i'm going to bitch about that for a while now. i'm suddenly so annoyed by this that i can't sleep.

tonight i spoke with a woman who wasn't planning on changing her name, then did because "she'd never seen her husband get so emotional". she had planned to keep her name, which indicated her italian heritage, but she gave it up. she's changing her middle name to her maiden name. there are now only 9 people across the u.s. that have her original last name.

(even the term "maiden name"! what the fuck is that?! the name that you had before you had sex? the name you lose now that your-sexual-partner-for-life owns you?)

i can see changing your name if your husband has a really awesome last name, and you've never liked yours. i've occasionally thought of "trading up" my last name for a hispanic last name, since my current one says nothing about my ethnicity. i just don't understand the view (which my mother holds) that changing your last name to his is your duty when starting a new family. yeah, i get that it's nice to have a new name for your new family, but why does it always have to be his? why is it obvious that the man shouldn't give up his name?

(after 30 years of marriage, my father is divorcing my mother. she has had his name for longer than she had her own. she's not changing it back. we're still a family because of me, and she wants us all to share a name.)

this article was interesting. not sure i actually agree, but whatevs.

another issue here for me is ownership. i got my last name from my father, and his family most likely got their britishy last names from a slaveowner. my current surname is already a product of subjugation, i'm not changing it for another repressive institution (because i'm soooo likely to get married).

i am a little bummed out that my neither my first name nor my last indicate anything about my hispanic heritage. my first name is practically devoid of ethnicity, being virtually unpronounceable in most major languages.

i have no idea why i'm so angry about this. after watching my parents divorce and observing my friend's relationships, i just feel like men really don't always appreciate what women give up to be their girlfriends, wives, and mothers. and i'm pissed that social norms (not to mention religion) perpetuate this. how often do you hear of men moving because their wife got a job? changing their name to their wife's on wedding day? waiting patiently alone indefinitely because their girlfriend took a job in another state, and they're just waiting to be with them? leaving their jobs because they wanted children? rarely.

another thing to check out is the actual rowster website. i especially enjoyed the section on coffee 101. turns out i didn't know what coffee beans actually were.

"...wimbledon."
"precisely. where the coffee beans come from."

-- elinor dashwood and edward ferrars, sense and sensibility

i was entirely unprepared for the amount of walking i would be doing in berlin. on the plus side, my riding boots are now completely broken in, and i have increased my threshold for pain.

I didn't really have a good reason for this. I know you all think I was out every night dancing my face off and bumping lines of speed off a (law-abiding!) German hooker's ass, but really I was either:

A) experiencing a bit of stomach sickness;
B) walking around in the rain/sleet/snow;
C) embarrassing myself with my complete lack of German language skills; or
D) all of the above

The classic example of D) was my first trip to the grocery store...

My stomach was upset, so I decided to walk to the grocery store to purchase some tummy-friendly food (yogurt, bread, bananas). First problem: I can't find the food. Patrick told me it was on the lower level, but I can't find the way downstairs. I finally locate the escalator down and - lo and behold! - it's not an escalator at all! It's that same metal, but there are no stairs! Sneaky! I almost slide right off it. I get to the bottom safe and sound, then I realize baskets and carts are upstairs.

About five minutes into my shopping, I am really hitting my stride. Just moseying along, looking at things... All of a sudden a voice comes through the loudspeaker. The only thing I understand is "10". I assume the voice has just said "the store is closing in 10 minutes." I'm running through the produce department, trying to finish shopping and get out before they close.

I'm dreading the checkout. I'm worried I won't have enough cash, and I don't dare use my credit card. The check out lady is ringing me through, then she sees my fruit and says something in German. "I'm sorry. I don't speak German". Through a series of elaborate hand gestures, she communicates that you're supposed to weigh produce before you get to the register. A really hot guy joins the growing line behind me. I start to sweat. I have no idea what to do. I don't see a scale anywhere. Thankfully, the woman gets another attendant to weigh the fruit and print out the little barcode stickers.

I finish checking out; I have enough cash. Everything's OK. I turn to walk away when, in a totally surprise move, the woman behind me snatches the receipt from my hand, then starts talking rapidly to the cashier in German. I'm confused. Hot Guy's amused ("Serves her right, damn monolingual Americans!"). The only thing I understand is "bananas". I finally piece together that I was charged incorrectly for my three bananas. The cashier asks another employee to take me to the customer service counter, where I wait for a fourth person to help me.

