on social equality

me: i'm too tired to do laundry but if i don't do laundry then i won't have clean yoga clothes for tomorrow.
bf: not having clean yoga clothes is the epitome of a first world problem.
me: dammit.
bf: you need to check your privilege at the door.

i've taught him so well he's starting to use my own words against me.

many things

the george zimmerman verdict has left me with many things. i feel how deeply the aftermath of the rodney king riots make it impossible for anyone in los angeles to not see the inflection of race in police action, and wonder greatly at the portions of the country who don't have their rodney kings, and can somehow blind themselves to systemic racism.

i think about how the police used to tail my car when i worked at a center for teens in run down, east lost los angeles. i think about how i saw two cop cars the other day within blocks of each other as i drove to my gig teaching teens in run down, south los angeles. i think about the fact that the teens i teach have to walk 40 minutes in a dilapidated wasteland in order to come to class and go home, and how important it is that we accomplish all of our activities before night sets in.

i think about people who selectively apply their arguments for justice, only in cases when black bodies are expendable. those are the same people claiming the abortion bans in texas are for the benefit of 'women's health'.

i think about the marine who had a crush on me junior year, and followed me regularly in the dining halls and to my dorm room. despite his best intentions, his actions always filled me with a sense of unease, because he felt like he knew how to kill people.

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some manna for the soul today, because i think we are all spiritually in need.

“So build yourself as beautiful as you want your world to be. Wrap yourself in light then give yourself away with your heart, your brush, your march, your art, your poetry, your play. And for every day you paint the war, take a week and paint the beauty, the color, the shape of the landscape you’re marching towards. Everyone knows what you’re against; show them what you’re for."

—Andrea Gibson, Evolution

on the creation of meaning

so here's the deal. my workplace is going up in flames right now. for the past two years i have worked for people who do not hesitate to abuse, condescend, and discriminate against those beneath them. i can state with certainty and no exaggeration, that they have ruined lives of innocent, well meaning people whose only shortcoming was how close they were to retirement. who just refinanced their home. who had two children to feed. who were fresh out of college with no other job experience. they tried to come after me too, which ended with me developing a stress disorder and filing pages after pages of evidence with central human resources to protect myself (thank you ivy league education, for teaching me how to write 20 page papers under duress).

well, one of those people left a few weeks ago, and another is on her way out in a month. that leaves only one naked and defenseless without his band of bullies to back him up. everyone who they terrorized is breathing a sigh of relief, and waiting to push the play button on their 'ding dong, the witch is dead' playlist.

before this job i never thought people could be so ugly inside.
before this job i never thought the type of meaningful social change i would be creating is ousting these snakes from the underbelly of corporate america.
before this job i never knew victory could feel so pyrrhic.

i take comfort in the seeming efficacy of karma.

Erika Eichelberger: Your Home is your Abattoir.

in 2nd grade a boy kicked me in an unconscionable place.
that same year i tried to push my best friend into a wall.
in 4th grade i went to school with jonbenet ramsay, who was then abducted and murdered in her own basement
that same year, a couple of towns over, the columbine shootings occurred.
i have been hit so badly i had to lie about my bruises to other people.
i have been hit so badly i've contemplated suicide.
i have witnessed someone attempt suicide.
i have witnessed two people try to knife each other on the metrobus.
two years ago some one was shot in the head by a driver, 50 feet from where i used to live.
i have been physically assaulted by a romantic partner.
i have physically assaulted a romantic partner.
i have worked with teenagers who have experienced much, much worse.

our culture of violence doesn't start abroad with "terrorists". it starts in our homes, in our communities, in ourselves. while the nra's sway over the government is disgusting, and the recent spate of mass killings horrifying, it is not surprising given the culture we continue to nurture through our refusal to confront the true violence that happens in our personal lives, violence that grows outward in the form of fear, political intimidation, appeals to 'self-defense', and ultimately, tragedy.

please stop the madness.

