We don't need no stinkin' air conditioner

Why yes it has been five weeks since I wrote last. I'm not happy with the quality of the stuff I've been writing lately, so I just kind of abandoned it for a while. Because everyone knows the best way to get better at something is not to do it, and then you will magically improve.

Summer is finally here; it's in the 80s and sunny today. No small feat when you realize it was in the 40s two weeks ago. We don't have normal seasons like the rest of the country. We have a short, pleasant fall, a freakishly long sunless winter, and a drawn-out spring. Then we get a couple of months of summer, and everyone loses their fucking minds. It's so gorgeous here in the summer, which is the whole reason most of us live here, and there's like this crazy energy, everyone trying to cram in as much as they possibly can before it starts getting cold again.

My internship is great, I wish I could just stay there. I'm learning a ton about the tribal culture and hoping to pick up a few more Ojibwe words before the summer ends, and meeting some really cool people. Plus I get to do so much community nurse networking and research, which is such a benefit, career-wise.

I'm thinking again about becoming a midwife. I had kind of shoved the idea aside after I realized no way in hell would I want a job that keeps me on call 24-7. But if there were a possibility of some kind of practice with other nurse midwives, maybe even a birth center, well, damn, why not? It becomes a lot more appealing when that enters the equation, and it's definitely not out of the question. I have a couple of years to decide, but I'm starting to get kind of excited about the idea.

Finally, Kevin and I had our third anniversary a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't seem like three years. I actually get a little spooked when I think about how fast time is going by. Still, three years ain't bad. And all of that stuff about marriage being hard work is bullshit. It's only hard work if you find it difficult to put a little effort into appreciating your spouse, communicating openly, showing love and affection, and maintaining a baseline of consideration for each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sometimes it requires more, but essentially, that's it and you're good. So suck it, Dr. Phil.


P.S. I chopped all my hair off. I'm officially resigning myself to getting only basic haircuts here and finishing them myself. My too-long "pixie" cut became distinctly helmet-y in less than three weeks, so I took a pair of nail scissors to it and am much happier now.

Is laziness a symptom of sunstroke?

I should really be studying for my last exam right now, but dammit, I spent the morning eating cinnamon rolls and drinking coffee with three of my fellow students out on our brand new deck under the pretense of going over our group project, and nothing will kill your motivation to memorize vaccination schedules and childhood disease like the combination of sunshine, caffeine and 4000 grams of sugar. You'd think it would be the opposite, right? It's not.

It's hard to believe the first year of school is over. I'm halfway done! I'm pretty much completely dreading this fall, as third semester seems to be the most hellacious, according to everyone who's been through it. I do love being in school, but that's not to say that there's not a ton of bullshit that comes along with it, and it often makes me pissy. I'm happy to have my internship this summer and I'm hoping that I'll love it so much that it will keep me motivated through the next year. That might be a tall order.

On an entirely different note, I'm debating chopping my hair off again. I want to go back to the pixie cut I had my last summer in Boston. It was freaking adorable. I had one picture of myself during that time; it was on my old laptop and it failed to occur to this idiot to save it to my flash drive when I wiped my hard drive clean. So you'll just have to take my word for it.

Dog and Pony Show

So, like just about everyone else with a blog and two sentences to string together, I want to write about Susan Boyle. Susan Boyle, she of the unkempt eyebrows and stunning vocal talent, who has been all over the news this week for, apparently, shocking the hell out of everyone with the news that physically "unattractive" people aren't totally worthless.

There are a number of approaches to take with this story. This is a really great piece about how satisfying it is to watch all of those rude, smug, eyerolling motherfuckers have those smirks wiped right off their faces as soon as she opens her mouth. And there is a lot of truth to that, and she's right, there's something very inspirational about watching it happen.

But here's what's chapping my ass about this story: the fact that international news has been made by the idea that this woman is an "unlikely talent" because she isn't pretty and she's older and she's kind of awkward. In some of the news coverage, she's presented as something akin to a dog that can do trigonometry, like some kind of astonishing conundrum. Which is so unbelievably offensive and such a depressing statement on what we as a society value and how we make snap judgments on the worth of another human being.

The fact that all of those people were scoffing at Susan Boyle, ready to dismiss her without hearing one single note of her singing is fucking gross. And not one of those judges, who were rolling their eyes and reacting in exactly the same way as the teenage mean girls in the audience before she started singing, expressed any shame at their shallow judgment of her; their comments after the song all equate to, "Wow, good for you for having something so amazing to offer, who'd have guessed."

I guess success is the best revenge and it's not like anyone would actually expect any of those shallow tools to engage in anything approximating serious soul-searching, but it would be nice to see some kind of reflection on why this story has become international news. It says so much more about our values than it does about Susan Boyle. But in any case, I hope she becomes incredibly rich and famous and stays true to herself, and only waxes her eyebrows if it's what she really wants to do.

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.

procrastiwhining

I should really be working on a care plan right now. It's not due til the 9th, but it would be really nice to get it in early. But spending the morning hanging out in the local coffee shop plus a snowstorm, which always makes me feel really lazy, has left me disinclined to do much more than poke around on the Internet, where apparently everyone is pregnant or has a gorgeous new baby.

So, okay. Objectively, it is really good to not have children while we're in school. It makes things so much easier, and I know this. Believe me, I know this. But. It's getting really really hard to see all of these people I know who are pregnant and having kids left and right. I'm super happy for all of them, I really am. I've put a lot of effort into not turning into someone who resents those who get pregnant at the drop of a condom or already have the family they want. I'm thrilled that people I care about are happy.

I don't idealize parenthood, by any means. I know it often sucks and is beyond hard. I've seen the screeching tantrums in the grocery store. That's not the point. It's deeper than that and impossible to explain to someone who doesn't already know what it's like. I don't really expect anyone to get it otherwise; I certainly wouldn't have. I try to let the stupid comments roll off my back, unless they're just really blindingly ignorant.

Frankly, sometimes I'm glad we don't have anyone to take care of, like when I was sick last week. Sometimes I don't think about it at all. But a lot of the time, it just feels so glaringly obvious that something's missing.