dear hannah,
where did you go? and who is in your place?
sincerely,
hannah
i’m bringing sexy back
I just wrote four pages in my journal and I started with “I really don’t like my body.”
It’s not bad, for sure, but there are some things wrong with it. Namely, a) my thighs are always a tad bit too jiggly and thundery for my taste, b) all of a sudden my stomach is where I harvest extra fat, and it’s pudging out in a very unattractive way, c) my breasts won’t stop growing, and d) blah blah cellulite and all that stuff that everybody hates. I certainly wouldn’t trade my body with a vast lot of other people’s, but there’s always room for improvement, and who would I be to the female race if I didn’t stress about my problem areas?
But then I was thinking about something that is both reassuring and terrifying, at least when applied to me personally. I don’t know about everyone, but with most people I know, none of whom have perfect bodies or perfect personalities, but who have high enough marks in both areas, it is not a real problem to have a sex life even when you don’t look like a celebrity. Clearly famous people are not the only ones who get laid. I suppose I don’t have much of a problem in that area; I can certainly find people to sleep with me, if not to date me, so where I need to work on my personality, I evidently don’t need to work on my body. Even though I do. According to me.
So I guess what I’m finding out is that, at least in my experience, it doesn’t take a perfect body to get what you want. Is it that guys are just horny and don’t care? Is it that I’m too easy? Or is it that guys don’t notice imperfections, even if they are actually quite noticeable? I’m assuming it’s a combination of all of these things. But, given that I am probably not the only girl who has hooked up with people when she has wanted to, I’m confused as to why we flip out so much about not looking perfect. And why magazines can’t find a way to say this in a real way, rather than saying something like, “You’re perfect just the way you are!” or “He likes you for who you are.”
That said, sex is not enough for anyone. Not even for me. Most of the time. But I don’t like the attitudes about it. Maybe I’m just a socialist, but I think that even if the farmer is willing to give you some free milk, if you like the taste of it, you should damn well buy the cow off of him. Because we all need to make a living.
what i’m realizing
If a guy treats you badly after you’ve had sex with him, it’s not because you had sex too quickly. If a guy is going to treat you badly, he is going to treat you badly. It still sucks, but sex is not the reason.
it’s been too long without some angst
i want love to love me back
i want two way conversations
i want love to love me back
one that can handle any situation
i want love to love me back
I adore Mandy Moore. And I just feel like echoing that sentiment today. Leaving choir today, some off-hand comment led to me saying, “Boys don’t like me,” which is generally true, to which Catherine replied, “Oh, they do,” to which I replied, “No, they use me and abuse me,” which is largely true as well, so Catherine said, “But they like you for that,” and then I said, “I’m just a toy for boys.”
A wholly uninteresting story, I know.
I don’t quite adore school this semester, though that’s mostly because I’ve gotten used to not having to do work, and this semester is going to be nothing but reading, researching, or going to work. Once again, I have three jobs. I’m crazy, and I can’t quite figure out why, except that I seem to hate free time. I don’t know where I’ll find time to write or read books, but I’m trying. I also want to finish some songs and make recordings, at least Garage Band-y ones, so that I can feel good about that. It should get easier since I’ll be taking piano lessons again (!).
Now, if the weather could just cool off and if I could stop having morning asthma attacks while I bike…
(New playlist up!)
more judaism and the last of summer reading
Shabbat we had the option to do absolutely nothing, or we could participate in a variety of workshops, lectures, talks, activities, etc. In the morning I went to the “morning musical service,” which was just a regular reform service that included lots of Shabbat songs, many of which I did not remember/know at all, and even more that I learned with completely different tunes. That would be weird, except that I’m pretty sure that everybody else Jewish in the world knows the tune that I don’t. I’m thinking the guy who was our songleader when I was little just liked coming up with new stuff.
