Carried Away by Consumerism

It only took several months after Obama was elected president for many countries to restore their faith in the American people, or at least one dude sitting in an office in D.C. We were not, after all, a nation of stupid consumer-driven sheep who would re-reelect an incompetent man-boy as our leader.

Then Sex and the City 2 was made. I had a love/hate relationship with the HBO series, perhaps because I don't "get" shoes and I consider myself more of a country mouse. However, Miranda was a highly-functioning professional woman, and Samantha reassured that women can be (and are, duhhh) just as sexual as men are expected to be. [I've always thought Charlotte was obnoxious as hell, and Carrie made good jokes but I got distracted by that weird pouty horse-fish face she made.] I could enjoy this show from the comfort of my own living room, with or without 'tinis, knowing that there's was not a reality and that I could still be a woman even if my closet looked less like a 2nd bedroom and more like a closet.
So, even though I laughed when I probably wasn't supposed to laugh, and really wanted to shake the hell out of the fab-four, I went to see this atrocious abomination of cinema (read: Hollywood) with my former SATC-obsessed roommate. For the record, I will say that she does not play the part of a typical SATC fan and lives a normal female life like me.

This movie represented everything cringe-worthy about our country. It took place in Abu Dabi, though it was filmed in Moroco, and what brought the ladies there was an all-expenses trip that they took full advantage of to get them out of the mediocrity of wealth, family, work, and life. Woe are they that are the haves. Seriously. Carrie complained about Big not going out to soirees and galas and bashes with her and getting take-out so they could spend time together in. This is when I knew I was a spectator of this movie from some other planet. So they fly 1st class to one of the wealthiest, most extravagant cities in the world. The ladies are greeted by their own personal servants (like, one Indian man each), and luxurious transportation (like, one car each). So, World, if we didn't strike you as oil-obsessed, insensitive, over-privileged half-humans, what say you now?
Anyway, Miranda quits her job so she can spend more time with her fam. Charlotte realizes that just because she's threatened by her nanny with huge tits, she still needs her to make her kids shut the fuck up. Samantha is probably banned from Abu Dhabi due to shouting at Muslim men during prayer that she has lots of sex while wearing short shorts; she also fellates a hookah hose. Carrie 'gets over it,' but only because Big changes, so essentially she changed him, so she didn't get over but instead is a big baby. Liza Minelli performs "Single Ladies," there are some gays who get married probably only because they are two gay men, and we all know that my gay best friend and your gay best friend would be perfect for each other because they're, like, both gay.
I sat through this 2+ hour disrespectful fashion show for over 2 hours. Maybe it's the English degree talking (it doesn't get this opportunity too often), but this movie lacked a thesis/story/plot/point/gist. Was it an excuse for director Michael Patrick King to play with real-life Barbies with an arguable modern feminist twist, to go balls-out commodification? Or was it an opportunity for him to take a stab at cultural competency? The image of Charlotte trying to get service on her iPhone to call her husband from atop a camel makes me think it's probably the former. I had to ask myself...wasn't there something better they could have spent this money on?

srsly.

You said that your insides were falling out and that you wanted to "be somewhere" and I knew exactly what you meant. Though, not exactly since, if there's anything we learned from James Agee, it is that I know you only as I can know anyone...as a person, and that is my truth, albeit subjective. "It is simply an effort to use words in such a way that they will tell us as much as I want to and can make them tell of a thing which happened and which, of course, you have no other way of knowing...It is one way of telling the truth: the only possible way of telling the kind of truth I am here most interested to tell." But that made me feel sad then to think about these things with you, (as it makes me feel sad now to remember) you and me frequently blowing our minds as they grew to grasp notions of reality and cultural constructs and college education revolving around Franzia mixed with orange juice and how, no matter how well we can know another person, and know ourselves, we still never know exactly the truth of "the other," no matter how many times we sat on the porch with that other, or even if that other saw us cry.

And so when you said that your insides were falling out, I imagined you feeling scared and excited; panicking against your better judgment, but being excited against your will and longing for your connections, friends already cultivated and growing and reaching. "Wait, what?" you might have said. I imagined you sitting lonely at the Bangkok International Airport (isn't it strange how we can feel our loneliest surrounded by thousands?) with your things you had packed for the next four and a half months -- a journal and a pen, books, some sensible shoes, a dress you made, maybe, and some hand-crafted jewelry your sister made -- and i wanted more than anything to share that mindfuck with you. Maybe our insides would have fallen out together in, what I can only hope would be, a similar fashion.

A Feminist Looks at Bourbon Street

You find yourself in this city in the south, post-Katrina and not during Mardi Gras-- a time when New Orleans goes ignored like a pet during its owner's pregnancy. But even though it is not Fat Tuesday and you plan on keeping on your bra, you go to Bourbon Street.

You turn off Canal St. toward a neon pink "Hustler" sign and get a drink from the closest bar, one called Krazy Korner (or was it Utopia?) where a woman in a bra top and booty shorts is selling "shots,"artificially colored alcohol standing upright in what looks like a syringe. You opt for a margarita, with salt, to go, and sip down quickly from your green plastic cactus-shaped cup. You are shouted at by men on 2nd and 3rd stories of short hotels and lofts and think "ugh" but as you continue down the (surprisingly short!!) street, you begin to feel slightly overdressed. Not that you're not wearing your "goin' out" clothes, but that you haven't got much skin showing and these women selling themselves to sell a bar seem so confident and you want that.

