Coping Mechanisms

As a general rule my life is not particularly stressful. However, there are times when everything feels completely overwhelming and I question everything about myself, my feelings and my skills. I honestly think everyone feels like this sometimes and there’s nothing wrong with it. This doesn’t make it any easier. In fact, in many cases – almost nothing makes it easier and often the only way out is through.

Today while cleaning out I happened upon a useful piece of paper. It features a series of 6 skills and things to help avoid vulnerability to negative emotions. It’s really good advice and things I try and do (and if my usual level of low stress and high cheer is anything to go by, it might work.)

1. Treat Physical Illness:

Take care of yourself. If you aren’t feeling well, take something, lie down. Allow yourself the couple of hours to feel okay. If you need to – go to the doctor, take the medication they give you. Be honest with your doctor about all your symptoms. Listen to your body. If you are sick and infectious – don’t come to work, give your body time to recover and don’t make everyone else sick.

 

2. Balance Eating:

It’s really tempting to over eat, under eat and eat junk when one is stressed – avoid this as best you can. Opt for vegetables and fruit and when in doubt don’t indulge in luxuries and sweets but in meals you like – real food with real nutrients. Remember your body need proper fuel to run – especially if you’re overworked and tired. Don’t think you can survive on things from a vending machine when you only sleep 2 hours a day. Really. You can’t.

 

3. Avoid Mood-Altering Drugs:

According to the paper, one should stay away from non-prescribed medication. As far as I’m concerned most people self-medicate with some success. But seriously, moderation. You’re miserable, exhausted and stressed out – don’t go out and get blasted. It’s not a good idea.

 

4. Balance Sleep:

#1 thing you need: Sleep. Get enough sleep to make you feel good. Ideally, go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time each day. Apparently, we need 6-8 hours. I don’t know if this is the case, what we do need is consistency. Also, if you’re sick you should sleep, it’s the best time for your body to repair itself.

 

5. Get Exercise:

It’s a great idea to try and exercise everyday. Ideally is a searing round of fat-burning magic. In reality, it should make your body make endorphins, make you feel productive and keep you active. 20 minutes is pretty great, actually.

 

6. Build Mastery:

Try and do one thing a day to make yourself feel competent and in control. On it.

Film: “The Woman In Black”

Can it really have been about a year since I reviewed a film? I have watched several dozen films in the past year, including an installment of “Twilight”, the searing end of “Harry Potter” and “Shark Night” – did none of these films move me to writing? Apparently not.

Today, however, I went to see “The Woman in Black”, arguably the first time we’ve seen Daniel Radcliffe do anything on film since the end of “Harry Potter”. A gothic period piece, set in a dismal, marshy village and a dilapidated, but rather sprawling house. The film is interestingly partially produced by Hammer (known for some of the greatest looking women, fake blood and Dracula movies ever made in the 1970s). Hammer films have generally been considered over-produced, campy and frivolous. They are also generally of a relentless, powerful horror style, one which is comfortable adhering to genre conventions and making a more traditional horror film. “The Woman in Black” is no exception.

I think it’s safe to say that I am very familiar with horror films, I do not scare easily. That’s not to say I don’t get scared, I don’t respond (film is significant, I am affected by it.) because I do. I squeal, weep, laugh, etc. etc. I generally walk away from most horror offerings more interested and invigorating than truly freaked out. Over the course of my life very few movies have honestly frightened me. (TV productions of “Alice Through the Looking Glass” and “The Shining”, “13 Ghosts” and “Mirrors” being the short list.)

“The Woman in Black” honestly frightened me.

The story is about a young widower, with a four year old son. In order to preserve his career, he takes a job out in the marshy northern countryside, he has to go to the decidedly creepy, empty home of a recently deceased character we never see and sort through their shamefully disordered papers in order to get their true will. He has to actually go there because the town lawyer is being completely unhelpful. Immediately upon his arrival, everyone our hero, Arthur (Dan Radcliffe) encounters seems to want him to leave. Eventually be finds himself at the terrifically scary house, beyond a marsh that floods with the tide, and thus isolated for most of the film, though, he has a little scruffy dog with him some of the time. He experiences haunting phenomena and visions of a woman in black mourning attire. As his time in the town goes on, two young girls die in unpleasant accidents, and the townspeople become ever more convinced he should leave. They ostentatiously blame him for the deaths of his children, as he continues to sort through letters and uncover the superstitions of the town, the house and the visions he keeps having.

