28 before 28 (Read: Holy shit I'd better get my act together.)

I turned 27 about 6 months ago and it's freaking me out a little. Overall, things are pretty good. I have, however, become a procrastinator in my old age. So I thought I'd change things up a little and be proactive for the remainder of this year.

Here's a list of 28 things I'd like to accomplish before I turn 28. It's ambitious, considering that I've only half a year, but then timidity was never my style.

1. Take a trip, for fun.
2. Learn how to cook my favorite three Indian dishes.
3. Read the People's History of the US.
4. Get 5 articles published.
5. Get a handle on the internaional human rights framework.
6. Buy some paints and a canvas and make something fun.
7. Edit and revise my MA thesis.
8. Get all my books to come and live with me.
9. Do a financial assessment.
10. Actually decorate my office.
11. Create a home filing system and use it.
12. Start a youth health project at work.
13. Read all of Checkov's short stories.
14. Become a PPNYC volunteer.
15. Publish something in an RJ anthology/journal.
17. Read something by Alice Munro.
18. Get to know my parents better.
19. Go to 3 museums/galleries that I've never been to before.
21. Write some things that aren't for work.
22. Go see the Nuyorican Poets Slam.
23. Spend QT with Varun.
24. Take a dance class.
25. Send birthday cards on time.
26. Go home for Diwali.
27. Come up with a thoughtful 5 year plan.
28. Get cable.

Frida in Philly

On Saturday, I took an early morning bus to Philly, bounded up the same steps that Rocky Balboa did in 1976 and waited in line for 45 minutes (despite having pre-paid tickets) wringing my hands in the lobby of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Why all this drama on Saturday morning, you ask? Well, this was the last weekend of the Frida Kahlo exhibit in Philadelphia. Frida is moving on to San Fran in the fall and I'd have hated to miss her when she was so close to home.

Standing in line, the exhibit maitre'd told me that the exhibit was wonderful. "I won't give it away, but you're going to love it," he said. "There are a lot of photographs, I'm not going to tell you anything else." He smirked a knowing smirk and went off to corral another group of Frida lovers into an orderly line. Oh boy, was he right.

The exhibit was wonderful and I saw some of my favorite Frida works, as well as a ton of never-before-released family photos with Frida looking about as fierce as you can imagine. Once I'd become accustomed to the crowd, surprisingly enough, it was a very intimate experience.

The most interesting moment happened when I left the exhibit and wandered into other parts of the museum. It was almost impossible to appreciate the sometime coldness of contemporary and modern art after having been witness to art that was so personal. Dramatic and traumatic at times, but always personal and real. It was hard to relate to Cubism and Dada after that (and you all know how much I love the Dadaists and their funkiness).

It reminded me that intellectual art is always interesting and often beautiful, but visceral art can do something that the intellectual kind: reveal something true and human. That is Frida's legacy.

All in all, a Saturday very well spent.

For Hillary: On Being a Good Diva

Got this in my inbox today. Click. You won't be sorry.

Word.

The Winter [Spring, Summer and Fall] of My Discontent

Many seasons have passed since I last written. I've graduated from UChicago, and now, MA in hand, am working in NYC. Any of you reading this already know the details so I'll spare you. But I'm back here, in cyberland, because somehow, I've missed writing into this vacuum. It's strangely comforting to chronicle for strangers and friends alike. Gives the diarist's dilemma some depth.

With that in mind, I'll just continue to chronicle the life and times of a 27 year-old activist living in the big city. Some posts, inevitably, will recount tales from this previous year. There's some good material there, and I'd hate to lose it. I'm sure you understand.

Oh, and the blog title has changed. It's roots in cement these days, so sand metaphor just didn't seem to fit any longer.

Cheerio dahlings.

I'm Baaaaaack!

Does anyone still read this thing? Well, after a long absence, I'll start posting again. Life is a little boring right now, so I'll think of creative ways to keep you all entertained.


Stay tuned!

Thesis....

...DONE!

What a relief! After a few days of celebration, I'm now back in the middle of my two remaining finals.

The thesis is about the politics of recognition and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Considering the limitations of time and space, I'm happy with the way it turned out. Whether it is a sophisticated bit of argumentation or not still remains to be seen. If nothing else, I have a good sense of what it is like to make an original philosophical claim. Have no delusions though, it is excruciating. Nevertheless, I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. Surprisingly enough.

Regardless, I'm happy to be entering the workforce again. I miss organizing and activism. So here's the APB: send fun and fabulous social justice job postings my way! I'm back on the market!

