Reflection: Hitting Balls

When I was in 2nd grade I started playing fast pitch softball. I got to start a year early because our town was so small and there weren’t enough girls to make up a whole team. I was an only-child, shy, reserved. But softball gave me a push to own a certain amount of confidence. Stepping into the batters box on a game day with at least 20 or more people watching is scary. You’re all alone in that space and though you may be too frightened to take a swing, to frightened to do anything but watch the ball wiz by, you still had to have the initiative and strength to step in front of everyone and at least attempt to try.

And though now it’s easy for me to have issues with sports because of the parallelisms sports have to the military (patriarchical institutions) I do have to say that they are not completely evil. I made friends, I started talking. I gained confidence in myself, and I didn’t get fat. I still have that competitive edge, I love to win and, okay, it’s true, I hate to lose, I mean pouty-face tantrum hate, but at least sports gave me the will-power to exert effort into being successful in whatever I do, even if what I am doing is deconstructing the power dynamics within and outside those very games.

But, in the end all that fear, all that energy, anxiety, and hope that swims through ones brain upon entering the batters box makes the hit all the more joyous; the connection is what we’re all going for, the moment when everything falls into place and our confidence sails over the fence.

100 (or so) words on: Poop Commercials

Does anyone else think it’s strange the amount of anti-constipation commercials that have overwhelmed the television lately. If we’re not learning about all the fucked up bullshit politicians have been doing we’re learning how to clean out our colons, YAY!

I have a simple solution. Stop eating so much shit and you’ll be able to shit better. Seriously. I cannot believe all the new products that exist to clean people out. You know what’s clogging you up, processed food. Eat a flipping apple for crying out loud. Would it be so difficult to actually consume healthy produce instead of eating cardboard pizzas and fast food every day? Have a flipping orange. It has got to taste better than that “orange flavored” Metamucil powder people put in their water.

Another point, if you didn’t eat dairy to begin with you wouldn’t need that nasty yogurt to help smooth out your bowel movements. What it comes down to is simplicity. The more complicated your food gets, the more complicated your inner workings become. So, as someone once brilliantly said, “keep it simple stupid” the poop will come out freely and we can all stop watching those creepy commercials with the extra happy poop-free people in them.

School Lunches: My Frightful PB Experience

When I was in grade school I gave myself fake allergies. I did this so I wouldn’t have to take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch everyday; this worked out most of the time except when we ran out of lunch meat and I ended up having to eat a Velveeta yellow-mustard white-bread sandwich; this hunk of lunch could really have only been worse for me if I slathered it with mayo—luckily I was “allergic” to mayo too so I saved a few sacred calories. I don’t know why anyone believed me, especially since I was not allergic to peanut butter if it was covered in chocolate. I especially don’t know why any one believed me when the list began to elongate. It started with food products, peanut butter, mayo, gravy, tomatoes, but then it moved into other territories: dish soap, mowing the lawn, and once in the 6th grade I even faked being allergic to shaving cream so I didn’t have to play some stupid obstacle rely game where I was forcedly partnered up with some creepy fat boy who had a crush on me, probably the best use of a fake allergy ever.

But then, I had to actually go to a doctor and get an allergy test.

And the truth befell. I wasn’t allergic to peanuts or mayonnaise or tomatoes or dish soap.

I was allergic to cats. And I had a cat. Oh, the karmic world came down on me hard that day.

Poor ole’ Taz was given to a family friend. Poor ole Taz was mauled by the family friend’s dog within hours.

Thus, in the end, I learned not to push my luck; it was better to just state the truth, I didn’t like PB or Mayo or doing the dishes, but that didn’t mean I should lie to people about it just to get what I wanted (or didn’t want). It’s just too bad Taz had to die over the whole event. Oh, what the animal sacrifices.

Single Minded Schools

Today, in my Women and the Law class, there was a much heated debate about single-sex schools. Are they discriminatory, what are the benefits, the downfalls, the underlying social ramifications?

One of the major arguments was that women who receive a same-sex education gain better self-esteem, confidence, and leadership skills.

There are studies that support this argument, but I want to look at the bigger picture here.

What is it about co-ed schools that cause women to feel so shitty?

Can we truly base educational separation on the fact that men are assholes and women are emotionally weak? This seems like a stereotypical argument.

If women have terrible self-esteem in co-educational systems, why? And how can low self-esteem be fixed inside the system?

I remember when I was in a 5^th grade math class; our desks were divided into groups of 4 around the room. In my island there were three boys and me. Two of the boys tried to copy off of my test. I raised my hand in protest. The (female) teacher came over, heard my plea and informed me that I had to be lying since no boy would ever cheat off of a girl since girls’ aren’t good at math. Talk about being beat down by stereotypes. Talk about perpetuation. Talk about confidence killing—and from a woman who got a fucking degree in mathematics. WTF.

I don’t think the issue should be about same-sex schools, I think it should be about making co-education anti-sexist, anti-narrow-minded, anti-stereotypical and anti-degrading for all people. A place where people aren’t told they are better or worse at something because of their natural born placement into the world, but earn their better or worse status by what they do (or don’t do).

But that might just be too obvious of a solution (or too idealistic on my behalf).

Corporatocracy: What Your $ Buys

Is there even a point in bothering with politics anymore? Since the recent Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to spend as much money on political campaigns as they want, I am wondering why they don’t just come out and blatantly admit that the government doesn’t run the country at all; big business does. We have no democracy but a corporatocracy. It really has nothing to do with who the better candidate is, but which one has more money stuffed in his or her pockets. The candidate isn’t even a person, but a puppet used to pull strings so corporations can do whatever they want—hence why corporations are considered individuals. I’m sure, when given enough money (under the table of course) Justices (or any human) would call a building a tree if they were bribed with enough cash to do so. But hasn’t it gotten tiring, hasn’t that theme, that plot-line, been over-played? Sure, money can buy control, but do you, personally, want to be controlled by people with the most money? Have you ever met an extremely rich person? They have no concept of living under capitalism because they are capitalism. What you’re buying is their freedom. What you’re buying is their control over you. It’s their vote, not yours.

Vulvacentrism: Flower Power

This picture was suggested to me and taken by my friend Elizabeth. I thought it might give up a glimmer of hope for the spring :)

200 (or so) Words on: Strange Injuries

Is it just me or do other people wake up to find bruises in strange places, soreness in obscure muscles, or cuts and scrapes that have no memory attached to them. I have a giant bruise on my big toe, it hurts so much, yet I have no recollection of how or when I damaged it. It’s starting to worry me. I’m starting to imagine that I have a secret sleep-walking life, a life of pure clumsiness, but a sleep-walking alternative life none the less. How can I run into things or have things fall on me or have things kick me or have things attack me and not recall any of it? Am I blacking it out because it’s pure torture? I think I’m going to start taking notes when I bang my body on something, that way I can look back and go, oh yeah, that bruise is from when I smashed my head on the refrigerator’s freezer door or that’s when I was play-kicking Ryan and accidently karate-clubbed the wall instead. It’s the only way to keep my injurious life style from causing me pure mental instability. But for now, I’ll just have to down some ibuprofen and try to forget about the pain.