But they also seem so sad.

"Do you think her mother knows?" you ask your friend, but you don't wait long enough to realize the unfortunate reality.

For a second you envision pushing through the crowd of men swarmed around her, taking her hand, and running away; maybe to a cafe somewhere where you could talk about how repulsive those men are, whose blue eyes glaze over and morph into venomous snakes (oh, those Biblical references!). Or maybe to France, to the real vieux France. Vive la verite!

Is this a positive step for our country? That our women (girls, really, as one "barely legal" sign informs you) can stand outside with their inner thighs and cleavage, sometimes asses, exposed and not worry about genital mutilation or being sold into sex slavery (god, you're naive). They use their sexuality as a tool and means of power over the men and women who expect them to be easy based on how they're dressed, and the more you and your friends go and stare and drink and stare and spend and stare, the more praise they get from their manager--maybe a slap on the ass for being good for business. But nothing is ever what it looks like--water is not blue and money is never just money, and this is not real confidence in these women. Bourbon Street is dirty and what many would call sinful but that doesn't stop you from having what you think is fun. This is a place where you can have your tits and eat them too because that's what it is known for, and this is America, and it's not like you're doing anything wrong, right?

Gone Beyond

i've been trying to figure out the difference between mindfulness and self-consciousness. i've tried to decipher and control the differences between thinking this is me!! and this is me??

but then i remind myself that It Is What It Is. but is "it" the same for everyone? i know the answer is no and i try to remind myself that, walking down the street and yearning for some kind of eye contact with someone that says "This Is 'It'" but that never happens. not sure if this is some normal type of social anxiety or some weird type of self-aware normalcy and maybe what i want is right in front of me and i can fulfill the thing i am wanting to receive from looking into someone's pupils.

then i got to thinking about psychology and the study of the brain and how, yes, it's a 'science' but how can you measure and compare the heated activity of one person's grey matter with that of another person's. especially when you're trusting lab rats to solve a puzzle for you.
so that when i say "i'm not happy," how do i know for sure that the feeling i'm feeling is different from depression or anxiety, as labeled in the form of a survey [I sometimes feel this way; I often feel this way; I never feel this way.] because when i was younger i thought that maybe my emotions were measured on a dial and at one point the needle would flicker into the green/yellow/orange, anywhere away from those blues, and that was when i would know and feel what it seemed like everyone around was all feeling simultaneously as happy.

and then i smelled saffron. and then i saw rabbit tracks in the snow. and then i heard a banjo. and the question is not solved but my needle peeked and i felt bursting and goosebumps and wondered why this is not a drug advertised by pfizer with side effects being that you are left wondering why you didn't know about this feeling sooner.

Can't Stop the [Innate] Beat

Things set to music look like dance
The seagulls are folk dancing--
moving quick feet while
keeping head still
And reminding us of
constant rhythm.
And we are fluid
and we are liquid
and, when left to nature,
we are motion.
And it is only when
we encounter structure and solidity and self-consciousness
that we question our
singular
inherent movement.
And laws of physics beyond that book
and theories of life beyond religion
are best left unexplained
and always moving.

work dream

Last night I had another work dream. This one needs no Freud to deconstruct:

I was sitting at my desk, in front of my computer, "working." My office is on the basement level of a building, so there is a window next to me that looks out to ground level.
I was doing some 'office chat' with my coworker whose desk faces mine when i noticed that I started feeling funny. She started feeling funny too. Then things started getting cloudy and i looked out the window and there were people working on the building and right when i looked over a huge gust of chemical gas vapor cloud puffed in my face and i did a slow-motion "noooooo!" with a side dive out of my chair and some coughing and belly sliding to escape but i was too late and i had inhaled the chemical and my dream self imagined that they would find me curled up next to my desk and my computer and my files (paper). may my dream self rest in 9-to-5 peace

(more eerie photos here )

self-congratulatory farewell: i feel important.

To the Mentoring Community:

I am writing to inform you that I will be leaving my position as Recruitment Specialist at Mobius in November. I started in August 2008 as an AmeriCorps VISTA member and while my time serving with Mobius was measured in months, what I learned over the past year is immeasurable.

Whether we recruited mentors together, improved opportunities for youth, or networked at an event, I am grateful to have been able to share this time with many of you as we put in a tremendous effort to serve children in our communities.

Mobius and 19 partnering programs reached 800 mentor matches this year for the first time ever. In this economic climate it has been a challenge for most of us as non-profits, but this proves that when we are all seeking to serve children, and to serve them well, through volunteering, donation of money or goods, and resourceful recruitment, we can accomplish the unexpected!

At the end of November, the Mobius VISTA torch will be passed on to Benji Thurber, a Middlebury alumnus who has mentored in the past and, along with Tracy, will add so much to recruitment efforts, mentoring advocacy and public awareness. His email address is benji@mobiusmentors.org; say hello! He will be taking over referrals at the end of November. You can also contact tracy@mobiusmentors.org if you have any other questions.

Thanks, everyone, for helping me find my way throughout the year and for sharing what you know.

All the best,
Meredith Rivlin