thursday night

i blow out the tri-wick candle cupped in the palms of my hands
to say goodnight to myself.
the flames flicker, they dissipate
and the slender smoke fills my face.
and the hot liquid wax
ripples like dancing toes in an arizona swimming pool in the springtime
smells like sweet perfume like champaca bloom like fresh fern like my grandma's beach
bungalow in san clemente.
i hear smashing ocean waves, i see ripples in an arizona swimming pool.
i can taste the salty pacific air, i can see the sonoran sunset like water colors
in the sky.
where am i?
i almost dip my fingers into the hot liquid-soon-to-be-solid substance:
hot wax
bring me back
to reality.
hot wax drip over me.
hot wax
take me back
to arizona swimming pools in the springtime
to sonoran sunsets like water colors in the sky.
where am i?
hot wax
bring me back.

a special christmas rap for michael

i'm mikey
puttin' up lights on an x-mas tree
mon cheri
she's off in laguna beach
the muthafuckin' bougeious O.C.
where illegals climb eighty feet
just to trim the goddam palm trees
for maybe
fiftee each
she's there without me
this x-mas eve
it's all storming
flooding
in the beach cities
how can this be
she's there without me
i miss her like cray-zee
in less than a week
i will get to see
her pretty smiley
oo la la
oo la la


discretionary claim: i use the term "illegals" in a colloquial, satirical sense, not in a direct, political sense

too much reading all at once.

i feel like i could go mad. what is it? the quietness of the middle of the night, the slight buzzing in my ear, the sharp pain in my chest/stomach/and lower back, the empty coldness of my bedroom - no heater, double layers, alone? the long day of reading, reading, reading? reading into the night? the difficult stories i am reading, the heavy theory i am ingesting? what is it? the distance from tucson, arizona and all that i left there? i just have to pause and take a deep breath and tomorrow will come.

time for bed

i hate to say it, but i'd almost rather not skype
almost rather not hear your voice
think of your thoughts
keep track of your sleep schedule
because pretending that you aren't so far away is certainly much easier than realizing you are.

notice of fall 2010 admission

"Congratulations! You have been admitted to the MASTER OF ARTS - WOMEN AND GENDER STUDIES program which is among the most competitive in the California State University system."

happy day.

coffee

coffee against my lips
it's cold by now but i still drink it
and the mug tips,
a little bit
slips
out the side of my mouth as i sip,
eyes looking past the mug onto my feminist lit--
coffee tear drops drip
and stain the polemic.

no energy for hostility right now.

Rachel G**** giving books to prisoners is the most ridiculous cause ive ever seen. why don't we worry about the children that can't afford books before we worry about prisoners who have forfeited their rights. criminals chose their circumstances while did not.

Jordon Br********** im sorry i dont see a point to sending books to a prisoners. why are you so interested in this

may a tragedy r.i.p.

rest in peace connor redd. and i am struck by all of these photos of you on facebook. i go through them and i see you and i am brought instantly to roland barthes' philosophies in camera lucida:

"by giving me the absolute past of the pose (aorist), the photograph tells me death in the future. what pricks me is the discovery of this equivalence. in front of the photograph of my mother as a child, i tell myself: she is going to die: i shudder, like winnicott’s psychotic patient, over a catastrophe which has already occurred. whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe."

worn

feeling so
worn,
so worn down.
ragged, dry, heavy.

hello saturday

not too bad of a saturday morning: cardio exercise and stretching at the gym; delicious breakfast of yogurt, granola, scrambled eggs w/ cheese, a fresh homemade fruit smoothie, and coffee from our new french press; i've been trying to hydrate myself all day w/ lots of water; and digging into my studies. obviously right now i am not studying... :) but i need a little internet break every now and again... goals for the evening and rest of today: finish praxis write-up, write memo (which means do the reading), read for independent study, and start Where is Ana Mendieta?

