I'm hearing v o i c e s!
(the sheer bandwidth involved makes my server ache)

I admit it, I'm a pedant.

My father saw me looking at blogger and greymatter tonight, had me explain it, and then mentioned in passing that he'd love a link or two to my writing, as he'd love to read my work as of late. I'm almost tempted; it might be easier than having the initial traumatic conversations face to face. It'd be a very chickenshit move on my part, but still.. tempting.

If any of my parents should see these pages, though, I'd prefer my dad to be the first. He'd probably be less likely to call me angrily demanding that I take down such lies from the public domain, and more likely to simply call and say, "So, talk to me."

Decisions.

What else can I be?
All apologies...

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.

I highly recommend [insist, even] that everyone buy and read The Vagina Monologues. This particular story touched me very deeply and personally; I cannot and will not stop crying every time I think about it. I've been told that somewhere in the Talmud it is said that women cry more because we understand the world better than men do.

We have our reasons.

~ ~ ~
From Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, (c)1998, 2001 Eve Ensler. Her rights are her own.
~ ~ ~
In 1993, I was walking down a street in Manhattan when I passed a newsstand and was suddenly struck by a deeply disturbing photograph on the front page of Newsday. It was a picture of a group of six young women who had just been returned from a rape camp in Bosnia. Their faces revealed shock and despair, but more disturbing was a sense that something sweet, something pure, had been forever destroyed in each of their lives. I read on. Inside the newspaper was another photograph of the young women, recently reunited with their mothers and standing in a semicircle in a gymnasium. Ther was a very large group and not one of them, mother or daughter, was able to look at the camera.
I knew I had to go there. I had to meet these women. In 1994, thanks to the support of an angel, Lauren Lloyd, I spent two months in Croatia and Pakistan, interviewing Bosnian women refugees. I interviewed these women and hung out with them in camps, cafés, and refugee centers. I have been back to Bosnia twice since then.
When I returned to New York after my first trip, I was in a state of outrage. Outraged that 20,000 to 70,000 women were being raped in the middle of Europe in 1993, as a systematic tactic of war, and no one was doing anything to stop it. I couldn't understand it. A friend asked me why I was surprised. She said that over 500,000 women were raped every year in this country, and in theory we were not at war.

This monologue is based on one woman's story. I want to thank her for sharing it with me. I am in awe of her spirit and strength, as I am in awe of every woman I met who survived these terrible atrocities in the former Yugoslavia. This piece is for the women of Bosnia.

MY VAGINA WAS MY VILLAGE

My vagina was green, water soft pink fields, cow mooing sun resting sweet boyfriend touching lightly with soft piece of blond straw.

There is something between my legs. I do not know what it is. I do not know where it is. I do not touch. Not now. Not anymore. Not since.

My vagina was chatty, can't wait, so much, so much saying, words talking, can't quit trying, can't quit saying, oh yes, oh yes.

Not since I dream there's a dead animal sewn in down there with thick black fishing line. And the bad dead animal smell cannot be removed. And its throat is slit and it bleeds through all my summer dresses.

My vagina singing all girl songs, all goat bells ringing songs, all wild autumn field songs, vagina songs, vagina home songs.

Not since the soldiers put a long thick rifle inside me. So cold, the steel rod canceling my heart. Don't know whether they're going to fire it or shove it through my spinning brain. Six of them, monstrous doctors with black masks shoving bottles up me too. There were sticks, and the end of a broom.

My vagina swimming river water, clean spilling water over sun-baked stones over stone clit, clit stones over and over.

Not since I heard the skin tear and made lemon screeching sounds, not since a piece of my vagina came off in my hand, a part of the lip, now one side of the lip is completely gone.

My vagina. A live wet water village. My vagina my hometown.

Not since they took turns for seven days smelling like feces and smoked meat, they left their dirty sperm inside me. I became a river of poison and pus and all the crops died, and the fish.

My vagina a live wet water village.
They invaded it. Butchered it and burned it down.
I do not touch now.
Do not visit.
I live someplace else now.
I don't know where that is.

Your love is better than chocolate
Better than anything else that I've tried
And oh love is better than chocolate
Everyone here knows how to cry ...

