o, canada

another classic from hark! a vagrant:

my ticket is blank

i'm pretty sure that i dreamed of sister act last night. why? i really can't say.

but other than that weirdness, life is…well, it's mix of everything right now. moments of panic about what i'll do after i graduate, then moments of sunny bliss in the time i've been spending lately with a wonderful person. in between all of that i get some work done, but it's a bit like being on a fast train to an uncertain destination, and not being quite sure of how to get there. i've got to finish projects, and find a career. or at least something that will pay me decently. my train ticket would say "destination unknown," if you want to be real poetic about it.

maybe a train is the wrong metaphor, since obviously you would just follow the tracks to get to wherever you're going. but it is the right metaphor in the sense that it's something moving, and moving quickly, and i can't stop it. graduation is coming. what would jane do?

mr. knightly tells emma that "there is one thing, emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by maneuvering and finessing, but by vigour and resolution." well i can be vigorous! i can be resolute. although i may have to use some of that maneuvering and finessing, just in case.

i wonder what austen would do in a graduate program. i wonder what program she would choose? oh jane!

fashion...it's within all of us

ok, so i think i finally figured out what to focus my fashion/consumerism/gender identity project on. thank heavens. here it is:

the question: how does mainstream fashion and consumerism dictate, influence, or offer an alternative to a middle-class, white, heterosexual identity? the discussion i want to center in on is specifically, how white, middle-class, heterosexual identity is promoted through clothing retail and shopping-centered literature, and how the public responds to this. the popularity of narratives like Confessions of a Shopaholic suggests that the white, middle-class, heterosexual image being portrayed in the narrative, is positively received by a large population, despite the probable evidence that this narrative hardly reflects the reality of its readers. why? if fashion consumption and fashion-narratives that promote a certain dominant image, are widely received even if they are unrealistic, then either the public sees itself as part of that identity whether or not they are, or else the public sees something else within the discourse of mainstream fashion and consumerism that it identifies with.

i like when people say they're not influenced by fashion. guess what: unless you make your own homespun broadcloth out of plant fibers you've picked yourself from a nearby field, with a machine you've handcrafted out of parts of trees that you found in the woods, then you are influenced by fashion.

at bedtime, go to sleep

yesterday we had a lecture for the LCS students on the joys and difficulties of academic conference panels, after which we all headed over to our advisor, Kathy Newman's, for some dinner, drinks and prospective MA/PhD-welcoming. they are a great group and hopefully we'll have a good many of them decide to come here in the fall.

the above image depicts the household rules, as written by David Shumway's little boy, for all to see and abide by. my favorite is "feelings under controll."

and naturally, i obeyed all the rules, including the one about sleeping. at about 10:30, i decided it was bedtime and hightailed it out of there with Brittany, took the 61C back home, and fell blissfully asleep.

too bad i had a bad dream that night, though, that i was married to Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. i guess playing by the rules doesn't always pay off.

wait...it's the end of March already??

our prospective MA/PhD open house is this week, and i sit contemplating how a whole year has passed. for one thing, i can't have been a whole year, because it would have to be warm and spring-y for that to be, and it's cold. for another thing…i don't feel ready for it to end. well, part of me does. but i like school. and the whole finding-a-job bit is slightly more elusive. family members have already been inquiring for months now what i'm going to do after i graduate, which has caused me to threaten them considerably.

ok i can't stress about it. i need to get back into a good rhythm of yoga, checklist-making, and bubble baths. tonight i took a break and read a Shopaholic book in the tub with my lavender milk bath bubble soap, so that's a good start. tomorrow morning at least looks like this:

• 8:00 a.m.: wake up, my breakfast, cats' breakfast, Good Morning America
• 9:00 a.m.: yoga DVD or running/weightlifting at the JCC
• 10:30 a.m.: shower
• 11:15 a.m.: organize/plan all academic projects and begin working on them.

of course, tomorrow might end up looking like this:

• 10:45 a.m.: wake up, cats pounce on bed
• 11:00 a.m.: cats force me to get out of bed and feed them
• 11:04 a.m.: back in bed

we'll see which of these plans comes to fruition.

what is consent?

we are having an interesting discussion in my global women's writing course about the nature of consent, specifically in relation to the now eradicated practice of Chinese footbinding. this has also made me think about consent in other contexts, however–how do we distinguish between what we do out of pure enjoyment versus out of obligation or coercion. what do you think consent is?

