Finally out of school and settling into married life, I've decided to blog more regularly. I've set up shop at the somewhat more professional looking Wordpress, and started a new blog with a little more direction: http://thesteelbrassiere.wordpress.com/
Hope to see you there!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Do NOT Try This at Home.
In London I walked the city streets at night. There is little peace in a flat housing five young women, even in the throes of study hour, and I needed my regular dose of psychic and physical space to continue to function normally. I was warned repeatedly that walking alone at night in London was a quick way to get beaten and mugged or, being a woman, worse, and even while I accepted this intellectually, I ignored them. I liked to see the city pulse with the echo of the crowds after all decent people had returned to the familiar solitude of their homes, to let my eyes skip from the litter of food wrappers and glass bottles to my fellow insomniacs and not-so-fellow skeezy quasi-criminal types, to shroud myself in the childhood comfort-blanket of anonymity. But most of all I wanted to escape from the center of my own life.
I've always had a bad habit of people watching. I like to observe and analyze, but, well, staring is rude. So I try to be subtle, though it's hard to pretend to be looking at an advertisement for half-off cosmetics in the display window of the drugstore when the street is empty except for you and the other guy. Humans do that instinctively--seek out the closest sign of sentience to compartmentalize as friend, foe, or indifferent, especially in places that are all steel beams and concrete slabs and tinted windows. You look for life where you can find it.
I saw him a block away on the other side of the street, leaning against a phone booth and smoking a cigarette. I quickly discovered upon arriving in the U.K that almost everyone smokes in Europe despite the ever-so-succinct label on every pack of tobacco product that proclaims "SMOKING KILLS", so this would not have been unusual except that he wore the black, frock-coat-like rekel and trilby hat of an Orthodox Jew in the middle of his work week. He even had the peyos, the traditional uncut sideburns which always reminded me of the way girls back home curled their hair for prom--sleek, long, and perfectly cylindrical. He began to pace back and forth, but only two steps in either direction. As I got closer I could see that his eyes couldn't stay still, and that his cigarette twitched in his fingers. He might have been mumbling to himself, because his lips were moving. Then I saw him dash into the phone booth where he picked up the phone and froze, staring straight ahead.
I stopped too, to watch him. He stared for a long time, a couple of minutes at least, and I realized I'd seen the behavior before. The inside of London's phone booths are plastered from sidewalk to roof with escort ads using varying degrees of explicitness. While none of them are tasteful, some bother to artfully hide the offensive parts of the female anatomy with clothing or poses, while others, with a woman's legs spread dramatically, pixelated just enough to keep the ad from being torn down (and probably taken home). It wasn't the first time I'd caught a guy casually perusing the display, gripping the telephone like a bright blue plastic alibi.
I was right across the street from him now, forgetting to be subtle, so when he snapped his head around and looked me in the eyes I didn't even bother to pretend I hadn't been watching him. He dashed out of the phone booth and power-walked up a block to skulk under an awning and continue sucking on his cigarette. I turned around and walked in the opposite direction. That moment of tension had already been enough for me. Going the same way, even on the opposite side of the street, felt too much like confrontation, even though it was the way back to my apartment. By the time I came back that way he had gone.
Even as a Christian, I have a soft spot for Orthodox Judaism, because I maintain my respect for people who can manage such faith in the face of a world of chaos that mocks them. I've always pictured them as the Librarians of the Universe, keepers of old words and eternal truths. Somewhere along the path of whimsy, however, I'd forgotten that they had to be as flawed and human as the next guy, and I walked away from that phone booth feeling disappointed, and maybe a little cheated. Disillusioned. How dare someone of a conservative religious minority struggle with something as base as lust!
I was disillusioned because I saw myself in that man. Now, the man I saw probably wasn't a rabbi (he would have been young for it, I think), but he still represented something to me that was more than a man. A spiritual dedication to something higher, if you will. He had marked himself as a man of God. And he was alone and lost in the middle of an empty street against a background of black, gripping plastic as bright a blue as life.
He was as lost as I was.
