Mills

Today, I found myself back at my alma-mater, Mills College. It was a surreal experience. I had lunch in the tea shop — which was strange and emotional. I couldn’t help but to look around and see so many memories in the pockets of that campus. Past friendships and present ones. Anxiety, joy, contentness. Hilarity, sadness. Words and paint. Eucalyptus and egg-salad-sandwiches. It just made me think that maybe I am where I am supposed to be right now. Maybe I am doing what I was meant to be doing — even though sometimes it feels like my life (at this moment) is all wrong. I will say this about right now: I feel as if I am getting some stuff worked out, even though it is hard and often lonely. A lot of the time I end up feeling bored, overwhelmed and socially twitchy.

Alright, that’s enough adjectives for one post — I also saw Milk – the film that made me famous. It was fantastic… Sean Penn was such a wonderful act. The story is just so tragic and meaningful. It’s so applicable to struggles that are currently happening in society — and especially in California (Prop 8). It made me feel motivated about the future of social justice and equality. I was recruited (well, I’m sorta already in the club — but this just firmed up my membership)!

2 days ago was

Election day. It was such an amazing opportunity to be able to vote for Barack Obama… it kind of frazzled me. I was excited and nervous, and by voting in Oakland, I couldn’t help but to feel like I was a part of something really big.

It was overwhelming when he won, so clearly, so easily. His acceptance speech made me ball like a big baby.  I’m so content to be living during this time. Though I have the dreaminess for the 60s (mostly the fashion and music), politically and socially, this time is unlike any other. So much justice is happening right now (though there is a LONG way to go), it is very exciting to see, and experience.

VOTE

It’s that time.

I hope we (the country) makes the right (left) decision.

AH!

Reading makes me feel less stupid.

SO, it’s been almost a year after graduation… (yes, I realize that is a major topic of mine as of late, but whatever, it’s what I’m going through at the moment). As I seek to find a vision, I have decided to return to my roots… basically, I’ve been getting back to what gets me going, gets me feeling passionate, makes me want to “move and groove,” if you will.

I’ve been buying (and reading) magazines.

Right after graduation, at the beginning of my job (career?), I would only buy such reading material as People, Us Weekly, and Star Magazine. Maybe I had air of “Fuck you, academia, this is where you got me, so this is what I’m going to read.” For about 4 months, I followed, closely, the goings on of Britney Spears and other falling, failing Hollywood bimbos. Basically, I’ve been feeling as dumb as them.

And then, I had an epiphany at the Borders Mag Rack. While purusing the array of trashy magazine covers, I caught a glimpse of a camel crossing a Chinese desert. First, I thought, “I didn’t know they had camels in China,” and then I thought, “What else don’t I know about China?” So I bought and subsequently read, The Economist. Politics and Economics — two of my faves. Then came Ms. magazine and feminism. And Adbusters, full of media commentary and anti-establishmentness. Perfect.

I’m feeling a little bit smarter these days. And I’m getting to the point of dealing with the big question… “WHAT DO I WANT TO DO?”

Presidential Forum on LGBTQ issues

In case you missed it, Logo and the Human Rights Campaign hosted a forum for the front-running Democratic candidates on August 12th. You can see the entire thing or more brief segments here.

I just watched the whole thing and found it extremely interesting. This issue is something that I feel very strongly about, have read a lot about, and have personal experience with – so the responses were important – and I was looking for something profound. I must say – while I was impressed with many of the candidates statements – I came away feeling like, really? That’s it? I know it takes time – moving items and concerns through politics and government is grueling. But I sort of agree with John Stewart’s analysis:

“…At the debate, the Democratic candidates were trying to reassure the gay community how much they support them, while reassuring the rest of the country that they don’t completely support them.”

Also – the Logo blog: Visible Vote ‘08 has great posts with news summaries and updates on all things related to LGBTQ in the 2008 election.  

Endorsement

I am hereby officially endorsing Barack Obama for President.

I love hope and I love peace and I love equality and I love America. Therefore, my vote goes to Obama.

thoughts on thoughts

For some reason, I thought it a good idea to watch United 93, the (realistic) movie about United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

 

I had heard the movie, which was released to theaters in April of 2006, was good and by good, I mean tasteful. The director, Paul Greengrass, had asked for and received approval from all family members of the 40 passengers killed that day before he began making the movie. I suppose the film serves as a rememberance, and as a tribute.

What I really liked about the film was that it displayed the clear lack of communication in our country’s governmental bodies…  both intra- and outer-organizational. By that, I mean that there were so many mistakes with transfering the needed information to the people who make decisions. This occured within organizations, like within the FAA, and with organizations communicating with eachother: the Marine Corp with the White House, the FAA with the Marine Corp, ATC Centers with the FAA. Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about business and organizational analysis lately, so that struck me.

I don’t know why I ever do things to make myself think more, because it seems that’s all I’ve been doing lately – thinking way too much about everything. So, this just adds to it. My fellow movie-watchers and I all needed to decompress afterwards by sharing our 9/11 stories, talking about how scary the world is, and how easy everything seemed before September of 2001. I’m not sure if things were actually easier, or I was just able to hide from the frightening aspects of society. Probably the latter.

Can’t wait…

for this.

economics: poverty and feminism?

70 percent of the world’s poor are women, according to a report on AlterNet. Additionally, women over 65 years old in the US are twice as poor as their male counterparts. The report attributes this to the “caregiving” work of most older women and a lot of younger women. In fact, salary.com says that a mother’s care work is worth about $100,000 a year.

The government in the US (and some other developed countries) completely fails to recognize the work of caregivers (female or male). It’s really counter-intuitive because without this caring work, there would be no economy. Examples of family-friendly business and governmental policies: Canada’s Healthy Babies, Healthy Children program and Sweden’s paid parental leave policies. Both offer financial support for caregivers and have had significant impacts on child developement. Really, it’s an investment in the future.

We (the US) should step up, man.

MY decisions about MY body…

are made by these guys: