Month: December 2013

The internet allows for instant communication with people from all over the world. We can email, blog, instant message, “poke” on Facebook, Skype call — and, potentially, all without ever seeing the body behind the text or voice. The pessimist might assert that these communications are superficial, detached, and “not real”; we are ignoring “real” people in favor of glowing screens and lines of text.

Yet this point of view invalidates the incredible, long-lasting, very real relationships that people such as myself develop over the internet. There is the chance that we may never see in person, or even in photographs, the people we interact with this way. However, with things like Skype Video and Face Chat and “selfies,” it is easier than ever to match a face to the text. And anyway, even if I’m not talking with a person face to face, they are no less a person and our conversations are no less valid.

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image by hugtherobots on tumblr

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Beautiful to Nothing

I have terrible eyesight. From the time I turned about 8 years old until I was about 12 years old I wore glasses. I started wearing contacts at 12. I hated my glasses and didn’t want anybody to know that I wore them especially when it came to taking pictures. My sister was getting married the year I turned 12 and of course she wanted me to be a part of her bridal party and of course that meant plenty of pictures. Somehow I was able to convince my parents and my doctor to let me start wearing contacts. Since then I have become much more comfortable with the fact that I am a person with corrective lenses. However, the each year my eyes continue to get worse and that is beginning to freak me out.

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“Let me guess, you have a headache again?”

(This post contains mentions of over the counter and prescription drug use)

I mentioned in an earlier post that I get headaches, this is a bit of an understatement. I have been officially diagnosed with Migraine. However, I have a hard time calling my smaller episodes migraines, because to me a migraine is being totally incapacitated, unable to move, balance or lift your head with your sinuses closed off and your eyes unwilling to focus. There also may or may not be puke. My headaches are still pretty bad, but I can still talk and walk and drive to school. I can’t make them go away. They’re at least 12 hours long reguardless, but if you have something in front of your face that says it’s going to stop your pain, you’re going to try it anyway, especially, when you have a paper to write. Despite this I can usually keep a straight face throughout the day.

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Peace?

(Possible trigger warning for rape subject/sexual assault)

peace corps1  Food-PSA-Archive

Over the past few years I’ve been toying with the idea of joining the Peace Corps.  So far I’ve received mixed reviews on whether or not it’s the right thing to do.  Some say it’s a government funded semester abroad-a vacation for privileged white kids to fulfill whatever fascination or desire they have to dig wells and live in poverty for 27 months. Continue reading →

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The suffering body

My first year of college I joined the women’s rugby team. I got many comments,especially from my family members, asking me why I would do something like that to my body. Rugby is a tough sport, the only protective gear you’re allowed to use is a mouth guard. It leaves you in pain, covered in cuts and bruises for a week or more after every game. So i’m not surprised when people look at me like I’m crazy after I tell them I play. I don’t play because I like pain or because I have a death wish. I play simply because I enjoy it. Although the aftermath inevitably leaves me sprawled out in bed covered in ice bags, the feeling I get when I’m on the field is worth it. 

I believe the same goes for situations where people go through painful body modification rituals, drink alcohol, or do any other thing that they know hurts their body. They like the way it makes them feel, they enjoy it.

So should we feel bad for doing the things we like doing even though it hurts us? 

 

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your idea of a good time is my idea of a violent crime

tw: sexual harassment

Throughout the duration of this class, I’ve become increasingly aware of the ways I/my body occupy public spaces and interact with other bodies in these spaces. I’ve thought about the times I’ve contorted my body in an attempt to become a smaller form of myself on public transport while men around me take a seat and spread themselves out with seemingly little care for others around them. I’ve thought about the embodied fear that I am always walking around with, knowing that I’m a target for harassment simply because I’m a woman. I’ve thought about the internalized distrust I have for the bodies of strangers. I’ve thought about every unsolicited name or whistle that’s been hurled my way. Most of these encounters are impersonal. A stranger calling me a name or purposely and intensely invading my space probably means nothing to them and they’re probably never going to think about it again. While there is never a good time or place for verbal or physical harassment, I’m mostly used to the prospect of it occurring when I am in public places. (This is not to say that I think it’s acceptable, or that I’m okay with it, or that I’m not fighting it, but that it isn’t necessarily shocking anymore.) But what do you do if this kind of harassment is happening in places you considered safe spaces?

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Smiling

After some careful thought, I’ve decided to release my deepest body-related secret onto our class blog.  By now I don’t mind that my anonymity is basically gone, unless you haven’t connected the dots between the girl who complains about her knee problems on the blog and the girl who complains about her knee problems in class.  (There, I just did it for you.)

It’s something I’ve never discussed with anyone, and my hands feel weak and jittery as I write this.

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QUEERIES: My Love for Eli Clare’s Exile and Pride and Why You Should Go Ahead and Read It, Okay?

I haven’t connected to any other class’s readings as I have connected with Eli Clare’s Exile & Pride. I’m trying to figure out why, and I still don’t rightly know, but I needed to share.

It seems obvious to say, “Well, I like the subject matter,” but really. I do. And it is all very different but so intrinsically connected, that I feel bad that I ever doubted the meshing of these worlds into one book. The environment, queerness, and disability (to narrow it down to a main triad) are all sides of the same coin. The environment–the one he have created and the one that has always been–often dictates disability. Disability provokes a queer understanding of identity. Being queer in different environments–rural and urban–is like being a polar bear or a house cat,  a bird or a lost lizard in a sewer. The criticism that Clare invokes when talking about these topics is also critical of race and ethnicity and of privilege and gender. Who was the first to claim land as an inexhaustible resource? Who dictates the gender and sexual norms? Who creates the urban space that perpetuates disability? Clare touches on all of these linked together identities and sites, and it feels so right. I learned so much from Clare’s writing, but I also picked up his sense of criticism; that calm, assertive, compassionate voice that questions why and kicks out with fervor. Clare’s criticism is beatifically formed and so god damn smart, but it’s not the only thing that keeps me in the book.

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