I had a class ask me to think about Magnificent Failures. But what is that-what does that mean? I know that for the class it was supposed to be an attempt to grapple with a challenging topic. Maybe it was a hard concept, one that didn't make sense right away-but when returned to gave new insight. I think this was mostly for the undergrads to attempt to wrestle with topics on racism, sexism, homophobia etc that they may never have been exposed to. For me I wrote mainly about being exposed to undergraduates again. I mean it wasn't that long ago since I was one and def not as long ago as teaching them, I felt they would be my ultimate Magnificent Failure. That was all until I hit week seven.
What does is feel like to live most days in pain? I don't really remember because so much of my life I have been dealing with chronic pain. Painful periods, bladder infections, infections here and there and pretty much everywhere. I don't know what it is like to live pain-free only what it is like to cope with and manage pain on a daily basis. It all hit me my sock to the groin that seventh week-everything came to a head and exploded inside my body. I sought the opinions of doctors-their solutions were to run a bunch of tests and give me pain medication.
Pain medication:that might have to be my biggest Magnificent Failure. I don't want to blame it all on my body- I don't think it is my body that did the most failing. Its rough when you see a bunch of doctors and nurses and they all want to know what you're on and when you last took it and you have to spout off at least three different medications for pain. U should have kept a notebook to remember when and what I took-because sometimes a I barely remembered my name let alone the medicine. And the side effects0the worst one was that I just couldn't keep a though in my mind. The medicine and the pain being so debilitating that anytime I would try to keep up with my homework read or write something my eyesight would become fuzzy and I would get dizzy and sick to my stomach.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
so I continue: whose truth?
So I continue:
Why are we so invested in Truth-in finding the reality of a situation? Why do we have such a deep desire to get to the root of something and to find out if it is real or not? And in the end isn't about authenticity anyway? If we can believe a performance because it is authentic according to our standards we tend to believe it-whereas if the performance is not authentic or something seems off we may ignore it and not believe it. But according Gómez-Peña we are no longer able to distinguish authentic performances from the "wannabees" and this may pose a significant problem. She says it is a problem because people will be able to fluidly change subject positions without ever reaping the consequences (mainly negative) of being in an "othered" position. Not that one should look to be oppressed or gain some sort of pointage from being in a marginalized position but there are certain consequences certain people (certain bodies face) that those who fluidly transition will never have to experience. So what is lost
I feel I cannot address any of these questions adequately without looking for some help from Thomas King (2005) who discusses the power of storytelling in constructing our notions of truth.
As King (2005) notes, "Stories are wondrous things. And they are dangerous"(9). Stories have power and they construct our world-thus they have the power for both good and evil and everything in between and around. If "the truth about stories is that's all we are," then we have the ability to tell a story of inclusivity, acceptance, recognition of privilege, demolition of power structures etc...or we can tell a different story one that doesn't care about the well-being of other people who are different then we are.
King details an experience he had of giving an "authentic" American Indian performance speaking at a university for their "Indian Awareness Week"(62). There were four Native men speaking. As he says, "I told stories. Stories about broken treaties, residential schools, culturally offensive movies, the appropriation of Native names, symbols, and motifs. And Ishi." At the end of all the speeches two of the other men (spokespeaople from the bureau for Indian Affairs) are paid for their services-the other man, an artist and King, a story teller are not paid. King relates this to the fact that he is instead seen as the entertainment-not the voice of authority. Despite his attire, his markers of his race, his performance is not authentic or truthful enough to warrant payment. He makes it apparent that the telling of stories is not of monetary value.
So he decides to change his performance. King loses the traditional dress "turned in my ribbon shirt, my four strand bone choker, and my beaded belt buckle for a cheap but serviceable suit and a rather nice tie..."(67) -decides to throw facts and numbers into his stories-give them some empirical evidence in order to make his performance more truthful. Instead the reaction from an audience member is that he is "an apple...an Indian is red on the outside but white on the inside"(67). So where does the truth of King's experience lie? Is it in the dress-no then King is simply entertainment, so the solution-do not dress like an Indian-then "not only am I not entertainment, I wasn't an Indian"(68). King is caught in a web of where authentic performance lies and how to perform so that he will be accepted and listened to by a variety of people. Where is the truth? That is my question-and how do we know what it is? King would say the truth lies in storytelling-and I do think he would agree that there are multiple truths-as narratives are understood from different subject positions creating a new truth.
