meeting people is easy

It would be presumptuous to say that I was a popular person at home. I certainly knew many people, though. If I wanted to do something, there would almost always be someone around. Also, I don't know how to talk about Having Friends without feeling like I'm six years old, but here we go.

If I were to move almost anywhere within the continental US, I am fairly certain that I would know someone (or know a friend-of-a-friend) who lived there too. And if I didn't, the time zone isn't different enough that I wouldn't be able to keep in touch with everyone. It's not like moving a seven-hour plane ride away! I don't like to keep harping on this point, but going from knowing a ton of people on one continent and then moving to a new continent where you don't know a soul is, quite frankly, a terrifying prospect. You have to go out and meet people, and you have to make friends all over again. And it's stressful! You have to remember to call them or text them and invite them to do things and try not to feel like you're bothering them. I spent a lot of time doing things that interested me, like going to art galleries and gigs and such, hoping that I would meet people who also liked these things. Unfortunately some of the things I'm into are not the most accessible things to invite someone to - "hey, do you want to come with me to a minimalist composer's concert?"

The international society has a weekly pub night, where we all converge on a pub and socialize, so of course I go to that - I now have a pretty solid group of international-student-friends who go every week (mostly Germans, they're a lot of fun) and I think I am friends with most of the people in my office (although I feel like I probably come off as a tool most of the time, to be honest; there's a handful of MRes students though, and we all hang out together as The Newbies). Everyone in the office is really nice and we all get along really well - it's a good group of people.

And then a really strange small-world twist of fate, I ran into a girl whom i had had been introduced to briefly once at a gig a few weeks ago - it turns out she is my advisor's wife's student over at Glasgow university, studying sociolinguistics. She runs something called Lock Up Your Daughters, which is a magazine & monthly club night - I met her girlfriend and bunch of her friends and they've been great. (Though I am definitely comfortable with my international friends and my office friends, I did need some gay friends. Sometimes international groups of people are not the best places to be out, loud & proud, you know? I live near a whole bunch of gay clubs but would never go to them alone, and I'd feel weird asking a straight person to come with me.) But yeah - I've been hanging out with the LUYD crew and getting involved in that, which has been fun; they're exactly the sort of liberalminded queermos I was looking for when I first arrived.

So there's that! YOU GUYS I HAVE FRIENDS.

(On a mostly unrelated sidenote, this is how I am apparently going to a party on Tuesday for the BBC tv show Lip Service, which is like The L Word but set in Glasgow. It's pretty terrible- seriously, check it out. LUYD has been asked to be there to do a DJ set, as they are a "staple of Glasgow's lesbian scene"... I'm starting to get involved with promotional stuff like flyering, so I'm apparently going with them. You guys, these are my friends!)

Get off the Internet! I'll meet you in the street (ii)

So I bet you are all waiting with bated breath to find out if I was severely accosted, etc this weekend. SPOILER ALERT: I was not. TAKE THAT 1997! (if you are confused, go back one post.)

Both of the girls I met were wonderful people and we're arranging a second meet up. Like, it's scary at first (how are we going to recognize each other IF WE HAVE NEVER SEEN EACH OTHER? Should we exchange phone numbers? You already have my real name. WHAT IF YOU KIDNAP & RAPE ME) but basically, meeting people from the internet is inherently awkward. How can it not be? You know their personality and things about them, and you obviously have things in common, but a lot of it was really first-date-like. So what do you do? How long have you been in Glasgow for? TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF. Except you don't need to do all the awkward subtleties of trying to impress the other party because you effectively already know each other. It's really strange, but cool to put a face to the name.

But you know what, it was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to seeing them again. And, If anything, I keep getting better and better at introducing myself to people over the span of ~1hr. (Frequently I meet with people for about an hour or so via Grad School Networking - tomorrow I am meeting a girl from Glasgow Uni's Gaelic & Celtic languages department for coffee; we're doing some similar research.) Can I put this under "communicates effectively" on my resume?

Get off the Internet! I'll meet you in the street

Do you guys remember how, way back in 1998, it was determined that if you used your real name on the internet or you gave out your email address to strangers, someone would TRACK YOU DOWN AND RAPE YOU?