I've always had a bad habit of people watching. I like to observe and analyze, but, well, staring is rude. So I try to be subtle, though it's hard to pretend to be looking at an advertisement for half-off cosmetics in the display window of the drugstore when the street is empty except for you and the other guy. Humans do that instinctively--seek out the closest sign of sentience to compartmentalize as friend, foe, or indifferent, especially in places that are all steel beams and concrete slabs and tinted windows. You look for life where you can find it.
I saw him a block away on the other side of the street, leaning against a phone booth and smoking a cigarette. I quickly discovered upon arriving in the U.K that almost everyone smokes in Europe despite the ever-so-succinct label on every pack of tobacco product that proclaims "SMOKING KILLS", so this would not have been unusual except that he wore the black, frock-coat-like rekel and trilby hat of an Orthodox Jew in the middle of his work week. He even had the peyos, the traditional uncut sideburns which always reminded me of the way girls back home curled their hair for prom--sleek, long, and perfectly cylindrical. He began to pace back and forth, but only two steps in either direction. As I got closer I could see that his eyes couldn't stay still, and that his cigarette twitched in his fingers. He might have been mumbling to himself, because his lips were moving. Then I saw him dash into the phone booth where he picked up the phone and froze, staring straight ahead.
I stopped too, to watch him. He stared for a long time, a couple of minutes at least, and I realized I'd seen the behavior before. The inside of London's phone booths are plastered from sidewalk to roof with escort ads using varying degrees of explicitness. While none of them are tasteful, some bother to artfully hide the offensive parts of the female anatomy with clothing or poses, while others, with a woman's legs spread dramatically, pixelated just enough to keep the ad from being torn down (and probably taken home). It wasn't the first time I'd caught a guy casually perusing the display, gripping the telephone like a bright blue plastic alibi.
I was right across the street from him now, forgetting to be subtle, so when he snapped his head around and looked me in the eyes I didn't even bother to pretend I hadn't been watching him. He dashed out of the phone booth and power-walked up a block to skulk under an awning and continue sucking on his cigarette. I turned around and walked in the opposite direction. That moment of tension had already been enough for me. Going the same way, even on the opposite side of the street, felt too much like confrontation, even though it was the way back to my apartment. By the time I came back that way he had gone.
Even as a Christian, I have a soft spot for Orthodox Judaism, because I maintain my respect for people who can manage such faith in the face of a world of chaos that mocks them. I've always pictured them as the Librarians of the Universe, keepers of old words and eternal truths. Somewhere along the path of whimsy, however, I'd forgotten that they had to be as flawed and human as the next guy, and I walked away from that phone booth feeling disappointed, and maybe a little cheated. Disillusioned. How dare someone of a conservative religious minority struggle with something as base as lust!
I was disillusioned because I saw myself in that man. Now, the man I saw probably wasn't a rabbi (he would have been young for it, I think), but he still represented something to me that was more than a man. A spiritual dedication to something higher, if you will. He had marked himself as a man of God. And he was alone and lost in the middle of an empty street against a background of black, gripping plastic as bright a blue as life.
He was as lost as I was.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
My name is Bond. Raquel Bond.
So, about that regular basis thing. That was a lie. You'll get over it. I hope.
In other news, I have discovered my (ugh, hyphens) alter-ego--her name is Raquel. Raquel is a badass. She plays rugby. She goes into men's dorms (the dorms of my college are segregated by gender). She steals punctuation off signs. She threatens to punch the faces (or genitalia) of people who annoy her. She bakes flippin' sweet cookies rather than study. She makes off-color jokes in front of her professors. She writes edgy short stories about sexy murder.
RJ does yoga. She would never go into a men's dorm, except to wait uncomfortably in the lobby. She surreptitiously fixes the punctuation of signs. She gives hugs and lends lunch money to the people who annoy her. She pines for baked goods as she studies her hundreds of Spanish vocabulary words. She only says off-color jokes in her head and does not allow her amusement to be visible on her face. If she does write edgy short stories, she doesn't publish them.
