about Greg and Alaska, aching for the loneliness of the days after Paul (and there were so many), and cracking a grin at the fishtank story. Maybe my blogging quietly and infrequently over the last almost three years hasn't been the lackluster effort I've characterized it as, but simply an implicit acknowledgement of what I might have guessed - that in a big way, I'm telling these stories for myself. In which case, it's not a symtom of my failure that no one reads this blog (since I've not done anything to link it to anyone else), but a document that so far has existed for me, as a chronology of who I am.

But I do have stories I want to tell, and to have heard and more importantly read by others, and I spend countless and inappropriate hours pining for the courage to take the steps to make that happen. Sometimes it feels like I am made up of no more than a long series of sometimes endless stories. Maybe all of life is made up of such epic tales. In which case, we shouldn't hesitate to fail, or thrash, or struggle along the way, as I did last semester. Maybe some of the stories are about failures, and maybe their juxtaposition with the successes is what makes the latter shine so brightly in the telling. Maybe, maybe, maybe...

But tonight, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright. A new semester lies ahead. I spent the weekend in DC, and returned feeling refreshed and revived by the friendships and shared energies of conversations I have and had there. I've changed my advisor, I've interviewed for a scholarship. Everything is looking up, even as I remind myself to be cautious in celebration of little successes. And of course, as with all moments in which things look up, I've somewhat recently meant someone I could really care for, given timing, communication, mutual will and, perhaps, alignment of the cosmos. I really don't know if it's anything or if he wants it, and that's okay. The only thing that's for sure is that we will see, and time will tell - truths previous posts belie.

But it's alright, it's alright, it's alright. For tonight, I can wait.

The only way to it is through it

2008-12-13T01:22:00.003-05:00

My brother inspired me tonight. He has a blog he is working on that I just checked up on for the first time in awhile, and now here I am. I started this blog 2+ years ago this fall, but have only written a meager 2+ entries...but oh, where the world has taken me.

I am in the midst of final examinations in my program at Yale, in my first semester of a two year graduate degree that I (still!) think costs far too much money. It's been a stressful, hard semester - more so than I would like to admit. I re-learned things about myself as a student (horrible procrastinator) that I really would have rather forgotten, and I have found I am a very different student as an adult than I was as an undergrad. I think I should have expected that, and should have been prepared for it, but it caught me by surprise.

You can't do grad school like you did undergrad - it's harder, and more personal, and a bigger judgment on who you are and what you're made of. I feel deeply flawed today for not being done with this anthro paper from hell, which was due at 5pm. I had a little bit of beer for the first time in...I don't remember the last time I had a drink of any kind, actually...maybe since Thanksgiving? Drinking alcohol of any kind absolutely destroys my productivity, so I rarely do it at graduate school. As in, almost never. I did tonight, however, and it got me all off track. Now I'm sitting here in my dumb, overpriced Yale sweatshirt, eyes mostly closed with exhaustion, paper not done and simply awful, really, but cheeks warm from the beer, and soul a little lighter from the conversation.

Life is full of trade offs, I think. Sometimes you trade a good, heartfelt conversation with your roommates (about heartbreak, of all things) for a 25 page anthropology paper. Sometimes you know you should double-down and crank it out, but you just don't (or can't) care. I'm not sure if that makes me a bad person - I know it makes me a horribly lazy one. But I just think - this 25 page paper will not define me. No one but the professor and the teaching fellows will ever read it (25 pages is a stupid length to assign, for what its worth - I'll write up to 15 'cause you can publish it as an article, but 25? What a trivial length. Why not just assign us a book to write?) so I am still here. Staring at freaking Microsoft Word, wishing it would self populate with the details surrounding incorporation of women into community forestry in Southern Asia. But it doesn't, so I don't beat myself up over it. I just sit here, I do my best, and I write.

My motto falls somewhere along those lines, these days..."just do your best, in the time you have...and then move on". It's really all you can do. I think I learned this last spring when I was frantically trying to reestablish who I was before the Yale deadline, and had to resign myself to doing my best within the real time constraints of the situation at hand. I think its realistic, though. You never get the perfect amount of time, you'll never be able to finish all of your assignments, you'll never stay in complete touch with all of your friends. But if you can do your best, with the time you have...you should at least be able to sleep soundly at night.

On My Way Out

2008-05-05T18:15:00.004-05:00

Two in one day - how's that for exciting?!

Although my blog documents the decision-making process that led to me deciding to matriculate at FES this fall, this month, my last in DC, finds me a bit mired in nostalgia, with more affection for the city than I would generally like to admit to.

I have 26 more days in the 20010 zip code, 26 more days of my fantastically diverse neighborhood, with all the drama and problems that that encompasses. 26 more days of sitting on my shoddy back porch with the housemates, doing almost nothing at all besides enjoying the gorgeous DC spring. 26 more days of this fabulous cast of characters being my housemates, at all.

Of course, there are good reasons to leave, but it's easier to see the reasons to stay when you're facing your own certain departure, especially when the line, "this month, my last in DC," is so familiar.

As I've said or alluded to in previous posts, December 2007 was supposed to be my last in DC, and January 14 was supposed to be the day I tried not to cry while driving away.

Luckily for me (mind the change in perspective!), my then-boyfriend broke up with me, leaving me to reclaim my room in the group house I share with four others, reestablish ties with people, friends I thought I was leaving, and rediscover that, truly, I love DC.

Instead I stayed, and re-did all of those things, and accomplished a few new ones as well.

I learned to work from home, as a consultant, and manage my time better. I created a home office to work out of, saved up for and paid some big bucks for a friend's destination wedding (which was worth every cent), and made new friends. I followed up on barely-there friendships from my last 9-to-5 (or 6, or 7), and turned them into true friendships, and I learned a lot about myself as a person. Like that I'm just as strong as I thought I was and, in many ways, stronger.

I even came around to see the bright side of Paul breaking up with me, which is that I don't know if I would have decided to pursue the graduate school program to which I was admitted if I was looking the debt in the face with him by my side (he is profoundly debt-averse), especially since he wanted to go West, not North and East. But instead, I was able to take stock in my options, and decide to go North and East alone. (So there, Paul!)