Woo hoo!

The Final Stretch

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

- Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon


With one week until the thesis is hardbound and turned in, I suffer the brutal reality of time. So, I'll do the only things that I can.

Take a deep breath, keep working, and hope these pages catch flight.

Surfacing, sort of

I've been drowning in this thesis for the past few weeks. I've still got a week and a half to make it into something worth reading - we're in the home stretch!

I'll return to posting soon, I've got some good stories about my last few weeks in the Windy City, a Cinco De Mayo celebration to report on (there were maracas and sombreros, my friends), a talk by Judith Butler to cover (at the reception afterward I had a run in with the famed Ms. Butler herself) and some public fretting to do about where my life leads next!

In the meantime, send me happy thesising thoughts -- I need 'em!

On Messiness

As you write something, in my case it's an MA thesis, you have to become very comfortable with non-linearity. You have to be willing to chase a thought through the muckiness of a nearly-overflowing mind. You have to learn to live with and appreciate messiness. This, I think, is an important life lesson. It's a kind of commitment. Some whacked-out bit of faith -- a belief that the messiness will lead you to something worthwhile. These days, I'm in the middle of that muck. Strung-out on a live wire that may or may not get me fried.

I've finished my first draft. I spent this weekend lazing about, sitting in the sun, near the lake, re-reading some of the texts that are central to my argument. Thinking about things like justice and beauty and political enfranchisement.

What I'm learning is that I have to relinquish a little control. Wallow in the uncertainty. Muddle through the messiness. Slowly. Writing and thinking are things I love to do. But they are certainly not tidy things. They can't be forced or controlled. I imagine that they are like children in these ways. They are stubborn and stomping. But goodness, they're worth it. When it works, and the words come easy, the thoughts seem to fit. When there's something tangible to track on a page that started out blank. Then. Then the messiness that you left in your wake doesn't matter. The trail of untidy thoughts is irrelevant.

Then, it's worth it.

Well, Shit

What a tough day. Considering the debacle at Virginia Tech, I've been in a bit of a funk. Now this.

From the dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg:

Today's decision is alarming. It refuses to take Casey and Stenberg seriously. It tolerates, indeed applauds federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). It blurs the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability and postviability abortions. And, for the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health.

Hell in a handbasket, it seems. Once I collect my thoughts, I might try to actually write something coherent about this. Also, I'm sending all my love and support to my dear friends and colleagues who work on these issues at the frontlines. You all are my heroes and I guess the show must go on. For now, though, I suggest we all look for ways to take it to the streets.

(Temporarily) Liberated

Phew. That was a little ugly, but somehow I managed to get the first draft of the thesis done and sent off to my advisor and preceptor.

In, what can only be called the world's most pathetic celebration, I hopped into bed (which I hadn't seen much of recently) with Ben and Jerry's Half-Baked and a DVD of the Bourne Identity (on loan from a kind neighbor). Now, after 8 consecutive hours of sleep(!), I have made and eaten a proper breakfast and have corn bread baking in the oven. It will be the perfect accompaniment to the black beans and rice I plan to cook for lunch.

Somehow, this post consists of the post-thesis-draft food chronicles.

Anyhow, I'm taking the day off from school. I'll be catching up on Ugly Betty and ameliorating my exhausted brain by watching back episodes of Gilmore Girls and maybe a J-lo flick thrown in for good measure.

Then in the evening, you guessed it, are the perfunctory celebrations with others who are also still reeling from humanistic inquiry - to be held at the local pub. I'm looking forward to seeing my dear colleagues at least a little relaxed and, albeit temporarily, liberated.

Don't wait up.

Roots in a Thesis

I've made it back to Chicago after a jaunt to Western Mass. It was fantastic. Now, I'm on notice with this thesis. A full draft is due next week. Here's goes nothing.

Springtime and Change

It's springtime in Chicago. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the new quarter began today. And as if that weren't enough, I head to western Mass in a few days to bask in the wonderous, joyous, three-day bonanza that is the CLPP Conference.

Happy happy day.

In honor of all that, here are some words far more eloquent than my own:

"But now that so much is changing, isn't it time for us to change? Couldn't we try to gradually develop and slowly take upon ourselves, little by little, our part in the great task of love? We have been spared all its trouble, and that is why it has slipped in among our distractions, as a piece of real lace which sometimes falls into a child's toy-box and please him and no longer please him, and finally it lies there among the broken and dismembered toys, more wretched than any of them. We have been spoiled by superficial pleasures like all dilettantes, and are looked upon as masters. But what if we despised our successes? What if we started from the very outset to learn the task of love, which has always been done for us? What if we went ahead and became beginners, now that much is changing?"

- Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

Spring Break, Sort Of

Now that finals week is over, I have a minute to relax. Well, actually, I haven't but I'm pretending that I do. I spent today sitting lakeside in the glorious sun, reading. And the reading was not related to courses, the thesis or papers. It was reading FOR FUN. (Imagine that.)

Aside from all the thesis-related-work and work-related-work I have to do this week, here are my meager plans for fun:

Today: Reading The Year of Magical Thinking by the lake.
Tomorrow: Dinner and Jazz at The Negro League Cafe
Wednesday: Shopping downtown
Friday: Dinner party at a friend's place

It's not MTV's Spring Break Miami, but it'll have to do.
Livin' it up. Or something.

P.S. I updated the sidebar, more fun links to come. Enjoy!

In memory, and with newfound inspiration

As I sit for hours and hours in the face of a blinding screen-glare, it's nice to find a gem that reminds me why I even bother.

I want to write what will help change that which is harmful for human beings in our time.
-- Tille Olsen

Deep breath and back to it.

De-light-ful

I break from paper writing (it's finals week) to bring you a little bit of yum. This chandelier is made of gummy bears. Delish.



Click here for detail.

Something Ain't Right...

... when the global economy makes things like this possible.

Now I know that, all said and done, this is a good thing. Schools being built for girls in rural India -- I'm all for it. My question here is a simple one: Why does it take charity to make these things happen? And secondly, how on earth can we justify such a skewed moral, poltical and economic value system where one dress can build a school? Where one strand of Hollywood anointed pearls could save hundreds from starving? My hunch: we can't. This, in my humble opinion, is exactly where the free-market missteps. There are no safe-guards in such a system for ensuring that what is important is valued. No. In this world, it's perfectly fine for something like a dress to be worth many human lives. The econometrics of worth never come out in favor of the ones most vulnerable. Waste is glorified and charity is lauded.

And oh what a world it is.

Though somewhere, some capitalist is saying something like, "see all the good things that globalization can do?"

Though it does make me wonder if the necklace could Save Darfur.

A Long Way Gone

I can't wait to read Ishmael Beah's book. He is incredibly luminescent, considering.

Top 10

What a hectic few weeks it's been. And the coming ones will be even more so. There are, however, some beacons of light in my life. Keeping me sane through the thesis trials and tribulations are the following wonderous things. I thought I'd share:

1. Ray LaMontagne's album, Trouble. His voice is magnetic and raspy. And somehow still sweet. Listen. You won't be sorry.

2. Ugly Betty. Delightful and delicious melodrama. Though my guess is that you know this already.

3. The God of Small Things, by Arundati Roy. I always go back to this book when I write. Inspirational wordsmithing.

4. Walking to class in the cold. Nothing like a chilled-metal gust to get the blood cells moving and the brain cells firing. Seriously, when the heat and stuffiness of indoor life is too much, a cold, cold walk is fantastic.

5. Grilled cheese sandwiches at Jimmy's. Some of you have tried these and know what I mean. They are perfection. The Platonic ideal of GC sandwiches. Reason enough to visit me in this great city.

6. Beyonce's Irreplacable. Okay, I know. But the song is fierce and so is she. I can't stop singing it. You must not know 'bout me...

7. The Chicago Art Institute. Words are so hard to negotiate. Sometimes images are just what I need to feel re-energized. I've been several times this quarter. I always return to my philosophy books with a little more gusto. Thanks CLPP!

8. The new Dixie Chicks' album. I know they swept at the Grammy's, but I was listening to this before the friggin' establishement validated it. I *heart* them now that they are all pissed off and angsty. I know, I'm so country.

9. The Waffle House in Hyde Park. This place is almost too good to be true. And two blocks away. Perfect for Sunday AM pancackes with my UofC best buds.

10. Knowing that I will get to see some of my favorite people in the world at the CLPP conference: sparkling illumination at the end of long, dark thesis tunnel. I can't wait!

There. That's a pretty good start. Any additions to the list?

Semi-Formal

I return from the library to bring you an update: Tonight I'm going to a dance. A real, teenage- wasteland-inspired soiree, replete with fluffy dresses and ill-fitting tuxedos. I'm a little scared.

Remember this?



The dance is called the "MAPHnificent Winter Wonderland Sadie Hawkins Night to Remember Von "Trapp's Baby It's Cold Outside Valentine's Day Dance."

I'll take photos.