So much self-loathing.
But like, that aside, better than the original~~~
If anyone I know reads this, they’ll probably have like -235283414% respect for me after this post
But I just thought to myself that I might be less averse to Avril Lavigne (and her music?) if she didn’t try to pose as someone she just wasn’t. Like a musician or a skater or a punk(??). It just seems like generic pop-y music if you forget that she tried to mold her image into a legitimate singer-songwriter/punx/sk8er.
I mean, as far as her first album goes, I guess. Her later stuff was, like, so blah.
A friend went to see Death Cab
when they came through Providence, and I have been reunited with “Transatlanticism”.
I’m trying not to cringe, as I feel increasingly pre-teeny, ‘cause I’m not supposed to be ashamed of my xX_rootz_Xx…
.
.
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But oh my god, “Death of an Interior Decorator” came on. Brb. Shameless Ben Gibbard Jangly Guitars. This is a dream.
displacement and self-loathing?
I’ve been thinking a lot about displacement and gentrification lately.
I guess this isn’t all too surprising, given that I’ll be moving to New York in August, and I haven’t found a place to live yet. Also, anytime anyone asks me where I’m living, I have no answer. To which they handily reply, “Why not Brooklyn? Or Chinatown? Harlem’s looking pretty good too.” In one response, they’ve named three of the most well-documented, active “battlegrounds” for neighborhood resistance in the last few decades.
So, uh. Compelling, heart-wrenching story about a homesick college-grad aside, I’ve been having a hard time looking for a new home.
This isn’t an issue with my own money or the availability of housing units for people with my money. Knowing a little about urban politics, theory and some of the recent neighborhood “changes” happening around New York’s boroughs, I’ve started to think about my role as potential gentry. I am the quintessential gentrify-er: young, college-educated, middle-class professional. I’m also just not from New York at all.
I don’t want to obliquely or directly displace a long-time resident by giving their landlord an incentive to give them the boot. I don’t want to bring in boutique coffee shops and organic produce stores (no matter if they’re “non-corporate”, because how many of those in Williamsburg are actually owned by long-time Williamsburg residents? How many old Latino/Hispanic folks still buy coffee from these places? Do these places employ lower-income, NOT starving artist-type residents? Maybe the Hasidic Jews don’t want to see folks exposing their legs in public. Don’t they have a right to protect their historic enclave’s values from people who are not only oblivious to, but disrespectful of their history and values?).
I probably sound like a dick, but this is really bothering me. At its heart, it’s not just a class issue, but also a complex inter-generational, cultural and racial problem too. Many of the people gentrification affects are low-income, but also elderly people of color. I can recognize my class, claim myself as middle or even upper-middle class, depending on the measures. I am extremely privileged, highly educated, graced with a brand-name school’s degree.
… But this isn’t a question of me denying my class/racial privilege. I can’t afford to live in so many places. I have to live somewhere, but the thought that I am part of a systematic marginalization of any people is at once horrible to me. For certain, I’ll avoid rent-stabilized/-regulated units, but how do I avoid taking up affordable housing that ought to shelter working class families/elderly folks?
Where the hell do I go? I guess the obv. answers might be that I should have looked for jobs in Providence, where I’d established myself… Or moved back to Los Angeles.
Apologist? Hypocrite? Oppressor? Accomplice? Enabler?
I dunno, I dunno, I dunno. At least I have another four months to agonize over this.
Residents in Chinatown are fighting against gentrification and not for the preservation of the place as a national landmark. They want to continue to work and to live there without being squeezed out by people interested in profiting from their community’s demise. In fact, it is only the gentrifiers who talk about preserving the neighborhood as a cultural relic to attract tourists. The problem is that the people and businesses that are still there do not want to be counted as already dead. (Peter Kwong)
Dang.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
I swear this storm is going to tear down my house.
I recorded the rain for ten minutes, and cut it down to these two minutes. I feel like I’m sitting at the bottom of the sea.
My bike will probably be a rusted hunk of metal/sopping wet tomorrow. Sad.
i have the attention span of a pickle
and the conviction of something much more yielding and slippery.
someone get me out of school before i injure my futures.
Conversation with my mother
| Tricia: | I'm really afraid of living in New York. |
| Mother: | What? Why? |
| Tricia: | Everyone I know who has moved there is super trendy. |
| Mother: | ...so? |
| Tricia: | Mother, I am not good at being cool. I am awkward and geeky and weird. |
| Mother: | Well ... New York is a very diversified place... I'm sure you'll find more of your own kind there. Or maybe New York will make you cool -- like a factory of cool. |
| Tricia: | That sounds ... really disturbing and not at all reassuring. |
pre-writing for an award essay on public service:
I’m not sure how I feel about community service. There are so many conflicting strings of thought that intertwine with my knowledge of the history of service and volunteerism, the socio-political issues involved (privilege, altruism, condescension, empowerment), analysis of my own experiences – that it has yet to settle in my mind at all. And that’s without even considering the differences between volunteering in general and volunteering at Brown, through the Swearer Center.
How do I articulate this? I assume what they want is my reflection on service at Brown, but I’m still doing it. After four years, I’m still doing “service work” and I have not had time to sit down, get distance and think about it. Also, how much fluff do they want? If I were to write about my feelings/thoughts on “service work”, a lot of it would be negative right now.
If I think about work with the program, I feel frustration – with the Swearer Center, with our partners, with my co-coordinator(s), with my volunteers, (and even though I’m ashamed of it) with my learners, with myself. I look back at the potential I felt the program had for implementing a truly community-based learning approach. And I think about how I failed that. I was marginalized; my views and the views of my peers were unheard, unappreciated. How could I work with/around so many different stakeholders in this process who read the same mission statement for the program and interpreted it/understood it so differently? Their opinions and insights were extremely valuable and valid. Does that make my interpretation of it wrong? Less valid?
Knowing that I “failed” at this, do I deserve this award? No, I don’t think so. I also have an issue with the idea that I need to deserve an award, or that I need an award to validate the work I’ve done or tried to do. Do I even want an award that is associated with an institution I’m not fully at ease with yet? And yet, there’s that feeling and there’s that award.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Leotard” by TacocaT, from Shame Spiral (Don’t Stop Believin’, 2010)
An open letter to the guy who got upset at me last night because I didn’t want to dance with him:
Fuck yourself. I didn’t like you dryhumping me. I told you politely, “No thanks” when you asked me if I wanted to dance. You know, even though you’d been grinding on me for a good two minutes. Take your boner and upsetness somewhere else…
“What the fuck?? Why the hell are you here then??”
Um, I didn’t realize that going to a dance party meant that I had to dance with you. Or anyone. Why the hell do I have to justify that to you?
An open letter to the guy who kept trying to make advances on me:
Fuck yourself. We were on a friend-date. Yeah, I told you that I didn’t want to make out with you at least three times each time you mashed your mouth against my face without warning.
- “I don’t feel comfortable doing that. Sorry.”
- “I don’t feel that way about you. Sorry.”
- “I ought to get going…”
This is why songs like “Leotard”, as funny as they are, are still relevant to a 20-something-year-old.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
“Knick Knack” covered by Tacocat (original by Beat Happening) off of Frenching and Foodstamps (High Fives and Handshakes, 2009)
I have to say, this sounds like the best thing ever.
(Also, Beat Happening)
(Source: stinkypuff, via ohnobeathappening)
Thinking about my parents. I can’t wait to go home.
But, in a few moments: midnight run.
EDIT @ 2:04 AM: too tired to shower. Am I gross? Better question — do I care?