For the next block, I went to “Whole Torah in Just One Hour,” with one of NYU’s rabbis. He seems pretty chill, and he greeted everyone by going, “Shabbes,” the way the stoner turtle in “Finding Nemo” might say it. In 75 minutes, this guy managed to do all of the following: quote the Iliad in Greek; reference King’s “I have a dream” speech; talk about 100 Years of Solitude; give an anthropological history of the ancient Sumerians; describe the epic of Gilgamesh; and actually talk about the Torah. The whole trick was, of course, that you can’t do the whole Torah in an hour, but we did get to chapter 13 of Genesis, which he said was further than they got last year. So that was fun.
In the afternoon, I went to “Let’s Talk About Sex,” because, frankly, what else sounds interesting when that’s on the bill? And it really was, because we talked about myths about Jews and sex, like how no, nobody has sex through a sheet, and actually, it’s commanded that you be completely naked (no socks) when you have sex. We also looked at Genesis, cartoons, short stories, halacha, and quotes from Maimonides to discuss men and women’s roles in relationships and where sex fits in. I wish it had gone on longer, because that could be a really interesting class. It was a little bit too large of a group for a really good discussion.
I’d say more, but it’s already been so long and I’m on to new and different things. I finished three more books before school started on Monday, and I’m still plodding through that García Márquez (on a side note, why does everybody in the English-speaking world refuse to see how easy it is to pronounce his name correctly rather than emphasizing the “quez” part?). Those books were:
1. The Journals of Sylvia Plath by, of course, Sylvia Plath. This is another exhausting book that takes quite a long time to read, but being in the company of genius is always awesome, like in the real sense of that word, so it was wonderful to read. The most frustrating thing, aside from knowing I will never be that amazing, was knowing that Ted Hughes destroyed her final journals. I so wanted to read them. I wonder if he did.
2. Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink. I don’t want to say much, because I read this to review for teenreads.com, and the review of that is going to be up soonish. But it was in the vain of Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy, and while it wasn’t perfectly written, it was a pretty awesome plot, and it was definitely a fun read.
3. The Worst Years of Your Life, edited by Mark Jude Poirier. I was happy to see this collection, because I love teen angst, I try to love YA, at least when it’s good, and it was so neat that this was an accepted collection of “literary” stories that still dealt with that stuff that usually gets labeled “crap” or “Gossip Girl” (which, incidentally, was not crap when it began–only when it continued). Unfortunately, a lot of the stories just seemed so “literary” and weird that I couldn’t really get into them, but the ones that were good were really evocative and interesting. I also appreciated that they mixed contemporary and new authors with older ones.
So that makes 19 books this summer. That’s not what I hoped. And it seemed like so many. It takes longer to read books now than when I was younger. Part of that is that I read harder, better books. I hope. But is it also my short attention span since the Internet came to be? Still, I’ll plod along and keep reading. All I’ll be doing for school this semester is reading anyway.
Stuff about school and life later. Off to do endless homework and work.
blume, judy; cohn, rachel; or, summer reading #5
I’m nearly done with Plath’s journals, but I needed a break and decided to read some YA I had missed out on. Somehow, when I read nearly all other Judy Blume books, I never read Forever…, the sex book. Then I read Rachel Cohn’s latest, which came out a while ago but I never read, You Know Where to Find Me.
Rachel Cohn’s books have always consistently made me want to write. Like, while I’m reading, I feel desperate to work on whatever it is I’m working on. Gingerbread is a favorite, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is awesome as well. When I was reading this book, I didn’t actually like it as much as her others, but I still felt this need to write, and I was trying to figure out why. I was also trying to figure out why Judy Blume is so awesome, even if now her books read very seventies and seem a little silly (I was very confused when reading Just As Long As We’re Together, because I didn’t understand the whole pad with a belt thing).