giant envelops versus little envelops

how exciting it is to receive a giant envelop from a grad school program i applied to and not a little one.

even though little envelops can have some okay news, like being wait-listed, for example.

pity the fool.

for tomorrow:
-presentation of roland barthes' camera lucida
-abstract for fem theories' final paper + preliminary bibliography
-reading response for fem knowledge production
-praxis write-up? i don't think i can finish that on time. might have to turn it in next week instead.

for tuesday:
-(another) presentation of the anthology companeras: latina lesbians
-position paper for latina lesbians
-prospectus from latina feminisms + annotated bibliography

for wednesday:
-paper for independent study which translates into=a shitload of reading on top of everything else.

i can't wait til this week is over..

sleep vs. awake

the line between sleep dreams and awake reality is blurring more and more for me these days. when i sleep i am a vivid dreamer. trying to differentiate between what is dreamt and what is lived seems like an obfuscating task. and then i wonder, does it matter? if i recall a memory as though it were a lived reality but was actually a dreamt fantasy, who is gonna be my judge of truthiness?

guilty as charged

i am excited for the new Vans store to open up at park place mall.

have you checked the mail today?!

baaaahhhhh i am checking my mailbox obsessively everyday awaiting acceptance/denial letters from SFSU and roosevelt university...please come soooon!! i can't stand this dreadful anticipation any longer!

F 35

from google images. this plane has been brought to the davis-monthan air force base in tucson, az. this base is less than 8 miles from my home. today is saturday, a beautiful day in the sonoran desert, and it is also desperate time i need to study and write papers. this plane is just doing circles around tucson, particularly directly over my house and neighborhood. can i even describe how loud this plane is? it is so loud, my desk rattles and walls shake. i cannot hear myself think. it is frightening, actually. is this the smallest taste of what war sounds like? i think so. the F 35 sounds like war. it does not make me feel safe. the F 35 instills fear, leaves it lingering in the air. the noise it makes, the sound, the vibrations, it is too much. please go away. you are not only scaring my cats and dogs, but you are also scaring me. tucson opposition to the F 35: click here.

my sister's big break!

meeting chris brown. oo la la.

road trip

tomorrow i will be DRIVING to las cruces to visit NMSU! i am quite excited. i received my "certificate of admission" about one month ago for acceptance into their MA in sociology and women's studies program. for one, it will be nice to escape for a short bit. two, it will make my grad school dreams a tangible reality. woohoo! but i am still waiting to here back from SFSU, SDSU, Roosevelt University, and UT Austin. i am scheduled to meet with THREE different professors (one being the sociology/women's studies director), take an official NMSU campus tour, and i will be couch surfing for my first time with a chica whose family has been in new mexico for over 8 generations and she is studying geography as an undergrad at NMSU. one of the other professors i will be meeting with is who i would consider to be one of the top scholars in the nation on femicides in the americas (particularly el paso/juarez). i am kind of nervous because i dont really know what to ask... but, she is a prof in the academy, so i am sure she has plenty of experience leading any conversation, esp. about her own work and her own university. well, i am about to go get my brake fluid flushed and revved, and get everything else peaked at since i will be traveling solo and i want my stuffs to be in shipshape.

trapped

oh louis althusser your marxist theory is so dreary it makes me weary and a little teary

where to go from here

just thinking about this idea of separatism, particularly feminist separatism of course. what does it mean to go separatist? what i am really thinking here is, starting a school. the feminist school. hm. this does not mean going separatist, does it? maybe in some sense. but in principle, in theory, in praxis, in its founding--it would not be. it would be a nonhierarchical, collective effort. it would be collaborative with other revolutionary groups, schools, and programs to encapsulate a broad curriculum. it would be a free education, as in, no monetary cost or tuition. i would work til i die to figure out ways that it could reach across socioeoconomic segregation (which is rampant in our current public school system). so in this sense, it would not be separatist, because all are welcome. i need to think about this some more.