Raquel has only recently begun to assert her inherently dominant nature (hence, rugby). RJ has recently discovered that being a badass is actually rather exhilarating. Getting smacked in the gut by a football hard enough to sting is kind of fun. She hopes that tackling people (who do and do not annoy her) will be fun too (they haven't let her tackle anyone yet). She is already counting her bruises as if they were laundry quarters.
In other news, I have discovered my (ugh, hyphens) alter-ego--her name is Raquel. Raquel is a badass. She plays rugby. She goes into men's dorms (the dorms of my college are segregated by gender). She steals punctuation off signs. She threatens to punch the faces (or genitalia) of people who annoy her. She bakes flippin' sweet cookies rather than study. She makes off-color jokes in front of her professors. She writes edgy short stories about sexy murder.
RJ does yoga. She would never go into a men's dorm, except to wait uncomfortably in the lobby. She surreptitiously fixes the punctuation of signs. She gives hugs and lends lunch money to the people who annoy her. She pines for baked goods as she studies her hundreds of Spanish vocabulary words. She only says off-color jokes in her head and does not allow her amusement to be visible on her face. If she does write edgy short stories, she doesn't publish them.
Raquel has only recently begun to assert her inherently dominant nature (hence, rugby). RJ has recently discovered that being a badass is actually rather exhilarating. Getting smacked in the gut by a football hard enough to sting is kind of fun. She hopes that tackling people (who do and do not annoy her) will be fun too (they haven't let her tackle anyone yet). She is already counting her bruises as if they were laundry quarters.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Poetry Corner
Here's some free verse I've been dabbling with the last couple of months. Be proud of me! The poems have titles!
Beats
I offer you my big black heart
coagulating in tinny cold
and burn with breath throw a punch
gnash and crunch the piling snow
because you're smiling because I know
hot steam engines hurtle past
fireball fury fist clenched pumping
you count snowflakes stitches stiletto
clackity-clacks on icy tracks
not black bruises heartbeat woes
not our frostbit toes.
Eulogy
Bury me beneath the kitchen linoleum.
Speak to me when the air conditioner hums,
when the curtains I picked
fill the room with blue light,
when you stare through windows
and don't see your own lawn.
Leave your lilies in a milk bottle on the porch.
Think of me when the bananas go bad,
when the scarf I knitted
scratches your neck red,
when you walk under Christmas lights
and don't know your own door.
They Say I Am This Woman-thing.
Singing hymns in muffled nighttime
(soothing whispers stroke my neck).
Sacrificed for cherry cheesecake
(translucent as a broken eggshell).
Spread like thin communion wafers
(hands across my belly skin).
Scattered onto threadbare carpet
(bright as prism-shattered light).
Beats
I offer you my big black heart
coagulating in tinny cold
and burn with breath throw a punch
gnash and crunch the piling snow
because you're smiling because I know
hot steam engines hurtle past
fireball fury fist clenched pumping
you count snowflakes stitches stiletto
clackity-clacks on icy tracks
not black bruises heartbeat woes
not our frostbit toes.
Eulogy
Bury me beneath the kitchen linoleum.
Speak to me when the air conditioner hums,
when the curtains I picked
fill the room with blue light,
when you stare through windows
and don't see your own lawn.
Leave your lilies in a milk bottle on the porch.
Think of me when the bananas go bad,
when the scarf I knitted
scratches your neck red,
when you walk under Christmas lights
and don't know your own door.
They Say I Am This Woman-thing.
Singing hymns in muffled nighttime
(soothing whispers stroke my neck).
Sacrificed for cherry cheesecake
(translucent as a broken eggshell).
Spread like thin communion wafers
(hands across my belly skin).
Scattered onto threadbare carpet
(bright as prism-shattered light).
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Fact: Women Like Shady Guys
It is an undeniable universal truth.
It is one of those mysteries of life that has boggled male and female mind alike since the beginning of the written word. Maybe the good guy gets the girl at the end of the story--but not until she's gotten her tryst with the local hooligan out of her system. And if she's lucky, that local hooligan will turn out to be the actual good guy.
I bring this up because I'm reading Jane Eyre again for my Feminist Literature class. My boyfriend has read it before, for high school English, and we were discussing why any self-respecting girl like Jane would fall in love with a man like Mr. Rochester. While it never occurred to me to question Jane's attraction, the relationship between Jane and Mr. Rochester made him dubious.