My conclusion is this: Rachel Cohn’s voice in her novels is always fabulously teenager-y. Smart teenager-y. I’m thinking that if you’re not very smart, you will probably find her books boring or hard to follow. And this latest book was a bit more boring, just because I don’t particularly love books about people dealing with death. I also love that she writes about big issues (Cyd Charisse in Gingerbread has an abortion, Miles’ cousin in You Know Where to Find Me has just committed suicide, and Miles loves taking Percoset and other pills) but also keeps in mind that a lot of the time, those big issues aren’t even the biggest, and other things, like body image, friendships, crushes, etc, are still profoundly important when you’re 17. I also appreciate that her books aren’t PSAs about any of these things. Yes, people make mistakes and learn from them, because that’s been a pretty foolproof formula for novels for years. BUT not everything ends up perfectly. She’s not Sarah Dessen, which I really appreciate. At the end of this latest book, Miles is still overweight, still not sure if she’s going to quit smoking, and still has an unrequited crush on her best friend. She has learned and resolved other issues, but not everything is coming up roses. AND as if that weren’t awesome enough, Rachel Cohn’s characters are “multicultural” without really trying (take notes, all authors everywhere) and she manages to stick in politics without being annoying. Though that could just be because I agree with her politics. 
And now onto Judy Blume. She’s kind of like the original Rachel Cohn, except her books are really more like children’s books, except for younger teens and about younger and older ones. Definitely her formula is more like a children’s book. But she does some awesome things, like have incredible audacity (or something) to talk about periods, masturbating, and sex. In Forever…, she describes the character’s boyfriend’s penis (nicknamed Ralph) and giving him a hand job. Even I was almost embarrassed to be reading this book. I also like that Blume can insert a certain amount of “multiculturalism” in her books. Maybe because they were written in the seventies, characters aren’t really that diverse ethnically, but she does describe characters and give interesting family histories that can teach you about American history, like how in this book she describes how a character’s last name came to be when it was mispronounced at Ellis Island. Little things like that in books I appreciate.
(500) days of summer
Indie for the masses.
I am going back and forth between whether I liked it or not. Some things were really cute. Like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Expectations/Reality. But I’m just not sure it was a good movie. I never know whether movies are good anymore.
battlefield
Everybody talks to themselves….right?
This is the last thing I would ever want to sound assertive about, because it’s a quality in myself that terrifies me and makes me feel very uncool, because I often find myself walking and thinking, and then I realize that as I’m passing all these people on campus or wherever, my lips are moving. It’s entirely embarrassing, but then again, it could be one of those things like how nobody but me notices that my nostrils are crooked. So is it?
The reason I ask you, empty Internetlandia, is because I find myself having really insistent conversations tonight. I cannot keep my head in my book, partly because I was listening to music, and when you listen to music and read, it should be music you’ve heard before, not a newly downloaded album. I also partly can’t keep my head in the book because it’s The Journals of Sylvia Plath, and it’s a very exhausting read that will take me about a hundred years, because I usually only manage about 10 pages per sitting. But I also just can’t concentrate on reading because I keep thinking about conversations I’d like to be having or things I’d explain to people or whatever it is that is unimportant but that I think about. It’s like I’m absolutely desperate for conversation.
I haven’t exactly been Suzie Social since I got home on Wednesday, but I’ve certainly had contact with other humans since being home, so can I really be starved for company? I don’t even like company; I’m always thinking about how I love being alone or with a small group of people. But it’s summer, and it’s maybe a bit unnerving that I don’t know who is available to be my human company if I want it. I like being sort of lonely and out of touch with people during the summer, but that feeling has dwindled slightly since college threw me and all my relationships with people out of whack. Maybe it’s that I just spent six weeks doing one of those magical summery things, but it didn’t feel as magical as some summers. It felt many other positive and negative things, but it didn’t really feel like summer. Then again, I was in the southern hemisphere, so in a technical way, it wasn’t summer.
But I’ve grown accustomed to (that’s not quite the verb I wanted, but the Spanish verb “soler” doesn’t really have a good English equivalent…”be in the habit of” doesn’t have a very nice ring to it) pairing summer experiences with great, long conversations, and I haven’t had one of those in a long time. My, do I miss my Fridays. And writing camp. And cherubs. And knowing where I am. This is very off-putting, because I do not know what I’m supposed to be doing. That also means that I am doing a lot of reading and I am feeling compelled to write, and I’m actually writing, so it’s not really a bad thing so much as just a necessary discomfort for a good thing. However, it would be nice to occasionally spice my old maid lifestyle up with some good conversation and chai or something.
a cold summer in montevideo
It’s funny, because I love to learn languages and meet interesting people and experience new things, but I’m learning that I am really not a good traveler. Like, I really don’t like to be away from home. Who knew that after spending my entire childhood and adolescence begging for boarding school, for my mother to accept a job working abroad, for college out of state, that I would end up a homebody who loves spending time with her family? This is some weird sort of karma.