here's the blog post i wrote for class:

i like the distinction between the consent of daughters versus that of mothers. in light of Judith Butler's discussion of the agency of children, it has made me think more closely about the significance of China's move to end footbinding as a symbol of Chinese modernity. in a way, both the action of footbinding and the subsequent banning of footbinding are both movements that are made without consent, either way, from girls. part of me feels sure that the new photographic evidence of the bound foot and its medical dangers played a major part in changing public opinion, both in China and in the rest of the world, about the beauty and ethics of footbinding. and yet...was it primarily a humanitarian move of protection of children's rights–or primarily a political, nationalist power play to give China better PR with the western world?

it seems like Dorothy Ko (author of Cinderella's Sisters) is struggling to untangle these motivations as well, and perhaps it's impossible to separate them. in our own culture–in any culture, really–we can hardly ever claim that the thoughts, decisions and actions we make are ever discrete from the set of ideologies through which we tell the narrative of our lives. i once had a discussion with a friend about the nature of fate versus free will, and he recalled the metaphor of an eastern philosopher who said fate is like an apple rolling on a plate: you can move the apple in any direction, but never beyond the rim of the plate.

maybe consent is also like the apple on a plate. Chinese mothers and daughters are moving within the narrative of Chinese identity, feminine identity, homosocial relations, etc., but they can never make decisions outside of it, just as we can never, say, make decisions outside of a framework of capitalism, since it defines our lives in so many infinite ways. in this sense, consent is always constructed, yet always natural, in that it is the only natural movement we can ever make as human beings living within culture. we want desperately to find a concrete definition of consent that never changes, that fits a legal mold, and yet I suspect that search will always prove elusive. but just as Butler points out that human sexuality refuses to behave in the ways that we want it to, neither does the human mind itself consent to conform to a standard sense of reality, right and wrong. whatever those mean.

my own national (regional) treasure!

a recent editorial on jezebel.com tells the story of how a 200-year old french love letter was found recently in the arm of an antique chair, in the process of restoration.

the writer ends his letter to his lady with this adieu:

"my dear, i cover you with kisses and caresses until… i need you in this moment of desire. i love you."

have you ever heard of anything sweeter? well, i suppose you have, naturally. but this is pretty good.

i had a similar story this past year when i had my old piano retuned, back when i was living in gettysburg. i had bought this piano in 2008 from the director of athletics at gettysburg college, dave, who i knew fairly well. dave's father was a piano teacher, and could never get him to play as a child, but in an attempt to pass on the musical tradition, the family had bought the piano for their daughters to learn upon. none of them ended up wanting to play either (sad!) so dave was happy to sell this slightly beat up, but decent, little upright console wurlizter from the 70's to me for $100.

so this lovely old man came to do the tuning, and since neither of us knew when it was tuned last, he decided to make a thorough job of it and pulled the baseboards out from underneath. as he pulled off the boards, an aged square of paper fell out onto the carpet. we both paused and looked at it, the curiosity and excitement growing in me like a narrative scene from a nancy drew novel come to life.

he picked up the paper and handed it to me and asked if it was mine. no, i said, looking at it carefully. it was an envelope, yellowed and dusty, but fairly well preserved from having been inside the piano all this time. the seal was already broken, so whoever was the recipient must have already perused the message inside. or had they?

with trembling fingers i pulled out the letter and flipped it open. it was written on a greeting card with a scenic picture from somewhere in upstate new york, and inside the tiny script filled each available side of the paper. the date on the letter read 1974! feeling somewhat guilty, but then too curious to feel all that guilty, i started to read the letter.

it was a message to no one in dave's family that i knew of, but the contents were fairly simple–greetings after a journey home from college, news on the family, etc. fairly uneventful. and yet, if i returned this letter to dave, what would be his reaction? was such a simple transaction to dredge up memories of a long forgotten–or perhaps repressed–family connection, a friendship that had once been so close, but which inopportune circumstances had rendered asunder?

i carefully put the letter and envelope in a ziplock bag and the next day, i emailed dave and told him about what i'd found. his reply gave little away: he was surprised, but interested, and agreed to take a look at it.

then came the big moment to give it to him. i wasn't able to find an opportunity so i gave it to my colleague ryan who said he would be seeing the family later that day. ryan was under strict instructions to give me every last detail of dave's reaction. he promised.

i waited for the news to come. the next day, i eagerly ran down to ryan's office and demanded a recounting of yesterday's events. i could just envision dave's eyes alighting on the letter…then widening with recognition…then filling with bitter, but tender tears. i looked expectantly at ryan.

ryan shrugged. "yeah, he had no idea what that was about. some cousin or something."

dammit. why isn't real life ever like in movies?