I think this also speaks very much to Gómez-Peña's article of Confessions. In this article it is very evident that some people have constructed their truths about Mexican people in various ways. This piece builds on what people desire, what they would write if no one else could see. Through this essay people are able to give their inside confessions about desire As one person confesses, "I desire badly a Mexican man (120)." Yet another comment is, "I want to be seen as a true advocate of your culture; as righteous and not as a 'white liberal' & to make love to a Latina with a firm body"(123). And another entry, "I wish all Mexicans would be deported!!...And take this bad art with them"(121). These comments are all responses to an art exhibit-and although these people all saw the same things they had very different reactions. Some respond with love, with compassion, others with hate and aggression. My own desire really draws me to the comment about being a white liberal. I wonder how authentic this comment is-or if it was done tongue-in-cheek to kind of reveal how much this type of thinking is in the world. If not and this comment is true-that a person does not want to be seen as a white liberal and then makes a comment about being with a Latina with a "firm body"(123) I question this person and their motives. They would obviously not be committed to the "other" in any sort of respectful and reciprocal way. This is the epitome of white liberalism which pays a lot of lip service to diversity issues and tolerance-without really doing a lot of work or actually trying to change the dominant power structures.
All of these reactions are true-as far as we know. And even if they are all fabricated-made up to enhance the pieces' legitimacy then I think it works. Because all of these reactions even if made up are real thoughts people have-real desires, desires that can be mean, nasty, dirty, compassionate, caring and everything in between. But then again where is the truth? According to Gómez-Peña it might be in art-it might be in people's reactions to art-or it might not exist at all.
Pinter
In my own world currently I am trying to figure out my own truth. Is my pain real-is it true. Do I perform it well-is my performance of woman in pain authentic? Are people buying it? Do they really? Do I? I am suffering with a recurring problem I have-endometriosis. It is when the tissue that grows in your uterus during one's menstrual cycle actually grows outside of the uterus. It can grow on th outside of the uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries-but also the bladder, intestines, really any organ in the general pelvic region. It has hurt so bad for so long even I am questioning my own truth of how much pain I am in. My own truth right now consists of hospital and doctors visits, procedures that require laxatives and saline solution to clean out my entire digestive system. Pain medicines that either do nothing-or make me so out of it that I am dizzy constantly-unable to drive. I cannot do anything-I cannot function as I normally would.
The truth of it is I didn't think it would bother me. But I can't read an article without getting dizzy and sick-it has taken me forever to even think of the words to put on this page. It is an endeavor I will have worked on for multiple days by the time it is finished. And even as I sit here and write I see stars around the screen-in fact I can't look at the screen because I just see a fuzzy haze. I thought I could make it through a simple movie-just sit and watch right? Wrong. Because I had also run an errand that day for my mother-with my girlfriend driving me-I got to the theatre bought my nachos and prepared. But by the time the previews for upcoming movies came on the big screen I felt it. A sharp pain in my lower back on the right side. Despite the fact I had taken every pain medicine allowed me I could not get comfortable and my girlfriend had to reassure me that it was ok to leave. That she wouldn't be upset-and that we would see the film another day.
I am not myself-but I do not even know who or what I am that is not self. I cannot be anything other than self-but this yucky, mucky self is one I do not appreciate. Imagine that all of a sudden everything in your life is changed because you are in too much pain to deal with anything in any sort of real way. And then to be given tiny little pills to supposedly make it all better-and they don't work. Am I being given placebos here? And I do not feel the way I normally feel and I wonder will I always always feel this way? And I know the answer is no-because I have gone through this before and the pain does go away after the surgery. Then do you know what they tell me will help? If I am not made infertile by endometriosis then I should try to get pregnant. Pregnancy is the pain relief plan they have? I am gay-I do not want to carry my own children. I do not want to waste the time and money because as I said before I am probably infertile. Am I a woman if I am infertile? Does it matter if I am a woman or not? My mother says,"In some ways I hope you are infertile because you aren't sure if you want kids anyway and that someone who really wants to be pregnant can be." As if it works out that way-nonetheless if it does I hope this other woman can get pregnant and maybe be my surrogate. That would be justice in a true form right?
