the devil went down to Georgia

I’m recovering from a huge bout of either food poisoning or stomach flu. The last time this happened to me was July 1997, and I’m hoping that another nine years pass before it happens again. Throughout most of Monday and all of Tuesday I was a miserable mess.

On Tuesday morning there was a slender window of opportunity when I felt semi-human, so I decided to take advantage of it and hit the Safeway down the road to buy some ginger ale, vegetarian broth, and Pedialyte. There’s an apartment complex for physically and mentally disabled people across the street, and a bunch of the mentally disabled guys were waiting at the bus stop right across from my house. When I stumbled out to the car, they pointed, hooted, and hollered. If I hadn’t been so sick, and if it hadn’t been 20 million degrees outside (I really hate the heat), I would’ve laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. Once I got to Safeway, the old dude manning the express aisle tried to chat me up, which slowed down the whole checkout process—a luxury I really couldn’t afford to take, because I was exhausted and weak and didn’t know if/when another bout of violent sickness was going to hit. I don’t understand why he was interested in me; I was sweaty, with disheveled hair, a face as white as paper, and I surely reeked of vomit and shit. How very sexy!

Anyway...on Friday I am heading to the Deep South for the first time in my life. When I studied abroad, my closest, attached-at-the-hip friend was Annida, a first-year Cypriot Brit who, according to half our dorm, was rumored to be my lesbian lover. And I can’t say I blame them for suspecting this, because she and I were always together. In 2001 Annida married an American and has been in the States ever since. They are now living in the funky, quirky, progressive city of Athens, GA. And because I haven’t seen Annida since she visited me in January 2000, a reunion is long overdue. Actually, this was originally intended to be a three-way reunion (mind out of the gutter, please!), because during our second term at Goldsmiths, we were also glued at the hip to our American friend Jorge, who we haven’t seen since we all met up in London for New Year’s 1995-96. However, Jorge is now unable to make it to Georgia this weekend, so it’ll just be me darkening Annida’s doorstep.




Here is a photo of the three stooges at Stonehenge during our time at Goldsmiths.






And here we are during our New Year’s reunion, at Waterloo Station, just before we bid Jorge adieu (he was studying in Spain that year and needed to catch his Eurostar train back to Seville). I love how I’m rocking the vagrant look. That coat—my dad’s coat from his Air Force days—weighed like 800 pounds, but damn, it kept me warm!

So, I’m looking forward to spending a long weekend—my birthday weekend, no less; I’ll be 32 on Sunday!—with my much-missed Annida in the South. She was the first person to expose me to Greek food and should be venerated for that reason. Imagine a life without dolmades!




song heard most recently before posting: Crazy On You —Heart

Joyeux Anniversaire!

Happy Birthday to
Angela Wagner
and Kristen Carter!!!

song heard most recently before posting: To All of You—Syd Matters

school’s out!

Today is my 10-year anniversary of graduating from the University of Scranton. Yes, part of me is inwardly screeching ohmigod I’m so OLD! Still, whenever that voice kicks up, I just have to remind myself of what’s important: namely, the fact that I was lucky enough to graduate from a good school. It’s not like my parents could afford it; I relied solely on scholarships and student loans. In fact, if I continue making only minimum monthly payments, I’ll be paying off the last of those student loans until I’m 45 (literally). However, without my parents’ support and my mom’s diligence with filling out endless student aid forms, I wouldn’t have had the strength to get my ass into college. I would’ve been overwhelmed from the sheer task of completing an obscene amount of paperwork, dealing with the stubborn folks in the student aid office several times a year, etc. Not all people are lucky enough to have families help them get student aid and apply to college. Not all people are lucky enough to take off four years after high school. I didn’t have to get a job immediately after high school to support my family. I didn’t have to worry about spending my high school years dodging bullets and drug dealers, thus causing me to get shitty grades that kept me out of college. I was lucky to get an education at a fine university, and that’s what I should be thinking about today. Not, Eeek, I’m so old, I’ve been out of college for ten years, but Today marks 10 years since I was lucky enough to complete my higher education.

In honor of the big day, here is a photo of me on my very first day of college, snapped amidst the grueling task of moving into my freshman dorm. (Actually, it wasn’t too grueling. Scranton has peppy upperclass volunteers move in all of the freshmen every year, so I barely had to do any of the lifting and carrying, which is good, because I was on the third floor and I had a lot of shit.) Note that I had some hot tri-colored hair action going on (long story), and I really knew how to rock those gigantic glasses.

Four years later—medicated, devirginated, and with unicolor hair and normal glasses—I graduated cum laude with a BA degree in Communications and a minor in English. Here’s me giddily snatching my diploma away from then-University president Father Panuska, thinking School’s out, suckas!!!

My glee stemmed from the fact that I was actually quite unhappy at Scranton and I couldn’t wait to escape. I did escape my junior year, when I studied at Goldsmiths College in London, but my remaining three years at Da U felt eternal and rather miserable. It’s a great school, but it was a bad fit for me. Think of the old analogy of square pegs in round holes and you’ll catch my drift. I could say that I regret picking that particular university, but if I hadn’t gone there, I never would’ve met my darling friend David!