Eventually, Arthur (and the audience) discover that the town is plagued by the untimely deaths of children as a result of the spectral woman. The ghost is a woman who’s son was taken from her, and adopted by her sister because of his mother’s presumed insanity. After this, her son drowns in the marshes and his body  is never recovered, as a result his mother hangs herself in his nursery. She also vows never to forgive her sister for taking the boy or for his loss. The curse which haunts the town is that when she is seen, a child dies. (A classic: you took my baby, and now I’m taking yours) Of course, being that Arthur is messing around in the house – Arthur sees her a lot. This ability to sympathize with and connect to this entity is fueled by his own troubled visions of his wife (an angelic blonde, lady in white) It becomes apparent that his son is coming to join him in the village, so in an effort to appease the woman’s trouble spirit and thus protect his own little boy (who is portrayed by the most beautiful, cherubic child I have ever seen.) Arthur finds her son’s lost body, and reunites them in the grave – he does so with the help of a gentleman in the town who lost his own son as a result of the woman in black and who’s wife is a sweet, but troubled medium.  However, this fails to do the trick and the narrative ends with sufficient unpleasantness to make the audience feel honestly uncomfortable.

The film is incredibly atmospheric, making extensive use of light, flickering candles, the gloom of the gray village and the gothic mansion, as well as the setting in 19th century England during the height of spiritualism. A moment in history where the business of the dead and the interaction between worlds is both recognized and widely acknowledged as possible. The film isn’t violent, or gory – but dark, and menacing. Filled with the kind of seeping discomfort that encircles you and follows you out of the theater. The honest-to-God heebie-jeebies. 

One of the most interesting things about this is, naturally, seeing Daniel Radcliffe be someone other than Harry Potter. He is as impressive as anyone would think, and is almost unrecognizable compared to his early time as Harry. The character is at least 26 or 27 (married, lost wife, four year old child, lawyer…at least 26), and while it’s pretty routine for actors in their mid-20s – 30s to play characters in their early 20s, and for actors up to 25 to play teenagers, Radcliffe, who is ONLY 22 (wtf have I been doing with MY life?!) successfully portrays someone much older, without seeming ridiculous. He’s also much more understated, Harry tends to do a lot of moping, whining and gnashing of teeth, but of course, from book three forward that’s how Rowling wrote him. Things that may have seemed like they were the run over of someone reaching adulthood on screen, seem much more to be characteristics of Harry than Dan. It’s also easy to forget who he is, which is generally difficult with very famous British screen actors – it’s only the most exceptional people who get lost in their portrayals, and that is evident here.

Great movie – I do not expect to sleep easy tonight!

 

We’re Moving!

It’s finally here! I am finally leaving my little shoebox in Arlington for a new habitat. While I have not yet found it in my heart to leave Washington D.C., I am moving out of Arlington and into the suburban jungle of Northern Virginia! The best part about it?

No, not the hardwood floors!

No, not the balcony!

No, not the storage space!

Rather, that I am, in fact, moving in with friends! 

I have never lived with friends before, but after approximately a decade of contemplation, I am moving in with my beloved best friends, Nicole and Seana. The cast of my every adventure, soon to be flatmates. Of course, I’m a little nervous about this prospect, that’s a lot of characters to put in one space, and I am aware that often being roommates is very different to being friends. However, I am going into this with a sense of warm, overwhelming enthusiasm. So, be gone grave misgivings – this will be an adventure. (Perhaps most interestingly it’ll be a much less costly adventure than the one I’m living now.)