While I'm waiting, the man behind me says something to me in German. I smile and say, "Ich sprache keine Deutsch". Usually the fact that I bothered to learn "I don't speak German" in German curries some favour. Not so in this case. The man laughs in my face. In this case, "in" means a mere 12 inches or so away from me. (Now considering Berliners don't even crack a smile when you pass them on the street, the way they flout personal space rules is a bit surprising.) I have no idea why this is happening. Is it the fact that me saying "Ich sprache keine Deutsch" is rendered immediately redundant by my abysmal pronunciation? Or maybe he saw the whole fruit-weighing debacle moments earlier...

The shame of public humiliation was so not worth the $2 I was refunded for my bananas. Also, the store didn't close for another two hours.

James McAvoy is one of the great Scottish actors of our time. (And one of the only...? I can only think of about five Scottish actors right now.) His talent seems superior to that of his directors, as well as whoever decided what his hair should look like in the above films. He can flare his nostrils and pop the veins out on his forehead on cue. I stand mightily impressed.

The real beauty of James McAvoy is that he can go from being totally hot...

To totally not...

...before you can say "haggis".

MacBeth (part of the Shakespeare Retold series) is surprisingly good. James McAvoy plays a chef and does a really horrifying demonstration with a pig's head. The film is really bloody and violent, but this is mainly because much of it takes place in a restaurant kitchen. It's definitely worth seeing if you're a omnivorous foodie, if only to remind you of how distanced we are from our food. Another point in the film's favour is that James McAvoy has a Scottish accent. God, I could listen to a damn Scottish accent all day.

Though he's Scottish, he's had an English or American accent in all the other movies I've seen him in. I really don't know the point of the American accent in Penelope as there are many randomly British characters. The most interesting thing about Penelepe, besides Christina Ricci's prosthetic pig nose, is the set design. Her bedroom is amazing. It's kind of Willy Wonka-meets-Anthropologie. James McAvoy's flat oozes melancholy masculinity with dark oily wood and old leather. Mmm... Yummy!

Becoming Jane is a must-see for all those people who have seen all the Jane Austen adaptation--if only because you have, like myself, seen all those like 50 million times and you need to mix it up a bit. Anne Hathaway's possibly a bit too... eager, but fairly convincing nonetheless. (Convincing enough that I went out and bought myself a damn dip pen.) Be prepared to spend some time arguing with yourself about whether Anna Maxwell Martin is pretty or not. James McAvoy is, of course, amazing! He is most notably hot when boxing. His nearly translucent Scottish skin and wiry muscles are like an Eakins painting come to life. Watching him frolick about in whorehouses and fields with Joe Anderson is almost too good for this life.

Atonement was surprisingly long and dull. The first part of the movie is completely dominated by gratuitous close-ups of Keira Knightley's face. After the sex in the library (WHOOPS! SPOILER ALERT!), the whole thing really goes downhill. Quite literally, actually, as James McAvoy is pretty much walking about for the remainder of the film. As in Becoming Jane and Penelope, he's entirely convincing as totally masculine, yet totally sensitive. He's everything you want in a man, really: highly intelligent, wicked sense of humour, strong sense of duty, loyal, deeply passionate, and coordinated enough to ravage you on a bookshelf.

Unfortunately, the same genes that gave me a lovely head of curls also gave me a body pretty much covered with unwanted hair. The same people that are moved to impropriety by the hair on my head would undoubtedly be disgusted by my unwanted hair.

Thanks to the Vagina Monologues, we're all really comfortable talking about our vaginas now. (If mine were to get dressed, it might wear trousers and half-Windsor-knotted necktie.) The thing I don't think any woman is comfortable talking about yet is her unwanted body hair.

Yes, I called it "unwanted". I really wish I were enough of a feminist to want my unwanted hair. But what woman wants hair on her chin, neck, nipples, stomach, and/or bikini line? I have yet to meet someone that is so convicted about body image ideals and stuff that they sport the fringe with a bathing suit.

Since I was but a lass, I have been teased fairly mercilessly about my hair. The first person to notice the excess was my friend's cute older brother. He was 14 and I was 9 or 10, and he commented on my thick, dark leg hair. So I started shaving. It struck me as a little odd that he also had leg hair, but no matter, I just knew I wasn't supposed to.

There are some serious gender and - dare I say it - race/ethnicity issues at work here. At least in America, it's totally OK for men to have wherever they want it. Yeah, sure, there are guys who trim their business, but I think that's only because it makes the package look bigger. The only hair men aren't really allowed to have is back hair, and even then society often lets that slide. I mean, sure, we'll all quietly grossed out by the guy in the pool with back hair, but he just doesn't cause the stir that a woman with the pubic equivalent of Bozo the Clown would.