But now after all these good and healthy realizations, the renewed direction and reinvigorated...EVERYTHING, I am leaving this base that has provided the foundation for all the self-defense and self-reflection I needed to do in the last few months, and I admit it's a tad scary. DC has been good to me. My friends have been good to me here.

So with 26 more days, what's a girl to do?

I want to go to the National Gallery and the Sackler, the museums I never got to. I wanted to go to the Hotel Washington rooftop restaurant and watch the sun go down over the National Mall, but late last week I found out it's been liquidated (oh, well). I want to go camping with my friends and do happy hours, and I want to walk around Columbia Heights more. I want to explore my neighborhood and meet more of my neighbors (belatedly, I know), and I want to dance with my girlfriends. I want to sit out on the back porch with my housemates wrapped in a comforter, tea on the wicker table in front of me, as I did yesterday, and do nothing in the company of friends.

For my last 26 days in DC I want to be still and content, and just be here, and not anywhere else.

I have loved DC.

My First Blog

2008-05-05T17:27:00.005-05:00

While procrastinating on work today I spent some time catching up on Feministing, one of my all time favorite Feminist blogs, and one which I have been reading for almost two years now, as I realized with a shock about a week or two ago. Feministing blogger Ann (a fellow DC resident - Hey-yeah!) had given props to another Feminist blog, Feminist Finance, which she recently discovered, and which I promptly read, enjoyed, and bookmarked under my blogs tab (where all good procrastinators go to die, or, at least, to find some interesting food for thought to power them through the long part of the afternoon).

While on the topic of Feminist Finance, the post I particularly enjoyed (on 'Marrying Debt') can be found here.

Finding a new blog I liked made me think a bit about my first one, and how I became interested in blogs altogether.

I know there's a healthy proportion of our population that don't do anything with (read, write, comment on, or discuss) blogs, but I think they have a lot of value. Although I was interested in blogging as an idea and a venue for writing (and for practicing writing), I probably wouldn't have ever become a blogger (albeit one who is thus far inconsistent, and as far as one can tell, unread!) or reader of blogs if it wasn't for the Washington Post and Bad Feminist.

Two years or so ago I read a Washington Post article on some vaguely feminist issue, and saw that the sidebar included a list of blogs that had recently commented on the piece. I don't think they have this functionality anymore (that, or I just haven't read the WaPo recently enough), because they probably realized they were driving some seriously valuable traffic away from their site. But the blog's name was "Bad Feminist," and the blogger was awesome.

Bad Feminist took some seriously, awesomely antiquated 1950's and earlier imagery and used it to spice up her blog posts, and posted about personal issues, in her own voice, in a direct and engaging way that inspired me. At a time when I felt a bit adrift in my own feminism, and relatively unsupported as an as-yet-unconnected (read: newly arrived) feminist in DC, Bad Feminist made me feel like I was not the only one wrestling with many of these ideas, or ascribed to the values that are to me what feminism is all about.

It is ironic, then, for me to recall that Bad Feminist was some level of Yale student, as I will soon be, and saddening that she eventually closed up shop, and stopped blogging. I keep her on my blogroll as a kind of tribute, and also for the other blogs she exposed me to.

From the Bad Feminist blogroll I eventually branched out to discover Feministing, F-Words, Broadsheet (for which I have some serious love and respect), Bitch Ph.D., Pandagon, Feministe, and many others, and started to develop an interest in blogging, myself.

That I would continue to discover new blogs by moving from these more well-established bases, and that this process would continue to unfold, has been exciting, as I love the moment when I read a new blog and something clicks. I know not all blogs will hit home with me (of the ones listed above, Feministing, F-Words, and Broadsheet have been nearly daily sources of information and inspiration for me), just as I know not everyone will like my writing, or my little blog project. Some people might think writing about personal experiences, and in the first person, is boring. But I like personal experiences, and I enjoy learning that my own experiences are common to others - it's reassuring, surprising, exciting, and validating.

I just hope that at least a few people will find my blog worth a read, once in awhile, and that I will continue to develop my voice, much as I have watched these other ladies develop theirs.

Indecision 2008

2008-04-15T00:00:00.002-05:00

I forgot to mention...

I finally made up my mind! :)

Free, With a History

2008-04-14T22:34:00.010-05:00

Ryan Adams wrote a beautiful song called "Harder Now that it's Over," which I listened to perhaps a dozen times a day when Paul first broke off our relationship. Feeling mellow tonight, I put on the playlist I created when our relationship ended, and let myself look through some of the old GMails I found while double-checking that my 2007 tax returns were definitely submitted and received (and they were).

Love is so funny, is all I can come up with. My GMail account is the story of my life in Washington, and in particular is the story of my many loves. Not all true loves, not by a long shot, but loves in the way that I was filled with love by the experience.

I scanned past the early history of my and Paul's relationship - there was so much love and silliness throughout, that it still sometimes takes my breath away that it's over. Even in my emails, you can tell that I never saw it coming.

Before Paul was BB, the crazy one, the one no one (least of all me) understood. Charming yet demeaning, he didn't last long.

And prior to BB was PP (love those alliterative boys, don't I?), the college boyfriend who set me free to do what I already knew was right by cheating on me my very first weekend here in DC, when I didn't even know enough people to mourn with. I had briefly written that he broke my heart in the previous sentence, but that is untrue. He set me free. And when I doubted my freedom six months later, and contemplated reuniting with him, I broke his heart.

How revealing, though, to read those exchanges, and to mull over the little elements of truth that emerged over the years, and how those elements became molded into something bigger, and stronger, and unavoidably integral to my person as I worked harder and harder to face my own truths, in love, work, and otherwise. I feel like I owe GMail one for still being able to be a witness to that.

I am amazed to realize that it has taken me three months of mourning everyday to be able to resign myself to Paul's having left. Had I been told before that I would be so deeply effected, I may have believed it, but I could never have imagined what that would mean. I feel like I spent the last three months living in a very dark cave, and struggle to remember feeling joy at all throughout that time. It makes me feel stuck in the dark even to try to recall how I passed the days.

I still feel sad about Paul several days a week, now, but the change from the all-encompassing sadness of late winter is so drastic that I feel light, and...joyous, even while I am sad, these last few weeks.