Trying to find an explanation, I took a poll of the girls in my apartment:
Roommate #1 said "Yes, girls like shady guys... Probably because they are mysterious. But good guys can be mysterious too. I like good guys... And some girls just want to rebellious."
Roommate #2 said "Well, yeah, girls like shady guys... I know it's true, but I can't put in words. I don't know. Maybe they want to change them."
Roommate #3 said "Girls definitely like shady guys. Women like to give. They also may just like the badness."
I fully admit my own attraction to shady guys (and all of you girls out there denying it are not being honest with yourselves), but I do have a hard time giving a reason.
Perhaps if I give a definition of what I mean by shady: shady guys are not safe, or predictable, or considerate. They take risks, and change on a whim, and say and do what they want when they want to do it. They curse like sailors, pinch you on the bum, have a wicked grin, and ride motorcycles. They smoke, and drink, and (after drinking some more) sing at an obnoxious volume. They punch walls (and people who have it coming), play pranks, skip work, flirt with everything that moves, and tell dirty jokes.
They probably do a lot of other things unmentionable on my PG-13 rated blog, but that definition is already painting with a rather broad brush. Shady Guy is an archetype, and I'm sure his real-life counterparts are much more complex and fall on some shade of gray between "Wholesome" and "Drug-dealing."
Shady Guy shows up all over the place in popular culture--from House to Edward Cullen (how I hate to juxtapose those two, but they both remain true to the archetype), from film noir detectives to Romantic byronic heroes--Shady Guy is inescapable.
But has Shady Guy always been attractive? Is his attractiveness inherent or manufactured? Why does the decent but boring guy lose out?
It is one of those mysteries of life that has boggled male and female mind alike since the beginning of the written word. Maybe the good guy gets the girl at the end of the story--but not until she's gotten her tryst with the local hooligan out of her system. And if she's lucky, that local hooligan will turn out to be the actual good guy.
I bring this up because I'm reading Jane Eyre again for my Feminist Literature class. My boyfriend has read it before, for high school English, and we were discussing why any self-respecting girl like Jane would fall in love with a man like Mr. Rochester. While it never occurred to me to question Jane's attraction, the relationship between Jane and Mr. Rochester made him dubious.
Trying to find an explanation, I took a poll of the girls in my apartment:
Roommate #1 said "Yes, girls like shady guys... Probably because they are mysterious. But good guys can be mysterious too. I like good guys... And some girls just want to rebellious."
Roommate #2 said "Well, yeah, girls like shady guys... I know it's true, but I can't put in words. I don't know. Maybe they want to change them."
Roommate #3 said "Girls definitely like shady guys. Women like to give. They also may just like the badness."
I fully admit my own attraction to shady guys (and all of you girls out there denying it are not being honest with yourselves), but I do have a hard time giving a reason.
Perhaps if I give a definition of what I mean by shady: shady guys are not safe, or predictable, or considerate. They take risks, and change on a whim, and say and do what they want when they want to do it. They curse like sailors, pinch you on the bum, have a wicked grin, and ride motorcycles. They smoke, and drink, and (after drinking some more) sing at an obnoxious volume. They punch walls (and people who have it coming), play pranks, skip work, flirt with everything that moves, and tell dirty jokes.
They probably do a lot of other things unmentionable on my PG-13 rated blog, but that definition is already painting with a rather broad brush. Shady Guy is an archetype, and I'm sure his real-life counterparts are much more complex and fall on some shade of gray between "Wholesome" and "Drug-dealing."
Shady Guy shows up all over the place in popular culture--from House to Edward Cullen (how I hate to juxtapose those two, but they both remain true to the archetype), from film noir detectives to Romantic byronic heroes--Shady Guy is inescapable.
But has Shady Guy always been attractive? Is his attractiveness inherent or manufactured? Why does the decent but boring guy lose out?
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
I Would Date Robert Heinlein
Apparently, girls aren't supposed to enjoy reading Robert Heinlein. At best, his critics claim his target audience was adolescent boys (true enough) and his novels aren't able to hold the interest of female readers. At worst, he was a chauvinist pig and therefore unworthy of female interest.
