Hot DAMN!

I was informed today that I got the summer internship that I desperately wanted. I was getting all set for disappointment, because that's what usually happens, then, wham, one cheery phone call from Madison later and I'm all set up. It's an amazing internship, as seen below in bulletpoints.

• maternal/child public health at the reservation clinic
  
• working with a photography project on parental support systems
  
• a super-cool mentor
  
• paid

I'm so excited, I may wet myself. Lord knows how I'll hold out for the next two months before it starts.

Chart-toppin' hair

I got a haircut a couple of weeks ago.

Let me preface all of this by saying that I am extremely picky about my hair, but not in the way that most girls are. I will go from having hair below my shoulders to a pixie cut without a second thought. I don't understand people who fret about whether they should risk dying their hair at home--I have handed over a large amount of money to the L'Oreal corporation throughout the years, along with Clairol and whoever owns Manic Panic now. I have cut my own hair on many occasions and the only thing that stops me from doing that all the time is that it doesn't look good for as long as a professional cut--but it's kickass for a good week or so. I'm picky in that I want it choppier than almost anyone will give me and I want an interesting haircut and I fucking hate it when they insist on blow-drying it with a round brush. The best haircut I ever had was last year when I went to this punk rock girl and told her to give me any kind of short haircut she wanted.

So, anyway, a couple of weeks ago I got what was supposed to be this haircut:


Which is adorable. And in theory, it's a very similar haircut. She actually listened when I told her my hair is deceptively thick and she razored the hell out of it. But I don't know if it's that my hair just won't do this or she cut it a little too short or I'm just not cute enough for this cut, because it's not working out. I will have it looking acceptable in the morning before I leave the house, then I'll run to the bathroom after a couple of hours of class and, oh, look, there's Pat Nixon.


Which is horrifying and also defies understanding, because Pat looks like she had some seriously high-maintenance hair. How is it that a couple of hours spent on something other than tending to my hairstyle leaves me with a Republican Helmet Coif?

I'm hoping that a couple of weeks of growth will solve this problem. Thank all that is holy, it's already outgrown the default it had for the first week or so, where I looked like I was just about to go grab myself a Bartles & Jaymes and order my 6-year-old to the Seven-'Leven to pick up a couple packs of Kools. At least it makes a cute ponytail.

Rebel Girl

Last night Kevin and I watched Don't Need You: The Herstory of Riot Grrrl. It was a little thin and it was obvious that it was someone's college project, but it was interesting nonetheless. Ian MacKaye of Fugazi/Minor Threat/general-pain-in-the-ass fame earned my everlasting disgust by moronically saying, "I don't really consider myself a feminist; that's probably due to a lack of reading about the subject." Dude, you get up on your high fucking horse about every social issue that exists, but you can't be bothered to learn about one of the most important social movements of the last century? Screw you.

Watching it got me thinking about what I was doing during the whole early-mid-nineties riot grrl/punk revival thing that was going on. Looking back, I can't believe I didn't embrace it with wild abandon. I was a feminist before I was brave enough to call myself one, I had definite punk rock sensibilities, I read Sassy, for christ's sake. But I didn't know where to start and I was always, always too intimidated to join in; the people were so much cooler than me. I've never really gotten over that. I still feel like it's the cool kids table and I'm waaay too dorky to try and set my tray down.

Kathleen Hanna's interview was so great, because she was so normal and adorable and talked about how scared she got when things got out of control at Bikini Kill shows. And so much of what she said just resonated, like when she was saying she could never stand to hear her own voice and still can barely listen to her albums, and how that seems to be such a common thing for girls. And, yeah, why is that? Why do we have that problem? Let's collectively knock it off, shall we?

I wish it hadn't taken me until my mid-twenties to grow enough of a pair to start exploring this stuff. I wish I had spent more time making art and writing and DOING something instead of watching lame TV. I hope I'm able to get over the idea that I'm too old now and start fitting this stuff in a little more than I have been.