And yet today was a sadder day than has been my norm, of late, because yesterday my housemate Judith and I went for a long, unutterably hair-brained bike ride (my idea), which ended in cold defeat, on the side of a small highway, in the dark. And somewhere in there, I thought of Paul, and what he might think of me were he to see me, and I carried that curiosity into today. I still think about whether he would be proud of me, although I know he is no longer thinking anywhere along the same lines. I still wish for him to be proud of me.

And yet there was a bit of happiness in that, too. My other housemate, Ben, came to pick us up in his car (hence our static presence on the side of the parkway), good-naturedly coming out after nine to rescue his outlandish housemates. And when I saw his profile lit up by a passing car as he pulled up next to us, I felt this little stir of something. A crush, perhaps? Excitement and fondness, and perhaps a small amount of pleasure or - better put - desire.

I was glad to see him in part to get out of the cold, but there was more to it than that, so I stepped up to give him a hug and it turned out to be warmer and longer than I might have imagined or intended. When we parted to grab the bicycles, I found I instinctively wanted to reach for his face with my hands and very tenderly kiss it, very differently than I might have wanted to in the past. The feeling of it warmed me up, so perhaps that may bring something worthy of a good look forward.

And, hence, the title. I find myself free, but with a history.

Entrenched

2008-04-08T22:58:00.002-05:00

I almost fell off the wagon (again!) but I'm back. I've been entrenched in the busy-ness of mid-twenties life: after returning from Easter in NJ I worked a few days, and went for a solo backpacking trip to Shenandoah National Park, the 'Delaware Water Gap of Virginia,' with the hope of figuring out what to do about Yale. I came back a few bumps and bruises (and one decidedly illegal campfire later) raving about what I had realized about Yale and money (hint: I was more interested in prioritizing the former than the latter), but have since vacillated on my decision several times. Let's call it "Indecision 2008," shall we?

So I worked another week, and blasted straight into one of my all time favorite people's bachelorette party. My very good friend from High School is getting married at the end of the month, and in so doing makes herself my first close, long time friend to take such a step. Debauchery and deep feminist conversation ensued (of course!) and I am glad to say I am better for it.

There are several things I want to talk about, tomorrow, when I'm a little less buzzed and a little more cogent. So let's list them, and that way I'll feel obliged to follow up.

1. Hillary Clinton - I saw her speak at the Daughters of the American Revolution Hall, and she was really, truly, excellent.
2. Backpacking solo - How my trip went, creating "an intention for my practice" (hello, Yogis!), and the amazing people you meet on the trail.
3. The Bachelorette - what it is to watch someone you love get married, especially after a painful breakup.
4. Saturday night - the amazing, incredible group of women and our discussion on Saturday night, after the wine tour/hot tub combo.
5. Beatings on the metro - when I boarded my metro car this morning, a man was being pulled off by a cop for beating his female companion. Last week, I saw a woman on some kind of drug pee in her seat, before being pulled off by a less-than-savory character, whom I've wondered about the intentions of ever since.
6. The new documentary on Rape in Congo, which aired tonight on HBO, not that I have a TV. Thoughts on rape as a tool of war, on fear, on gender, and on men.

And with that, I'll call it a night. More tomorrow. For real!

Money Trouble

2008-03-24T21:10:00.002-05:00

Tonight I finally got my financial aid package from Yale. Or I should say, my estimation of debt package. I'm delighted to be admitted to Yale, I really am...but I struggle with what the point is if I can't even dream of affording it. For what Yale estimates the cost will be to me over the two years I would attend, I could put a down payment on a (good) house. For a Master's degree in an environmental field, which everyone knows does not pay itself back, like a JD or an MBA would.

That's really all I've got for tonight. How can you tell someone who grossed barely over $30K last year that they should be able to pay almost $10K out of pocket? How can you expect them to pick up $50K of debt over the next two years (and that's just for the nine months of the school year)???

I am mystified. What happened to the cost of education in America? Are we INSANE to even discuss paying this much for a two year degree in a field that, like all altruistic fields, will only ever pay just enough to live on? How could I even possibly dream of paying that $50K back, on top of the $10K I owe from college (after the $5K I've already paid)??

Maybe they should do our financial aid estimates before they admit us. That way we can look at the numbers, sigh, and say, "Oh, nevermind. I'd rather have housing."

This is nuts. That's all I've got for tonight. This is nuts.

Protracted Feelings of Loss

2008-03-23T22:38:00.003-05:00

Happy Easter to any who may stumble upon my little forays into blogging.

I spent this weekend visiting my first college roommate in New Hampshire, spending a night at her apartment, a night at her parents' (wonderful, cozy, homey) farmhouse, and then returned to my native NJ, to join my mother's side of the family for Easter dinner.

I am not, generally, so much a fan of Easter as I am a fan of family. I am a true, confirmed, comfortable atheist. I have now come through loss and death in the family, and remain atheist, and so feel comfortable that it will stick. I only wish Atheist didn't sound so dark, so hopeless. I find it honest, not untruthful.

To the point, however - today was a different kind of Easter. We, the 20-30 something generation, have birthed two babies this last year, and this was the first holiday that my little second cousin (and her cousin - my third cousin??) were old enough to do more than burp. Which is to say, they wiggled and kicked, and in one case, did so quite vigorously

The afternoon's entertainment are 8 and 5 months, respectively, and it was...weird. There was almost no adult conversation (whatsoever), with the exception of a quick insertion by my uncle about his finding Bear Stearns to be a sleazy company in his professional experience, and even that was aborted when one of the babies did something exciting...like raising a leg. Or burping. Or drooling. Or all three.

I, who don't want a baby, and finally just told my mother that the subject of children was a defining point in Paul's decision to terminate our relationship, was handed a baby by my wonderful cousin-in-law, the proud (ridiculously, sweetly proud) father. I haven't held a baby (before theirs at Thanksgiving and then Christmas) since my less-fearful youth, when I babysat. So not for about...8 years.

My cousin-in-law wanted to help his wife clean up and set up (they were hosting - I have no idea why we let the new parents host), and turned, smiled, held out his child, and deposited her in my arms while I sat at the dinner table.

I'm not sure how to describe what happened next. It moved me. This beautiful (crying) little baby wiggled around and looked up at me, then out the window, then at my father (who was making old-man-gaga-for-a-baby faces - you know the type), and then back at me. And I started to bounce her gently, and smooth her hair while leaning her head on the soft part of my shoulder...and she stopped crying.

