I'm sitting in the cafeteria with Vanessa and Caroline, and somehow gay sex scenes come up, and somehow from gay sex scenes I go into a long rant about patriarchy and how lesbian sex scenes and sex scenes in general objectify women, etc. Of course I'm proud of myself now, because I've learned big new words from soc. of gender to better communicate all the rage (i.e. 'patriarchy' and 'objectify' hehe), and I'm getting kindof worked up until Vanessa looks at me and says, "I really like how you're saying all of this with that shirt on." I assume she's referring to the fact that my shirt is hot pink and keep talking, but Caroline joins in. "Yeah. Your shirt has a giant dick on it."

WOW. So somehow I never noticed that the "torpedo" printed on my shirt is rather suspiciously shaped, nor did I notice that immedietly below that picture are the words "Dick's Anatomy," in all caps, of course.

AGHHH! Ok. So now I am trying to think back, to all the professors and parents walking with kids and old people and snickering pubescent boys I may have offended or grossly amused today and all the other days I've worn it (it was one of my favorite t-shirts). Above all, I'm wondering if  I've ever stumbled across any Freudians while wearing it, and what they would say about my choice in t-shirts.

Here's where I have to leap to my own defense: though I do admit to a certain affinity for the shirt, I didn't buy it; Amanda tossed it to me one day and told me she "didn't like it." Hmmf. Did Amanda know there was a giant penis on the shirt when she gave it to me? Was she simply looking around for her first naive t-shirtless victim, deviously plotting to undermine my feminist ideology? Is she, perhaps, like Brian from 1984, seemingly on my side but in reality "the woMAN"? Or was she, too, betrayed by perverted clothing designers with a lust for innuendo?

Anyways, I'm taking the shirt off.

It's interesting. Social Studies polls show that people living in beautiful, sunlit, beachy California rate themselves as no happier than say, people living in Wisconsin, where everything is dark and gloomy for a large portion of the year, and people have to stay indoors all the time. They show that the average happiness of women whose husbands die first goes down leading up to their husband's death, then after two years rises up to almost their normal level of happiness.

In a way, these statistics could be comforting. "The human spirit will prevail" and all that. But then there's the other side of it: the average happiness of people who get married peaks for a while, then goes back down to what it was before they'd gotten married, or met their spouse. Criticism towards the "insitution of marraige" aside, is there anything that we can do to make ourselves happier?

I always hear people say that we need to learn to make the best with what we're given. People tell me, when I talk about switching schools, that I won't be happy anywhere I go. I don't know if I want to switch schools or not, and I have to acknowledge that my reputation for negativity/general dissatisfaction is not unfounded, :) but people don't just say those kind of things to me. I hear it all the time. "Do you really think things will change if you do ----? Stop kidding yourself."

I wish people would understand how powerless these kinds of things can make another person feel. If we don't have the ablility to move, to act, to change, then what do we have? Yeah, it's one thing to tuck your tale between your legs and run, to try to change everything on the outside before you grapple with anything on the inside, but I truly believe that individuals DO have the ability to change their lives and their circumstances, regardless of what social science surveys, biochemistry, or philosophy might say.

I dunno. I'm getting really preachy here, and I'm sure a lot of people will either be like, shutup, or like, duh that's so obvious, but if you look at how cynical everyone (including myself) can get about things like the media, the war, protesting ("they're just trying to relive the sixties, and they can't"), changing their own lives, confronting someone about something, it really branches into every aspect of our lives. We're so scared of doing something cliche that we don't do anything at all.

Last year I was so scared of making the wrong choice that I didn't choose. I thought that whatever choice I made would be bad, but at the same time harbored the idea that nothing would I tried to do would really alter my life for the better. So I guess really I'm preaching to myself, am trying to negate to a certain degree what I wrote in my last entry...words can only do so much, I suppose, but there's always something that can be done, even if it's simply staying silent.

"It's those words...you act as though they carry no weight, but they're heavy like stones that sure, won't shatter the bones but instead will sink into the soul and hold down the heart. What children's line could work this time, could take this pain and make it rhyme? I'm rubber and you're glue, whatever you say--but it never works that way, so fuck you."

If you can't already tell from that angry little excerpt, I spent last semester railing about the power of words to destroy. There was a time when I truly felt that if I simply said what was on my mind, found some magic phrase to articulate what was bothering me in just the right way, had an honest enough conversation with someone, things would work out. But then I saw that promises are broken, words are often used to hurt, and there are times when, no matter how hard you scream, your voice will not be heard, or if it's heard, will not be acknowledged.

This semester, even that's changed. I'm not so angry about language anymore; instead I'm just sad. I've gone from believing that words can acheive anything to feeling like sometimes, it's better to stay silent. I've gone from hating the meaninglessness of small talk to spending most of my words and my time doing exactly that. I'm not sure if that's a lesson that I wanted to learn.

I feel like Dido with Aeneas in Hades, when he finally decides to explain why he left. She walks away into a grove of trees and doesn't say a word. But who could blame her for that? She argued, she yelled, she begged Aeneas to stay, but her words had no effect. Is it any wonder then that she would learn instead to stay silent? It's the only thing she could have done. I hate Aeneas for acting so surprised at her reaction.

But still, this silence is too cautious. I am silent because I feel so damn tired. My words have been exhausted. There is nothing to say anymore. "I understand what I am now too smart to mention to you." -Fiona Apple

I hate decisions. I always manage to find some way to regret them. Like this: I was trying to decide whether or not to drop my spanish class today (I jumped from 12 notsosuccessful hours last semester to 19 this semester) and in the midst of my angst, decided to go eat dinner. I went down, watched some Conan O' Brian, and decided to drop the class. I went back upstairs, logged on, and the stupid registration time had passed. Passed by like, five minutes. But who knows if I would have gone through with it? Coleman said I just have too many decisions, and if you know me, you know he's right. I read an article about it. They called it the "tyranny of choice". Heh.

Oh no...it's bad poetry time!! I told my mom that I wrote a happy poem, and she got really excited, so I read it to her, and she told me it wasn't happy, which made me sad, which totally defeated the purpose of writing a happy poem in the first place :o)

I asked the night I sent those poems

in my dead dead voice

for his approval

of a piece of me

(after all that pointless pain)

and told myself it was no use,

that I was just a werewolf

howling at a waning moon

“They’re fine,” he said

I never asked again

embarrassed by the reckless words

wrung out like bloodstained sheets

I became myself

a woman waning…

forget about the moon.

now I am

not dancing

simply shaken

but in each quake

there’s movement yet

blood flowering over

those pure white sheets

remains a hemorrhage

of life

for corpses never bleed

and of the moon

wax leads to full

but wane to new

(who knew pain could have a purpose?)

So you see I was revived the day

pen turned to sword

and sword to teeth

that bared themselves

lifting hung head

to sound the saving howl