One of the best and most exciting things about moving is that I’ll get to organize and clean out a bit. I’ll also be rid of my red sofa, I’ve just had enough of the bloody thing. You hate it at first, grow to love it, and then eventually come to hate it. I will also get to trim down my possessions, donate clothes that are 5 sizes too big, and see what else I can sell/donate to justify keeping all my books. Further, I’ll get to work out how a few key items of furniture will tetris into a little bedroom. (I love my desk, it’s so big – and besides…I could replace it with something small, something…glass.)

I am perhaps most obsessed with a small bedroom. I like the idea of the privacy, the smallness, the purpose driven space, as opposed to everything in one room.

Of course, I’ve already started the organization and weeding process…because, did I mention? We’re moving on the 20th. Of February.

Come on! Let’s pin!

I am a very devoted user of Pintrest. I have essentially reconfigured my online interaction the last year. I used to spend a lot of time on Facebook, Craigslist and Twitter – and now I chiefly am on Gmail, Pinterest and Craiglist. (Ho-hum, some things never change.) However, Pinterest is the place I actually interact the most.

Pinterest, for those of you who live under uncool rocks and don’t talk to me, is a website that functions like a pinboard. When you see something you like online, a picture, outfit, blog image, piece of art, photograph (oh, anything) you click “pin it” (this little button you add to your browser) and it sticks it on one of your “inspiration boards”. You can also look at everyone’s boards, or just the boards you follow and choose to “repin” other people’s pins. I like this sense of curation. Pinterest doesn’t really DO anything, except it allows people to put things they like together, and it links other people to the origins of those lovable things. For whatever reason, this is WILDLY compelling for me. Perhaps it’s because I’m the sort of person who likes to obsessively collect pictures (in my youth there were folders loaded with “Lord of the Rings” related images, memes, fanart, not to mention “Harry Potter”, vampires and Good Charlotte on my computer). Perhaps it’s because I like pretty things, or and this is the big one I think, I like my own style, a lot.

Pinterest is a place of great vanity for me. I spend a lot of time looking at my own pins (what?) and thinking to myself, “Look what a tasteful person I am!!” I know, this is ridiculous, but I just really like looking at things that represent me, and then I wonder what I seem like from my pins. I think I look like a pretentious hipster who’s totally over-invested in style and intellectualism – this is pretty much exactly right, so I quite like that. It’s just a kind of pleasant, self-affirming vanity – and I really enjoy it.

Pinboards usually have some commonalities. Most people have a wedding board, it seems no matter how unique a woman is, our wedding boards are all quite similar. I’d like to think mine is “alternative,” but it’s not. There are also a lot of boards with pictures of cute animals, I favor bears so much I have a whole board of bears. Like many young women, I have a board just of men I like – which is very much like wallpapering my teenage bedroom with posters of boy bands and Leonardo DiCaprio, except, I’m a grown up now. (Resultantly it’s dominated by Jake Gyllenhaal and Christian Bale – though, Ryan Gosling is VERY popular on Pinterest.) A lot of it is devoted to style, I made room for boards specially for dresses, shoes, handbags, beauty, hair, and style in general. The only major contribution I feel I’ve made to this website is my horror board, perhaps that’s really where my personality is visible.

Also – this is my first blog entry of 2012. Happy 2012! It’s going to be a magnificent year.

Marilyn Manson.

In the past couple of days I’ve been quite accidentally reminded of Marilyn Manson. It’s not as if I forget Marilyn Manson, a figure that serves as one of the undeniable influences of my life, but he’s not as front and center as he was in my teenage years.

The first instance was in a post on a tumblr, it was a series of comments of people reflecting on how they will one day feel when Marilyn Manson inevitably dies. Immediately I realized that it will probably be devastating for me, in terms of celebrity/entertainer deaths.

The second instance was in using Amazon to search for books about pain and culture, as one does, and encountering this. I was perfectly aware of Manson’s art, but not aware of the title of the book, “Genealogies of Pain”. It sounds like a title I would give a paper, or a section of a paper.

The realization that throughout my life Manson has provided not only a consistent soundtrack to my existence (I continue to buy albums long after it seems the general public has lost interest, download short film-esque music videos, read his writing etc with some fervor.) but also a consistent aesthetic element is remarkable. I realize that I can undoubtedly credit his developing style throughout my life with the development, not only of my intellectual interests, but the style with which I’ve approached them.

