"You went to New Hampshire. We both did. You came and got me."

New place. New people. I have been resident of Southern California for exactly seven days, and the greatest conclusion I have reached is this: those tiny scones from Whole Foods that come in round plastic containers are completely delicious. I wish I could eat them forever. They're a little bit like the scones from Starbucks in all their unhealthy, buttery glory--only miniature. I wouldn't buy them on every grocery run, but they're bringing so much joy to my life! You need some joy when you're unemployed. I speak from personal experience.

Other thoughts include: that the weather here is sunshiny and ghastly all the time (exactly what I was expecting, but I am (and I suspect I always will be) paranoid about the development of skin cancer); that the street sweepers that roam the residential streets of this city every Wednesday morning are horrible and unnecessary (especially when there is a parking enforcement vehicle closely following every one); that the television we have in our living room, while it legitimately qualifies as a GIANT TV, actually has poor picture quality when the sun is out; and that the students at this university seem to have entirely too much time to sit around and do absolutely nothing.

In the meantime, I'm searching for jobs like it is my actual job and sporadically rewatching The West Wing when I need a break. Season 2 will forever be my favorite.

I'm good to go and I'm going nowhere fast

I feel like my neglect of this blog coincides pretty perfectly with the fact that I have been taking poetry for the last two quarters (and writing one of my honors theses) and so have had no desire to do any writing that is not strictly necessary. Maybe I'll post all of my fail poems after this quarter is over so that you can read them. Maybe I won't. Maybe I will give up writing completely for a little (or a long) while.

I haven't posted my rant about writing and careers yet, have I? Well, I won't make you read it, but the fact of the matter is this: it's been fun! It really has. But I'm over creative writing/fiction writing/poetry writing (but especially fiction writing, dear god) for now, and I'm moving on to other things. Better things. I'll spare you all of my weepy thoughts about life and my purpose in it, but it's probably enough to say that I just...don't have what it takes to be a published author. I don't have the ambition or the intense desire to do so. I'm definitely not prolific enough.

There's no law that says you must be published by the time you're 30 or it's all over. Who knows what will happen in the future? But when it comes right down to it, I value my financial security too much to try to get by on temp jobs (or worse, as a college professor) while I write my ~dream novel. I'm the kind of person who has to put all or nothing into a project. I haven't yet developed the talent of multitasking.

And I'm definitely not getting my MFA. It's a valid life choice! It's just not the choice for me.

I feel almost as if I've spent the last four years waiting for some strange epiphany to come along and transform me into the kind of person who COULD make writing a career. Or the kind of person who has the discipline and the interest in pursuing his/her dreams of being a published author. Or the kind of person who can bang out a novel and still have the will to live afterward shop it around for publication. Or the kind of person who feels at all compelled to write. I wanted it REALLY badly.

But the fact remains that this epiphany didn't come and I am not the kind of person who feels compelled to write. I'm in this weird place where I want really badly to WANT to be a writer, but I can't get past the fact that...I don't want to be a writer. It's an odd feeling.

So maybe I'm too down on myself or too lazy, but it just didn't happen for me. Maybe it will happen when I'm fifty. Maybe I'll wake up one day and decide that I'm going to write that novel and that it's going to be a bestseller, and maybe that will be true. But for now, I'm heading out into the world for other prospects. I might move down to socal after graduation. I'll probably wander aimlessly for a while, trying shit to see what sticks. If I do end up going back to school, I might get my MBA. I like money. I like financial security. I know it's romantic and nice to say that money can't buy you love or happiness, but I think it's probably pretty difficult to find love or happiness if you're homeless.

I wrote 3,000 words of my thesis today.

I was going to go to bed a little while ago, but I decided that since I'm already awake past 2:30 am I might as well stay up another half hour and mess around on blogspot. I could mess around on tumblr, but I've been doing that all day. I need a break! A break from all those pretty pictures and ~inspirational quotes. A break from thinking about how dull my life is.

Anyway, I was thinking about all the blogs I have (believe me, I have many) and how I feel like there are varying comfort levels attached to each of them. For some reason, this is the blog in which I feel the most comfortable posting my deepest thoughts about whatever -- even though it's a public blog. Anyone could technically read it. I mean, my parents have the address. They could definitely stop by at any point and read my opinions on a variety of (usually worthless) subjects. But it's not like I have to censor myself here. My family knows who I am and I doubt they're going to be shocked by anything I write here. No surprises. No reservations. But it's still a public blog and anyone could be reading it, so this begs the question: why do my locked blogs seem so much less appropriate for free thought?

