Not done yet!

I started blogging today, and went off on a total tangent. Instead of posting a mega-super-single-page-stretch-BAAAAAH-MY-EYES-ARE-BLEEDING-CUT-IT-OUT-JAY-HERNANDEZ (Remember that scene from Hostel with the Asian girl and Jay Hernandez where they're about to escape but her eye's screwed up and he...? Nevermind.), I decided to post this as a separate post.

So, allow me to switch from horror-movie-fangirl mode to Tyler-Durden-society-is-whacked mode.

(On Bing, one of the first suggestions that came up when I was searching "Tyler Durden" was Brad Pitt's workout for the part, followed with a title like, "Get Ripped Like Tyler Durden!". I find this ironic in one of the worst ways possible.)

First off, I want to make a comment about Margaret Sanger.

Now. For those of you that don't know. Ms. Sanger was a lovely, lovely lady during the Progressive era of the United States that founded Planned Parenthood and strove to give women power over their bodies to be able to have sex without getting pregnant when they weren't ready. She fought over the years to help fund the Pill, and then to make it accessible to all married women, and then to all women.

Margaret Sanger, in short, is a lady that I very much so look up to.

I am a feminist. I don't think this is a bad word. I embrace it. My heroes are counted among Betty Dodson, Betty Friedan, and yes, Margaret Sanger. And don't get me started on my love for Ms. Susan B.

(I could have done without the whole Carrie Hatchet phase of feminism in the 1920's.)

ANYWAY.

I am a feminist, and I think it's fantastic that I can choose when I want to have a child, or if I want to have a child at all. My choice. Not the choice of a man. Or the choice of an unsafe circumstance. We can be protected from STDs and have any career (almost--sexism does still exist, contrary to what most people seem to think) and choose motherhood whenever we want.

We have access to birth control in all its forms--condoms, the Patch, the Pill, etc.

So why the hell are there so many pregnant teenage girls at my school?

At any given time, out of a population of about 2000 at my school, there will be anywhere from half-a-dozen to a dozen girls doing the waddle.

Then, they'll usually drop out. This pretty much dooms them to a life of poverty. No education = no money. And while materialism is a no-no, I'd say it would be pretty nice to be able to feed yourself.

Well, I asked you why this happens.

That was more rhetorical than anything.

I know pretty well why there are so many young girls that get pregnant too young.

They get pregnant when they are too young because they are not educated.

Now, in the South, the sex education that I've received from school can be summarized thus:

Don't have sex. EVER. Unless you're married. If you have sex before you're married, you'll get pregnant a bajillion times and catch a bajillion STDs.

There's a problem with this, friends.

We're teenagers. We're stupid. We're hormonal. And, whether you want to admit it or not, we have sex. Get over it.

Most people are aware of the presence of condoms. Or the Pill. That's not really what I mean about not being educated in regards to birth control.

What I'm talking about is guilt.

Pure, unadulterated, guilt.

The US of A is a country where condoms are locked away at drug stores so you have to ask for a clerk to get them for you. Planned Parenthood clinics are staked out by anti-abortionists that will hassle anyone entering the building, even if not for an abortion. By many Christian groups, birth control is seen as a way of interfering with "G-d's plan," and girls wear purity rings and swear to be abstinent.

Now. Abstinence isn't necessarily bad. Can be good. But where abstinence becomes dangerous is when people are unprepared for sex.

That's when STDs and pregnancy happens, folks.

We're being raised in a guilt culture. A guilt culture where women are refusing to embrace what the women before us have given. A guilt culture where we are still allowing ourselves to be second-class citizens by not taking responsibility for not only our actions but also our bodies.

I don't give a damn how devout you are. I don't give a damn that you've been wearing a purity ring for years. You're still susceptible to that one moment of temptation. If you want to put it religiously, G-d made it that way. Adam and Eve. Song of Solomon. The urge is there. It will never go away.

So, instead of being in a situation where that urge could ruin you, keep a condom in your purse. Abstinent or not.

There's no reason for so many girls to be ruining their lives.