Only 12 years later I am using my real name on the internet with much consistency - between my column (now mostly defunct), my twitter account and my email address (yes that is almost my full legal name!)

This weekend I am meeting people from the internet! In real life! I need to back up a little bit.

I read a website called Autostraddle, which you should check out if you like a lot of the same things I do. Anyway, they ran an article about meeting other lgbtq girls, which rapidly became a Meet Other Autostraddle Readers sort of situation. (I followed their advice and saw JD Samson of Le Tigre fame play a show last night with her new band MEN, and met some gays there. So far so good! Also can we pause to discuss how I was sharing airspace with JD Samson.


...


continuing on, now.)

This was great and actually kind of beautifully timed. I've been here long enough that I'm ready to start feeling comfortable Being A Gay Here, but I have to find them first. (My American gaydar keeps getting thrown off by straight men who are clearly rocking some gender ambiguous alternative lifestyle haircuts, sunglasses, and tight pants.) Even though this is obviously a pretty queer city, I'm not quite ready to go myself to a gay bar. I live near a whole bunch of them, but they're kind of intimidating and mostly full of gay men. I'm brave but not that brave!

But I am e-brave, and it would be awesome to have some gay friends who clearly are intelligent/interesting. And besides, people meet on the internet all the time, through online dating sites, Craigslist, "tweet ups" and other such things. So I added my email address, saying that I had just moved here and don't know any gays ... and got a few emails from some other Autostraddle readers in Scotland - a few in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh, all of whom were very friendly people!

And so today I am meeting one person for coffee and another one on Sunday for brunch/coffee. 2010 YOU GUYS. The Internet is truly a magical place - between email, facebook, skype, twitter, blogs etc etc etc it is bringing us all closer together.

but if you never hear back from me again i was probably violently kidnapped & raped via 1997. So we still run that risk, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

Greetings loved ones, let's take a journey!

I have spent a lot of time this summer thinking about gender performativity. Gender roles are fairly simply defined by culture, but performativity is a little more specific: it requires the individual to embody society's prescribed gender roles for them. At job interviews I've been observing gender and hiring practices; when going shopping, I've been carefully noting what is marketed to men and women separately. I haven't reached any big conclusions yet, and I don't know if I ever will, but it's certainly been fun.

In the midst of all that, I happened upon a parody of the song California Gurls. I hate this song, mostly because Katy Perry needs to hire better lyricists, and because "gurls" disgusts me...but i digress. I can't stop watching this, because it presents so many opportunities to think about gender and media. By putting men in the position of scantily-clad women, they are hyper-sexualized and objectified in ways that men usually aren't. Imagine a woman dancing like this - we wouldn't think twice about it. I appreciate that "Katy Perry" is the only woman in the video - but she's not inherently voyeuristic towards these men. Crotch shots suddenly are no different than the male gaze-focused tits & ass of film-based media (TV, movies, video games, photography, etc). Girls licking popsicles - hot, right? Guys licking popsicles? GAY. But - that's the point. And I love it.

at the end of days

I haven't been doing much as of late. It's nice, actually; now that (nearly) everything is done, I can take a weeklong vacation from doing things. I am mostly spending this time attending assorted Recognitions. Next week I am attending a Senior Celebration for my minor and a reception for people who did undergraduate research. I was also invited to an Affirmative Action reception before graduation to get a stole from the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. Please note that my actual majors - my actual academic concentrations - are not doing anything.

I essentially was awarded for being gay the other day through OMSA's graduation reception- really though. I understand what the motivation behind this was, and I appreciate it, but in reality I was awarded for being gay. I don't do anything, so this is overwhelmingly unnecessary. (Really. Mostly I just sit around and write papers.)

But, at the same time I can't resist anything free... which might make me an immoral person, but to be honest we are inching dangerously close to All-Chicken-Meals at the dining hall, and that is not cool, UNH dining. And many of these receptions are catered.

I can't stop, that's why I'm hot

One of the side effects of thesis-writing is a sheer and utter disregard for things happening outside your little thesis cave... which is how i almost forgot about the commencement fair yesterday.