Well, for one thing, hardly anyone actually knows about or reads this blog. Many people could read my other blogs. They know me, they know who I am, and for some reason this generally prevents me from ever posting anything of substance where it's likely they'll read it. It might seem like I'm giving myself too much importance -- and I probably am -- but just the possibility of other people reading and taking issue with something I've written makes me very uncomfortable.

Here, there are a few people who know me. I have a few close friends who know about this blog. I know that half of them don't bother to read it regularly (and I so do not blame them for that, since they probably already know all the things I write here before I even write them), so I guess it all comes down to the fact that this is the place where I can actually post what I'm thinking without worrying that someone is judging me for it. And if you are actually reading this blog, then I obviously don't care that you're judging me or don't think that you would judge me. The psychology of blogging. If you can even call it that.

No doubt the easiest solution would be to stop writing in internet blogs completely. If I don't want people to read what I'm writing, I might as well stop writing it. But I guess there's still some element of wanting people to read the things I'm saying. Maybe I just don't want to know when they do. Maybe I like that sense of anonymity better. I'm not particularly witty or funny, and I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the state of politics or social problems or other important world issues, but I like that the possibility for me to do so is still there.

And the buffalo roam to a slaughterhouse grave

Okay, I've been hedging around the UC strike issue since I first heard about the walkout at the beginning of September, and now I'm going to come right out and say what I'm thinking. It's an opinion. You can feel free to disagree with any of this.

I'm going to start by saying that don't know who this weaselofjustice person is, but I love everything he/she is saying.

I'm also kind of embarrassed to be a UC student right now, if I'm being completely honest. I'm kind of getting the impression that the rest of the country is currently laughing at all of us for being completely unreasonable and ineffective. I know, it's totally great that the students can strike and protest fee increases and get themselves arrested in the name of the cause, but I think their energy is misguided and that they're focusing on the wrong people. We're the UC closest to the state capitol. The UC regents AREN'T going to repeal the fee increases, and they sure as hell aren't going to agree to the incredibly schizophrenic list of demands being tossed around by student protesters at recent sit-ins and strikes (you can read it here). True, there are grassroots-type organizations already working toward action at the state level, but all of this energy being wasted on Mrak Hall could be put to better use in Sacramento.

I'm not protesting. I'm not GOING to protest. I do wish the regents had thought to come up with a more reasonable way of covering the shortfall, but they didn't. The student protests won't change that. I may be a cynic (along with the rest of our political science department; I find it so hilarious that so few poly sci professors are willing to support the strike), but I like to think of it as knowing when to pick my battles. And this is not my battle.

I just want to graduate and get my degree. The University of California is a good school system, but college hasn't exactly been the "best years of my life." That's not the UC system's fault. However, I do find it very, very difficult to sympathize with student (and faculty) protesters when everything they do is designed to interrupt our education for the sake of making a statement. The quarter system doesn't give a whole lot of makeup time for canceled or postponed classes.

So, no. I don't support the strike. I will write letters to my reps at the state government level and do all I can to make my voice heard, but the fact remains that California is royally fucked. I was working for a union office in summer '08 when the budget crisis was happening, and I saw a lot of the frustration with the state legislature firsthand. The problem is California's financial crisis, and while I agree that the UC regents went too far with the fee increase, I doubt that student protests are actually going to lead to its repeal.

And as my friend SMB just said in a related email: "I don't know if anything will make a difference at this point -- the state has no money and no willingness to raise taxes for any reason. It's been a disaster waiting to happen, and so now it's a disaster in the making. It sucks."

I should change the title of this blog to TL;DR

Pete Wentz (of Fall Out Boy and I-married-Ashlee-Simpson semi-fame) wrote an article for the Huffington Post about Invisible Children and the RESCUE event happening this weekend. That one terrible comma splice aside, I have to say I'm impressed.

There was some huge drama last week re: the Believers Never Die Part Deux tour, mostly centered around the fact that some people think FOB should quit trying to talk about politics (because their fanbase skews younger than most) and stick to what they do with admirable mediocrity: play concerts! Other people kind of disagreed. Pete Wentz adamantly refuses to stop these political antics because he believes that it is absolutely important to discuss this kind of stuff, even if you're doing it at a live show, and he also believes that today's youth are a lot more perceptive than the rest of the world (and...the kids themselves) seems to think/actually have the emotional and mental capacity to care about political and social issues.