A lot of people ask me why I still consider myself a feminist. As though this became unnecessary once we gained the right to vote. As though modern-day feminists are just a bunch of hairy-legged, hippie lesbians that should be shoved to the far political left and mostly ignored.

Well, I'll tell you why I still consider myself a feminist. It's because girls still refuse to step up and take control of their bodies and of their lives in general. Not all girls. But a lot of them. Until we are all in control of ourselves, I'm still calling myself the "F" word.

Feeling like today is going to be a Basterds kind of day...

And then I'll probably read Angels in America and crank out a few pages on my novel.







And when I can't put it off absolutely no more at all, I'll do my homework.







=D







Even the overachievers procrastinate, friends. Except that we procrastinate in the way that--if we were adults--we'd make everyone jealous.







Consider the following scenario:







ME (in 20 years, aged 38): Just relaxing at home. Big cup of coffee with hazelnut creamer, watching some Tarantino, and reading a Pulitzer prize winning play. Later, I will be working on my own novel. :)



(Let's assume this is a Facebook status update, although I doubt that--with as fast as Myspace tanked--we'll really be using Facebook in twenty years)







AS OPPOSED TO: lol Farmville update.







Just saying. :) Not having a life now means I'll be a badass adult. (hopefully)







Speaking of being a badass adult: Columbia interview tomorrow, and my Yale and Harvard interviews were last week. To say the least, they went schwimmingly. Especially Yale. Thirty minute interview turned into a two-hour chat. With a former chemistry teacher that graduated with George Bush and used to be drinking buddies with him and that met Asimov. ASIMOV. And we talked about everything from Seinfeld to how my interviewer took a class with William Penn Warren.







Oh, yeah. Badassery, here I come.

OH. OH OH OH. Why, no, that isn't a Satanist Santa Claus. That is me having an Eli Roth-induced coronary.







Eli "the Bear Jew" Roth--also known as my future partner in crime (it's going to happen, I tell you!)--is currently in China (Shanghai mostly, I think) working on a martial arts film that will be staring Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu. He co-wrote it with RZA. It shall be called The Man with the Iron Fists.







Click ye mouse pointer here:



http://www.eli-roth.com/







Some people have questioned my Eli Roth love. So I want to step into my fangirl shoes (do I ever really step out of them?) and say why I love him so.







So time for a segment called LAS RAZONES PARA MI AMOR DE ELI ROTH.







Razon el primero:



I have a fairly simple trifecta of reasons for why I will crush on any given guy. And those general reasons are this:

• He's English/Irish/Welsh/Scottish. (Although I teeeend to prefer le Englishman.)



• He's a musician.



• He's Jewish.

Now, any given guy does not need to fall into all three of those categories. My boyfriend of three-plus years is English and a musician. Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day is a musician. Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand is Scottish (with an English father and Greek mother--I'm not a stalker, I'm just thorough) and a musician.

And Eli Roth is a Jew.

I cannot explain to you why I like Jewish men.

But there's just something about a man being man enough to rock a kippah that I think is really pretty snazzy.

RAZON EL SEGUNDO

Eli's just pretty to look at. Full lips. Nice muscles. (Thank you Donny Donowitz--Eli put on 40 pounds of muscle for this role!) And OHMYGRAVY his EYELASHES. Oh, and his eyes. Baaaah.

RAZON EL...dammit...I don't know how to say "third" in Spanish.

Eli is batshit bonkers. And he's not afraid to admit it. And he admits it in terms of psycological catharsis that he learned from his father who is a retired psychology professor at Harvard.

If you ever want to have some fun, look up some interviews on Youtube or something of Eli talking about his films. And talking openly about his cathartic craziness.

To the side is a picture of a girly girl from Hostel 2. Not only is she being touched by the man himself, but she's also about to die in one of his movies.

If I got the privilege of dying in a horror movie, I would love love love it to be one of Eli's. And I wouldn't mind if it was me hanging upside down from a meathook, as pictured at left.=D

ANYWAY. I'm not done giving you my reasons, fool.

REASON THE FOURTH (Spanish is a hassle, yo)
He's a nerd. Total, total nerd. Notice the Cannibal Holocaust shirt that he is wearing in this picture. This man's love of horror movies runs deep. If there was such thing as being a horror movie scholar, Eli would be the epitome of this.