But my truth about myself, and my abilities have changed. My desires are different because all I want to do is not feel this aching, this burning, this sharpness, this sickness. I want to wake up and not feel bad. I want to be able to move my body again. I would like to be able to have sex without having to plan it around how badly i hurt at that moment. I would like to not have to plan my life around the pain that I am in. But
I would suggest we stop this never-ending quest to find and uncover the Truth, -the unveiling of the impossible authentic/real performances and instead look for the ways that meaning and truths are constructed between people. This allows their to be multiple possibilities for interpreting situations and issues. And as Jones suggests-it offers us a new way to view authenticity as something that is co-created not something that simply "is." When we allow this multi-vocal approach we allow the possibility of multiple truths. This makes it more possible for us to question the things. But we must be careful not to appropriate these multiple truths and experiences and instead learn to view them ethically and responsibly. I think performance really speaks to this issue that we are not to simply put on a "modernized" and politically correct "freak show," instead we have a responsibility to the people we work with and participate in our research. We also have a responsibility to people not to appropriate their experiences of oppression by fluidly trying to occupy their spaces. This doesn't mean a transperson should not have their surgery or anything like that but that we think about purchasing ethnic jewelery from Target as a way to get a "real" souvenir from another country but is most likely produced in sweat shop conditions by people of that country in harsh conditions. We need to think about choices we make and think of ways we can be more responsible to our fellow humans. We need to
to be continued yet again...
Why are we so invested in Truth-in finding the reality of a situation? Why do we have such a deep desire to get to the root of something and to find out if it is real or not? And in the end isn't about authenticity anyway? If we can believe a performance because it is authentic according to our standards we tend to believe it-whereas if the performance is not authentic or something seems off we may ignore it and not believe it. But according Gómez-Peña we are no longer able to distinguish authentic performances from the "wannabees" and this may pose a significant problem. She says it is a problem because people will be able to fluidly change subject positions without ever reaping the consequences (mainly negative) of being in an "othered" position. Not that one should look to be oppressed or gain some sort of pointage from being in a marginalized position but there are certain consequences certain people (certain bodies face) that those who fluidly transition will never have to experience. So what is lost
I feel I cannot address any of these questions adequately without looking for some help from Thomas King (2005) who discusses the power of storytelling in constructing our notions of truth.
As King (2005) notes, "Stories are wondrous things. And they are dangerous"(9). Stories have power and they construct our world-thus they have the power for both good and evil and everything in between and around. If "the truth about stories is that's all we are," then we have the ability to tell a story of inclusivity, acceptance, recognition of privilege, demolition of power structures etc...or we can tell a different story one that doesn't care about the well-being of other people who are different then we are.
King details an experience he had of giving an "authentic" American Indian performance speaking at a university for their "Indian Awareness Week"(62). There were four Native men speaking. As he says, "I told stories. Stories about broken treaties, residential schools, culturally offensive movies, the appropriation of Native names, symbols, and motifs. And Ishi." At the end of all the speeches two of the other men (spokespeaople from the bureau for Indian Affairs) are paid for their services-the other man, an artist and King, a story teller are not paid. King relates this to the fact that he is instead seen as the entertainment-not the voice of authority. Despite his attire, his markers of his race, his performance is not authentic or truthful enough to warrant payment. He makes it apparent that the telling of stories is not of monetary value.
So he decides to change his performance. King loses the traditional dress "turned in my ribbon shirt, my four strand bone choker, and my beaded belt buckle for a cheap but serviceable suit and a rather nice tie..."(67) -decides to throw facts and numbers into his stories-give them some empirical evidence in order to make his performance more truthful. Instead the reaction from an audience member is that he is "an apple...an Indian is red on the outside but white on the inside"(67). So where does the truth of King's experience lie? Is it in the dress-no then King is simply entertainment, so the solution-do not dress like an Indian-then "not only am I not entertainment, I wasn't an Indian"(68). King is caught in a web of where authentic performance lies and how to perform so that he will be accepted and listened to by a variety of people. Where is the truth? That is my question-and how do we know what it is? King would say the truth lies in storytelling-and I do think he would agree that there are multiple truths-as narratives are understood from different subject positions creating a new truth.
