blog fantasies

I feel overwhelmed by my without-a-theme blog. I mean, technically, the theme is me (hence the "rachel" part of the title). But that encompasses so many blogging possibilities that I find myself avoiding choosing, and therefore never writing on this thing. So, I decided, I need a theme for my blog.

If I could, I would have a blog with a different subject for each day of the week. Like, gay stuff on Mondays, feminist stuff on Tuesdays, maybe the arts on Friday nights? And a day for crafts. Saturdays could even be brunch-themed. I could even get way more creative than that.

Or maybe I could do a blog about weddings. Gay weddings, in particular, and the ability for "weddings" to keep heteronormative/gender roles so firmly cemented in our cultural consciousness.

Hell, I could fill a whole blog just writing about heteronormativity.

Or a blog about the South. It's quirks, how it's still so different from "the North," what it's like to be a woman/gay/an activist here. How privilege works in the South. I'm fascinated by North-South dichotomies in the U.S.

Oh, and birth order! I would love to do a blog about birth order.

As I write these fantasy blog ideas, I realize that the reason I have a non-thematic blog is so that I can write about anything I want. And look, I have ideas! I can blog! Clearly, this is a very self-serving post. But for those of you who aren't me, think about it as foreshadowing.

Some day I will do these things. Perhaps all of these things. And many other things. Actual things. On my blog. Maybe not while I'm writing my bachelor's essay. Or while I'm supposed to be writing about a billion other papers that I am clearly avoiding right now. But maybe, just maybe, whenever I successfully integrate actual time management skills into my lifestyle, I will be able to maintain my dream (un-themed) blog. Stay tuned.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

This is one of my most favorite Sylvia Plath passages, appropriately both depressing and contemplative. Perfect for introspective Sunday evenings. I really wish I had brought my copy of The Bell Jar to NYC. I'm missing my Plath almost as my kitty cat.

homesick?

I never get homesick. Never. I used to pride myself on this fact. My mom would brag to her friends that her kids were never home, and that we never needed to be comforted while we were away. We (my sisters and I) were gone so much that she even began to feel like we didn't want to be around, that we might not have any feelings for our home at all. We used to dream up elaborate vacations to go on, adventures we would have, and as we got older, took advantage of the ability to make some of them realities. I've spent every summer away from home as far back as I can remember, usually by myself. I have very vivid memories of seeing girls even at just week-long sleep away camps needing to be comforted by counselors, their heads rubbed and reassured, "Don't worry, you'll be home soon." And I thought, what's the deal? You spend pretty much all your time at home anyway, why wouldn't you be dying to spend time away? What possibly could there be to miss at home?

But those memories are coming back to me, and find myself kind of wishing I had a counselor of my own these days to rub my head and encourage me to, "Keep going strong! Because the comforts of home are not that far away!" I decided to spend a grand summer away in New York City, working for an incredible organization that aligns perfectly with my ideologies, and I did not think for one second that I would be anything but totally happy in a new environment, with all new people, doing a completely different kind of job than I've ever had before. Seven weeks later, I'm starting to feel the wear.

I shooed away my first homesick thoughts, writing them off as weak, not fulfilling my adventure to the absolute fullest. But, in the spirit of being a person who thinks emotions are very important messages to the self and should be respected, no matter how ridiculously out of place or goofy they may feel at a given time, I gave up and went with it for a while. And yes, I realized, I WAS capable of feeling homesick (shocking), and maybe this wasn't a bad thing.

Thinking about, okay, missing home, has made me realize just how much I value it. Just like when I spent all my time hating Atlanta while I lived there, all I had to do was move away to really appreciate it. Having a similar realization about Charleston has actually been really beneficial, because I hadn't been considering it a real home. But now, away from it, not only do I consider it home, but I'm actually sick for it. And these thoughts have allowed me to meditate on the good of Charleston--the proximity to my friends, the bike navigability, the beautiful springtime, farmer's market, the beach, the relationships I've been able to develop with professors, Art Walks, my jobs, happy hour at Vickery's--while thinking less of just how quickly I can't wait to get out of there. So maybe homesickness isn't a bad thing after all, if it makes you remember all these great things about where you live. I'm definitely not going to stop going on adventures anytime soon, but maybe I won't be so hard on my home next time I'm around there. I mean, if it's worth missing, it can't be that bad, right?

CofC NOW

This year our chapter of the National Organization for Women has been particularly active, doing lots of fun, activist things. And we got mentioned on the national NOW website! Pretty cool. The picture is from the (wildly successful) Vagina Monologues benefit concert & art show at Andolini's that we put on during V-Day Week back in February. I'm proud!

offerings to Flora

Happy May Day & International Workers' Day!