REASON THE FIFTH
He's a faithful devotee of--and friends with--QUENTIN EFFIN' TARANTINO. I don't think this needs explanation.

REASON THE SIXTH
He's really intelligent. He often gets painted--being a member of the Splat Pack--as sort of a mediocre torture porn director. (If I hear one more person use the term "torture porn" in tandem with a horror flick, I'm going to send them the goriest S&M thing I can and say, "No, friend. THIS is torture porn. Horror is art.") But this maaan. He graduated top of his class at NYU film school. Writes prolifically. Wrote Hostel as a commentary on the Bush administration. Keeps a journal of his dreams and analyzes the dreams of others (saw that on an interview last week). But he seems approachable. Which leads me toooo


REASON THE SEVENTH
He's approachable. He has a Twitter and communicates with his fans. He had an incident two-ish years ago where he had cyber sex with a bunch of his fans. (I would say "Three cheers for the Blueberries!" here, but they turned to megabitches when he started dating Peaches Geldof--they've broken up since.) He seems like the kind of guy that you could have a really intelligent conversation with, and yet feel fine with going somewhere to just have a drink with him. (In this hypothetical situation, I'm talking about Europe. I'm fully aware that I'm too young to drink in the States. So I don't drink in the States.)

So. In short. He's a super-awesome, super-crazy, super-hot, super-wicked smart, super-Bostonian, super-Jew.

And I would love to be killed in one of his movies.

BTdubs. Not sure why the formatting on this post got effed. Sorry about that, folks.

Follow Eli Roth here:

www.twitter.com/eliroth

And go here and bid on him for charity. (I can't do it; no money. BAAAH.) He'll follow the highest bidder on Twitter and Skype them for 15 minutes.

http://www.twitchange.com/

Just musing :)

And while that title was not originally supposed to be a pun, I want to say off the cuff that OH MY GRAVY MATT BELLAMY IS GONNA BE A DADDY.

(I like me some Muse. Yes, indeedy.)

He and Kate Hudson have been dating for nine months, and Kate is 14 weeks pregnant. So says Wendy Williams.

+

=
Beautiful interfaith baby. =D

Anyway. While I collect my breath from my fangirl outburst, allow me to tell you what I was "Muse"ing about. (Why, yes. That time, it was an intentional pun. You clever reader, you.)

I'm aware that people change as they get older. This change, I suppose, is referred to as "le coming of age." And it has spawned many gag-nasty novels and movies about young girls/boys coming into their own in a world that wants to do nothing but embrace them.

Well, I had never really given much thought to how much I had changed in my own coming of age until recently. And I thought it deserved to be written about, especially somewhere on the web where no-one ventures and there's the occasional tumbleweed and no-one to join me in the puke-fest that is my own coming of age.

Allow me, therefore, to paint for you a picture.

Physically, I haven't grown since about fourth grade. I've lost weight - and struggled to keep what I've got so as not to make my parents ask me awkward questions about my nonexistant anorexia - but I have remained the same height, the same stature, etc. etc. etc. since about age 11-ish.

(Being occasionally mistaken for a child does have its perks, I have to admit.)

Intellectually, I've always been a nerd. I learned to read when I was three. Ish. I used to annoy the hell out of my teachers because I always made 100%s on my spelling tests (I had one that made me write out my own spelling lists before finally excusing me from them altogether). Even now, I'm ranked number one in my class (senior in high school and I can't wait to get the hell out of that place).

So the changes to me have been a tish more subtle. Or not.

Let's address the obvious.

I was raised a Christian. I went to AWANAS and earned every badge available. I was in a Baptist church nearly every Sunday, and I read my own Bible cover-to-cover. I was "born again" when I was seven and tried to convert all of my little friends. The first story I ever wrote was a retelling of the birth of Jesus when I was four - complete with stick-figure illustrations. I was baptized when I was 10, and I have worn a purity ring since I was 12.

Only now I wear that purity ring because I don't want to get weird questions from my family on why one of my beloved rings is missing.

Now, I call it my "I'm down with Jesus" ring.