The rational which emerged in my teenage years to explain the often idiosyncratic combination of extremities that (still) characterize me, morbid darkness with day-glo, glitter was as if Marilyn Manson and the Spice Girls had a child (this is still very much true, though other influences have gotten themselves involved.)

I remember vividly my first exposure to Manson, the song was Dope Show it was reviewed (Why? I don’t know.) in an English teen girl magazine I’d occasionally get in Lusaka. It was 1998, I was 13, an impressionable age. Granted, I’d been exposed to far more shocking media before Manson arrived in my world. I asked my father to buy me one of Manson’s CDs the next time he went to South Africa for business (media was very limited in Zambia in the 90s, due to demand.) My father got me “Portrait of an American Family” (Because who wouldn’t let their 13 year old listen to this…thanks, Dad!), an album that was almost excruciating for me to listen to at first, I was so used to the bubblegum pop I’d been consuming since 1996. I kept trying, the late 90s was a time of incredible fame for Manson, and his cultural value as the most shocking, rebellious, confusing thing going was too good to resist. Seemingly overnight I moved from a distinctly Spice Girls influenced aesthetic to something much darker. I was neither alienated, miserable, or depressed, but something about his man, I was instantly able to identify with.

It was only a few years later when I read his autobiography, “Long Hard Road Out of Hell” (the book was released in 1998, I didn’t see it until 2002 (media is like that in Africa) that I really began to understand the connection, by which point my aesthetics, ideologies, and interests had already really firmed up with his music (among others, I should give ample credit to Rob Zombie, Korn, Rammstein and Cradle of Filth – all of whom I appreciated the highly aesthetic style of.) Manson’s rejection of normative religion, dislike of convention and insistence on doing whatever he wanted really resonated with me as a mildly grumpy 17 year old. I really wasn’t a sad or angry teenager, mostly concerned with how my behavior affected people around me, I have always enjoyed raising some eyebrows and provoking a reaction.

I always have and do to this day feel very unalone because of Marilyn Manson, very comforted. As if even when I’ve felt completely at odds with everything around me, entirely unsure of how express what I want or define who I want to be, that there is at least one person I would have no trouble explaining myself to. I suppose this is the true value of influence, the artists who allow the listener/reader/viewer to feel connected, to feel as if their work is valuable. I’ve always felt like Manson was somehow useful to me. Now, in the face of my own work, negotiating bodies, violence, gore, torture, pain and the aesthetic pleasure of it all, I know with complete certainty that his ongoing aesthetic projects are useful. It’s a chicken/egg argument, I don’t know if it all makes sense and ties together nicely because I grew up listening to this stuff, with his continuous experimentation directing my own development, or whether I’ve simply grown into an adult insistent on not “out growing her childhood” (This is a whole other topic, I don’t “outgrow” things, I make them useful in different ways.) and as result have found ways to keep his work relevant to me. Either way, I find myself endlessly inspired, amused, delighted by the on-going changes and shifts of his, seemingly endless, career.

 

 

 

Hmm, feminism.

There are a few things in life that are expected of women, a lot of the things are mundane stereotypes that no one really expects, the one that chiefly concerns me is that we’re expected to be feminists.

Feminism is peddled to preteen girls, and then to young women, and once you get to college, it’s being unceremoniously rammed down your throat and if you head off to graduate school, prepare for the fire storm if you dare utter the words, “I’m not a feminist.” Feminists are the door-to-door salespeople of ideology.

Are you sure you don’t need some liberation? No, thank you. I’m fine. Are you certain you aren’t feeling repressed by men? Um, yeah, but I feel okay and I still feel productive, thanks. No, you aren’t, you need to embrace your womanhood and fight against the Man! Well, I agree there some pretty serious issues with authoratative nature of patriarchcal society but I still feel as if there’s important and productive thinking around and against it, that um, isn’t yours. And I feel fine about it. 