I think this also speaks very much to Gómez-Peña's article of Confessions. In this article it is very evident that some people have constructed their truths about Mexican people in various ways. This piece builds on what people desire, what they would write if no one else could see. Through this essay people are able to give their inside confessions about desire As one person confesses, "I desire badly a Mexican man (120)." Yet another comment is, "I want to be seen as a true advocate of your culture; as righteous and not as a 'white liberal' & to make love to a Latina with a firm body"(123). And another entry, "I wish all Mexicans would be deported!!...And take this bad art with them"(121). These comments are all responses to an art exhibit-and although these people all saw the same things they had very different reactions. Some respond with love, with compassion, others with hate and aggression. My own desire really draws me to the comment about being a white liberal. I wonder how authentic this comment is-or if it was done tongue-in-cheek to kind of reveal how much this type of thinking is in the world. If not and this comment is true-that a person does not want to be seen as a white liberal and then makes a comment about being with a Latina with a "firm body"(123) I question this person and their motives. They would obviously not be committed to the "other" in any sort of respectful and reciprocal way. This is the epitome of white liberalism which pays a lot of lip service to diversity issues and tolerance-without really doing a lot of work or actually trying to change the dominant power structures.
All of these reactions are true-as far as we know. And even if they are all fabricated-made up to enhance the pieces' legitimacy then I think it works. Because all of these reactions even if made up are real thoughts people have-real desires, desires that can be mean, nasty, dirty, compassionate, caring and everything in between. But then again where is the truth? According to Gómez-Peña it might be in art-it might be in people's reactions to art-or it might not exist at all.
Pinter
In my own world currently I am trying to figure out my own truth. Is my pain real-is it true. Do I perform it well-is my performance of woman in pain authentic? Are people buying it? Do they really? Do I? I am suffering with a recurring problem I have-endometriosis. It is when the tissue that grows in your uterus during one's menstrual cycle actually grows outside of the uterus. It can grow on th outside of the uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries-but also the bladder, intestines, really any organ in the general pelvic region. It has hurt so bad for so long even I am questioning my own truth of how much pain I am in. My own truth right now consists of hospital and doctors visits, procedures that require laxatives and saline solution to clean out my entire digestive system. Pain medicines that either do nothing-or make me so out of it that I am dizzy constantly-unable to drive. I cannot do anything-I cannot function as I normally would.
The truth of it is I didn't think it would bother me. But I can't read an article without getting dizzy and sick-it has taken me forever to even think of the words to put on this page. It is an endeavor I will have worked on for multiple days by the time it is finished. And even as I sit here and write I see stars around the screen-in fact I can't look at the screen because I just see a fuzzy haze. I thought I could make it through a simple movie-just sit and watch right? Wrong. Because I had also run an errand that day for my mother-with my girlfriend driving me-I got to the theatre bought my nachos and prepared. But by the time the previews for upcoming movies came on the big screen I felt it. A sharp pain in my lower back on the right side. Despite the fact I had taken every pain medicine allowed me I could not get comfortable and my girlfriend had to reassure me that it was ok to leave. That she wouldn't be upset-and that we would see the film another day.
I am not myself-but I do not even know who or what I am that is not self. I cannot be anything other than self-but this yucky, mucky self is one I do not appreciate. Imagine that all of a sudden everything in your life is changed because you are in too much pain to deal with anything in any sort of real way. And then to be given tiny little pills to supposedly make it all better-and they don't work. Am I being given placebos here? And I do not feel the way I normally feel and I wonder will I always always feel this way? And I know the answer is no-because I have gone through this before and the pain does go away after the surgery. Then do you know what they tell me will help? If I am not made infertile by endometriosis then I should try to get pregnant. Pregnancy is the pain relief plan they have? I am gay-I do not want to carry my own children. I do not want to waste the time and money because as I said before I am probably infertile. Am I a woman if I am infertile? Does it matter if I am a woman or not? My mother says,"In some ways I hope you are infertile because you aren't sure if you want kids anyway and that someone who really wants to be pregnant can be." As if it works out that way-nonetheless if it does I hope this other woman can get pregnant and maybe be my surrogate. That would be justice in a true form right?