3 people died in the boston marathon today. 3 people. this would feel a little more significant, if i didn't walk around every day carrying the knowledge that at least 3 people within a 20 mile radius of me will have died by the end of the day. they will have died at the hands of police, wayward drivers, inadequate hospitals. they will have died and their poverty, their ethnicity, their own moral failure be held up as a reason to not be moved to action. just a few days ago a teenage rape victim in canada hung herself, and there are still commenters on the internet calling her a slut.

i am grateful for the outpouring of civic pride and generosity in the wake of the boston marathon explosion, which was a truly perverse and appalling event. but i am also disappointed at the societal forces that sensationalize some deaths while keeping others quiet, choosing to only provide rest to the dead who fit within a certain paradigm. my blood runs cold at the thought that, if the perpetrator is "foreign", it will spark the second war on terror. if the perpetrator is a u.s. citizen, well, no one will have the courage to call it terrorism.

this is an unpopular opinion, so i am writing it in a place where very little people frequent. boston seems so far away when, 5 miles away, helicopters circle and the sound of drug shootings is muffled by the barking of guard dogs, in the neighborhood where one of my students lives.

when the world needs my signature dose of truth to power

on choices

we shouldn't be surprised by the amount of depravity the internet—originator of two girls, one cup—can trot out, but the comments on this photo essay documenting domestic violence are revolting nonetheless. many call out the victim for not making better choices in her relationships. but who are these people for whom it is so easy to choose a white picket fences life with the perfect job and perfect spouse? lord knows it would behoove me, an foregone artist, to live off the earnings of a millionaire, but i wouldn't know where to meet one and certainly wouldn't make it past his/her security guard if i did. what's your secret, kate middleton? it's not easy for any of us to escape the life we're born into. some of us, like me, are lucky enough that we don't have to escape. but others seem to take up endlessly berating those who exhibit a shocking lack of free choice. perhaps they do so to fulfill the fantasy that america is a meritocracy, and that everything they want is within their reach, even as they grasp at fleeting mirages and thin air.

bossypants

i've been rediscovering the joys of reading—oh, orlando!—that pasttime where it's ok to let your body be a vegetable and have your mind's adventures count as activity (a shocking revelation to a compulsive go-getter).

there's this part in tina fey's book, where she writes about how most women come to realize they are a woman, by the sexual harassment they receive. i beg to differ. sexual harassment sends me careening backwards to being a girl and just discovering these awkward lumps on my body, whose strange formations would be used as a weapon against my sense of self. being a girl means having your life at the mercy of others, subject to their sneering battering at any moment and not having the tools to defend yourself. this is the quintessential feeling of shame and helplessness that street harassers try to elicit.

conversely, i first crossed the threshold into woman-ness maybe one, two years ago, when i was able to step back, look at my life, and realize that i had my shit together. and i realized something more, that no matter what pits of misery life would throw me into, i would never lose my ability to get my shit together, and that no one, no one catcalling from the street, could take that away from me. it took a lot of fucking up and emotional immaturity before i reached this state of zen-like enlightenment. i always thought being a woman connoted being someone with shoulder pads and no sense of humor, but actually, it's pretty awesome to be out of the girl phase of my life. i am woman, hear me roar!

amalgam

life lately has been so amazing at times that i have had to pinch myself to confirm that, yes, indeed, my wildest dreams are coming true and i am becoming every day, the person i am meant to be. at the same time, because karma likes to exact a payment to keep the balance of the universe at a precarious zero, life has been incredibly trying.

ruben's mother was diagnosed with lung cancer last fall, and had her final surgery a week ago. we've spent the days watching her in the icu, confronting for the first time the meaning of death. before i used to always imagine death in its abortive forms - car crash, heart attack, not waking up in the morning. but death, or maybe life, has proved itself to be slow, soft, and cruel. when they say that there is no cure for cancer, they're not referring to a gap in the medical field, but rather, a gap in the human spirit. there are doctors, and hospital beds, and radiation, and nurses, and machines that go beep and artificial hearts, artificial any part of a body one may desire. science is so advanced now that it can beat cancer. it just takes so long that the human spirit often collapses before the body reaches the finish line.

she cries out sometimes in the night, trying to pull out her breathing tube and denying she can hold on much longer, even though we tell her she is getting more beautiful and healthier every day. given the emotional valleys into which we fall every time we visit, i can only imagine the abyss that grips her every moment she lies in that hospital bed, and whose darkness flashes through the cracks of her narcotics-fueled nightmares.

it is the hardest feeling to watch her bruised body curled up in the hospital bed, shaking every time she feels a jolt of pain, and knowing that there is nothing to do but wait, wait. watch and see how she is tightly nestled in a fetal position, her skin trembling with the fragility of a newborn. we are back where we started, with what we always knew—that life is fragile, but the threat of loss unravels us every time.

please send her your love and encouragement.