I understand feminism. I understand why it’s important, it’s first and second waves, where it came from and how it’s been valuable to our culture. I understand that equal rights among men and women is important and that feminism forms an important building block for the queer and gender studies to follow – but I do not want that word floating over my head and stapled to me.

I am not a feminist. 

*gasp* How dare I?!

I know most people will, at this point, nervously crack their knuckles and tell me that I’m a sex positive feminist or a modified feminist. Usually, I just accept these things and move on, because the idea of a liberal, educated woman in her twenties rejecting feminism is truly unfathomable.

Why, I wonder? Is it because we’re supposed to be feminists?

I’ve been very lucky and have had the opportunity to read a lot about feminism, the formative texts and the important writers, the voices that defined and invigorated this ideaology. To be frank, at it’s core, as a theoretical construct moving through post-structalism and postmodernism it is completely acceptable. I mean, who doesn’t love a handy-dandy feminist lens?! However, in the greater culture, the one I live in, it’s a monster. It’s fundamentally painted as a rejection, maybe even an alternative to patriarchy, but because of the profoundly binary nature of rejection, it becomes like a form of mimicry, a reductive opposition based on something that it can neither outdo or outwit. It ends up being condemning, pleasure-denying and fundamentally unproductive.

Feminism is fabulous, interesting and engaging, in theory. Watching the various and sundry iterations of that theory attempt application is another matter all together. I guess I should make clear, I’m not talking about Irigaray here, but rather that feminism  that has been sold to me, making me a basic ideological consumer, in need of this way of thought in order to function as a woman, because second wave feminism happened and we’re all still gasping for air, and failing to find our feet and the results are treacherously conformist.

 

Going to the bar…

The moment I turned 25 it became apparent to me that pretty much everyone around me, particularly in Arlington was also about 25. Now, assuming that this is true, then when I was 18, everyone was 18 – but then I was on a college campus, so of course they were. Now, I live in an apartment building, in a neighborhood, where people live voluntarily, and they are all around the same age. What’s more, I’m really able to spot people in my age range easily now. This brings me to my next point, in an environment with a relatively large age-group, of about 25 – specific behaviors and habits emerge in the population.

People of this age group in Arlington have three highly dependent, key pursuits:
- Jogging/working out.
- Eating at restaurants.
- Going to bars.

While I have some pretty worthy opinions about the jogging (the headbands, hopping on the spot, defying the traffic) it is the “going to bars” which chiefly interests me. Now, in my understanding one goes to the bar in order to drink alcohol, to the have the potential to drink a lot of alcohol in an environment where this is authorized and accepted. Furthermore, to engage in the kind of amusing tomfoolery that comes from being around a lot of people your age and consuming a lot of alcohol. That would be dancing, the bars are invariably filled with popular, danceable music, talking to each other – particularly to members of the opposite sex, and the bonding that follows – whether this is the exchange of phone numbers (and zillions of texts following) or the exchange of body fluids, at various levels of intensity.

What I’ve really noticed about going to bars is that the air is filled with a kind of profound desperation. Not to say that everyone there is desperate in the traditional sense, but that they usually have a strong underlying goal: to meet someone, a dance partner, someone to make-out with, a one-night stand, a lover, a significant other, a future mate. Now, not to be crass, but a great deal of this population in the bar is “looking to score” (or at least trying to look like they’re looking to score – but that is another issue.) A lot of people will tell me that this isn’t the case, that they are out with their friends, to dance and have a good time. This will upset people, but I do not believe that for a single second. If that’s what you wanted, you would get drunk cheaply at home and go to a dance club.

Now, if you’re reading this, chances are you’re aware that I am not someone who goes to the bar all the much, if at all. It is “not my scene”. The reasons for this are varied. Firstly, I find the overwhelming gender performance of the bars here pretty unsettling. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s like being at a cattle market. Gratuitous displays of flesh and bravado. “Peacocking” (bars are uncannily straight places in Arlington, which may be part of my issue queer spaces are usually a little more dynamic.) preening and performing as if to say to the opposite sex, “Look at me, I look normal, I might be willing to let you do some of what you want with me before the dawn.” (There’s a lot of subtext too.)