Not my "Jesus is my forever friend" ring.

Just a nod towards a Jew that became this Messiah figure around the time of Paul when formerly all of his followers were Jews and would have balked at the idea of being called anything else.

That being said.

Now? Well, I'm not exactly Christian, to put it lightly. If anything, I'm considering Judaism. I'm dating an Atheist, and I have to gnaw my tongue at church. (I still occasionally go to a baptist one with my grandmother, who doesn't know about my slip from Happy Happy Jesus Time.)

I am now a vegetarian; this was my first big step away from my big, Southern family's norm.

I dabbled in everything from Evangelism to Hinduism to Krishna Consciousness to Wicca to Druidism to Catholicism before finally landing on Judaism - no Jews in my family.

My boyfriend of three years is English. And being in a long-distance relationship, one of us has got to move eventually. And it's probably going to be me, and I'm probably going to get some sort of English citizenship, eventually.

When I go to college, I will become a vegan.

And when I vote for the first time (I couldn't bring myself to vote in my state's gubernatorial election; a choice between Good Ol' Boy #1 and Good Ol' Boy #2 isn't a good enough choice for me.) it will be as a liberal.

So I started out as a meat-eater. Conservative. Christian. A patriotic American.

Now? I'm a vegetarian-in-transition-to-veganism. A liberal. A maybe-Jew. And I'm finding that I fall short of patriotism.

I hate to sound emo, folks, but my coming of age led me away from my family.

Now, thankfully, the family to which I am closest understands this. My mother is my dearest friend. My father "gets" me better than most people (although he's not so chill with me possibly becoming a Jew).

But otherwise? Man, my family had issues swallowing down my decision to dye my hair blue and to forego the Thanksgiving turkey. If they found out I was liberal?

And not baptist?

Or even Christian, for that matter?

Family reunions in the future are going to look something like:

Not quite sure on how I feel about this.

So, no. My coming-of-age, while not altogether even close to being rotten, is certainly not what I would have imagined as a child. If I had been asked at age eight where I'd be in ten years, I probably would have described the opposite of my feminist, animal-rights-loving, gay-marriage-toting, foul-mouthed (and yet trying to remedy that), vegetarian self.

I'm the same height. I have the same IQ. But I couldn't be anymore different.

And while I'm not sure on how I feel about that - whether good or bad - I am certainly fine with it.

PS: I have this image of me trying to get my English citizenship and showing some stuffy customs official my paperwork.

"This says you're a Harvard grad. Jewish ethnicity. And your last place of residence was in Boston?" (My Harvard interview is coming up. Just cross your fingers and roll with me, folks.)

"Why, yes, ma'am. That's just about right." I'd giggle here, trying to lighten the situation. And of course I'd say this in a strong Southern accent that I just can't seem to completely shake.

"...I don't believe you."

"Pardon?"

"Get out. I don't believe you."

And that would be that.

Long time, no see.

And I must say, sorry about that, folks.

I've been busy - working on a novel, applying to colleges, generally keeping afloat in my classes. I can't wait for high school to be over.

Anywho.

For a while, I've wanted to make a post about long distance relationships. (How's that for a segway? Nonexistant - the best kind!)

I have been involved in an LDR for just over three years now. My boyfriend is a certain tall drink of water named Danny, and he lives in Britain where he calls french fries chips and he drives on the wrong side of the road.

Things have gone remarkably well with him. To put it short.

However, seeing as I just got home from a visit with him and his family in England, I wanted to make a list of the pros and cons of having an LDR.

Let's start with the pros, shall we?