I am not an instant convert. A fairly consistent, even, and logical person, I am not someone who will be instantaneously smitten by a sweet-faced child, although I think my cousins' daughter is beautiful. It's what comes after the baby (the toddler, the child, the preteen, the teenager) that I am wary of, and it is the concessions that all of the women I know have made, that make me dread motherhood. I don't want to lose myself in the mix of childbirth, of motherhood. I don't want a husband that goes to work while I stay home, and I don't want the grass is greener resentment I've seen such bifurcation of responsibilities yield. I don't want to live a life that ends up looking like that.

But while I held the baby today I had such a moment - I was really deeply moved. And with a sudden jerk she swung her head back, and then forward, and planted her little mouth firmly on the small amount of breast showing above the line of my shirt. And that moved me too. It wasn't strange, or confusing, or peculiar - I felt as though, were she my child, I would be capable of fluidly, effortlessly feeding her, that I knew the steps without ever having practiced them, without ever having thought about how it's done. I don't know how better to express it - I was moved.

But then came the loss. Paul loved babies, and I had looked forward to the day we would be able to visit my cousins, and he could play with them. I wanted to show him that maybe I wasn't missing some piece of what he thought was important in a woman, that I too can make silly faces at children, can love them, even if I don't want them. I think I had secretly hoped that Paul and I would visit my cousins and their baby, and I would be moved, and I would discover something in myself that was deeper and more primal than my politics, my goals.

And so when I was moved, although it was not towards a desire for motherhood, I reached my head around to show him, to share the moment and the pride of connectedness - and he was not there. Was not there and won't be, and I am alone.

Even now, hours later, in the last moments of Easter, I wish I could reach out to him and share. I miss him.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

2008-03-19T23:02:00.003-05:00

The amount of time and activity that has passed between each of these all-too-weak blog posts is embarrassing, and amazing. I am constantly in a state of surprise at how quickly the time passes, even while seeming to drag along. I constantly wonder what it is I am racing towards, and if, when I get there, I will feel as if I missed some important part, some space that was supposed to be populated by a deep breath, some fresh air, a renewed sense of self, and an actual decision about my future.

Decision-making has become more important to me, as of late, because in January I lost the ability to make decisions, and became a bystander to my own...fate, for lack of a better word.

When I last blogged, I was in love. Terribly, wonderfully, totally taken with it, in love. I actually (I blush a little typing this) didn't know love could feel that way. I didn't know how deeply I could be consumed by my affection for another person, how completely it would permeate all the different layers of the person I thought I was.

And as a result, I couldn't begin to understand how badly it would hurt me if I lost it, which I did. In December, the man I love(d?) returned from two months in Mexico, to a version of myself that seems remarkably distant, and ended our relationship, in a fiery showdown in a hotel lobby, two weeks before I moved to Minnesota to be with him.

It almost reads like a movie, but it wasn't, and it was heart wrenching. It still is heart wrenching, every day, and I'm still trying to work through it. But as I recover, or perhaps rediscover myself -isolated from the large whole into which I had so happily and unwittingly been subsumed, I am trying to return to that list of things which "I've always wanted to try." And this blog is one of them.

I lost decision-making capability on another front in January, as well. In the day before Paul and I finalized our break up (I resent the use of 'I' as an actor in this sentence), I submitted a single graduate school application - to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, a program about which I cared passionately, until Paul came home from Mexico, at least.

On that front, I am pleased to discover that my decision-making capacity has been restored, at least temporarily - I find myself admitted to Yale for 2008, although I'm not sure I can enroll without taking due time to mourn, some more, and to find myself, first.

So that's where I've been, and that's why the title. I was off between a rock and a hard place.

Let's Try this Again...

2007-10-29T14:14:00.000-05:00

It's been about a year since I posted on this blog, and I'm not really sure where the time went. My old posts lacked formatting and a main thrust to hold them together, and so, after reviewing the content last fall, I decided I should hold off for awhile before putting anymore time into it.

A year later, I still love the name of this blog, and I still want to do it, if only for the opportunity to actively continue writing and to interact with others about my ideas.

The plan is to do a business style strategy of what the point is, and take it from there. Hopefully there will be better formatting, more utility, greater 'thrust' (a great word), and a closer correlation to the subject matter being covered in the blogs I love - Feministing and Broadsheet among them.

I'm going to try to do this while applying to graduate programs (whew!!) but I think I can make it learn. Turns out this year I finally learned to multitask!

See you all soon, after I get this sucker in motion. ;)

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Bring on the Rain...

2006-09-28T21:04:00.000-05:00

It seems that awhile ago there was a country song about a woman coming through tough times in love. I've done that recently, but to my great pleasure, I seem to have come through largely unscathed. I'm not one to write about my previous lovers, at least not often, but I may get around it it eventually.

I'm more interested in bringing on the rain in a literal sense, though. Tonight DC is soaked with rain, the kind that comes hard enough to permeate the solid pack of the soil and seep down fair enough that the grass finally gets its moment in the sun (or the rain) and can squish under one's feet.

I came home from work a few hours early today, wracked as I was with incredibly painful menses cramps. Menstruating has always been impossibly painful for me, and at 2:30 pm I found myself doubled-over in my cube, chin barely held above the desk of my little cubicle desk, pushing my knuckles deep into my abdomen in an effort to change any aspect of the waves of pain emanating from within.

It sounds a little strange, perhaps, but the power and implication of menstruation blows my mind. To think that women have all this strength inside of us, as well as the inherent ability to carry a living creature within our expanded abdomens - is that not phenomenal to contemplate? I don't think that I want to have children, but it is mind-boggling to me to think of the loss of blood and bodily tissue that ensues every month that the female body is not pregnant, and to think of the clockwork with which it occurs. I am very interested in science and in the natural world, and I find menstruating an oft-overdue reminder of our very status as members of the Animal Kingdom. We can pretend we're not, but there is nothing like the pain of menses to remind me that we're only in control of so much, and the rest is in our evolution.

At any rate, after attempting to continue my boss' upcoming magazine article and failing miserably, I inquired with my coworker in regards to leaving early, sent out an e-mail, and left. One seeminly-undending bus ride later and I was walking in my front door. I went straight to bed and slept an exhausted sleep, giving my body the full indulgence it needed to devote all my energies and attentions to the effort involved in menses, and woke up 2 hours later feeling calmer, soothed, and well-rested.

