filing

I came across Anita, a documentary about Anita Hill's 1991 testimony to Clarence Thomas' sexual harassment of her.  I was only five then, so I don't have any memory of it, but I'd heard it alluded to.  I'm glad I watched it.

There's such an air of, "Ohmygod why are you making a big deal of nothing," to the footage.  Actually, beyond that, it's like: "You are fucking up our shit by bringing this up! We are White men trying to do right by bringing in a Black guy! Why won't you shut up?!"  Putting her testimony on trial? What? 

(Although watching Senator Hatch come after her was not unlike watching White folks in the media and in local governments attack the characters of the Black men and boys that their police have murdered.  For example.)

There's a scene in the documentary where she shows all the file cabinets in her basement, filled with correspondence she has received over the years.  She randomly pulls one and reads it aloud, a letter of sincere support.  Earlier though, she shares that she has one file cabinet full of insults and threats she's received.

My former principal shared her file with me once.  I only read some of its contents; an anonymous letter shaming her for not shh-ing Black families cheering for their children at graduation stands out in my memory.

I have a digital folder full of screenshots from this whole incident.

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There's something about filing.  About collecting.  Does cool-headedly putting mean messages aside help to restore a sense of dignity?  Like, in my case, I'm like, "...Hm... Alright, ya fucking asshole.  Noted.  I'll just keep that. shit. right. here."

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My Facebook feed, perhaps coincidentally/perhaps because August is approaching, has had a lot of stuff about teachers and depression on it lately.  Once I noted the trend, I bookmarked this one and this one.  I take issue with several of the things these dudes have to say, but I'm feeling the need to start filing teacher depression stories somewhere.

proud mama

A few years ago, spurred a little bit by mean-spirited humor, and in response to the rampant dumbness of groups like these:







Colleen and I created this:

PHeights because Col's from Palos Heights, and EP because I'm from Evergreen Park. Facebook wouldn't let us use that many characters in the title. Now, obviously, no one from Chicago, when they're out and about, would tell a stranger that they're from Evergreen Park, Illinois, as close as it is to Chicago. But it was funny for Col and I to imagine. The group is ridiculous and childish, we know. And awesome. And it's brought us comments like these:


I thought about removing myself from the group just now, but then I saw this latest comment:

(For those of you not familiar with this part of Chicago/not-Chicago, Mt. Greenwood is a Chicago neighborhood that's literally across the street from Evergreen Park.)

And I can't bring myself to do it. Call me immature. Whatevs.

speaking of activism

Here's one thing I really don't care about. I was invited to this Facebook group today.

As I clicked, "Reject Invitation," I thought back to last night's exploration of activism. I can remember times where it's been hard for me to understand how it could be possible for someone to not do anything let alone not care about some of the things I'm passionate about.

I guess it's good to get some perspective.

OK, not "I guess." It is.

25 things

I forgot vital stuff at school this afternoon, and decided to use that as a much needed excuse to fuck around online all evening.

I really like this new "25 Things" craze on Facebook. The thing is, I have super-interesting friends. I'm too scared to write one of these thingies myself, though, because I don't want people to think I'm totally narcissistic. (Um, hullo? Who am I kidding? I have a blog. Of COURSE I'm narcissistic.) But I'm not finding other people narcissistic at all. Au contraire. I find them cool. And I get really excited when a new one pops up on my mini-feed.

So because I've been big into time-wasting this last hour or so, and since I've been big into 25 Things for the last few weeks or so, I compiled a list. It's a list of 25 interesting things that people I like listed in their lists of 25 things.

1. First and foremost, I am ashamed that I am doing this. I usually laugh at such silly facebook things.

2. I like Wizard of Oz. It is probably my favorite movie, but I don't like it as much as my family thinks I do. I don't know what to do with all of the odd Wizard of Oz paraphernalia that I have.

Fact number four: Under pure pressure, I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior when I was 11 for Gummi Worms.

4. I was such a terribly behaved toddler that my parents had to go with me to an obedience school where they learned how to train me. Eventually I stopped being such a bratty kid and I really am sorry that I put red nail polish all over the face of my sister’s Rainbo Bright doll.

5. The most humorous, frightening, and heartbreaking concept I know of is when someone's belief in the Bible, Book of Mormon, or Qu'ran supersedes their belief in God.

6. When we lived in town, we knew the lock code to get into the Catholic church. There was 24-hour adoration, so we would sneak in and up to the balcony at 2 or 3 am and scare whatever old lady was down in the pews praying. If they caught us, we would just pretend like we were praying. Then we would sneak into the hall and eat the ice cream in the freezer. Yeah, I’m a terrible person. We did this with our neighbors, who I babysat. One of them was my age. If a kid out there comes upon this, the lock code is 1234.

6. Sometimes I think my Dad is hysterical, but I usually think his jokes are bad. For example, I was complaining to him that /Elizabeth/ is too long of a name especially with a last name like /----------/*. He looked up with the straightest face and said, "Girl, you were lucky to get name. I wanted to just call you girl. He called me /Girl/ for the rest of the night. I thought that was pretty good. *Removed by me for Eliz’s privacy

8. The day I turned 18 one of the first things I did was register to vote--as a Republican.

9. Due to the heavy and emotional influence music has had on me personally, my daughter and I only listen to Christian based music: rap, gospel, contemporary, rock. The funny thing is we still are exposed to other secular music (how can you not be exposed), but we do not dance or move our heads to it. Its weird I know. Sometimes I will wake up in the morning with a secular song in my head usually Beyonce or Lauryn Hill and I have to catch myself. I usually just start singing a Baptist hymn.