Incidentally, I had also forgotten that I'm graduating in a relatively short period of time. (Another side-effect of thesising is that you get so engrossed in your work you don't have time to worry about anything other than your thesis.) This is very convenient in that you don't have time to freak out about graduation or allow senoritis to kick in.

Though I am very sad I did not personally take this picture, I did stand next to this woman while waiting in line to get my cap and gown at the commencement fair. The Alumni Association really wanted us to go on a "Last Hurrah Lobster Bake". And by "wanted us to go" I really mean they had found middle-aged ladies to wear lobster hats and run around screaming excitedly about eating lobsters with your BEST FRIENDS FOREVER for the last time. Also it was $10. Obviously I am not attending.

And, despite my insistence that everyone should stop inviting me to everything ever, I consistently find myself alternating between linguisticking and Social Identity Awarenessing. I've decided I'm not attending anything unless I personally gain something from it. This vague "something" can be personal edification or food, saving me a food-journey. It turns out many social justice-oriented events also feature food, and my ideal event/linguisticking break involves both personal edification AND food, so if you are hoping to get me somewhere anytime soon, you should probably look into combining the two.

Which is how I found myself at the LGBTQ pancake breakfast this morning.. Despite my sheer dislike for Gay (adj.) + {Noun or Verb} to make a noun or verb phrase (Gay Marriage, Gay Lunch, Gay Parking My Car -- credit to Liz Feldman), I definitely attended Gay Breakfast today rather than sleeping. Free food > sleeping, and by waking up early/napping (far more realistically, this is what I've been doing) I have more time to work. Right?

For those of us keeping track at home, I have written eleven pages of my thesis from Saturday into Tuesday. This morning I've been editing my thesis as a whole, in preparation for Judgement Day With Shelly tomorrow, and I'm sort of amazed at what I've produced. In approximately three weeks I have not only restarted my thesis from word one, page one but synthesized four different theories into a working understanding of linguistic productivity, wrote a total of 17 pages out of my expected ~20 pages (one word and a period on page 17 totally counts) and have been loving every second of it. Despite my sometimes-vocal claims that this is exhausting and I can't wait for it to be over, I really do love this. Either I am delusional - probably from too much coffee, not enough sleep, or some combination of the two - or I have a very successful academic career ahead of me.

sticking it to the man

You have probably figured out by now, dear reader, that i like social justice; I'm very passionate about it. I have probably gone on a few too many Angry Feminist Rants already on here. But, if you don't want to hear about it, that's fine ... have fun being ignorant.

So you can imagine my surprise when the US Census Bureau announced that for the 2010 Census, they were not counting LGBT(Q)* identities. This is supposed to be a portrait of Identities of People who Live in the United States. And so, as their ads say, we can't figure out how many classrooms the United States needs unless we know how many schoolchildren are there. But, we also can't see how many people are affected by not recognizing LGBT(Q) identities in socio-political discourse. (Yeah, I said socio-political discourse on my blog.)

Which brings me to the Queer The Census movement. The Queer The Census movement - a product of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force - is mass-producing free stickers for everyone who wants one to identify themselves to the Census Bureau to show them a population of people who are not-straight, and want their identity to count.** (Conveniently, almost a full month into the Census, the Census bureau announced if you were an LGBTQ in a long-term, committed partnership and wanted to list yourself as "married" rather than "single", it is okay to list your partner as your husband or wife. Way to devalidate any long-term same-sex partnerships for anyone who submitted their census form in the first month.)

If you have your census form sitting in front of you and you don't have a sticker, you can download a PDF from their website and use packing tape to put it on your form. You have the option of checking off lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or a straight ally - an identity that almost everyone can categorize themselves under, even if it's a little limiting or broad. Below are pictures of me Queering the Census. Please do this - it's really important.






* I'm notating (Q) as such because Queer and Questioning are sometimes a little too broad in categorization. This is not a bad thing, but if we can get everyone to identify predominantly on an identity which is easily quantifiable by the whole country? That would be so wonderful.

