you don't have to go to college

A lot of things have been going on.

1. I am probably going to New Mexico this summer for an internship at Sandia National Lab.

2. I just recently heard about Camp Wellstone and associated projects, and I want to do something related to that.

3. Last night I saw Moolaade, and then I talked about it in mixed (male/female) company. I came out of the film angry - angry that tradition sometimes has more weight than the real harm it does to real people. I was angry that every step on the way to making women count as much as men has been a fight. I generalized this one extreme example of subjugation to the entire struggle. And when I talked about that with this group, some of them commented that I shouldn't judge other cultures, that maybe traditions ought to be respected. But for me, when women's humanity is abridged, negated, ignored, or conveniently forgotten it's personal. I don't have to be there and have it happen to me - I am a woman, and I feel it. Some women don't have that reaction. Like men, they're free to talk about respecting traditions. I can't do that, because when I think about what happens to women in the name of tradition I feel as though I have been attacked and my country is under siege. I'm not ready to hold a reasoned discussion about respecting diverse cultures, I'm ready to bite and scratch like an animal. Maybe that's wrong and we ought to humor people who think women don't deserve to be counted as half of humanity. I don't care.

There are a lot of other things that make this list. People who think women are the property of their husbands, who punish women for the sexual response that men have to them, who keep women under house arrest as a matter of course, who want to limit contraception and abortion in order to remove any control women have over their own bodies - I won't accept that this kind of bigotry deserves a reasoned response.

I had a similar reaction when in November all those states passed anti-gay amendments. I've got a bisexual friend who's practically part of my family, and I spent quite a while with an itchy punching-hand. That's my friend, my household, that they're saying isn't capable of the same kind of love as everyone else. Punch punch punch.

4. Square envelopes require an extra 12 cents of postage.

5. I like giving out presents but I don't like the commercialization of this holiday. But I like its decorations, food, and rituals at the same time as I don't care for the tradition it stands for. I like having something pretty and celebratory to look at and do in the winter, because winter is cold and depressing. Celebrations really need a group of people to agree that there is a substantial reason to celebrate, though, or they flop. I'm one of the people that would contribute to such a flop. I think New Year's is much more worthy of celebration. But everyone celebrates Christmas - if I want to see my family, that's the party I have to go to. I can't just invent my own holiday, because of the celebration-requires-people rule. But I don't feel honest participating in this one, since I was one of those kids for whome the pledge of allegiance went "one nation, under hmmm." I am conflicted about Christmas.

6. Recently I've been tempted to go hang out with Unitarians, except that they seem to require that you think spirituality is important and good for you, and spirituality may or may not mean belief in something that is outside of what science can ever tell us about the world. Seems like a lot of the time they do think there's some sort of driving force to the universe, and we ought to do something like worship about it, and I don't think that. But I like their politics, I like to sing songs, and I like having friends. I like learning about religions, but I certainly don't like learning about them with the assumption that eventually I'll get one, and I'm afraid that Unitarians think I ought to have some Beliefs. I don't want Beliefs, I just want to hang out with a community that maybe sometimes talks about their values (and whose values are kind of similar to mine).

7. Finals week ended. I am going to clean off my desk, finish my thesis, and study for the qual during winter break.

8. What can I do as a volunteer now to get moderate-liberal ideas a foothold in mainstream people? Everyone's talking about 2006, but between now and then we need to convince people that Social Security is not broken, that people deserve old age and unemployment insurance, that the minimum wage should be raised . . . . that the platform we're going to run on in 2006 has merit and they should vote for it. How do I do that? How do I make myself an example, a missionary of progressivism?

9. I like cooking and I like vegetables. What's the best vegetarian cookbook ever?

10. Oh, a while ago we had Thanksgiving at my house. It was nice, there was a lot of food and everybody liked it. Matt's family and mine hung out for a while, and we were all social. This is nicer than traveling to someone else's party.