But best of all, I woke up to the sound of raindrops pinging off my air conditioning unit, my single window darkened with the grayish light of storm clouds. Rain. I have loved a good rainstorm since college, when I would sit out on my cooperative home's wide front porch, cup of tea in hand, and watch the storm move up and across the NY State Finger Lake that still feels like home. Rain to me is reassuring, cleansing, and a little blessing from nature urging me to stay inside, curl up, stay warm, be dry, and relish the moment.

I have favorite rainstorms, such as the one where my ex, P, and I stood out in the front as it pounded down on that same co-op in college, and reveled in the coziness, and the lush green that resulted, while a friend in his full raingear meandered down the road. There was the rain I danced in senior year of college, when P wouldn't accompany me (he didn't want to get dirty), but his mom told him if he loved me he would (it's true). Another rainstorm in college brought the tail end of a hurricane up our lake, and the dog I walked for $30 a week and I ran down over the high edge of road, towards the lake, to watch a literal wall of water come flying up the lake toward us, whipping my hair around my face, and causing massive branches to drop from trees, only to stall in front of my eyes, dissolving back into the lake as so many rain drops falling from a storm front that was no longer there. I love rain.

There was great rain in Alaska, too. I had the great providence to go backpacking in Denali with a dear friend for a week last fall, and it rained the entire time. I had a brand new backpacking tent which I swore up down and around would be big enough for the two of us - and it wasn't. We spent four days listening to the constant fall of diminuitive raindrops as we traversed two valleys of the beautiful land that is Alaska, during shoulder season. Luckily for us, we had good raingear, having just spent a summer living and working on the North Slope, but we spent the week feeling damp and cooking, eating, and living in the rain. At one point, cramped in our tent, wet raingear stuffed down deep into our sleeping bags (to bake it dry with our body heat), I just rolled over from where I had been reading, and began to laugh hysterically. My friend Greg's nose dripped incessantly, we both smelled awful (I, of course, opined that he smelled worse), and the rain showed no sign of stopping. We were camped high in a divot between two small peaks, next to a stream, and unbeknownst to me, the next morning the rain would turn into a light snow. I'm grinning just thinking about it.

On that particularly trip we feasted on a lunch of smoked cheddar cheese (Greg likes to eat well, as I do, while backpacking) and pita bread, and I remember the two of us crammed together on a hillside at midday, smushed behind a rock around which the rain flew horizontally, like a hail of bullets in an action movie. I raved that the pita and cheese were "seriously, Greg, the best thing I have EVER eaten!", and stood up at intervals, cheeks red with the cold, to turn and face the rain, allowing the little drops to hit my face like so many pinpricks before I collapsed down next to Greg again, giggling and hysterical with the sheer fun of it. My favorite picture was taken immediately thereafter, on the afternoon of our last day, as I stood in the front of the distant finger of a receding glacier and did my best to pose as if I were a great adventure, about to strike off into the unknown. The photo is dark with the cloudiness of the day, off in the distance my raingear is dark blue (making me hard to see), and there are visible raindrops on the camera lens.

To anyone else, it's a pretty poor picture. To me, it's everything I loved about life in Alaska, that week, that trip, and Greg. It's beautiful.

Tonight, however, under the garish city lights of Washington, DC, the rain presents no such challenge. Instead of journeying off into the wilderness or up the glaciers, I flopped down the stairs in my fuzzy black slippers, ten-year-old stretchy PJ pants, and a sweater that was my grandmother's, and I made myself first hot chocolate, and now a minty tea. I've camped out in our warmly-lit living room, on the couch just inside the picture window, so that if I crane my head back I can see the wet leaves of the trees illuminated by streetlights struggling to cast a beam of light sufficient enough to see the sidewalk. A bit of minty tea in a mug from my college, Aretha Franklin's Greatest Hits on the radio, and the comfort of my long-departed grandmother's sweater embracing me in its warmth and I am happy.

There is something to be said for the nights when you know with certainty that there isn't anywhere, in that moment, where you'd rather be.

Women for Women

2006-09-27T21:11:00.000-05:00

I've been away from blogging for a bit, but I don't think I'm giving up on this yet. I think a lot about what I'd like to talk about in a blogspace, and I'm getting to a point where it's fair to say I read a number of blogs. I stopped blogging because as I finished my second to last post, back in June, or something, the man I had just started seeing walked into Sparky's, the little coffeeshop where I used to like to write, and I sped up my typing in an effort to close the laptop before he could get a glimpse of my Blog name. I didn't want him to see it. I wanted to be able to write about him, and us, and who I am when we share space.

Well...he saw the page, I stopped blogging for fear he was reading, and I haven't had the time or the space to blog for awhile. Except as of Monday, there's no more blogging about him, because I finally ended what should have been taken care of months ago, probably. He was a lot of fun, though, so I let it go for a bit longer than I should have. He won't be checking this page anymore, though (I doubt it would have even occurred to him, actually)...so I guess I'm back.

***********************************************************************************

Earlier this evening as I headed out of work, I contemplated staying late in order to attend a talk being given in my building's auditorium. The talk was in regards to a book released this past week called, "The Other Side of War: Women's Stories of Survival and Hope," and was authored by Zainab Salbi, co-founder of Women for Women International.

As I was leaving I ran into a fellow intern and a new hire, both of whom were planning on attending the talk, and got dinner with them instead.

I'm so glad I did.

One of my favorite things about living in Washington is having the opportunity to attend lectures much as I did in college, and to leave afterwards much as I did in college - mouth agape, heart in my throat, wondering if I'll ever live up to my own expectations, wondering if I'm even really living, or living my life right, at all.

The first thing I noticed at the talk tonight was all the hair. I entered after the event had begun and sat in the back, and ahead of me was a sea of hair of all types, black and brown and one shocking white and curly, a little old lady hunched down in her seat. Women of every color and type, including every type of hair. It's always so beautiful to see women gathered together in support of something bigger than, outside of themselves, coming to learn from and listen to the stories of other women who have suffered, but found strength despite that suffering.

In noticing hair, however, I also observed a notable lack of men's hair. Maybe I'm oversimplifying a bit, but doesn't it seem strange that most men don't see fit to prioritize events that feature women? "But it doesn't pertain to them," some argue. "It's an event especially for women." Right.