Secondly,  all of this contributes to the re-enforcement of often troublesome gender norms. Men behave like primal hunter-gatherers, while women stand around batting their eyelashes and waiting for attention, or alternatively throw themselves against the bar, drink and then sling onto the dance floor to gyrate provocatively. The problem with this is that women often behave like sluts in bars. Now, I have no problem with anyone behaving like a slut, being a slut, in fact, I am 100% on board with that. In fact, I’ll use the term with gusto, because you know what, I can do that. Just like its derogatory brethren before it, like “cunt” and “bitch”, I’d like to see “slut” taken back. The problem is that these same women will be condemned for this behavior and condemn each other. This is a sanctioned space full of caveats.

Thirdly, it’s not cost effective. Going to a bar is the least cost effective way of getting laid, for anyone. For a man, he’ll invest money in a woman, buying her drinks, possibly fries (depending on how much she needs to sober up before he can take her home without worrying about a myriad of serious problems, like consent.) and he has no guarantee at all, that she’ll sleep with him. While she might be dressed like Snookie and making “come hither” eyes at him, she may well just be behaving like a slut, and in reality may have all sorts of rules and personal standards, and she has every right to them and he mustn’t assume anything. So there’s his $ possibly down the drain. For women, she might spend money on getting ready, she might pay for her own drinks, and even have to buy her friend some fries if things get really out of hand, and she has no guarantee that the stars will align and she’ll find a man she deems acceptable, and that he’ll respond in course. In reality, most people go home from the bar $100 poorer, and wake up with no one but a coy hangover, who will call, all day long.

Finally, interacting in this way in a bar depends on various factors. It depends on competition between women, it depends on being able to communicate without speaking (the vodka flowing and the bass pumping, chances are your ideas about Proust aren’t going to make it into conversation, if you make it into conversation at all.) So, to be successful at a bar, for a woman you have to look hot (and I’ll assert, right here, right now, looking hot and being hot are NOT the same.) for a man, you have to be aggressive.

There are lots and lots of people in the population who aren’t into this, who can’t play on these fields. I am one such person. If I’m in a crowded bar with 70-some girls wearing outfits from Forever21 and in their sky-high heels skimming 5’8, I don’t stand a snowball’s hope in Hell. It doesn’t matter how smart I am, it doesn’t matter how funny, or even pretty, or even how willing, engaging and slutty I might be, it just doesn’t matter, because the playing field, which is built on a foundation of normative beauty standards and archaic perceptions of masculinity, is badly skewed.

Being in such a situation can be a dark and hateful experience if you aren’t properly equipped. In fact, I would describe it like a kind of slow social suicide. One which works by chipping away at self-esteem. Sure and fucking steady.

All I really have to say in recourse to all this, though, is thank goodness for the Internet. To be successful with your desired gender in a bar, you have to look hot, to do well on the Internet, you have to be hot.

 

(You also have to say what you mean, and mean what you say on the Internet, but that is another story…)

The First Chucks

Tomorrow, at the crack of dawn, I’m going to Lusaka International Airport, where I will board a British Airways flight to London, spend two nights in London, then board a second BA flight out of Heathrow to Washington D.C. Today marks the end of a complicated month in Africa. The first time I’d been home in two and a half years. My feelings about Zambia are always complicated, on one hand I grew up here, my parents live here, I have a tremendous history here, on the other – this isn’t my home anymore. I don’t feel any nationalistic attachment to Zambia beyond a sort of fondness (but then I don’t feel any nationalistic attachement at all.

It is 12:24pm Central African Time, I have put nothing in my suitcase and made no moves to sort anything out. I am a notoriously last minute packer. (I packed for a month in Africa in about 20 minutes, the night before we left.) However, as I was peering into my closet (I should say, the closet in the dressing room, in the bedroom I lived in from the age of 16 to 18 – at the age of 16, I moved bedrooms across the house.) I noticed a pair of sneakers. A pair of classic, black and white, Converse All-Star high-tops, with brightly colored (yellow, tattoo print) laces, they have holes in the outer, babytoe region, the plastic is discolored, they are littered with the scribbles of sharpies, hi-lighters and ballpoint.