12. I believe the '80s produced just as much good and bad music as any other decade in European and American history.

Fact number twelve: I called Bush a vacuous twit at his train tour stop in Bloomington, IL in 2000. Unfortunately, I was humped by a middle aged Republican who didn't like what I was saying and felt that this was appropriate retaliation.

13. I like to find common ground in conversations, but I won’t compromise about my dislike of diamond engagement rings

14. My dream job would be a host of a show on HGTV.

Fact number fourteen: Over the years I have worked as a bagel maker, paralegal, baker, musical violinist, skateboard shop gal, museum archivist, and anti-death penalty organizer.

15. On January 5, 2009 I celebrated 3 full years of abstaining from sexual intercourse. For those of you who feel as if this is something you are struggling with I read Lady in Waiting several times. I prayed and read my Bible every night (and still do). I cried hard for the first SIX months. It was extremely hard, but after those six months God made it easier for me. I do not know if that is the same for everyone. The hardest thing was waiting for God's answer regarding marriage knowing that confirmation is not permitted to everyone.

16. I lived in Sevilla last year. I could live in the country in Northern Spain forever I think, but I don’t get Sevilla and Sevilla doesn’t get me. This made me embarrassingly patriotic, and in love with English. I’m sorry about this, and confused by it.

17. I use to have a jerri curl that I loathed especially when the movies House Party came out. "Follow the drip." It made my hair grow though.

18. My dissertation topic is on paternal presence and adolescent sexual behavior in adolescents living in extreme poverty.

18. I met my husband, Broch, on eHarmony.com.

22. I lose everything, and I don’t ever care, and then I always find the things again, and I don’t care about that either. I drove my car into a flash flood a few years ago, and had to make an emergency escape onto the roof while my car floated downstream, and all my possessions were in the car, and I had no more car, and I laughed. I was talking to my mom on the phone in the rain and she thought I went temporarily insane. Then again, I’ve never really owned anything. I think I am renting my body.

23. I want to open a dorm for people with disabilities someday.

23. I once watched a U of I basketball game at a Scottish Bar in France. Some guy pulled a live pet rat out of his shirt, and it was weird.

23. My dad used to play a lot of Stevie Wonder. One of my favorite songs was "I Just Called to Say I Love You." While at a writing workshop for local elementary school students one weekend, we had to write a poem or something to share with the audience (mostly parents). Thinking I could do something people would recognize and laugh at, I changed the words of Stevie's song to "I Just Called to Say I Hate You." I proudly stood up to recite the words to everyone and when I was finished, everyone just stared at me, no applause or anything. It didn't really bother me at the time but I felt bad for my mom because she was the parent of that weird child who hated people. I've made several calls over the years to tell people I hate them, in honor of that song I wrote :)

25. I played Abraham Lincoln’s wife in a play in kindergarten, because I was really tall so that somehow made sense, and I don’t know what Lynice Lemenager was, but we both peed our pants.

Fact number twenty-five: I have worn glasses since I was five years old and my first pair of frames said “Battlestar Galactica” on the side.

By the way, I'm pretty sure everyone's just copying off of Susan.

less than 20 more than 10 of my friends are retired

Am I more cool or less cool for having my Facebook friendship request denied by this man?


Can we be friends, I wonder, at The Esquire? How about at High Dive?

ThisIsWhatIWantMyFaceToLookLikebook

A while ago, Cassie posted this about Facebook, and I thought it very clever:

The reason facebook is so ingenious is because every person's account centers on their own face, or faces, but the ones they got to put up themselves. Who do you want to be? Okay, you got it. Keep looking at it long enough and you'll believe it too. Then we all, or I at least, pretend we are everyone else on facebook, and click on "profile" to see what "we" look like through their eyes. I might create a facebookish site with the twist being, only you can see your own profile. So it is just a one-page site. Pretty easy to develop, eh? I think people would still do it. Because no one looks at one's facebook picture as much as oneself. And the more you look at it the more you're like hey, that's me. I think that is me. And when you can identify yourself as such you take a bunch more pictures of yourself as such and it changes and changes and you become the changing picture of what you want to be, at least in your own mind. I feel better about my identity knowing there is this page up. Maybe I am just super narcissistic? Maybe other people spend more time being creepy looking at other people's faces but I generally prefer my own.

I know that when someone requests my Facebook friendship, before confirming, I often go to my own profile, reading over it to make sure that when I grant this person access to my profile, they're going to think I'm cool. Which is inherently an uncool thing to do.

On Facebook, I'm in the group "People who want their eye to touch another person's eye." Now, do I actually want that? No. Ew. But I think it's funny, and I think it's funny that I'm the only member, and I want people to think I'm funny -- quirky even. ? Ew. What is up with that.

Trying to be "cool," and I just end up being embarrassing. I wonder if it's possible to be cool on Facebook.

pretty sweet PowerPoint, yo

Came across this little gem while preparing Monday's lesson on the functionality and disposability of everyday writing like AIM conversations and hall passes. Click the image below to view.

Burn!

According to a report in the online Slate Magazine, Rudy Giuliani's daughter is a liberal who supports Obama. How do they know? She's in the "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)" Facebook group. Well, at least she was. Take that shit off the mini-feed, Car!



She's also looking for "Random Play" and "Whatever [she] can get."