Lots of things to say about the Trayvon Martin case, as well as Wendy Davis and the abortion bill, too tired to make any arguments

july playlist

Retrograde- James Blake
Fall Creek Boys Choir- James Blake ft. Bon Iver
When You Were Young- The Killers
Hurricane- MR MS
Tiger Mountain Peasant Song- Fleet Foxes
Caring Is Creepy- The Shins

update 7/21

Books read-

Don't Think of An Elephant!- George Lakoff

Sideways- Rex Pickett

The Street Lawyer- John Grisham 

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?- Mindy Kaling

A Million Little Pieces- James Frey 

Books currently reading-

Freedom- Johnathan Franzen 

Moral Politics- George Lakoff

Books I want to read-

1984- George Orwell

Slaughterhouse 5- Kurt Vonnegut

Cat's Cradle- Kurt Vonnegut 

(also I am kind of upset because I accidentally bought two Lackoff books and one is pretty much an abridged version of the other)

My biggest distraction from getting my reading done is Star Trek: The Next Generation... It's so hard to stop binge watching wow

too sad to blog. sorry

Things are not good

Yikes

republican jesus

"Let’s remember, Jesus was a Jewish man of color, born homeless to an unwed teenager, who spent his formative years as an illegal immigrant before returning to his home country to hang out with twelve men, prostitutes, and socially untouchable tax collectors while he taught a radical social doctrine of equality, love, and forgiveness that included paying taxes, free healthcare, and the sharing of resources within a community."

new art

I bought this the other day and I am so in love with it! It's huge and ahhh it's so pretty I can't wait to put it up

Summer 2013 reading list

white oleander- janet fitch
a million little pieces- james frey
sideways- rex pickett
freedom- jonathan franzen
god is not great- christopher hitchens
sexual politics- kate millett
is everyone hanging out without me- mindy kaling
1984- george orwell

The only thing good about summer is not having to wake up at 5:30 in the morning. I can't really think of any other reason why I would want to stay at home for extensive periods of time...

LDR

I dislike Lana Del Rey

summer playlist

get lucky- daft punk

your protector- fleet foxes

when i'm small- phantogram

diane young- vampire weekend

across the universe- fiona apple

revival- deerhunter

shuggie- foxygen

sound of silence- simon + garfunkel

tiger mountain peasant song- fleet foxes

instant crush- daft punk ft. jcas

sugar's boat- thee oh sees

the gulag orkestar- beirut

this playlist is all over the place

spring quotes

"Well, let it pass, he thought; April is over, April is over. There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice." -F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on  a land mine. The land mine is me. After the  explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the  pieces back together." -Bradbury

we have obsessionSssSsSsSs

I have this recurring problem of always having to be obsessed with something; most of the time it's movies, books, or TV shows. It's alarming how much energy I put into feeling so many emotions about a work of fiction while simultaneously becoming increasingly apathetic to everything else around me. 

reading

I have not been reading as much as I should be recently. And shamefully, tonight I saw Gatsby before I read the book (which is  a travesty in itself). BUT! Today I bought 6 books for $5, something I am very proud of.  

A Million Little Pieces- James Frey

White Oleander- Janet Fitch

Sideways- Rex Pickett

Freedom- Johnathan Franzen

he Kitchen God's Wife- Amy Tan

3 of those are Oprah's book club picks so who is the real winner now!

And now I have no choice but to jump on the Gatsby bandwagon...again I cannot reiterate how ashamed I am to have not read the book. The movie was great but I could have gone without Lana Del Rey's voice drowning out the dialogue, but we can't have it all. I'm so excited to be reading again, as it turns out I am not the biggest fan of dystopian society literature. To each his own

happy happy happy

I love those moments of realization in life when you feel so fulfilled and happy and satisfied and content with everything you have and everything you don't. I am so happy to be happy! Sophomore year has been so tedious and I'm just glad it's almost over. I am very lucky to have such good friends and I am very lucky to have such a good job and I am very lucky to be able to travel as much as I do. I need to stop worrying as much because one day I'll be doing what makes me happy and my high school class rank has nothing to do with that. No matter what I know I'm going to go to college anyways so I need to stop worrying as much as I do now! My problems are so minuscule in the realm of actual problems. It's not the end of the day if I fail my chem test. It's not the end of the day if another girl doesn't like me. I am myself, and I am okay.

PS I think I was enlightened today and I now want to take a gap year :-) 

statistics

If owning a gun and knowing how to use it worked, the military would be the safest place for a woman. It’s not.

If women covering up their bodies worked, Afghanistan would have a lower rate of sexual assault than Polynesia. It doesn’t.

If not drinking alcohol worked, children would not be raped. They are.

If your advice to a woman to avoid rape is to be the most modestly dressed, soberest and first to go home, you may as well add “so the rapist will choose someone else”.

If your response to hearing a woman has been raped is “she didn’t have to go to that bar/nightclub/party” you are saying that you want bars, nightclubs and parties to have no women in them. Unless you want the women to show up, but wear kaftans and drink orange juice. Good luck selling either of those options to your friends.

Or you could just be honest and say that you don’t want less rape, you want (even) less prosecution of rapists.

sigh

I'm not one for misanthropy but a good majority of the people at school are idiots. My twitter feed is polluted with people 
who are blatantly rude, ridiculing other people's beliefs, clothes, choices, etc. and mocking others. I hope everyone at my school realizes that by belittling others, including teachers, you are automatically the scum of the Earth. 
Sorry not everyone thinks wearing fluorescent shorts is attractive! Sorry not everyone is the same religion as you (also, you are close-minded to assume everyone is)! Sorry not everyone is a Republican- by wanting everyone to have the same beliefs you have is to want a totalitarian government with one party! As I said, I really don't like the premise of misanthropy but so many kids at school are fucking idiots. The amount of girls who talk shit about their friends is appalling; it's kind of sickening to see them comment on each other's Instagram pictures with "I'm obsessed with you <3" when they gossip so much about each other. Your snide comments are so fucking sardonic! Please keep them coming because every time I hear/read one I laugh at how much Karma is going to fuck you over! This is one of my less eloquent posts. I don't really care.