I fished the sneakers off the floor of the closet and realized upon closer inspection that they are the first pair of Converse All-Star sneakers I ever owned. Now, despite the fact that they are ubiquitous now, it was not always so (particularly not in sub-Saharan Africa), and they do have some significant cultural value and meaning and they did for me when I got them, when I was 15. The year 2000, I was a sophomore at The American International School of Lusaka. I had never been to America, and the world was, by all accounts, a very different place.

I don’t remember very much about being 15, as my brain seems to cleanse itself of unimportant, and usually painful or difficult memories every 2 or 3 years. I suspect I was heartbroken in some way, shape or form (as this was the case until my early 20s), disillusioned and felt profoundly out of sorts (as this is still the case). However, I do remember wanting these sneakers with a fiery passion. They signified things I wanted for my future, the kind of low-key, rebellious coolness that wearing such sneakers would ensure, (reterospectively, any low-key, rebellious coolness I now possess can probably be directly attributed to these sneakers.)
They have writing all around the soles, most of it illegible, but I don’t doubt it was scrawled there during the course of a school day, my mind, obviously elsewhere. Peering into the closet, I can reconstruct other elements of my personality at the time. Everything is black, unless it’s red. Thinking back on it, I remember all I wanted was to leave Zambia, I just wanted something else. I don’t think I even knew what it was at the time. (I figured it out a year later on holiday in America, and that’s when I started picking colleges).

A truly interesting thing about these sneakers is that this is not the first time I’ve revisited them. I must have taken them with me to college, because they weren’t readily available in Lusaka and so in the three years prior to going to George Mason they were not replaced. They look like they were worn for three passionate years. I am sure I brought them home with me in December 2004 (after my first semester), and was forced to leave them behind because the night before I returned to University I fell in the shower and broke four of my toes (I wish I were kidding, this injury is a whole other horrible narrative, one that haunts me to this day – both emotionally and physically.) and I would not have been able to get them on because of how swollen my foot became. I know that I wore them in Lusaka on that trip though because they have novelty shoelaces in them, which I do not doubt I got at Hot Topic (Hot Topic was indescribably relevant and valuable to me in college.)

The last time I wore these sneakers, I had finished taking English 202, Spanish 101, Biology 101 and a ridiculous course called University 100. I had (boy, did I hustle that first semester) gotten four tattoos, and my lip peirced (not the peircing you see today, that came later). Nicole had also dyed my hair, the top part of it was bleach blonde and the bottom was neon blue. These sneakers signified a lot for me, most of which has drifted into the obscurity of growing up.

It’s a strange thought, I was probably wearing these sneakers on my last day of high school, during my IB exams, on the first day of college, the first time I stepped foot on GMU’s Fairfax campus. I was likely wearing them when I said goodbye to Nicole at the airport in 2002 (a particularly powerful memory.) The first time I went to the 930 Club and Black Cat, Merriweather and the Nissan Pavillion and probably Sonar in Baltimore. (All places which strongly informed my first year of college).

Somehow, it seems easier to remember the sort of person I wanted to be, before real broken hearts, serious tattoos, really hard work (really trying to explain to people what I wanted to study) – before life was somehow “real” with graduate school, jobs, living by myself, paying bills and making really hard choices.

I think I’ll bring them home with me – if anything because I don’t have a black and white pair of high-tops right now (I have an oh-so-cool pair of all-black low-tops), because I don’t even know if Hot Topic still sells shoelaces and I wouldn’t go in there to find out, but perhaps mostly because you can’t go back.

The Wedding Thing

I spend a tremendous amount of time at pinterest. A fantastic website which allows users to gather and curate collections of images from all over the Internet in organized “boards”, more so, the way the wesbite is organized – material links back to the sources, allowing us to find things and follow links, as well as attributing things pretty responsibly.