In terms of race/ethnicity, here's a newsflash: people that do not come from Northern/Western European backgrounds have more hair than those who do. The same way we got four times as much hair as you on our head is the same way we got it on other parts of our bodies. As a N/W European descended person, some of you may have noticed that your friends of colour have darker, coarser hair than you. Our body hair... also darker and coarser. Surprise!

I don't really get society's preoccupation with hairlessness. I mean, we don't live in a warm climate where hair is trapping all kinds of bodily odour. Even if we did, god knows Americans shower like constantly. Nor do we live in ancient Egypt where lice are a big issue.

When I was 16, I decided to stop shaving my legs and armpits. My dad was really upset. My mom wasn't too thrilled either. Dad felt that it demonstrated "poor hygiene". My mother agreed, but felt that it was poor hygiene for men too - that they should shave their legs and armpits too. Dad threatened to take me off the car insurance if I didn't start shaving again. Mom realized that this made no logical sense. Also, should her supposition that excess body hair traps odours be proven correct, she certainly didn't want to be stuck driving my stinky, hairy ass around. She put the kibosh on the argument with, "Artie! If your daughter wants to look like a hairy gorilla, fine!"

I'm really shy about my facial hair. Especially with men, because I know they pretty much all find it unattractive. My most positive facial hair experience was with my friend Sean, who noticed it while we were at Steak and Shake one night. His face lit up with realization and he smiled and said, "Do you have hair on your chin?" I said, "Yes" shyly, feeling embarrassed. He reached out and touched my face.

For years, I couldn't figure out where the hair on my chin and neck came from. My mother, from whom I inherited nipple hair and what I refer to as my "happy highway" had no facial hair. A few years ago, I was visiting my grandmother in D.C. I was looking through her cupboards and notice hair removal cream. I asked her about it, and she said she used it on her face. I looked and, sure enough, she had tiny white and silver curly hairs on her face and neck.

i can't get enough of these bags. finally! a $400 bag i can feel good about buying.

the segregation in grand rapids is really starting to wear on me. along with potholes and an impossibly shitty economy, it makes me want to move. i realized recently that the ymca is really the only place i go where there is any significant degree of racial/ethnic and socio-economic diversity. oh and possibly the library.

i am really getting sick of this shit. i really don't want to have to start applying some kind of affirmative action to my social life, but i think i'm going to have to. i'm just getting so tired. i'm tired of strangers touching my hair, i'm tired of being a novelty (particularly for men)... mostly, though i'm tired of finding myself in socially awkward situations/teachable moments because of the ignorance of my white friends and co-workers.

i know what you're gonna say: you should bring the diversity, be the change you want to see... well, i'm sorry, but fuck that. this may make me a small person, but i don't want to be anyone's teacher. we're not talking about children from zeeland asking "why are you brown?", we're talking about people in their 20s with graduate degrees who i think should know better managing to embarass me in public -- usually with ill-conceived "humour" or trying to prove how "down with the people" they are.

here's a hint: if there's only one black person present, they may not want to hear you:

a) joke about "black people time", "jungle fever", or soul food
b) talk about how you're the "blackest white person" they'll ever meet*
c) present uninformed and/or non-academic opinions on the legacy of slavery
d) quote chris rock or chapelle's show

i didn't really think this would bother me this much. i grew up in a white neighborhood. i even like casseroles. the thing is, in a predominantly white area, you kind of expect to be misunderstood. you expect a certain degree of ignorance since you probably are the first real live black or hispanic person your neighbor has ever met. but you'd think that in a city that statistically speaking is fairly diverse, there would be more understanding. not so. still pretty many of my close friends, past boyfriends, and current coworkers have managed to make me feel alienated, embarassed, or put on the spot.

i heard the author of this article being interviewed on npr last week. i definitely appreciate her sentiments. basically, the gist is that women in particular should "settle" for a man that will make a great husband and father, as opposed to holding out for the man of their dreams (i.e., great husband/father material, wildly attractive, and a total turn-on). this article provides one answer to the "why tie the knot?" question i posed last august.

the article confirms a few things that i suspected to be true for quite some time now:

1. marriage is way more about creating a life partnership and a stable environment for child rearing than passion. in the wise words of mother franco: marriage is a contract, veronica, not a perpetual tryst.

2. marriage is increasingly obsolete for people that are comfortable with sex outside marriage, don't want to have children (or are happy raising them alone), and/or don't particularly want a life partner.

