Wednesday, March 24, 2010

1. What is your current obsession?

Trying to figure out if "queer" and "marriage" are--or should be--mutually exclusive. I never thought about it before I read a fascinating article critiquing marriage from a feminist perspective that questioned whether queers--or any progressive, really--should buy into marriage. Considering marriage is a fundamentally conservative institution that originated as a means to transport a woman as property from one family to the next, I'm not so sure. I still support the fight for gay marriage, though--if straights can marry, why the fuck can't everyone? Just think we need to examine marriage a little bit more closely and see if we can queer it from the inside. That would be AWESOME.

2. What is your weirdest obsession?

FAT BEBEHS. Wanting children, especially fat babies, totally should contradict my espousal of feminism. And yet, I choose to believe that it doesn't. I do, and always will, love fat bebehs.

3. What do you see outside your window?

The cripplingly white stretch of fabric that's the window shade. It' terrifying.

4. What is your favourite colour?

Yellow. Always yellow. I can't dominate yellow.

5. What is your weakness?

If I told you, you'd have to kill me. Or you'd be able to, anyway. You think Achilles TOLD everyone about his heel?

Okay, I'll bite. I'm too proud. I crumble when anyone or anything insinuates I may not be as smart as I think I am.

6. What animal would you be?

I think that's pretty obvious to anyone who knows me, so I'll just not say it.

7. What would you like to learn how to do?

Speak Danish, for fuck's sake!

8. What do you want to never happen in life?

I don't want Thomas or Maddie or my parents taken away from me in some horrible accident. That would break me. Something sudden, and too soon.

9. What is on your bedside table?

Real Simple magazine (I still can't STAND the grammatical error in that title), my bio textbook, and my alarm clock. And the biggest crate of vitamins you've ever seen in your life.
10. What's the last thing you bought?

11. What do you think about the person that tagged you?

BITCH.

No, she's one of my favorite people in the world and my best friend. I guess we're both awesome bitches, though. I mean, really.

12. What was your favourite children's book?

Harry Potter. Which is sort of embarrasing now, because it's not great literature. But it was my favorite.

13. Who do you want to meet in person?

Joan Jett, Frida Kahlo, Gloria Steinem.

14. What did you want to be as a child?

A writer/singer/ballerina.

15. What did you dream about last night?

Oh fuck that shit was messed up. There were all these different countries I kept flying to in hot air balloons, and it was the victorian times, and I landed in an ancient Aztec garden--which was also a university?

16. Which do you prefer, day or night?

Night. I'm by myself, I can do whatever I want, and it's like time stops because there are no interruptions.

17. What's your favourite piece of clothing in your closet?

My vintage cowboy boots I got for $3 at Goodwill. Most comfortable shoes that aren't sneakers I've ever bought.

18. What's your plan for tomorrow?

My dream plan would be to write a novel and get a job at Bitch magazine. But I'll more likely end up going to class and reading Jezebel.

19. What would you like to get your hands on right now?

THOMAS. I shouldn't say any more or I won't be able to stop myself.

20. What is your must have of the moment?

Sleep, the must have of every moment of my day.

21. What's your favourite tea flavour?

Jasmine white tea from the royal tea shop in Copenhagen.

22. If you could go anywhere is the world right now, where would you go?

To Denmark. If I wasn't legally prohibited from entering the country until July, I would be on a plane SO FAST.

2 comments:

Madeline said...

#1. "Woman as property" in marriage certainly existed in Western culture, but I'm not sure that all cultures through history have regarded women this way. In fact, if there's anything that's been historically true about marriage - and other social institutions - it's that it's constantly changing, being modified and redefined to suit the needs of society at the time. At certain points in history, certain conventions surrounding marriage were LESS conservative than they are now - I'm thinking of a book I just read on Georgian England, where the relative impossibility of divorce made it socially acceptable for both men and women (but more so men) to have affairs, as long as they kept it quiet. There was even a small industry of midwives and doctors who catered to upper class women delivering children out of wedlock; the women would "go on vacation" to some remote area in the country, have the baby, and pay the midwives and doctors a good amount to keep their mouths shut.

What I'm trying to say is - the concept of marriage is historically fluid, so the fact that it was some way or meant something in a later era (or even now) shouldn't deter you from making whatever you want out of it. Even within our society, we have different definitions of marriage: a legal union vs. a religious one. I get the feeling that no one actually knows what it is (just that they're sure it's not THAT, of course). I think it's within our ability now to define marriage in whatever way we want and to take it or leave it as we wish.

#2. I don't think it contradicts your espousal of feminism at all! On the contrary, the right of women to love fat bebehs is just as important as the right of women to not love them. It's all about choice, sister.

#5. People usually say that as a way of undermining your opinion without actually engaging with the content of your opinion itself. It's a lazy way to argue.

#8. NOOOOOO. That scares me too. Let's just not think about it.

#11. Heh, likewise. Love for your baat.

#12. Well, J.K. may not be as accomplished a writer as, say, Phillip Pullman or Madeleine L'Engle, but her books inspired a whole generation of children to read books and to imagine new things. Who's to say that's not what makes literature great in the first place? To me, "great literature," specifically great children's literature, is that which educates and inspires ... and wasn't written by James Joyce. Just saying.

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