PROS

• We communicate. A lot. We know each other inside and out. Basically, this is because the main way that we are together is through communications, whether that comes in the form of letters, phone calls, or messaging on the computer. We are really open with each other as a result, and arguments are resolved easily as we know how to talk to each other as civilized human beings.
• I don't have to worry about what I look like. This is a wonderful thing. I don't want to wear makeup? That's fine. Go for a while without trimming my hair? Who cares? Webcam shows me in crappy detail, anyway. The downside of this is that, in my short-haired-no-make-up-jeans-and-tshirt get-up, I oftentimes get mistaken for the wrong gender (I've had straight girls and gay guys make eyes at me before I open my mouth and they hear my seven-year-old-little-girl voice. On my most recent visit to England, I was mistaken as a Dutch little boy. Twice.)
• I DON'T HAVE TO SHAVE MY LEGS. Seeing as I mostly wear jeans. And you never see my legs. And romantic interludes with a lovely British young man patting my leg are rare. So I don't shave. TAKE THAT, MISOGYNISTIC SYSTEM. =D
• The little things really, really matter. If I get an email from him, I dance on the inside. A letter? That dance rips into an all-out Irish jig. When he visits and I find that he's left a personal item at my house, I hug it for ages and cry. When I'm with him and he holds me, I feel like a little girl with a crush, even though we've been together three years.
• Trust. This is something that we've built up and perfected to a friggin' art that would make da Vinci proud. Oftentimes, I have people ask me if I'm afraid of him cheating. The answer? Hell no. This sort of ties into the communication thing; I know him very well. He knows me very well. And I have no fear of him cheating. We both have friends of the opposite sex with whom we are very close; this is not a problem with either of us. When you have three years and 4,000 miles between you and all of the possible freedom in the world and yet you still remain faithful, you come to really trust your partner.

Alright. And now the cons.

CONS

• I'm a sap. I never was a sap before I fell in love with Danny. I thought romantic love was sort of silly. That I just wanted to focus on my studies. Sure, I thought about romantic love. Wondered what it was like. But I wanted nothing to do with it until I met ze Dannyman. This almost made it into the pro section. But then I thought of how many times I've sat at home and not wanted to go out with friends because I was still in my pajamas - icecream in hand - looking at old pictures of Dan and myself and crying. I never used to really cry. Thanks a lot, Dan. >:[
• I'm bitter. Very, very bitter. In regards to other couples, that is. I consider myself a kind, humane person. I don't get angry easily. I've been a vegetarian and animal activist for a long time. I support various humanitarian organizations. I make funny faces at cute babies at the grocery store. I talk to old ladies and let them have my place in line. But when I see other couples - especially of the super lovey-dovey kind that you KNOW aren't going to last more than a few months - I want to go all Bear Jew and break out my baseball bat and Bostonian badass accent. I know they aren't, but I feel like they're making a personal affront, almost. When I'm in a particularly sour mood, I'll even walk between a couple, rude comment at hand. Now, if you're a normal couple - been together a while, hold hands in public but not much else - you're cool. Fine. I might avoid you if I'm having a bad day, but most likely not. It's when people are making out right in front of me and using baby names that I want to go apeshit.
• I might act like it's fun, but prom on my own sucks. And mostly, it is fun. I love dressing up and going with my friends places, and not having a date has some sort of freedom to it. But once the slow dance songs are broken out and everyone gets all coupley, I magically disappear to go drown in my sorrows (and usually fix my makeup).
• And being alone sucks in general. I'm an independent chica. I have my own political views and I am quite the loud-mouthed feminist. But even I have to admit, not being able to be with my boyfriend, especially when special occasions come up (holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) is smelly. Uber smelly. Like the chunky milk that you forgot you put in the back of the fridge six months ago. Yeah. That bad.
• My eating habits iz all mixed up, yo. When I'm sad, I eat enough to deprive an entire African village. When I'm anxious, I can hardly drink water. And I feel both of these when I'm being a lonely little emo girl. I go between, "BAAAAH LIFE SUUUCKS," and, "Ohcrapohcrapohcrap not going to see him for eleven months." Usually I maintain a healthy, salad-and-soy filled diet, but if I decide to be emo even just a little, my body goes into this weird mode where either I eat like a whale or not at all. And then my weight fluctuates so I either have some chub or I resemble an anorexic.

And there you have it. The good, the bad, and the unshaven ugly that is (at least this) the long distance relationship.

Have you ever been in an LDR? What are your opinions on it in general? Worth it? No?

Oh. And if you were wondering. Danny has a blog as well. He focuses on school and medically thingy things in his. It's a pretty good read, if I may say so myself. :)

http://www.thedannymancan.blogspot.com