It’s not that I don’t like being in Montevideo. On the contrary, I was actually really happy yesterday to return after a weekend in Buenos Aires (beautiful, beautiful city, but snooty people and lots of dirt and a somewhat unpleasant hostel experience). I’m sad that I haven’t gotten to take full advantage of my classes or internship, having missed more than a week due to my flu, but I really like working at NGOs, and working at a Latin American NGO is twice the experience, because it’s work experience and language practice. But traveling in a group is just not my thing, and I feel very off-balance not being at home. I’m too accustomed to being settled. Apparently I don’t like change. Apparently I actually like my life in Tucson. Interesting.
Something that has always astonished me is that I can’t really write when I’m on vacation, even though being in another country (or just another state–pretty much everything is different from the desert) gives me a lot of inspiration and generally feels exhilarating, at least for awhile. But I don’t feel compelled to pick up my journal, I think partly because there is so much to say that I don’t know where to begin. All of a sudden there is a new climate, new streets to learn, a new culture of people, new stores and restaurants and foods, new phrases, and now a language that I’m starting to think in. It’s like there’s so much to say just superficially, just to establish my new place in a new world, that I can’t actually get to the point of talking about my feelings or new friends or specific experiences. It’s a daunting task, and I simply can’t say anything without spending two hours just writing in a journal. And there’s no time for that, because I’m on vacation on a specific program and I have things I need to be doing. And on days like today, when I spend my afternoon alone in my hotel room on my computer (though I was actually looking up important information for the rest of my trip, like hostels and bus fares and things), I feel like a failure on both parts, because why should I be in my hotel room when I’m neither experiencing the country I’m in nor doing something I would do at home, like work on my writing? I don’t have all the things I need to feel at home, but I also feel a bit overwhelmed always being here.
So while I can’t bring myself to be totally me, neither can I stop myself. I really want to be writing. I want to be working on my novel, and I want to be working on my essay for Ann’s book, and I want to be working on that other novel I started, and I want to start developing some really good short pieces, because it’s about time I started submitting stuff and making money off my writing, and it would be prudent to start publishing in the genre I want to have a career in, rather than in all the others that I just do for fun. But I can’t work on things here, because I’m very materialistic and high-maintenance, and I don’t have all my drafts or my big old desk or my things. Things, things, things. This is why I’m a bad traveler. I can’t pack light. Physically, mentally, or emotionally. I have lots of baggage.
It’s not all that bad. I’m learning, and that’s really all I care about. This is probably the first summer experience that doesn’t feel like summer (which it shouldn’t, because I’m in the southern hemisphere and it’s freezing). What I mean by that is this is the first summer experience where I’ve gone away to a program and have not felt like it’s completely magical or that I’ve made friends for life. In fact, the only person I see myself really remaining friends with is the one person I knew before coming, though I really did not know her very well. That’s totally fine, I guess. I am a huge cynic, and since college I have become a lot more particular about the people I make friends with. I know lots and lots of people, and I really like it, but I also really like just having a handful of really, really good friends, not a bunch of friendships that are all high-maintenance. There are people I have a deep necessity for, and they generally make me happy. The rest make me happy, but they’re not necessary. And that’s the way life goes. In this group of people, I feel very, very old and stuffy, and I guess I kind of am, but it’s also just how I’ve developed within this group of people who are not very much like me. And it’s fine. I am enjoying my learning experiences, and I am very excited for my two weeks of travel with my friend.
I am all over the place. And where I’d really like to be is home, but I know if I were there, I would be complaining about how I never go anywhere. There is definitely more to traveling than just appreciating where you come from, and I hope I am doing that. I think I am more meant for individual and small-group travel experiences than strict programs with boisterous personalities. I am slowly drawing into a shell, and I really shouldn’t do that.