But my truth about myself, and my abilities have changed. My desires are different because all I want to do is not feel this aching, this burning, this sharpness, this sickness. I want to wake up and not feel bad. I want to be able to move my body again. I would like to be able to have sex without having to plan it around how badly i hurt at that moment. I would like to not have to plan my life around the pain that I am in. But
I would suggest we stop this never-ending quest to find and uncover the Truth, -the unveiling of the impossible authentic/real performances and instead look for the ways that meaning and truths are constructed between people. This allows their to be multiple possibilities for interpreting situations and issues. And as Jones suggests-it offers us a new way to view authenticity as something that is co-created not something that simply "is." When we allow this multi-vocal approach we allow the possibility of multiple truths. This makes it more possible for us to question the things. But we must be careful not to appropriate these multiple truths and experiences and instead learn to view them ethically and responsibly. I think performance really speaks to this issue that we are not to simply put on a "modernized" and politically correct "freak show," instead we have a responsibility to the people we work with and participate in our research. We also have a responsibility to people not to appropriate their experiences of oppression by fluidly trying to occupy their spaces. This doesn't mean a transperson should not have their surgery or anything like that but that we think about purchasing ethnic jewelery from Target as a way to get a "real" souvenir from another country but is most likely produced in sweat shop conditions by people of that country in harsh conditions. We need to think about choices we make and think of ways we can be more responsible to our fellow humans. We need to
to be continued yet again...
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
As Corey (2006) notes:
I am not a social dancer, and when I attempt to dance with words like 'truth,' fiction,' 'honesty,' or 'objective,' I clunk and clatter when my feet contact the ground. But 'integrity,' is a word that moves modesty well with me; I am willing assess and discuss moral principles, professional standards, professional standards, reputation, and the willingness to put my name to a tenuous idea"(331).
I use this quote again because when I look at the readings by Gómez-Peña and the lecture by Pinter I am drawn to the notion of truth-multiple truths and capital "T" truths. Whose truth/s do we value and whose truth/s are dismissed as invalid, or dismissed as not being true at all? I think I know some answers but I think it is also necessary to discuss the principle of authenticity when discussing truth. Whose performances are authentic?
As Gómez-Peña (2004) writes:
You may now experience anything you want, become whomever you wish, or purchase whichever cultural, sexual, spiritual, artistic or political experience you desire. You can impersonate other genders or ethnic identities without having to suffer any physical, social, or political repercussions, or be subjected to the rage of the excluded. You don't even need to belong to any 'real' community. And you can do all of this from the solitude of you own home.
If a person in this postmodern world can "be" anything and not have to take a stand what is at stake? Again whose performances are authentic and whose performances are true? Corey quotes Joni L. Jones in his piece:
Performance offers a new authenticity, based on body knowledge, on what audiences and performers share together, on what they mutually construct. As a form of cultural exchange, performance ethnography encourages everyone present to feel themselves as both familiar and strange, to see the truths and the gaps in their cross-cultural embodiments. In this exchange, we find an authenticity that is intuitive, body-centered, and richly ambivalent.
Jones and Gómez-Peña seem to be at slight odds with one another. Although Gómez-Peña is not discussing the possibilities for performance in essence she is discussing the daily performances people can engage in. So does performance up the possibility for body performances or is it problematic in that it encourages people to explore multiple performances of the "other" without ever having to take a stand for the "others" position? I have to think that Jones believes that performance offers the possibility to explore the positions of others-but in a responsible and ethical way-one that implicates the bodies with one another and takes a stake in one another's lives. As she says we have to feel the "cross-cultural embodiments" that require the bodies involved to be invested in each other in order to construct meaning.
This may be a tangent but a necessary one because these articles are discussing the ways that bodies have not been extremely ethically committed to each other and the result is invading Iraq according to Pinter, and making extreme stereotypical judgments about Chicana/os.
to be continued...
I am not a social dancer, and when I attempt to dance with words like 'truth,' fiction,' 'honesty,' or 'objective,' I clunk and clatter when my feet contact the ground. But 'integrity,' is a word that moves modesty well with me; I am willing assess and discuss moral principles, professional standards, professional standards, reputation, and the willingness to put my name to a tenuous idea"(331).
I use this quote again because when I look at the readings by Gómez-Peña and the lecture by Pinter I am drawn to the notion of truth-multiple truths and capital "T" truths. Whose truth/s do we value and whose truth/s are dismissed as invalid, or dismissed as not being true at all? I think I know some answers but I think it is also necessary to discuss the principle of authenticity when discussing truth. Whose performances are authentic?
As Gómez-Peña (2004) writes:
You may now experience anything you want, become whomever you wish, or purchase whichever cultural, sexual, spiritual, artistic or political experience you desire. You can impersonate other genders or ethnic identities without having to suffer any physical, social, or political repercussions, or be subjected to the rage of the excluded. You don't even need to belong to any 'real' community. And you can do all of this from the solitude of you own home.