Last night I attended an amazing fundraiser in Alexandria, VA, which was cosponsored by Found Magazine and PostSecret. It was 10 different shades of wonderful. Frank Warren (creator and curator of the PostSecret phenomenon) premiered a half-hour film montage of a huge range of secrets, and it was accompanied by a shiver-inducing dazzling score by local organic electro ambient musician Yoko K. and other local musicians Koli (flute, tenor sax), Lucan (violin), and Tom P. (percussion). The violin in particular rocked my world because, well, strings in general rock my world. This was followed by a Q&A with Frank (book signings took place before the show began). The second half of the show was owned by they hysterically funny, charismatic Davy Rothbart, creator and publisher of Found Magazine. He read aloud some of his funniest and most touching finds, and his talented musician brother, Peter, with whom I’m now madly in love, performed three of the songs he wrote about various finds. I desperately wanted to buy his CD but I didn’t have any cash on me, so I’ll have to snag it from amazon.com. The brothers Rothbart portion of the show was hysterical, and the perfect accompaniment to the PostSecret side, since, in a way, they are both sides of the same coin.

Meanwhile, I’d like to give a shout-out to my mom, who is getting back surgery today. It’s a new laparoscopic procedure which will drastically reduce her surgery and recovery time. Basically, if you’re going to get back surgery, this is the procedure you’ll want. And, after much wrangling, her insurance company finally agreed to pay 100% of the costs. Finally, some justice in the HMO world!


song heard most recently before posting: Dice —Finley Quaye, ft. William Orbit & Beth Orton

I spent last night in a frantic dervish between the American Idol finale and the Lost finale. The former was bloated, as usual, yet still ultimately satisfying (I’ve hearted the Silver Foxxx since Day 1), and the latter was as brilliant as ever. With Lost, there were several WTF moments, of course, and the episode wasn’t pitch-perfect, but it still featured storyline movement, a few answers to major questions, and a few creepy moments peppered throughout. This show will have to jump some major sharkage before I abandon ship.

The Television without Pity boards for Lost have been on fire today. And naturally I can’t stop reading. My favorite comment so far:

“I was really worried when Eko whipped off Charlie’s belt. Thought he was going to go on a tour of Charlie’s chocolate factory.”

AI had a few WTF moments as well; namely, David Hasselhoff crying in the audience (!!) and Meatloaf’s has-he-or-hasn’t-he-had-a-stroke performance.

Meanwhile, PostSecret and Found Magazine—two of my favorite websites/community art projects—are teaming up in Alexandria tonight for a live performance. I’m going and I’m psyched! Especially since it is serving as a fundraiser for a suicide prevention charity. I tried to see the first-ever PostSecret exhibit in Georgetown a few months ago but couldn’t get anywhere near the gallery because the line was so ridiculously long!


song heard most recently before posting: Fools in Love —Inara George

There are a few arguments that never cease to fill me with R-A-G-E. One is Tom Cruise’s all-psychiatry-and-psychotropic-meds-are-evil spiel, and another is Sen. Bill Napoli’s delightfully misogynistic claim that the only “acceptable” form of rape that should merit an exemption from South Dakota’s abortion ban would be a woman who is “brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated.” So if you’re not sodomized, or if you’re not a religious virgin, you’re shit out of luck. Nice.

The argument against gay marriage also makes me seethe. This morning on the Today Show, Sen. Bill Frist was spouting off yet again about how gay marriage is wrong and should remain illegal in all levels, in all states. Like so many others on the religious and political right, he claims that the “sanctity” of marriage can only be sustained in heterosexual unions.

Okay, first of all, don’t confuse religion with laws. Just because your religion says that homosexuality and gay marriage are wrong doesn’t mean that they should be illegal. Um, separation of church and state, anyone? Yes, there are other things that are condemned by both religion and the law, such as murder, but the act of falling in love with a person of the same sex—and wanting to marry him/her—is in nowhere near the same league as the act of murdering someone, although many right-wingers would beg to differ.

Second, I hate the way so many people ignore the wretched state of heterosexual marriage. How do celebrities’ one-minute marriages show sanctity? Where is the sanctity in a man hitting his wife, or a wife cheating on her husband, or one spouse kidnapping the kids from the other spouse? Do heterosexual marriages never brim with emotional abuse, deceit, and unimaginable levels of horror and dysfunction? Of course they do! There are so many wonderful, productive heterosexual marriages out there, but for every healthy union, there is an unhealthy union that makes me want to run for cover. That’s par for the course. No institution is ever going to be 100% perfect, and that includes the institution of heterosexual marriage. Yet these people on the right are constantly complaining that only straight people can honor the sanctity of marriage and only gay people can dishonor it. I hate black-and-white thinking. Plus I’m a big Golden Rule gal, and I think that more people should to do unto others as they would have others do unto them. In other words, if you don’t want a lawmaker or a religious leader to come to you and say, “Sorry, you’re not allowed to marry that person,” then you really shouldn’t have the right to turn around and say that to someone else.