BUT planning for my traveling is so exciting! Another three days in Buenos Aires by myself, this time to meet my grandmother’s cousin and to go to museums and experience traveling the way I like to do it, then a bus ride to Iguazu, a stay at a hostel for a day or two, bus ride back, boat back to Uruguay, perhaps a day in Montevideo, then travel to the hot springs! It’s going to be a packed two weeks, but it’s going to be great.
is this it?
I am really happy that high school and middle school are left behind parts of my life. Like, really happy. Middle school was an unhappy, uncomfortable time when I got made fun of a lot, and high school was just way too much drama and angst and feeling inadequate. Even now, if I find myself acting or feeling like a 16-year-old, I feel supremely uncomfortable and I want to hit myself and remind myself to stop being stupid. Last night I felt like high school, and even though it wasn’t that big of a deal, it was bad.
That said, there are a few things about high school that I do miss, friends and simplicity of life put aside.
Dances. This may just be a case of the-grass-is-always-greener, but I do miss going all out, dressing up, having my sister do my hair and makeup, and feeling absolutely gorgeous. No, I never had a date in high school, and if I did things over I think I would have tried harder to be less awkward and have more guy friends, but then again, I probably wouldn’t have so many ideas for short stories and novels if I had had a better high school experience. I digress. There is something that is so, so much fun about looking hot and having a lot of fun with your group of girlfriends. Especially dances of my last two years of high school, where though I was dateless, I finally began dancing with boys and developed maybe a bit of a reputation for being a somewhat slutty dancer. In high school, I was desperate to be slutty. I got over it at the end of the last year, and now I almost miss it, because life without scandal is a bit dull. I suppose I could join a dance group again, but that’s not the same kind of dancing. And I suppose I could go to clubs, but clubs are less safe than proms. At prom, you were with people that you felt comfortable with, even if you didn’t actually like them, and you still had the freedom to show a bit of a new side to yourself. And that’s hard to do. You’re not allowed to change in high school. Nobody understands if you do. I suppose sororities and fraternities still have formals, but they also act like high schoolers.
Sleepovers. I just found a bunch of bags in my room that I should probably get rid of. I like having bags of different sizes, but the amount I have is ridiculous. And I realized half of these bags I only use occasionally to take things to class, and then to stuff things in for a slumber party. Why don’t we have slumber parties anymore? College introduced the idea of sleepovers with boys, as in making out with them and then falling asleep in your twin bed, and that is definitely good fun, but it has also deleted silly girls’ nights, when you just sit around in cute pj’s and giggle about things and watch movies. I don’t really understand why this isn’t a necessity to more college girls. How can you not still have a hole in your heart begging to be filled with gossip, bashing boys who treat you badly and swooning over the ones who don’t or who haven’t yet, and watching embarrassingly, unabashedly romantic movies that you don’t want to admit you actually life? College should be the place for even better sleepovers, because they can have all those things but better stories, because in college you have sex, and you can add liquor to the mix and make silly girly cocktails (because college parties may be about alcochol, but they are not about good drinks. Keystone is unacceptable), and you don’t have parents around so there’s no need to hush up when you talk about the really risqué things. I want to reinstate slumber parties into my life.
Discovering new places. I really, really love that I live away from my parents, because I still see them a lot, but I have my space. We get along much better. But it’s also turned me into a hermit. Everything I need is in my house, and everything outside of my house is expensive, so why go anywhere? I spend too much time inside, and I don’t go to places except to restaurants close to campus. In high school, you’re always trying to find places to go that are parent-free, but that’s not all those places do. It’s like how you need to read lots of different things to be well-rounded or to have good ideas for writing–you need to be exposed to lots of different places just to remember that there are different places, and just to see new things and people and ways of life. I miss nights at parks, in parking lots, outside on trampolines, at bookstores, at strip malls, just sitting in cars in driveways.
I’ve started ordering zines again, and I almost want to make one. I haven’t for probably three or four years. Strangely, now that I have a bit less angst and I’m a lot more comfortable with myself, I miss being emo. I’m sure I still am, but zines are invoking those painful but raw and inspiring moments of angst. Now if I could just have these other three things, I’d be good.