If a person in this postmodern world can "be" anything and not have to take a stand what is at stake? Again whose performances are authentic and whose performances are true? Corey quotes Joni L. Jones in his piece:
Performance offers a new authenticity, based on body knowledge, on what audiences and performers share together, on what they mutually construct. As a form of cultural exchange, performance ethnography encourages everyone present to feel themselves as both familiar and strange, to see the truths and the gaps in their cross-cultural embodiments. In this exchange, we find an authenticity that is intuitive, body-centered, and richly ambivalent.
Jones and Gómez-Peña seem to be at slight odds with one another. Although Gómez-Peña is not discussing the possibilities for performance in essence she is discussing the daily performances people can engage in. So does performance up the possibility for body performances or is it problematic in that it encourages people to explore multiple performances of the "other" without ever having to take a stand for the "others" position? I have to think that Jones believes that performance offers the possibility to explore the positions of others-but in a responsible and ethical way-one that implicates the bodies with one another and takes a stake in one another's lives. As she says we have to feel the "cross-cultural embodiments" that require the bodies involved to be invested in each other in order to construct meaning.
This may be a tangent but a necessary one because these articles are discussing the ways that bodies have not been extremely ethically committed to each other and the result is invading Iraq according to Pinter, and making extreme stereotypical judgments about Chicana/os.
to be continued...
Monday, May 12, 2008
Fuck!
Fuck!
Fuck!
It's just as Alix Olson says, "Sometimes it's just Fuck [you!]
I am lying here wedged between a sleeping body a popple and my own brain and yet I feel so alone.
It's amazing how much Pain can make a person feel alone.
"I will tie us together and then everything they do to you they will have to do to me to make you not feel so alone."
I don't want to be going through this-but I know that I have to-It will hopefully be over soon so I can resume making snarky remarks, quick rebuttals, sassy comments and the like. My life is not over-but I definitely do not feel like myself.
I write things that I just do not think I would write. They aren't in MY voice-if I really have one to begin with. I just don't remember it sounding and looking so fuzzy. That's not me that's no what I usually sound like. I sound smarter usually. I sound like I care. I sound like I write with passion and a desire to change the world-not this fuzzy wishy washy bull shit. I write like something bigger than myself matters.
Right now the shooting pain through my uterus is what I feel. That's what I am writing from. That fucking pain that won't go away. It lingers in my back sweeping through my entire body. Mostly my feet-my pain always seems to land itself in my feet after hurting in the local sites of pain. It always seem to find a home embedded in the muscles of my feet-sometimes my shoulders. Then I can walk on my pain feel it anytime I go anywhere.
I dislike the niceties that come along with experiencing pain. No one knows what to do for it. There is nothing anyone can do. There is little I can do and even less that anyone else can do. Anything that makes me more comfortable I generally have to do for myself and it involves taking more drugs which, knock me out, or make me doped up to the point of entering the land of my subconcious, turning the heat up on my heatin pad, taking a bath, or sleeping. Back and foot rubs are the only thing I can't do very well that relieve some o the pain for a while. I appreciate the gesture I just feel bad when I have no concrete answers to give.
And that's the fuck part! There is nothing to be done until I can schedule my surgery. Until then I just pop the pills they tell me to, and work on my lamaze breathing techniques and try not to do anything to make it worse-which can't always be avoided either.
And I wish I could connect the pain to larger issues of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia-but right now I can't. I can only feel only write from that space of only sort of caring about life but mostly care about it being over so I can get on with making those connections to other things. Things in my thesis project, things in my class projects, things in my daily life. But fuck! This is my daily life right now. This is it. Boiled down to the roots of being in the exact moment. I wouldn't mind boiling my internal organs right now get them hot enough they would stop cramping.
And I am going through this because I am a Woman right? Whatever that means. I have a Gynecologist working through a special women's health clinic performing my procedure looking at my lady parts and assessing them. This is all because I have reproductive organs I don't plan on producing anything with. If I don't plan on using them can I just lose them and get all of this shit over with? If I lose them am I no longer a woman-if I don't produce anything with my reproducing organs? I don't think I would mind losing that label if it meant losing the pain. I would give up that title-if I did would it make my parts (previously known as lady parts) hurt less? I would hope so.
Fuck!
I just want it over and done!
Sometimes it really is just Fuck!
Fuck!
It's just as Alix Olson says, "Sometimes it's just Fuck [you!]
