The Old School Lunch

Unemployment ends! Job offer accepted!

[Now I gotta buy some shirts, shoes and ties. New place has “casual Fridays” so i’m guessing the checkerboard Vans aren’t going to do anymore.]

…is apparantly blaming the security for letting an under-age girl into a concert and then taking the girl onstage and “dirty-humping” her for several minutes while the audience watches. Because, you know, underage people never in the history of concertdom have gotten into 18+ venues or bars or anything anywhere so you should be always safe in assuming that everyone there is of the legal age. Right.

If you’ve seen the video of Akon and the 15-year-old girl then you’ll know that when you read about his semi-apology, it’s complete bullshit. And his reputation isn’t exactly a sparkling one either. Beyond being a big supporter of polygamy, starring in music videos that objectify women, glorifying prison time and drug-running, he thinks blood or conflict diamonds are just a completely fictional Hollywood creation.

[Season one, disc two]

“If you don’t like it here in America, why don’t you go stand in line for toilet paper at the USSR!?”

[Season one, disc two]

“You’re pleased the iceman looked at you like a Porterhouse steak.”

Well, now they’re just acting like i’m the one who lost the graduation application and somehow i’m now just pestering people to get things done for me. Am I pestering people to get shit done? Yes, but that’s only because unfortunately I don’t have the authority to grant myself a UW degree and minor. Oh and about that minor. I had to call them myself and spoke to a very understanding woman there who remembered my application debacle and said “I figured that’s what probably happened…” because I without a shred of doubt did formally request my minor to be granted but when they re-filed my “lost” app, they forgot, of course, to give me my damn minor. So now I just have to fill out another form and mail it in.

And, two shirts that I ordered came in completely the wrong color. How does one mistake WHITE for BLUE? Really?

[It’s for a column]

Does anyone have a link/transcript/scan to a magazine feature article called “Let’s Get Real About Feminism”? (I’m pretty sure that was the title). It was a round-table discussion with bell hooks, Urvashi Vaid and a few other famous feminists (I know I should remember the others because while I can’t remember their names, I know that they were, uh, pretty famous) and i’m guessing that it was from about 10 years ago? I had a copy of it in a course-reader but the CR is nowhere to be found. If you have any clues, I will be forever appreciative!

I don’t know enough foul language to describe my frustration with my school’s Office of the Registrar (which I don’t think is 100% to blame, actually) and my department major and my department advisor who, if you’ve been following along on this awful series, screwed everything up from the beginning.

I ordered an official transcript for myself, paid the money because I wanted to see with my own eyes that the “error” of my graduation and graduation date was fixed. It was fixed alright but now it doesn’t say anywhere that I completed requirements for a Minor in WS. So at first I wondered a little dumbfoundedly, “maybe they don’t put minors on the transcripts!” and emailed the Office of the Reg to find out. Well, turns out they do, of course. So now i’m waiting for him to get back to me because dear readers, this is bullshit.

[Spoiler alert: This post contains spoilers for Spiderman 3. If you read all the Spidey comic books and watched the cartoon, this might be alright because you can probably tell what’s going to happen given the trailers with Venom…but read at your own risk!]

What do you think of when you hear these words?

I completely lost control. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. I was just in a rage. I don’t know what came over me. I never act like that. That’s not me.

The translation for all of these things is of course: I shouldn’t be held accountable for my actions because even though I did it, I wan’t in control and i’m not to blame. Or more specifically, men who are violent against women. Domestic violence.

If you’ve seen Spiderman 3, you know what part i’m probably thinking about. Peter Parker/Spiderman has been with the alien symbiote for a while now and as his character has become more bold, selfish, angry, violent and harassing towards women. This has culminated to a point where he attacks a bouncer and several other men. When Mary Jane attempts to stop Peter from behind and very clearly says something to the effect of “Peter! Stop!” Peter does not immediately stop and instead knocks Mary Jane down to the ground at which point, upon realizing that he has hurt Mary Jane, Peter sees what he’s done. It’s arguable whether in the film, Peter really did hear Mary yell at him to stop and ignored her or if he was completely in his “symbiote rage” and couldn’t distinguish MJ’s voice from a stranger’s. Either way, my concern is not solely the scene itself but rather the scene and how the film’s selling point have been advertised. Namely, the marketing ploy behind Spiderman 3 is not the new Goblin/Harry or the Sandman but rather the alien symbiote, Venom and Peter’s ensuing struggle with the symbiote. Specifically, the copy of a lot of these ads have read “we each have our dark side in us” or “we all have a dark side…which will you choose?” (or something to that effect). The point is this: when storytellers make rage and anger to be this uncontrollable and foreign thing that invades one’s brain rendering the person to be without control and responsibility, it has the potential to further cement the widely culturally accepted excuse of the male abuser: It wasn’t really me who did that.

The film does have redeeming qualities, however. It does make an almost numbing emphasis on the “choice” aspect of life but I don’t know if that completely reveberates well in the story given the suggested “abusive personality” plot. Yes, Peter does make the choice to get rid of the symbiote but we can all safely assume that after the film, Peter explains everything to MJ and says “so it really wasn’t me who was acting like that. I mean, it was me but it wasn’t me…because it was the alien.”

Don’t get me wrong, Spiderman 3 isn’t any sort of a hugely significant commentary on domestic violence in America and i’m not condemning it as some deceptively sympathetic film for abusers. It is, however, a part of a much larger scheme of how abusers equate their abuse to “being completely out of control” and in many ways, possessed by some unexplainable force much like Peter was. My dad has had several furniture-throwing, wall-punching outburts since i’ve been old enough to remember and during those times, I remember my mom describing it as “like he was the Hulk.” The Hulk, who is curiously another character who is said to be sometimes possessed in a caused-by-the-then-victim-it’s-your-fault rage (”you don’t want to make the Hulk angry!” isn’t that what he says in the stories?) and as such not really responsible for his violent actions. I’ve never heard my dad articulate his own behavior so I don’t know if he’d use this kind of excuse. I’ve never asked and I don’t know if i’m going to. The feeling i’ve always gotten from him, however, is that in ways he rationalizes the seemingly out-of-control behavior to being very in-control and consequently in his mind, not abusive when in reality that is, in every sense, abusive behavior.

I have at least 1 hiccup each time I eat anything more than a cookie. I don’t know why or when it started, but I just got used to it. Maybe two times a year, this hiccup-after-eating turns into a 15+ minutes episode. My record is about 70 minutes. Today was 40 after dinner than 15 after a late run to JITB.

When i’m talking to people on the phone while this is going on, they think i’m making it up and trying to end the conversation.

Seriously.

Him: So…can you tell me a little about yourself? Maybe about what you studied in school?
L: I majored in American Ethnic Studies with a concentration in African American Studies and minored in Women Studies at the University of Washington.
Him: You know, if I were to go back to school, i’d want to major in Women Studies..
L: Oh yea?
Him: Yea.
L: That’s great, yea it’s–
Him: –You know, I figure that it’d be a great place to meet women right? Since it is Women Studies!
L: …
Him: That or nursing!