sundries, now with footnotes!

[rm]

I am still ridiculously tired. I feel like most conversations I've had with Patty since we've gotten back have involved me mumbling incoherently and vaguely pawing at her. She tells me it's okay to be sleepy, and then I declare that it's boring. I did go to bed stupidly early last night and forced myself to sleep until 9am today, so hopefully that will help, even if I did wake up in the middle of all that so that we could watch "Fool For Love."

Leading us to Obligatory Buffy Commentary: Oh god, I really am Spike.

Patty: "Did you write bad poetry?"
Me: "Everyone writes bad poetry at some point."
Patty: "Did you use the word effulgent?"
Me: "Entirely possible."

Also, hey, James Marsters can act.

Today we went to the farmer's market and Trader Joe's. In addition to things like asparagus and ramps, we got stuff for our illegal fire-escape garden, including more herbs and a bunch of tomato plants. Assuming it doesn't rain for ALL OF JUNE this year, I figure we're already ahead.

New Yorkers! London has ruined us for Indian food. We have lots of good places in NYC, but nothing that comes close to what we've experienced in the UK. If anyone has any recs for places with awesome jalfrezi, dopiaza or bhuna, we want to know.

Last night or this morning or something (tired, can't remember), I asked Patty to go with me to what will be my 20th reunion at Hewitt^{1, 2}. Despite not graduating from Hewitt, it was ten years of my life, and they've said I'm welcome so I've decided to go.

This is, of course, rather fraught for me, and led to Patty asking why I even wanted to go.

"I just want someone else to see it, to know it's real. When I talk about it, no one believes me. Plus, you'll really like the library."³

"Won't I be at your side?" she asked.

"Maybe I'll be at yours."

Predictably, all of this raises the eternal question of what to wear.

For me, there's no such thing as what makes me comfortable. How can there be when anything I own may feel like drag one day and feel like my own skin the next? And how can there be when I am so innately political, that I'm aware of the agenda of anything I put on?

If I wear a dress am I being vengeful by showing off my awesome body in a way that makes me a hypocrite about body policing, shame and desire? Will I look like I'm trying too hard? Will I seem as weak as I imagine all of them to be? Those delicate women who wouldn't want to offend but once called my father to tell him I was a cock-sucking whore -- when I was twelve.

If I wear a suit (which, you know, is nicer, because it's more me, and hello, armour and make of in-jokes) will it seem just like I'm trying to shock? Will people whisper about how they always knew or about how I'm an artist? Will Patty be assumed to be the alumna and me the dyketastic partner? Will they say, "you know, the only reason I never thought she was a lesbian was because she was just so bad at sports"?

And on and on and on it goes. But I do have to go, to prove to myself that I am not afraid. For me, Hewitt has been a story without end. Now it gets to have one, even if I choose to continue my association thereafter.

But here's something, two somethings, I've never told you, and I guess it matters. First, Hewitt has a terrible reputation. Second? The Hewitt motto is "By Faith and By Courage" and the crest and all involves tall ships at sea. The weird thing about me isn't that all the pieces of me don't seem to fit, it's that they all actually do.

Holy crap! Deadly airborne fungus! Fuck Oregon!

A lot of people deserve blame in the global financial collapse that isn't done with us yet: Goldman Sachs, Iceland, real estate speculators, skankwire.... Wait, WHAT? Also, seriously, who the fuck names a porn site "skankwire"?

Tommy Tomita, the Japanese jazz tour guide of Harlem.

This should go without saying, and I've probably said it before, but I'm so sick of it: I loathe, LOATHE that "Gwen-bashing" is more or less a genre of fic in Torchwood fandom. It really disgusts me.

---

¹ Wow, check out the graduating class photos along the staircases. White dresses mandatory, with advance approval required from the school, because if two girls got the same dress, that would be really embarrassing. I remember girls used to bring in custom sketches of dresses, and we wondered if people would get something really fabulous to get multi-use out of it -- debutante ball, wedding -- but people had the resources that that wasn't necessary; or, if they didn't have the resources, wasn't relevant, since they'd never be a debutante or have a big deal wedding.

² Also? That staircase? Only seniors and faculty members were allowed to use it. Everyone else had to use the servants' stairs.

³ Woah, shit, that reading room thing in the upper half of that photo is new! It's pretty cool, but I wonder how much it mars the effect of the library as I remember it. It had once been the formal dining room in them mansion that housed the Upper School. I used to take French in the servants' quarters.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hey, is yours in Urban Dictionary? I just found out Hewitt is. It's grim. Grim grim grim.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I found it, but it's much more realistic as opposed to yours which is...ugh.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh, but that's EXACTLY what was going around about it in the 80s (and from articles I've read, the 60s and 70s too) too. It's just sort of appalling, because really? So I studied Latin, French and Spanish and was writing 2 hour essay examinations before I was 12, why?

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

It definitely had a rep for being a school for dumb girls.

I was referring more to the tone of the piece on UD. Bleh.