I am lying here wedged between a sleeping body a popple and my own brain and yet I feel so alone.
It's amazing how much Pain can make a person feel alone.
"I will tie us together and then everything they do to you they will have to do to me to make you not feel so alone."
I don't want to be going through this-but I know that I have to-It will hopefully be over soon so I can resume making snarky remarks, quick rebuttals, sassy comments and the like. My life is not over-but I definitely do not feel like myself.
I write things that I just do not think I would write. They aren't in MY voice-if I really have one to begin with. I just don't remember it sounding and looking so fuzzy. That's not me that's no what I usually sound like. I sound smarter usually. I sound like I care. I sound like I write with passion and a desire to change the world-not this fuzzy wishy washy bull shit. I write like something bigger than myself matters.
Right now the shooting pain through my uterus is what I feel. That's what I am writing from. That fucking pain that won't go away. It lingers in my back sweeping through my entire body. Mostly my feet-my pain always seems to land itself in my feet after hurting in the local sites of pain. It always seem to find a home embedded in the muscles of my feet-sometimes my shoulders. Then I can walk on my pain feel it anytime I go anywhere.
I dislike the niceties that come along with experiencing pain. No one knows what to do for it. There is nothing anyone can do. There is little I can do and even less that anyone else can do. Anything that makes me more comfortable I generally have to do for myself and it involves taking more drugs which, knock me out, or make me doped up to the point of entering the land of my subconcious, turning the heat up on my heatin pad, taking a bath, or sleeping. Back and foot rubs are the only thing I can't do very well that relieve some o the pain for a while. I appreciate the gesture I just feel bad when I have no concrete answers to give.
And that's the fuck part! There is nothing to be done until I can schedule my surgery. Until then I just pop the pills they tell me to, and work on my lamaze breathing techniques and try not to do anything to make it worse-which can't always be avoided either.
And I wish I could connect the pain to larger issues of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia-but right now I can't. I can only feel only write from that space of only sort of caring about life but mostly care about it being over so I can get on with making those connections to other things. Things in my thesis project, things in my class projects, things in my daily life. But fuck! This is my daily life right now. This is it. Boiled down to the roots of being in the exact moment. I wouldn't mind boiling my internal organs right now get them hot enough they would stop cramping.
And I am going through this because I am a Woman right? Whatever that means. I have a Gynecologist working through a special women's health clinic performing my procedure looking at my lady parts and assessing them. This is all because I have reproductive organs I don't plan on producing anything with. If I don't plan on using them can I just lose them and get all of this shit over with? If I lose them am I no longer a woman-if I don't produce anything with my reproducing organs? I don't think I would mind losing that label if it meant losing the pain. I would give up that title-if I did would it make my parts (previously known as lady parts) hurt less? I would hope so.
Fuck!
I just want it over and done!
Sometimes it really is just Fuck!
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Why should I go to the Northwestern Performance Institute this Summer?
I am applying to go to this amazing Performance Institute this summer at Northwestern University and I am so excited and I hav to write this letter about myself and the work I am doing or want to do. And I don't know how to start-so I turn to this Blog as I do with most things performance related to give me some inspiration or at least a jump-start.
Who am I? And Why do I deserve to be invited? I don't know answers both sufficiently and yet completely insufficiently at the same moment in time. I can tell you things I do-things I believe in very strongly-those might give you the best insights into both of those questions.
I am an M.A. student or more likely I perform the identity and role of graduate student on a daily basis. This graduate student also performs critical race consciousness, queerness, gender-rebel, class distortionist, preschool teacher, mother, lover, friend, and a multiplicity of other identities throughout the course of a day.
Why performance studies? There are so many reasons-but here are a few. Number one, I have never met a discipline that resonated so much with me before. I don't understand how someone who cares about social justice, who really cares and feels committed to human beings and is a scholar can not study performance. It is the discipline I see synonomously with social justice-although many other disciplines attempt to do this and succeed to an extent (Women's Studies, African/African American Studies etc) these disciplines privilege identities and to display them as a somewhat fixed and unifying thing. Instead, performance studies places the performance of a multiplicity of intersecting identities, daily negotiations, social justice, critical consciousness, reflexivity, reciprocity, accountability, and stake in a multiple and fractured menagerie to work together to produce analysis. In my mind this just makes a lot of sense. Instead of privileging an identity maybe we should instead think about performing those identities, communicating them to others? I don't know but this is something I am playing around with right now.