Because women's suffering, and survival, is a women's issue, not a human issue. And because genocide is a woman's issue, and rape, that most terrifying of all tools of war, is just a woman's issue. Right, right. I forgot.

I have a friend, a male friend, who doesn't like the term "feminist." One night we got into a heated discussion about why I call myself a feminist, and why I call him a feminist. I don't hate men (he clearly knows that, being one himself), so he couldn't understand why I'd claim the term. You're not a "feminist," he said. You're a "humanist. You believe in egalitarianism."

Well, no kidding.

To which I replied, "no, see, that's just it. Feminism fights for equality. It is about equality. It's just that women actually have to fight, daily, just to be treated equally. that's why I'm a feminist. I believe women should be treated equally to men."

Now for the topic at hand. Women's experiences are considered a feminist topic - women as victims of torture, or of rape, or as making up approximately 80% of refugee camps, are considered to be a women's issue. But just because the stories are of the experiences of women, and are spoken from women's hearts, with women's words, does not make the topic of women and war a feminist issue. Women's experiences surving genocide and war tell a story about humanity, and oftentimes a lack thereof. It is a humanist issue - it is a human (and human rights) issue.

Learning to Blog is the Hardest Part

2006-06-15T13:17:00.000-05:00

Learning about blogging has been way more complicated and time-consuming than I had ever previously anticipated. Granted, the Blogger folks make it pretty much a no-brainer, but then again I just spent 45 minutes trying to figure out why my font changed midway through the draft of my most-recent post (turns out when I went to edit the HTML the font size had been reduced to 85%. Oh, obviously!

So for the moment, all my fun and creative ideas, as well as ideas I've borrowed from other blogs in regards to format, fun and function will have to wait. At least I got the font size uniform...right?

I also want to mention that I have a really, really hard time being succinct (I know, you're shocked). One of the goals in having this blog is for me to learn to tell part of the story without beating people over the head with every little detail (or, worse, having people not read the posts because they're just WAY too long!

So my apologies for the lack of brevity, and if you know how to do it better, please feel free to enlighten me...I can use all the help I can get!

"It Smells Like a Fish Tank in Here!"

2006-06-11T19:49:00.000-05:00

I currently rent a room in a small rowhouse in an "up and coming" neighborhood in the wonderful city of Washington, DC. As this is my first year in DC/out of college/finding my own housing, there have been some bumps along the way, mostly having to do with the little nuances of day-to-day life that I just never had to deal with while living in on-campus housing.

I would say, however, that overall I have had terrific luck with housing hereabouts, including finding my three fabulous housemates via Craigslist (keywords: progressive, activists, students - that's all it took!), and renting my furnished room in our beautiful rowhouse for a not-too-bad $650 a month.

Of course, living in a rowhouse, even a recently renovated rowhouse, has its pitfalls. One of the problems with DC's booming housing market is that lots of folks decide to invest in property, buy rundown homes, and "flip" them in a rapid renovation process, such that it's not too unusual for the externalities to look fabulous (in our case, lofted ceilings and shiny wood floors), while the insulation or heating system or other super-important-yet-not-immediately-apparent internal components get neglected.

Case in point: our second floor toilet, which is overly sensitive to just about everything that gets sent its way...and after having the fabulous and funny plumber come and lift the entire toilet off the floor for "snaking" not once but twice in one month(!), we finally realized/were told that the plumbing had not been installed at the correct(universal toilet-plumbing) angle, and that in order to prevent him from continuously showing up at the house and putting our toilet on plastic bags out in the upstairs hallway, it was our mission to prevent any and all female visitors from flushing sanitary products, and to prevent everybody else from flushing just about anything else.

::sigh::

With this in mind, funky smells, sounds, and/or bubbling wallpaper in our little Failed State are not that unusual...

But this week was an exception to the norm.

For the last week or so, my room has had this vaguely funky ...odor to it. We only recently put the Central Air on, AND my room is the smallest, AND I didn't have a fan, AND I was away for the weekend with the door shut the entire time...so at first, I didn't quite freak out. I just assumed that something in my room was musty, that I had gotten rain in the room and that when the weather warmed up a bit it got a tad funky, etc, etc. I made up excuses. Eventually, though, the funk was getting a tad overpowering. I'd open my door or walk into my room, and I'd want to close it again, so I started poking around. My room is about 10 x 14 sq ft (and I'm probably being generous), and I generally am over the top about keeping it clean (not tidy)...but I wondered if I had left food in the bottom of my trashcan (which I never do), or something of that nature.

But it got so bad last week that I called my housemate, N, into the room, and asked him to take a deep breath, and tell me if he thought it smelled funny. Now there are good stories about N and I and an ongoing discussion as to whether there are squirrels on our roof or whether I'm imagining things...but we'll save that for the "Squirrels" blog entry.

So my housemate comes in and I have my newly-acquired-$52-that-was-supposed-to-be-$30-on-sale fan blowing, and he says it's a little funky, but not too bad. I protest that that's because of the fan, but then he looks pointedly at my soccer bag with a little smile on his face, and speculates that the funkage might be originating therein. It wasn't, but it inspired enough doubt that I gave up on trying to persuade him...maybe I was imagining both funk and squirrels.

In the days that followed I became increasingly antagonized by the smell, and left my fan on constantly. I'd get home at night and move things around, sniffing all the while, probably looking like a complete nut to all the world outside my windows (and indeed, a good percentage of the neighborhood can see in my windows, as my room is off the back alley/backyards). I sniffed up and down, sniffed my mattress, my carpet, my pillows...everything. No dice. Everything smelled but nothing smelled like a legitimate source of the funk in question.

The other day I finally couldn't take it anymore, and I had my other housemate (the owner of our house), M, come into my room to take a whiff. He and I sat on the bed just breathing, giggling and looking at each other as he wrinkled his face in disgust. "It smells like a fishtank in here!"

We proceeded to take turns poking around some more, sniffed, speculated on the air conditioning vent, the old heating grate, the storage space in the ceiling. He offered to hire a contractor (M is notorious for calling a contractor to do anything from the most basic weather-stripping to installing a complex new wrought-iron fence...he's big on the calling of the contractors, but it's very endearing)...and yet he made the astute point that he couldn't exactly call and say, "Yeah, hello, Ahmed? FLAG's room smells like a fish tank...can you come over???" So he shrugged, we laughed, and ten minutes later he brought me in his little bowl of aesthetically-pleasing but completely useless potpourri. Right.

