femminista: thoughts of a feminist rhetorician

I have great hopes for this new year.  Last year started well.  I met the special man who would become my friend and partner and who shows me love unlike anything I've ever experienced.  It's truly a beautiful thing and is one of the things that reminds me of the goodness and joy in this world, a difficult task some days.  I had completed and defended my thesis by this time last year.  I was riding around with the top down, listening to music real loud.  It was a happy time.  The coninuation of the year, however, brought with it an ongoing series of trials and difficulties related to my health, school and my family.  This year I hope to draw from my blessings and minimize my difficulties or at least try to rework them to be productive aids towards self-growth.

Well, my second CT scan (done correctly, with contrast this time) turned out just fine. There was some thickening in my sinus cavities, which we knew, but no lesions or bleeding in my noggin. Good news. Of course, test results are always a mixed bag. They show that there is nothing serious to cause me additional worry but they don't make the pain and discomfort go away and they offer no guarantee as to my overall health. The body is complex, a complicated system of feelings and physical manifestations, making it both amazingly beautiful and unbelievably terrifying. For now, I am happy for my clean scan. I have too much work this semester to have to deal with brain irregularities:)

Having neglected my blog for nearly two months, I have much to write about (all of those things that kept me away from this blog) so, I will begin at the end.

I've been in Upstate New York for the past week, spending some time with my sweetheart boyfriend and exploring some backroads and small towns. Last night, however, I visited the "other" city--Albany. For Evan's birthday i bought us tickets to go see Pearl Jam at the Pepsi Arena in Albany, NY. So, yesterday evening, after his hospital rotation in small town NY, we headed up 88 to see Vedder and folks. We were running a little late because of my foray to a sheep farm (where I purchased some lovely wool) and so by the time that we had parked and picked up our tickets at the box office, the opening band had finished. Twenty minutes later Pearl Jam started up with a song from their new self-titled album, which btw is an enormous improvement over the previous two and echoes back to some of the sounds from Ten, Vitalogy, and Versus . But the best part of this show was not the new album, but the many songs from Pearl Jam's early days--the music that accompanied me through high school, "Jeremy" and "Alive", "Daughter" and "Elderly Woman." I was beyond thrilled. Another perk--the Pearl Jam website in conjunction with Basecamp are selling live recordings from all of the concerts on the tour.

Struggling towards what, you ask. I'm not sure how to answer that question. One- I am struggling towards speaking in a public forum about all of the amazing changes that have happened in my life. I want to share them because I believe that they might be of value to others. I fear sharing them because of those people who, for whatever reason, feel the need to devalue and disparage things spoken from the heart. Two- where do I draw the line between my public life and my private life? I'm not one for secrecy. As a friend of mine recently, and quite aptly, pointed out: I am a "full-disclosure kind of girl." It's true that I find great value in openness and that closing myself off is what I can only describe as unnatural for me. Moreover, closing myself off is painful to me, while opeing myself is beyond liberatory.

You've heard my rantings on war and my raves for Riverbend and concerns for her safety. It's been a few weeks since I've read Baghdad Burning. With the new semester, medical tests and recovering from the holidays, I haven't had much time. It's quite a stark contrast to this summer, when I checked her blog several times a day during her weeks of silence. For those of us who read Riverbend's blog, we feel that we know her. We care about her and worry about her. She makes the bombings we read and hear about real and when her blog is silent, we fear the worst.

Yesterday, I saw something on the news about the most recently kidnapped journalist and a demand for prisoner release in exchange for her life. How sad is it that I didn't stop to hear more? How inured to this violence and these horrors have we become that we are able to connect the words "most recently kidnapped"? Like the most recent version of Windows.

I have been appropriately chastised for my lack of blogging. Melody, can you ever forgive me?

Here are my reasons: I have been trying to focus my writing on that thesis thing I'm supposed to be doing and that's kind of important. Plus, being tired of living in a storage unit has really motivated me to clean my house. Not to mention the devastating effect of Indiana weather on my immune system--I have a super-fun sinus infection (translation: I can't sleep because I can't breathe through my nose and I'm buying stock in Kleenex, Motrin and Claritin). There's that other teaching thing that I do. Oh, right and I almost forgot about my own classes. And...never mind this is getting old. Anyway, I'll try to do better:)

Tomorrow is my birthday. Yes, I am a Leo. I love birthdays, but I'm particularly excited about this one because my best friend is taking a couple days off work to drive here and celebrate with me! The current birthday plan includes a spa day with my mom (something I've never done), dinner with friends at my favorite restaurant and jazz at Hunter-Gatherer. Spa day will include manicure, pedicure, facial and body wrap. Then, Ramesh will be cooking dinner for me and my friends at Touch of India followed by cake! In the past I may have been less excited about the cake part (although, don't get me wrong I love cake) but since being diagnosed with celiac disease and being unable to have anything containing gluten (cake flour included), I have learned to appreciate what I had previously taken for granted.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love coffee. I love sweet tea more and more than any other person alive (I am convinced). But coffee, I know only two other people who love it more than me: Mel, who loves coffee more than anyone else living or dead, who answered a word-association quiz by responding to "coffee" with "life-support" and she did it without hesitation or the slightest quiver of a facial expression. That girl loves her some coffee. My friend, Faris, may also love coffee more than me but not more than Mel.

My love of coffee, I get it honest, from MaMa, my paternal grandmother. She used to give me sips of her coffee, her perpetual cup of old-fashioned percolated coffee, when I was four and sitting in her lap. I'm sipping from that same cup now, remembering her. It tastes better from her cup. Even though it's not my freshly ground, espresso-strength cup, it tastes better. Like coffee sipped from her cup out of her hand more than just a little forbidden for a four year old.

I've been thinking about my previous post and their melancholy nature. There are a lot of things in my life that suck, but there are also things that make feel amazingly lucky. I have the most wonderful best friend who is always there to listen to me, make me feel better, and offer to do physical harm to those who hurt me. (She's kidding, of course...well, sort of.) Of course, I would do the same for her 'cause she's my best friend soulmate. I have a mother who cares about me and supports me regardless of my decisions. I'm lucky to have all the friends that I do. For years friends like Nicole, Jen, Muhannad, Faris, Josh and Tim have always listened to me when I needed to talk. They're always happy to hang out and have fun but even more significantly, they still want to be with me on the days when I'm less fun to be around, when I'm sick or depressed because I've been sick. My sister supports me from several thousand miles away. These people are my version of the team that chronicbabe.com talks about. They help me remember my strengths when I am feeling weak.

My previous post about my physical problems didn't fully capture what sucks most. Part of it is that people are sometimes put off by what they perceive as odd or picky behaviors. Lately, I've experienced this even more so because every time I go out to eat I have to give the server a pop quiz on recipe contents and food preparation before I can order. Damn, they put wheat in everything! Because I don't look sick and because it seems like I'm just trying to be difficult, people jump to erroneous conclusions that can be hurtful. I'm a perfectionist and an overachiever, two difficult roles for any person but even more so for the chronic babe (or dude). I managed for a long time to do as much as, as well as, and sometimes more than my peers, but all of that has taken its toll and my body can't take it anymore.