I will be going into my second year of M.A. work where I will be proposing my thesis topic in order to begin researching and writing it as well as applying to PhD programs. I am currently hoping to research a queer feminist theatre group that I have seen perform (well I actually saw the youth theatre version and am hoping to actually see them perform soon). I am curious to see how performance becomes a vehicle for social transformation and how a resistive group can both work through performance but also more individually between members of the cast. I think that these interpersonal actions on a daily basis can create smaller level social change for those involved while trying to make an even larger cultural impact on those who they perform for. I am very excited to work on a project that explores ideas of performance, intersectionality, queerness, etc in a theatre setting. I also think this has the potential of being an amazing space for my own reflexive participation-although I do not consider myself a performer I feel that mostly I will benefit from being involved in such a project while possibly being able to offer something (publicity, webhelp etc...)
In performance it helps to be committed and have a stake int he projects we decide to take on and to the peple we are interacting with. In this sense I love many pieces of what this group does and I want to be a part of it in someway anyway and I think their radical voices and stories need to be told as Thomas King says, "So that we may live our lives differently."
So these are the things that I do-sort of, I guess more of what I want to do someday. I do not know who I am or why I deserve to go except that I think it could be very helpful in getting more grounding for my thesis and what direction t take it in. I think this specific summit that is focusing on resistive performances and social justice will very much play into how to focus my work and I am excited to meet and interact with people who are working on similar topics with unique perspectives. In the end I don't deserve to go, I only hope that I will chosen so that I may learn ad grow as an academic and human being.
Who am I? And Why do I deserve to be invited? I don't know answers both sufficiently and yet completely insufficiently at the same moment in time. I can tell you things I do-things I believe in very strongly-those might give you the best insights into both of those questions.
I am an M.A. student or more likely I perform the identity and role of graduate student on a daily basis. This graduate student also performs critical race consciousness, queerness, gender-rebel, class distortionist, preschool teacher, mother, lover, friend, and a multiplicity of other identities throughout the course of a day.
Why performance studies? There are so many reasons-but here are a few. Number one, I have never met a discipline that resonated so much with me before. I don't understand how someone who cares about social justice, who really cares and feels committed to human beings and is a scholar can not study performance. It is the discipline I see synonomously with social justice-although many other disciplines attempt to do this and succeed to an extent (Women's Studies, African/African American Studies etc) these disciplines privilege identities and to display them as a somewhat fixed and unifying thing. Instead, performance studies places the performance of a multiplicity of intersecting identities, daily negotiations, social justice, critical consciousness, reflexivity, reciprocity, accountability, and stake in a multiple and fractured menagerie to work together to produce analysis. In my mind this just makes a lot of sense. Instead of privileging an identity maybe we should instead think about performing those identities, communicating them to others? I don't know but this is something I am playing around with right now.
I will be going into my second year of M.A. work where I will be proposing my thesis topic in order to begin researching and writing it as well as applying to PhD programs. I am currently hoping to research a queer feminist theatre group that I have seen perform (well I actually saw the youth theatre version and am hoping to actually see them perform soon). I am curious to see how performance becomes a vehicle for social transformation and how a resistive group can both work through performance but also more individually between members of the cast. I think that these interpersonal actions on a daily basis can create smaller level social change for those involved while trying to make an even larger cultural impact on those who they perform for. I am very excited to work on a project that explores ideas of performance, intersectionality, queerness, etc in a theatre setting. I also think this has the potential of being an amazing space for my own reflexive participation-although I do not consider myself a performer I feel that mostly I will benefit from being involved in such a project while possibly being able to offer something (publicity, webhelp etc...)
In performance it helps to be committed and have a stake int he projects we decide to take on and to the peple we are interacting with. In this sense I love many pieces of what this group does and I want to be a part of it in someway anyway and I think their radical voices and stories need to be told as Thomas King says, "So that we may live our lives differently."
So these are the things that I do-sort of, I guess more of what I want to do someday. I do not know who I am or why I deserve to go except that I think it could be very helpful in getting more grounding for my thesis and what direction t take it in. I think this specific summit that is focusing on resistive performances and social justice will very much play into how to focus my work and I am excited to meet and interact with people who are working on similar topics with unique perspectives. In the end I don't deserve to go, I only hope that I will chosen so that I may learn ad grow as an academic and human being.
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