Ultimately, this weekend, after a long Friday night out playing and barhopping in Adam's Morgan, a good guy friend of mine stayed over, and the two of us crammed into my twin bed (a blog post waiting to happen)...and before I opened the door to my room I apologized profusely for the stinkage. Then I opened the door, and we were both knocked out by the stench. He couldn't help but comment on it, I was embarrassed, swore it wasn't me(!)...and I resolved to fix the stench this weekend, even if I had to open the wall grate. Luckily for me my friend was polite nonetheless, and let's just say we toughed it out...and found other distractions to pass the time.

Today, however, was the day. I was going to find the source of the stink. I figured I'd vacuum the hell out of my room, I'd move everything around, I'd dust, I'd wipe the surfaces...and even though my room was already pretty clean.no stone would go unturned.

So I took off the sheets, and I vacuumed, and I moved everything around and I was mostly ready for everything and anything (or so I thought). I live in DC - it's a city, there are roaches, spiders, all kinds of fun creepy crawlies, and I'm finally getting used to just pulling out the Raid and moving on with my dad. But today in the midst of cleaning I grabbed my suitcase, which was previously wedged between my desk and my dresser (my room is tiny), and I haul it out of the way without a thought, put it behind me, grab the vacuum, and turn around to see that there is a Dead Mouse, curled up into a fetal position as it was when it died, rotting under the spot where the suitcase was located, up again my desk. And I can't help myself - I scream. I scream, I jump onto the bed, I do what I would generously call the "Ewwwy" dance, wherein my knees come up and I prance around the room wringing my hands, whining "ew ew ew ew" over the whine of the vacuum cleaner, which is still on in the corner. I was, to generalize my reaction along society's traditional gender lines, "such a girl." (I hate this saying, but it's what I'm trying to get at in this long-winded intro).

At first, I couldn't bring myself to look at it, I couldn't bring myself to try and move it, because for all I knew, it was still alive and dying. I just didn't want to look at it. Generally a "tough" girl, generally not phased, and someone who likes to look out for the well-being of the people I love, there I went, running into the hallway where I found N, and I couldn't get a word out.

"Blah-blah-blah-MOUSE-blah-blah blah!" came out...no sense, nonsense, and just that one actual word, mouse. N and Z, my third housemate, came out into the hallway then, where I was intermittently doing my "ewwwwy" dance and whining. Grossss! I kept yelling, as if that was going to scare the poor (dead) thing off. They laughed a little (who could help it), and gave me pitying looks, but did not go in to scope the deceased. Z expressed some concern about a new challenge for our Failed State, then headed back down to the World Cup, while N struggled to hide his smile as I continued to shriek "Ew!" and wring my hands. Almost immediately, however, N offers an escape hatch.

"Do you want me to pick it up?" he says, with the most sympathetic smile ever.

"Do I want him to pick it up????"

"YES!!!" I want to yell. "Oh please do!!!! " The very idea that he will just go in there, my mouse-removing knight-in-shining-armor, without screaming or shrieking or hand wringing, and make that disgusting little decomposing critter disappear without me ever having to see it again...is almost too lovely to contemplate. "Yes!!!!" I yell inwardly. "Please!!! Take it away!!"

But outwardly, I don't say anything. I can't quite bring myself to say no, exactly, but I just stand there wide-eyed and stricken, kicking myself inwardly for my stubborn insistence on my own independence. I know I have to be the one to clean up this mouse. For me. For my own self-respect. I mean, I want someone to clean up the mouse for me - it's true (who wouldn't?). I want to just have someone to make it go away, and am inwardly somewhat willing to be desperately grateful to any of the three men I live with for saving my poor, shrieking, pseudo-feminist-self from the dead mouse goo. But I can't.

I think most people would say here that it's either a) not necessarily unfeminist of me to not want to clean up a dead mouse (as I've just said, very few people probably ever want to clean up dead mice), and that in a truly egalitarian community/house/co-op the idea is to rely on one another's strengths, such as N removing the mouse (something I don't want to do) and me doing the dishes (something he doesn't want to do). I also can anticipate the obvious argument b) that not everything has to be politicized or about feminism. But, I would argue, this example is. N isn't offering for the fun of it, or because he particularly doesn't care (I don't think) - he's offering because he's a man and men have been taught to do these things, and in particular to do these things for women. Our socialization within our genders is tripping wires that involve boys dealing with mouses and girls screaming and doing the "ewwwy" dance. And yet, as much as I hate my "oh, save me" response, I can't seem to repress it. Plus, my pride just won't let me have him do it!

So instead I grab the paper towels, turn towards my room, and stand over the remnants of our furry rodent friend as I repeatedly try to bring myself to grab him and flip him into the trash can. But I can't. I've never been good with dead critters. I swerve to avoid toads, have never knowingly killed anything, and can't come to terms with the fact that this little dead mouse needs to be transported in my paper towel swathed hands. SHIT.

I ended up taking two strong pieces of cardboard and literally scraping the little sucker off the carpet. It turns out that as he bestowed his fishy dead-mouse-body smell on me, he was also gooily decomposing on my (inconveniently white) carpet. So I find myself using the cardboard to scrape him off, hoping he won't pop into some kind of horror story decomposing mush, and yet do so so vehemently that all of a sudden with a final scrape the little corpse pops up into the air like some manner of fetid dead-mouse-popcorn-popping, and lands on my cardboard. Oh, ew...

Needless to say, I tossed him, ran outside to throw out my trash ("ewwww-ing" all the way), and then Simple Greened the Bejesus out of my carpet to get the brown stains out. Then I perfume-bathed the entire room, and left it, doors open-wide, as I relocated to Sparky's Cafe for a much needed-caffeine jolt and some blog-based escapeism.

And you know, now that I know the smell should be dissipating, and that I cleaned up my own mucky mess, all I can think is I'm really glad I cleaned it up, myself.

Even if I only did it to prove that I could.

What's In A Name?