I actually was not aware that these two observations went together, but consequently both holidays are applicable to my life these days. First, workers rights have been on my mind a lot lately, because Kaylee has gotten really involved with the campaign to unionize the Charleston Sanitation Workers. She has worked tirelessly (chances are if you've been on campus in the past two weeks, you've seen her) to collect signatures on a petition to provide them with a way to protect their health and safety on the job--an increasingly difficult task in a right-to-work state like South Carolina. But she, and a small group of other really devoted people are trying anyway. Sign the petition online and help them out, in honor of International Workers' Day!

As for the May Day that I'm more familiar with, the one that marks the beginning of the spring-y months and the end of the winter half of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, it's an occasion for planting new things and watching them grow! I'm a big fan of the idea of spring as a time for rebirth and new life, and particularly the physical manifestation of this concept in, what else? Planting a new garden!

After my first plants took some pretty bad hits (moving across town, getting lost and/or drowned in the horrible flooding at our new house, a.k.a. the epicenter of Charleston's poor drainage system) I decided I'd give it another go. And May Day seems quite a perfect day to chart my progress.

I love having fresh herbs, and my original herb garden at the Spring St. house did pretty well, until the rats feasted on beloved potted delicacies. Now here's the new herb garden:

There's lemon basil, mint, cilantro, Sicilian oregano, and a big rosemary bush that managed to survive all the tragedies. (Don't mind the underwear hanging to dry in the background; we had to do a little hand-washing of the essentials because not having a washer/dryer is taking a toll on our clean laundry situation.)

We're also trying to grow some veggies this year from seeds, and check out this progress:

Before: these are squash & cucumber seeds and barely-visible okra sprouts.

And after: sprouts going gangbusters after just a few days!
Okra!
Cucumbers!
Even little squash! (Those have been more stubborn.)


Welcome to my back porch, May. Spring is such a lovely time of year, and I'm glad it's finally here after all those teases of winter right up until the last minute.

The Story of Stuff

One of the most eye-opening presetations I saw at this year's SEWSA conference was this short film called "The Story of Stuff" by Annie Leonard. It's less than 20 minutes long, but still one of the most effective demonstrations of the "underside" of our (really incredibly horrendous) production and consumption patterns. It's easy to understand, and it makes it pretty clear where, in the process of [extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal] of our TONS of STUFF, public intervetion is necessary and actually possible. Click on that link at it will take you to the film. Check it out.. it will make even that little bit of consumer therapy seem really, really not worth it.

blog hiatus

Well, I hope everyone had a great Women's History Month! I can finally look out my window and see green leaves and sun instead of clouds, and bike riding is now less torturous and more sunshiney. I know haven't posted anything on here in quite a long while, but this time I'm not begging for sympathies. It was totally legit! Since my last post I have:

• changed my graduation plans
  
• landed a kick ass internship in New York for the summer
• successfully presented at SEWSA
• cut off and donated all my hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths
  
• scored a nanny job for next semester for quite possibly the cutest baby of all time
• decided on a topic for my bachelor's essay
• got a second interview for another job for next year
• saw Ghostland Observatory live
  
• gotten and successfully taken care of my very first pet for almost three months

As for some follow-up details: I will be spending the summer working as a (paid!) dean at the Sadie Nash Leadership Institute, an organization that works with young women ages 14-18 to basically equip them to become feminist leaders. The more I learned about them, and throughout the process of applying and interviewing, the more I realized how great the concept really was. They'll take classes like "Looks-ism," "The Zine Project," "Filmmaking to Make a Difference," and "Power, Identity and Privilege," meet with awesome women leaders from their communities, and participate in really cool workshops about activism and social justice. And the whole time they'll be guided by succesful female role models. I am really excited--not to mention, summer in the city! (Logistics, like what we're doing about rent on the house here in Chas, will be worked out at a later date.)

Also, here is our cat, Starlee (yes, named after Starlee Kine, one of my absolute favorite producers on This American Life--just look at all those awesome episodes she's contributed to!), my first pet and definite favorite so far.

She used to be so, so little, and I got to learn that kittens are perhaps the cutest little things until they get a little bigger and they realize how to climb things. (That time period is quite fleeting.)

Now she is so much bigger, at least three or four times that size, and after less than three months! I love her a ridiculous amount despite the fact that being responsible for another living creature is very nervewracking sometimes.

Once I get past these next few weeks' worth of research papers, presentations, and final projects, I will stop being so self-centered, I promise. Here is a treat to leave you with in the meantime. Imagine this plus a killer light show going on behind him, and you can see what our Ghostland experience was like in Athens. What a great show.