Tonight's mp3 playlist:

I live - Jason Falkner
Seems so - Apples in Stereo
Grace Cathedral Park - Red House Painters
MacDougal Blues - Kevin Kinney
Swim Prelude - The Glands
Body Rap - Badly Drawn Boy
Once Around The Block - Badly Drawn Boy
Very Best Years - The Grays
Dear Diary - Luna
Last Goodbye - Jeff Buckley
Wah-wah - George Harrison
The King of Carrot Flowers - Neutral Milk Hotel
Say Something - James
Fake Frowns - Death Cab for Cutie
Jenny & the Ess Dog -Stephen Malkmus
Marquee Moon - Television
There is a light that never goes out - the Smiths
Everything's Not Lost - Coldplay
All is Forgiven - Jellyfish
(thanks Adam)

What are you listening to? I have an irrational need for interaction tonight.

Happy Birthday, Sarrah!
(in Dr. Frank N. Furter voice: "Happy birthday to you...")

An email I received today:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: As Rachel would say...

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

New Eels album!
Souljacker!
1. DOG FACED BOY
2. THAT'S NOT REALLY FUNNY
3. FRESH FEELING
4. WOMAN DRIVING, MAN SLEEPING
5. SOULJACKER part I
6. FRIENDLY GHOST
7. TEENAGE WITCH
8. BUS STOP BOXER
9. JUNGLE TELEGRAPH
10. WORLD OF SHIT
11. SOULJACKER part II
12. WHAT IS THIS NOTE?

coming out sometime later on this year.
Anyway, I'll call ya on the morrow.
Brandon "The Bhutanese Badass" Hardin
------------------------------------------------------------
Viva la liberté!

Where's Brian?

One of the many wonderful interviews Eve Ensler conducted for The Vagina Monologues [subliminal message: go read this now go read this now and if it comes to a theatre near you go see it] was to ask dozens of women, "If your vagina could talk, what would it say in two or three words?" Some of the responses:
Stop, now go
Yes, there
Yum yum
Brave choice...
Feed me
I want
Where's Brian?
I'm hungry
Go slower
Go faster
Go away
Closed due to Flooding
*grrowrr*
No, there
Yes, there. There.

If you're a woman (and/or you've got a vagina/wish you did/used to have one), what would yours say?

Mine says something along the lines of "what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

...remember sammy jankis...
somebody at the biscuit city road fan club has seen Memento. Hurrah! He's updated his links, as wind...sand...silence isn't linked anymore; probably for the best, as it's dead as a coffin-nail. At any rate, he's got news on a new album by Spiritualized - Let It Come Down. Adam, are you paying attention?

More indie feminist agitprop to follow.

and you know you're
gonna lie to you
in your own way

know know too well
know the chill
know she breaks
my Siren

NEVER was one
for a
prissy girl
coquette
Call in For
an ambulance
Reach high
doesn't
mean SHE'S
holy
just means
She's got a Cellular
handy
almost
Brave
almost
pregnant
almost in love "VANILLA"

and you know you're
gonna lie to you
in your own way

and you don't need the light
to guide you though this

Megan is back! I'm so happy!
---------
However, went to little store called "Nyt-Meres" and purchased highly elaborate necklace, akin to something I might have worn in a past life to meet the Grand Duchess Anastasia or to a party at Lucy Westenra's. Fell madly in love with goth shopboy, whom I ought to have wrapped up and sent back to Tampa as a present to myself.
---------
Yes, yes you ought. Maybe next time... but we do have a not-so-distantly future apartment to support. And a kitten. And mad adventures. And making said apartment habitable, i.e. wildly decorating.

Come to the next Subterranean Digs?

What It Means To Be A Woman
Lin Max

you won't touch or call it by name yet
but this part of your body --
this part of your body
you're going to get to know
better than your elbow
you're going to love it
and hate it
this part of your body
will drip and dew
attracting hunters and slaves
this part of your body
will keep you off the streets after dark
it will be poked and spread by stainless steel
scrutinized by strangers with scalpels
behind white drapes
as if were not a part of you
this part of your body will stretch
over the heads of human beings
or tighten to a finger in its gentle rhythm
this part of your body
is more expressive than your mouth
this part of your body
laughs louder
has its own exhausted grimace
this part of your body moans
its lonely emptiness
you will spend your life trying to fill
this part of your body