2006-05-12T23:28:00.000-05:00

What's in a name? A whole hell of a lot, apparently. I recently decided I was interested in beginning to blog, if only to have my thoughts down on paper, to have a space in which to examine the decisions and questions which occupy so much of my time and energy. I also wanted to talk. I'm not blogging for a soapbox, really, although I'm sure some of my content (probably a lot, actually), will be political. I'm not blogging because I need an online journal, or because I want to spend more time on the computer - I get that at work.

I did decide to blog for a couple of reasons, after a good amount of justifying it to myself. It's not that I think my life is particularly interesting, per se, or that my writing style is notably individualistic or beguiling. The primary reason I wanted to start "Fight Like a Girl" is because I like to talk about life, and I am looking for some kindred spirits. I like to think about why we do what we do, how we interact with our goals, dreams, passions, and the obstacles to achieving them. I talk, shout, argue, debate, agree, disagree and think constantly about the choices we make in society, the way the small, day-to-day things we do can sometimes change our lives profoundly. I overanalyze. I might be a little academic. I'm extremely human. I make lots of mistakes.

It seems fitting to mention here that when I say I overanalyze, I don't (think I) do it to a ridiculous extent. I am busy, young, happy, outgoing, outdoorsy, etc. I try lots of things, I'm not particularly inhibited, and I am sufficiently past many of our society's collective neuroses and obsessions that I won't utilize my blogspot as an "I'm so fat..." place to complain.

I might, however, talk about my feelings on women and musculature, my interest in the natural fluctuation of my body during a year which has been filled with extremes of activity and inactivity, or realizations about the way other people perceive me. That I might do.

So...with that I start, I guess, and we'll see if anyone else wants to share my space, if you will, and talk a bit about life, love, feminism, work, passion, ecology, science, urban vs. rural, western New York, global climate change, latin america, social justice, good books, bad politics, and a host of other topics yet to be seen...

In the meantime, let me explain the name. The question, "what's in a name?" was of particular importance to me not so much this year, but last, when I was still in college. During the last year or two of my undergrad I participated in the creation of a new, student-run newspaper on my campus. We had a mainstream paper, of course, but it was slowly being co-opted by the Campus Republican student group, who saw the overall campus apathy towards the paper as an opportunity to step in, take the reins, and get their word out. Uh-huh.

A year after their fateful decision my "progressive" colleagues and I decided that it was time to retake the media, on the only scale that was available to us; Think Globally, Act Locally...right?

We started a paper. A 'zine, if you will. Somewhere between 12 and 18 pages of 8.5 x 14" photocopies stapled in the middle and folded in half, produced en masse in the basement photocopy office of our tiny liberal arts college, and hand-distributed at the dinner hour to folks entering the central dining venue on our campus.

People were thrilled with the idea - it went over fabulously. Before we knew it, before it was more than a casual proposal, "Maybe we should start our own paper?", we had writers, we had ideas for stories, we had support (both financial and otherwise) and we had a meeting date, time, strategy. Recruitment posters. Everything.

What we didn't have (of course), was a name. It was "the paper," "our paper," the "progressive students' paper"...our little feat of resistance. It was our baby, but it was unnamed.

And so, in a strategy session that took place on the musty, bargain-basement-carpet floor of my cooperative (euphemistically nicknamed The Farm Side, as a harkening back to better days in Western New York), approximately seven of us sat in an uneven circle, spread between folded out futon, mismatched chairs, the edge of my desk and of course, on that carpet, trying to hammer out a name. Ani played in the background, I took notes on the very same five-year-old laptop that now overheats in my lap, and we threw them out there. Names. By the tens, if not hundreds. We wanted resistance, something with pep, fight, provocative, interesting, intellectual but not aloof. Cannonball? Slingshot? Trebuchet? Provocateur? We were social justice activists trying to start a paper about...about what? Ourselves, really. Our community. Our view. The way we saw the world. Everything.

One of our number, the artist who had first proposed the paper, sat a little to the side pilfering paper from the print tray of my printer/scanner/photocopier number, sketching out possible logos and designs to accompany our many candidate names.

As the processed continued, we got a little goofy. Names were coming slower, there was no agreement and fierce dissent over the ones we did have. Hours had passed, but we had to resolve it "today". We were ready to go, the paper had to get started. This was the day it would be titled.

We eventually did pick a name. After agonizing for awhile we dropped the antagonistic edge, the social justice current, and went for something a little more fun. A tad fluffier, but perhaps more attention-getting. We designed a cool logo, made six-hundred copies, and watch hundreds of students circulate and talk about our "newspaper." It was a rush.

My own process in deriving a name for this blog was a bit similar. I don't want to get into all the nitty gritty of the hows and whys and more importantly, perhaps, the why nots...but I had a lot of ideas. Song lyrics, Ani Difranco my muse, were tempting. So was poetry. Cliche abounded. Creativity plummeted. There was the possibility that my little experiment with blogging was about to fail miserably, or that I would become a superlative feminist. My blogging role model, the first blog I ever read (which persuaded me that there was more to blogs than I had given them credit for) was Bad Feminist: http://badfeminist.blogspot.com/. (I think she rocks)

It wasn't that I wanted to be Bad Feminist, or that I was particularly interested in blogging - the thing about it was that it made me feel less alone in the world and in my view of it. Feminists are sassy, fun, smart, interesting, sexy and cool people. Women, men, and every gender identity in between. Spunky, brilliant, and chill. Finding my brand of feminism on the web was a little like finally tracking down the progressive kids at my preppy-yet-lib arts college - "WHEW....someone who gets me."

So, sure, I could be the Good Feminist. The Happy Feminist. Feisty Feminist (the last had some appeal, I do admit)...but I didn't want to build off of someone else's ideas, and I didn't want to accidentally-on-purpose borrow anyone's intellectual property, either.

Thus, I Fight Like A Girl. And, it's true...I do.

I want to write about feminism, first and foremost, but I want to talk about love and sports and science and passion and politics and social justice and the world...and on all of these topics, my perspective, my experiences have been colored by my experiences as a woman. I find that each new political challenge, each soccer game I play in, everyday in my now pretty mellow and day-to-day existence is seen, felt, touched, smelled and tasted from a feminist vantage point - and I like it.

I have a lot of fight in me, a lot of energy, a lot of passion. I am willing to fight for what I believe in, for what I care about, and on behalf of my beliefs. I fight, and I happily do it my own way - like a girl.

And so...we begin.