3. you're less likely to be disappointed if you go in to a marriage - really, any romantic relationship - with the understanding that it will NOT be a real-life extension of every romantic comedy you've ever seen. it's highly unlikely that one person is going to be able to help you raise children, complement you emotionally and spiritually, and get you off every night.

4. i am as cynical as a forty-year-old single mother.

[in claiming that] the projects fall short of both social and aesthetic significance, you've left out the difficult part - explaining why - What criteria are you using to judge these objects and happenings on an aesthetic level? on a social level?

For me, the best art...

• Operates on multiple levels, merging concept and form seamlessly into something both challenging and arresting.
• Demonstrates an appropriate and intentional use of materials. I value significant technical prowess and fine craftsmanship.
• Is internally consistent, particularly with regards to concept.

To the above aesthetic non-negotiables, I suppose I would add specific criteria based on the type of project. For a project that intends to create a collective experience (as opposed to inspiring a transcendent moment for a solitary viewer), I suppose we'd need to add some indicator of how well a piece facilitates that experience for participants. (Should we also judge a piece on the quality of the experience it inspires? Or is it simply enough that it happened?)

I think the steam project may have been more aesthetically significant for me (in terms of promoting shared experience) if I had experienced it outside the gallery. As it was, I experienced it by myself indoors. Though, short of finding a gallery with a steam grate in it or exhibiting the whole show outside, I suppose there's really no way to keep that magic going indefinitely.

The pinball machine was extremely successful in creating a shared experience. It actually went beyond sharing into dependency on other people. (Hmm... maybe this could relate to the whole quality of experience question above...) It's also really frigging fun (I went back and played it after my other post). I did, however, find its formal strength was superior to its conceptual critique of funding structures, mainly because pinball machines are unlikely to really upset the current system of arts funding.

This gets to what bothers me about Other Options: the other options aren't necessarily viable. I feel that this limits the impact of their critique and, thereby, their conceptual merit. To me the projects feel somewhat unfinished. They are like studies for a project yet to be completed. They critique these huge systemic concepts, but don't actually inspire any actual action or sustain change beyond the collaboration among exhibition attendees. Seems a bit of a pity. On the other hand, maybe that's why the show is called Other Options, not the Best of All Possible Options.

I appreciate Benner's comment about struggling with different vocabularies. I didn't realize how difficult that must be as a curator, scholar, and/or artist working on these kinds of projects until trying to articulate my response to the exhibition. The verbal language, and even the - for lack of a better term - curatorial language (i.e., venue, space, layout) of the show not only influence our perception of the project's worth, but for these kind of projects, their very classification as art or social projects. We might need some new words. And possibly some new ways of thinking about aesthetics.

I am so tired of thinking about this. Apart from (Re) which I find internally inconsistent, I am not sure now if these projects really fall short aesthetically, or if they just don't really do it for me. Or if they really excel when judged against some other criteria I haven't thought of/learned about yet.

so i'm outside talking on the phone to my friend, and some guys come up. they have to be like 16. they're all like "hey baby, blah blah" and i'm like, "i'm on the phone". loud guy is all like, "i don't give a fuck...", then:

"... what's wrong, baby? i ain't your type?"
"no"
"why's that? cuz i'm black?"
"no, because you're rude"
(immediately proving my point) "fuck that shit, nigga!"
"look i'm talking to my friend. i'm on the phone."

they leave and i hear a lot of "bitch" "fuck" etc.

later, i'm outside later smoking a cigarette. unfortunately, at that very moment, they're walking back from wherever it is they went on the oposite side of the road. i try to make myself invisible. somewhat predictably, this doesn't work, and they see me.

"hey sexy! you still outside? what's with your phone? what kind of phone do you have?" then, loud guy: "can i hit that?"

now, g-rad readers, i ask you: what the hell is the correct response to the question, "can i hit that?" i mean, does that even work for people? has anyone EVER gotten laid from screaming, "can i hit that?" to someone from across the damn street? it seems like basic common sense would prevent that question from ever being asked: if a woman responds "yes", it's likely that she's already had sex with countless other people before you, and so is probably not safe to fuck anyway.

second question: where is all my attitude in situations like this? am i honestly afraid that a group of 16-year-old thugs are going to attack me? do i think they're going to forcibly grab me and force me behind the building and have their way with me?

maybe, but mostly i'm just afraid of confrontation. i can't stand people being up in my space and being obnoxious. every time this happens, and it happens often enough that i feel like i should have a better plan, my main strategies are avoiding eye contact and not answering questions. i have no attitude, no nothing. i'm reduced to powerlessness by aggressive words.