I think FOB's live show is actually pretty amazing, whether you like the band or not, mostly because of the fact that MUSIC is something personal; it's just as real for me as it is for you, no matter what our respective opinions are. It's also about the being-there-in-the-moment-ness of being at a concert, in the pit, sweating all your makeup off, throwing yourself around, singing the shit out of songs that make you feel actual emotions! and accidentally hitting people in the face with your elbows when you all throw your cameras in the air (and wave them like you just don't care, har har). It doesn't matter which band is on stage.

Forgive the cheesiness of the rest of this entry, but this is precisely the reason I think that music can be a POWERFUL vehicle for political action and motivation. Music inspires emotion in people. Political action is, IMO, a direct result of EMOTION. Action occurs because you feel strongly or passionately about some issue and want to DO something about it. I think that music can be a powerful tool for bands like Fall Out Boy that actually want to talk about these issues -- or for bands that are far more "legit" than Fall Out Boy, if that's your feeling.

Because music is something so intensely personal and subjective, it goes without saying that no one else can really dictate what IS good music and what that music says to you. No one else can take away the fact that this music, whatever it is, makes you feel something and is therefore truly important to you. It's integral to the person that you are and to the person you could become. If I'm having a rocking experience at a concert, loving the band and all they choose to be (even if what they choose to be is something totally silly), there is definitely the potential for motivation in the situation. So why can't bands like Fall Out Boy use live shows and music to promote a political message?

I don't see why they can't. Some people would say that Fall Out Boy is totally insignificant because they sing silly, whimsical songs written by the dude who accidentally put pictures of his dick on the internet, and that this automatically means they are never allowed to BE SERIOUS ABOUT SOMETHING they feel is important. I don't think anyone can convincingly argue that Invisible Children is not a good cause. But they can argue that Fall Out Boy's attempts to talk about it and other issues will automatically be null and void -- simply because they're Fall Out Boy. How is that in any way relevant to the conversation? And how is it in any way fair? It sounds more like sour grapes to me. I think we should be thankful that someone with considerable influence over a certain portion of the population is even trying to talk about this kind of thing in a time when people arguably care less than they should. Musical artists definitely have INFLUENCE because they're appealing to emotion through music, and I think they should use it for good causes.

I guess my point is this: true, the Jonas Brothers don't exactly have a subversive political agenda attached to their music, but that doesn't in any way invalidate who they are and what they COULD say -- if they really wanted to say it.

Whether or not we like what they actually have to say is a completely different issue.

What are you going to do to end the silence?

Warning: this is only my opinion.

For the past four years (at least), I've participated in the day of silence. It mattered some years more than others (specifically: it mattered in the years when I actually interacted with people on a daily basis), but regardless of whether or not I am participating this year, I think it's something that needs to be talked about. It's an important cause. That LGBT people everywhere don't feel safe enough to come out to their friends and family may not directly touch your life, but it's still important.

I know people wonder about me because I'm so open with my support for LGBT rights and because I'm particularly interested in gay/lesbian fiction. This is the kind of thing that depresses me. I don't care if you think I'm a lesbian or not. Your assumptions don't matter to me, and it shouldn't matter to you whether or not I'm straight. But the very fact that people DO assume these things is a huge part of the problem. Not the assumptions they make but the very fact that they even feel the need to classify people based on their support for a political cause, or based on the fiction they read and write.

There is this incessant need to know whether so-and-so is gay. Does it really matter to you if they are? If you want to be out and proud and tell the world I AM GAY AND I'M PROUD, you will be. If you want to keep your sexual orientation under wraps, then you will. If you're straight/gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered and want to remain ambiguous in order to demonstrate that even for people who think they're totally cool with the LGBT community, there is still this NEED TO CLASSIFY people that is ingrained in our society and will continue to be ingrained in our society -- then you will.

People are so different. I strongly believe that this need for classification is a part of what is bringing us down. On the one hand, I think the LGBT community needs to set itself apart in order to bring attention to inequalities, prejudices and stereotypes that are still so prevalent today, even in a country where gay marriage is legal in four states. On the other hand, I feel that such classification is (in a different way) a part of the problem.

I am definitely not saying that people should withhold their respective sexual orientations. I'm saying that society's collective attitude toward the LGBT community drives our need to KNOW, to classify, to compartmentalize and to set people into different categories so that we all know HE is gay and SHE is a lesbian and HE identifies as fluidly-gendered. There is a certain power in these categories, but I hope that we all eventually come to a point at which we no longer need to know someone's sexual orientation or gender identification -- just for the sake of knowing.