I don't know if this constitutes country, but nonetheless it's a beautiful song and I am infatuated with this band. :-)

kyo + hicks

"People will love you. And people will hate you. And none of that will have anything to do with you." -Abraham Hicks

"If they don't need you, it's okay. You do not live for other people." -Kyo

misanthropy

The premise of misanthropy is overwhelmingly attractive to teenagers because it elevates them above the people they don't like and gives them an opportunity to sound intellectual by having an opinion on an issue. Hating things or people doesn't make you special. So, bluntly, smart people don't think others are stupid. MS

decisions

"If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another.

The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience.

If this sounds too mystical, refer again to the body. Every significant vital sign—body temperature, heart rate, oxygen consumption, hormone level, brain activity, and so on—alters the moment you decide to do anything… decisions are signals telling your body, mind, and environment to move in a certain direction."

mondays

I know today is Monday and you assume it’s going to suck, but according to statistics, there will be over 5,000 weddings, 10,000 childbirths, and 42 million hugs occurring today throughout the United States. Also today, there will be at least 4 people that will win the multi-million dollar lotteries, 600 people will get promotions at work, and 3,000 people will lose their virginity. There will also be 600 dogs adopted, 35,000 balloons sold, and 800,000 skittles eaten. Plus, the words “I love you” will be said over 9 million times. So again, I know today is Monday and you assume it’s going to suck, but just smile, because according to statistics, it should actually be a really nice day.

cultural appropriation vs cultural appreciation

I was kind of shocked when I turned on the TV tonight and saw Selena Gomez wearing a bindi, a headdress, and performing a kathak dance on the MTV Movie Awards. The blatant lack of regard for culture is something that I find pretty ridiculous.

The kathak, for those who are unaware, is a traditional Hindi dance with a strong religious background. The fact that it was being sexualized on MTV shows a disregard of respect to something so sacred. I think the lines of assimilation are blurred when one  fails to acknowledge the influences of the adopted culture. 

The same goes for a lot of "trendy" things, including tribal print/indigenous culture. Stores like Urban Outfitters and Forever21 are quick to encourage the appropriation of cheap replicas of sacred items like headdresses, dream catchers, and certain feathers and patterns. In reality, these items are just as sacred to some people's respective tribes as the Bible is to Christians. The fact that Victoria's Secret had a model walk the runway with a Native American war headdress(and not much else) to me is appalling, especially when they failed to recognize that sexual assault for Native American/Inuit women is an epidemic; one in three women are victims of rape or attempted assault. To me, sexualizing cultures with rape statistics of insane proportions akin to spitting in the face of these women. 

So, go ahead and mass produce "sexy Eskimo girl" and "sexy Pocahontas" constumes. It's not like they are almost three times as likely to be sexually assaulted than other women living in the United States. As Sarah Deer said,

Native women continue to be socially, economically, and physically marginalized by a society that doesn’t prioritize and sometimes doesn’t even acknowledge the realities of their lives.

playlist//april 2013

Wandering Star- POLICA
Sugars Boat- Three Oh Sees
Rhineland (Heartland)- Beirut
Small Town Moon- Regina Spektor
Something Good- Alt-J
The Earthquake of '73- Fruit Bats
Guyamas Sonora- Beirut
Good Friday- Why?
The Breeze- Dr.Dog

self acceptance

There are an overwhelming amount of girls who go to my school who are so unhappy with their bodies that they'll do anything to achieve their impossibly high, unrealistic goals. Ladies, I wish you would realize that you're a woman! Your body was not anatomically designed to look good in a bathing suit! Your body was evolved to produce enough offspring to perpetuate the species! You may not always have a flat stomach because it's home to some of your vital organs! You are a woman so you naturally carry fat! Thigh gaps depend completely on your bone structure, something you can't change no matter how much you diet/work out!
I think self-acceptance is so much more realistic and important than self-love.

"Stop telling women that we should find ourselves beautiful and that we should love ourselves when you are standing right there, judging us on how our knees look in short skirts and how prominent our boobs are in a sweater and how much makeup we are or are not wearing.

Instead of us working harder on “love your body” and “find your inner beauty”, the rest of the world should be working harder on “stop telling women their bodies are a shameful place to live but that if they’re strong enough, they will learn to embrace that shame.                                                        This is my body. It’s not “beautiful”. I don’t “love it”. I don’t have to. I don’t have to have any strong feelings about my body. And whatever feelings I do have are not somehow invalid if they’re not glowing reviews.." -Elyse Mofo

kabir

but if a mirror ever makes
you sad you should know
that it does
not know 
you

male privilege

Male privilege is “I have a boyfriend” being the only thing that can actually stop someone from hitting on you because they respect another male-bodied person more than they respect your rejection/lack of interest.

the internet + mental illness

over the course of my life i've probably exhausted 20 blogspots but i quit every single time since tumblr is much more easier to function. lately, however, i've been really disapointed with the normalization of self-deprecation on tumblr. i find it really sad how mental illness is now considered a quirky character trait that is interesting to have and is constantly either demonized or romanticized by society and there is no space in that dichotomy for real people with mental illnesses to exist without feeling shamed or invalidated, and that isn't fair. Also, I think everyone needs to remind themselves of this:

• You're allowed to contradict yourself
• You're allowed to seek attention or approval
• You're allowed to complain about something that's bothering you
• You're allowed to express negative opinions
• You're allowed to talk about yourself