Would all homosexual marriages be utopist unions serving as shining beacons of healthy, sacred love? No, of course not—a generalization like that isn’t reasonable, just like it’s unreasonable to say that all heterosexuals preserve the institution of marriage. So I wish that people who are against gay marriage would just admit that it’s because they don’t like gay people, rather than hiding behind the bollocks of “Oh, it endangers the institution of marriage!”

Also, if the entire institution of marriage can be destroyed by an “invasion” of loving gay people who want to spend their lives together, then it’s a pretty weak institution. I said the same thing recently about the whole Da Vinci Code film brouhaha. Some religious folks are freaking out and saying that the film dishonors Jesus, threatens Christianity, and will shake people’s faith in the dogma they’ve always been taught. My response:

It dishonors Jesus. Okay, granted, I’m of the mindset that if Jesus lived at all, then he was simply a man. An historical figure. A good man with a lot of great ideas and a lot of charisma, but in no way divine. So it’s easy for me to say, “How does this film dishonor him? It portrays him as being a man, and that’s all he was—a man.” But even if I were a believer, I’d like to think that I’d be okay with Jesus’s depiction in the film. Is it shown that he was a rapist or a killer? Uh, no. It’s shown that he fell in love with a woman and wanted to spend his life with her. It’s shown that they had sex because they were in love and they made a child out of love. I’m sorry, but there are worse accusations to level against Jesus than that. As my gal Tori Amos said, “Because Jesus maybe had a sexual encounter with a woman, did that make him less? Was he soiled by it and what does that say about women?” Exactly. What does that say about women? Nothing good.

It threatens Christianity. A movie will not bring down an entire religion. Not even a film helmed by a talented director and a multi-Oscar-winning lead. The religion has been around for 2000+ years; it ain’t goin’ anywhere.

It will shake people’s faith in the dogma they’ve always been taught. To that I have to say, “Well, then, your faith must be pretty weak!” It’s one thing for your faith to be shaken by a terrorist attack, horrific natural disasters, illness, genocide, etc, but it’s another matter entirely for it to be shaken by a film. A summer blockbuster. Starring Tom Hanks. I mean, really! And if your own faith is strong but you’re worried that Joe Blow sitting in the pew next to you will have his faith shaken by the movie…well, why is that any concern of yours? If his faith is weak and he therefore drops a lifetime of religion because of a freaking Dan Brown novel, that’s his business—not yours. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with questioning dogma. Thomas Jefferson once wrote “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.” That’s the kind of god/dess I’d want to believe in—one who wants his/her followers to ask questions. Buddha himself allegedly said “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” Questioning dogma doesn’t mean that you can’t continue believing it. And it doesn’t make you a heretic, just like questioning the tenet that the world is flat didn’t make early scientists heretics (well, in the end, anyway; initially they were considered heretics).

Wow. How did this post veer from gay marriage to Jesus?


song heard most recently before posting: The Freshman —Verve Pipe

In the beginning...

I will anoint this blog by regurgitating my first-ever journal entry, written on January 1, 1983, when I was 8 1/2 years old. I will maintain all the spelling and grammatical errors.

Dear Diary,
Today we took down our Christmas tree. I was sad because it was pretty. Today my family and I we were going to my great ant’s house (for new years day). We just got home from Becky’s. She got a guinea pig named buttons. Krissy was a lump there.
I have to go now.
Bye-bye
Jennifer

Now that’s a beginning!

Today I donated blood at the National Institutes of Health, as I do every eight weeks. One of the phlebotomists totally remembered me and my tiny, rolling veins. “I never forget a difficult vein,” she exclaimed, before asking another phlebotomist to do the venipuncture, because she was too nervous to tackle my wee, flighty veins. Awes.

I used to donate for transfusion purposes, but in 2001 all donors who spent six months or longer in the UK were indefinitely deferred, because of fears that they could transmit vCJD (the human variant of mad cow disease). Because I’d studied in England during my junior year of college, this meant that I was deferred, even though I’m a vegetarian (as far as I know, even vegans are deferred from donating). Later this deferral spread to cover anybody who was in western Europe for three months or longer. This means—especially in an international area like DC—that a shocking amount of donors were lost. Thankfully NIH still wanted to use my blood for research purposes, and five years later, I remain a faithful research donor. It’s one of the few charitable things my lazy ass does.

I will say this, though: if you’re able to do so, please consider giving blood, because shortages are very common. It bugs me how everybody rushed out to donate blood after 9/11, but they won’t do it at any other time. What, people who are injured in a terrorist attack are more worthy of blood than people with leukemia or car accident injuries? I don’t buy it.


song heard most recently before posting:
Say You’ll Be There —the Spice Girls. (Oh shaddup. Like you never drove to work while blasting shallow British ’90s pop music.)