Most people on pinterest appear to be women, and most people appear to have created some kind of “wedding” board. Even I have one. What I’ve noticed about weddings in general and I’ve realized this from looking at wedding boards is that people, usually women, seem very concerned with weddings. Whether they are having one, had one or not.  An incredible amount of organization, planning, money and plain old effort goes into this event.

Suddenly, people have to find the right dress, the right bouquet, the right decor, table settings, food, lighting, music, the whole aesthetic has to work together, to achieve a visual, emotive, and  stylistic goal. From the save-the-dates to the favors, it all has to live up to this high standard. While, I understand that the wedding indicates a fundamental moment in life, a change, a new chapter, not to the mention the uniting of two people who are apparently in love (barf), but why all the effort all of a sudden?

Why put all this effort into one day, when during the rest of, well, your life, you’re throwing on whatever comes to hand, eating whatever is there, settling for what’s cheap or worse, what’s easy? Now, I am not suggesting that we can all, or even want to put serious money into our daily lives, I’m talking about intent here. I’m talking about thought. About thinking a little bit more about how you want thinks to roll.  If you think you will, or want to, or have given your wedding day so much deliberation, so much thought, surely you could apply a modicum of that to your daily life? Trust me, every day will feel more like a wedding day.

I want to feel like a princess when I get married!

Bad news: I want to feel like a princess every fucking day.

Maybe this is indicates that I am an uncommonly particular human being, perhaps the word “high maintainence” might come into play, but I’m not asking anyone else to participate. It’s the difference between thinking about what you want your world to be like. It’s thinking I’m pretty into.

Your wardrobe and shopping deserves the same consideration as your wedding gown.

Your home deserves the same thought, taste and cohesion as your reception space and ceremony space, even your getaway car.

Your blog, Facebook, web  presence deserves what your save-the-dates and invitations get.

I know it seems like a snobby, demandingly tall order, but what about just a little bit of weddingness every day?

(and yes, I do think of my blog like I would a wedding invation, and yes, I’ll probably use “fuck” there too…)

The End of the End

First up, I realize I’m in Zambia and so all I should have to write about is Zambia, but quite frankly, I lived here for most of my life, I’ve thought a lot of deep thoughts about Zambia, and while in my 2.5 years of absence both it and I have changed considerably, I don’t feel all that motivated to write about it.

However, it is important to emphasize that I AM here, and being in Lusaka (now, even, despite the wireless in my parents house and zippy Internet) I am way on the other side of the world. I am in a very different timezone and effectively, find myself somewhat isolated. I don’t really mind this. Usually being in Lusaka serves as a time for me to withdraw from the world and deal with things. I graduated from Georgetown about a month ago, and it has been one of the most tulmultuous months in a long time. I supposed I’d be well served to take this time to disappear.

I’ll get back in mid-July. Specifically, I’ll be back just in time to see the new (and last) Harry Potter movie on July 15. (This was the one request I made of my father, yes, I shall spend 1 month in Lusaka, on this one peculiar condition.) While, like millions of other people my age, I am totally excited about Harry Potter. I am also incredibly nervous. This is the end. (Granted, I’m aware of Pottermore and waiting with baited breath.) However, for all intensive purposes Harry Potter has been *the* dominant cultural narrative of my life.

In 1997 when “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” came out, I was 12. Granted, I did not become invested in the series until about 2 years later, when I was 14. I will turn 26 this year, Harry Potter has played a huge role in my life for 12 years. I became invested in it because Nicole moved to Lusaka and had been very engaged by it, and wanted to have someone to engage with about it. (Boy oh boy, did we get involved.)

Since the age of 14, which, let’s be honest is an impressionable time of a child’s life, Harry Potter has been a highly influential aesthetic object. Waiting for books have marked events in my life, through high school and college, the films provided a visual actualization which I was desperately motivated by. The thought that there will simply be no more makes me feel incredibly lost.

I just don’t think any of us expected this story to become so much a part of us. I know I didn’t. The characters became so important, mirrors and reflections of our own growing up. I’m nervous about the end, just thinking about it makes me want to cry.

With that, I leave you with the final trailer for “Deathly Hallows: Part 2″.