I like Heinlein. I am a girl. A conundrum.
I haven't read too broad a swathe of his work yet--I've only finished Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and though I started Stranger in a Strange Land I've been derailed by the beginning of the school year--but one of the reasons I enjoy Heinlein is because I like his female characters. When perceived by male characters they are inherently set apart, different, special. Woman are so different from men they cannot be compared. They are a mystery, a precious enigma.
I admit that such a point of view is not in vogue and does not reflect current trends in gender role enlightenment, especially because the sheer alien aspect of women in Heinlein novels borders on making them objects. But doesn't that gulf between the sexes exist? How much ink has been spilled, breath wasted, tears cried over the misunderstandings between male and female? We are alien to one another.
But keep in mind I'm also the kind of girl who laughs at barefoot-and-pregnant jokes and read John Donne's sermon discussing whether or not women have souls with an open mind.
I like Heinlein. I am a girl. A conundrum.
I haven't read too broad a swathe of his work yet--I've only finished Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and though I started Stranger in a Strange Land I've been derailed by the beginning of the school year--but one of the reasons I enjoy Heinlein is because I like his female characters. When perceived by male characters they are inherently set apart, different, special. Woman are so different from men they cannot be compared. They are a mystery, a precious enigma.
I admit that such a point of view is not in vogue and does not reflect current trends in gender role enlightenment, especially because the sheer alien aspect of women in Heinlein novels borders on making them objects. But doesn't that gulf between the sexes exist? How much ink has been spilled, breath wasted, tears cried over the misunderstandings between male and female? We are alien to one another.
But keep in mind I'm also the kind of girl who laughs at barefoot-and-pregnant jokes and read John Donne's sermon discussing whether or not women have souls with an open mind.
The Epiphany that Brought Us Here
It's my first blog entry and I'm already upset with my title. No matter what ANYONE says, hyphens are ugly. Unless you combine two of them to create a dash--I find dashes quite rakish. But hyphens stitch together words like Dr. Frankenstein stitched together body parts: the result is awkward and stunted emotionally at best. But sometimes words just roll off your tongue and into the air in front of you and won't be swatted aside.
Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to begin my very first blog and my very first blog post at 1:30 AM.
I am a college student. Only starting my third year, already been a senior for a semester. I'm a Type A bitch when it comes to grades, or, rather, I used to be a Type A bitch when it came to grades, but then I had an epiphany: choosing to read Heinlein instead of Dostoevsky did not make me a bad person. Baking cookies for my friends rather than busting my butt studying for that 98.6% in Brit.Lit.II did not make me irresponsible. Sleeping the night before a test rather than staring at the popcorn ceiling of my dorm room reciting spanish verb conjugations for hours did not make me an idiot. It meant that I was a well-rounded (damn hyphen) individual. It meant that I had a life and that I wanted to keep it.
Such realizations are probably indubitably obvious to the rest of you, but I was honestly astonished. And very very relieved. My life is changed forever. For example, I now have time to attempt a blog. I am going to write about whatever I want to write about on a regular basis. Hell yes.
Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to begin my very first blog and my very first blog post at 1:30 AM.
I am a college student. Only starting my third year, already been a senior for a semester. I'm a Type A bitch when it comes to grades, or, rather, I used to be a Type A bitch when it came to grades, but then I had an epiphany: choosing to read Heinlein instead of Dostoevsky did not make me a bad person. Baking cookies for my friends rather than busting my butt studying for that 98.6% in Brit.Lit.II did not make me irresponsible. Sleeping the night before a test rather than staring at the popcorn ceiling of my dorm room reciting spanish verb conjugations for hours did not make me an idiot. It meant that I was a well-rounded (damn hyphen) individual. It meant that I had a life and that I wanted to keep it.
Such realizations are probably indubitably obvious to the rest of you, but I was honestly astonished. And very very relieved. My life is changed forever. For example, I now have time to attempt a blog. I am going to write about whatever I want to write about on a regular basis. Hell yes.
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