Today I discovered a new magazine. The magazine is not new but my awareness of it is. A few weeks ago in Portland I was roaming around the immense Powell's bookstore and found Radical Teacher. Of course the title had me at hello and as soon as I started flipping through the articles I realized this was something I had to take with me. This morning I went to a nice coffee shop and dove into my new treasure. The articles included ways to use myspace when teaching feminism and perspectives on teaching a documentary about the way television portrays the working class. Pepi Leistyna made the film Class Dismissed and provides a very comprehensive list of alternative media sources. Once again I feel like I have tapped a previously unknown well of information that I need to pursue on a more profound level. As I start looking through this I will leave you with a preview for Class Dismissed.

It is 1:30 in the morning and my eyes are closing on me. I don't know why I am prompted to come here to express this but where else would I go at this hour. George Carlin died. Aside from finding his comedy quite brilliant and insightful I am trying to figure out why this is so disturbing to me.

It could have to do with my skewed relationship with what is called humor. I can watch comedians do stand up on Comedy Central all day and not laugh once. The movies that most people seem to find funny, I find ridiculous and offensive. For a while my line was, "everyone knows I don't have a sense of humor." It isn't that. I have a sense of humor but it needs a little more prodding than Mencia selling out his race. Recently someone sent me a George Carlin dialogue and I couldn't stop laughing. He makes comedy theoretical and takes it a step further. He doesn't have to appeal to the obvious racist, sexist, fall on your face stunts that other mainstream comedy seems to be so fond of. How many male comedians talk about the abortion issue? How many female comedians for that matter? Fearless and brilliant, he will be missed.

Lately I have been putting off posting to this blog. This happens while I keep telling people about the wonders of blogging and the fact that I have one. So it is a little embarrassing because they come here and there is nothing written outside of apologies for not writing.
I am a little intimidated, I guess. When I started blogging it felt very personal but lately I have been finding the amazing power of blogging. There are so many people I admire for blogging about the injustices of the world and the art of their lives. When I read these blogs I put so much pressure on my blog to be that kind of beautiful but my blog is just me and my life. There is a space for my social justice blogging but I haven't gotten into that mode yet.
In the meantime I have to recommend three brilliant bloggers that I have on my links but need to be mentioned. The first is a librarian who was my professor. Her perception of blogging is that it is an avenue to spread information that does not get passed around by mass media. It is called A Librarian at the Kitchen Table. It is also part of the Human Rights Bloggers network. The second is another professor of mine from my academic sociology days. I used to love going into her classes and had missed hearing her voice on race issues in the U.S. Now I have access to her on her blog, Why Am I Not Surprised? The third blogger, I was introduced to recently and got the chance to meet at the WAM conference. Her writing is beautiful and brilliant. It is entrenched in real human rights information and worded in that way that makes you wish you could just call her when you are having an argument with some narrow mind and ask her what she would say because it comes out so much better than what you say. Her site is La Chola.
So I will tell you about some personal work and things on the next post. For now I just wanted you to know that I am here, even when I am not.

I am so ungrateful! I have left my blog for another blog it would seem. This is not true. I have been dormant in my need to express myself in cyberspace. This also comes with the added insult that I have been running around the world telling people that they should write their own blogs...or post on the ones they already have. I applaud blogs and count their virtues while I site my favorite bloggers. Meanwhile the little woman in my head is screaming at me that my blog is cold and lonely and it has not been fed. Yesterday my cousin said, "I tried to access your blog and it wasn`t there" The horror! I thought, "This is finally it. My blog could not take my indiscretions and it has left me. Say it ain`t so!" To my relief it is still here despite my behavior. I am coming back because, the guilt no withstanding, the words are fighting their way to the top and that gives me headaches.

I am very excited to announce that I am now a blogger on Feminist Pulse. I will be writing about all my happy (and unhappy) feminist thoughts there. Check it out. It is a part of Girlistic magazine. I know I owe you posts over here. Don't get all jealous on me.

My friend, Changeseeker posted a wonderful blog with this picture in it and I just had to share.

This morning I decided to send in a little submission to a zine. It is based on body image and I thought that everyone has a little something to contribute to that discussion. Yesterday I had a very animated discussion about an Axe commercial based on a post on the feministing blog.
We talked about societal perceptions of body image. The thing that I think is interesting is how much I missed within myself. I know about what marketing and society does to women but does that help me actually avoid the pitfalls of the brainwashing?

A few years ago my cousin told me that I was anorexic. I was sooooooooo insulted. (By the way I am sorry to bring this up again Moo but I thought it was important). We were talking about it recently and I asked him why he said it. He told me that I wouldn't eat, that I constantly talked about my weight and I was completely obsessive. Here is the definition:
anorexia
noun
a prolonged disorder of eating due to loss of appetite

I was anorexic and I didn't even notice it. You know for all of my so called self awareness I really was in the closet about a lot of things...which is another story for another time. For now I would like to thank my cousin for helping me see the things I didn't want to....Ohhh and here is my submission:


A few years ago I got very depressed and stopped eating. I unintentionally lost 20 pounds in two weeks. When people saw me they were all amazed. I looked so wonderful, amazing, beautiful, confident, sexy, happy, healthy, etc. All this really only meant that I looked thinner. I didn’t think I was fat before. After that I felt compulsive about not gaining weight. I felt that it was really strange that my body image issues came from losing weight instead gaining it and that compliments fed it. Since then I have gained 40 pounds and become a radical feminist. My mind understands this and sees the magic in my curves and is proud. There is a little demon though, I call her StandardX, who lives in my thoughts and constantly tells me how much nicer it would be to wear those clothes again.