** In a similar act of ignorance, Hispanic/Latino/Latina identities are equally as ignored in the category of "Race".

I unabashedly love Lady Gaga.

She's great. She's crazy - mixing Bowie and Madonna and pure pop sensibility into the catchiest, most ridiculous cultural sensation in a very long time (I would argue my lifetime, at least.) She's a smart lady. She knows precisely what she is doing. AND she can sing.

To the best of my knowledge, I have yet to meet a single person who does not respect her, at the very least for her conceptualization of fame. (Are you that person? Let's talk.)

I feel like we all got hooked on Bad Romance. I mean, Just Dance? Okay. I remember first hearing it and kind of brushing it off: it was catchy, but whatever. Poker Face? Yeah, alright. It's clever. and then -- BAD ROMANCE. Anyone with fully functional eardrums in the past few months knows this song.

So needless to say, I was more than a bit disappointed when she fell off everyone's radar for a while. The Paparazzi video was cool - Gaga rocks disabledness! - but all things considered it was kind of normal (at least for her). There was a sheer shortage of asymmetrical glittery things and certainly no comically oversized hats. I was getting worried. Nothing strange had happened in a while!

But then the Telephone video happened. And all was right with the world yet again.



Things to notice:
- "I told you she didn't have a dick!"
- Gaga's symbolic commentaries on the prison system and the hypersexualization of women (by other women too!)
- CIGARETTE GLASSES! Diet Coke Curlers! WHAT
- Is that pre-(f/F)ame Gaga in the sunglasses?!
- new crazy arm flailings!
- Beyonce! With Bangs! / Gaga & Beyonce do Tarantino
>> (see also: references to Jackie Brown and the Paparazzi video)
- Telephone Hat
- Madonna reference! -- hair, choreography...

(EDIT 3/16, Upon Further Deconstruction)
erin: i feel like nothing can be more gay than this video
heather: sleeping with women is more gay than that video.
erin: i don't know about that!


WELCOME BACK LADY GAGA
i have missed you

The weekend of many concerts parades on

Tonight, along with every lesbian in the tri-state area, I'm seeing Tegan & Sara in Boston. Oh God.

caught in a bad romance!

I recieve approximately eight emails a day. For the past two weeks, approximately a third of these have been from various departments on campus trying to get me to register for an event.

I do things WITH the Women's & Queer Studies department but not am not actively IN it; as a Race/Culture/Power minor I am actually part of the "UNH Center For The Humanities". (Perhaps you should consider consolidating!) Though I take a lot of classes with the Women's Studies department, not-so-secretly wish I could triple-major in Women's Studies, and know a lot of the people involved with Women's studies, I AM NOT IN YOUR DEPARTMENT. Nice try.

I bring this up because today is the last day to apply for the MLK Leadership Summit, which is essentially a weekend of Social Justice, Activism and Our Campus. Because I just can't get enough when it comes to applications, I was planning to apply anyway.

I got an e-mail from the Women's Studies department recently which was titled "Looking for GLBTQAI+ students to attend the MLK student leadership summit" and reads "NO queer-identified students had applied to attend the summit. It would be a shame to not have GLBTQAI+ voices in this summit related to justice for all groups on campus, so please consider going!". Presumably everyone who was on this email, all 11 of us instead of the usual large-scale departmental email, is LGBTQ+/-/Square Root of 7, Divided by 3, etc identified.

Okay... I know that because I'm gay I am qualified to attend. But really? Do you have to single us out because of our identity and then demand that we apply because of this? I've been talking to a bunch of people about how LGBTQ issues are less of an issue on this campus than it has been in the past. Even if they are still relevant issues, it's not on the forefront of everyone's agenda.

Maybe I don't see the point here, but I'm kind of discouraged by the fact an entire department seemingly devoted to equal treatment as a human being - rather than a figure of something arbitrarily based on any number of other factors - diminished me to my sexuality in hopes of getting me to participate in something. And maybe I'm just grumpy and bitter about having to read the same email, worded a little bit differently each time for two weeks in a row. But I like to think I'm more interesting and doing more than just being A Gay Student On This Campus.