Calla's Seventy-Seventh Post

What is one to do with a $481.00 non-refundable ticket that one doesn't wish to use? I suppose it could be transferred to another time and place, costing $180.00 in the process. I could take a $301.00 trip on the $481.00 ticket and it could all be fine and dandy.

And I would consider it too if it weren't for Callista. I don't want to miss her.

There is a logic somewhere in this madness; and I'm the one who has it, despite accusations that I am unreasonable and wrong.

And it may be unreasonable from one perspective. We are all, after all, subject to our positionality. And if it is unreasonable, that does not make it wrong. You can continue to 'reasonably' destroy the planet while I remain stubbornly unreasonable until I contribute to a definitive difference in the world around me. Those who aspire only to what is reasonable seldom enact positive social change.

Gandhi was unreasonable.

I am sick of being held hostage by the dominant social norm. Hegemony, I will not be your submissive.

Though I will be labeled "selfish," "bitchy," "childish," "immature," and I'm sure the list goes on, how am I more of these than those on the other side? I am not. I appear so because the common discourse is not on my side.

Baltimore public schools: Meatless Mondays. Lou Dobbs says it’s a political storm in the making. Glenn Beck says its indoctrination. Why are the "Got Milk?" posters decorating our school cafeterias not accused of the same?

Oh right, dominant social discourses . . . Meat is not murder. Milk is not theft. And these products will not cause diabetes, cancer, obesity, high blood pressure, colon problems, global warming, water shortages, world hunger, deforestation, pollution, community destruction, avian flu, swine flue, mad cow disease, E. Coli, workers' rights violations, exploitation, or death. (by the way: they already do.)

I do not want to fly across the country. Sitting on a plane for over 5 hours is not a pleasant experience. I do not want to be called "psycho" or "a brat." (I will be.) I do not want to spend my days off of work and school away from my home and my things and my cats. I do not want to have a screaming and crying match with the people I love. (I will.) I do not want this headache, these stomach cramps, these shaky hands or nervous thoughts that have been following me since Sunday night. I do not want to fly across the country.

And if I don't? Others will have leverage to refuse to do the same come January. And if I do and we resort to fighting? I will be the one at fault by hegemony's law.

Some background information: Thanksgiving is on my birthday. I prefer not to be around symbols of the fallen world on any given day. But I assumed birthdays had leveraging power. (BTW, I was wrong. People are more sentimental about Thanksgiving than Birthdays. You may need that information in the future.) I asked if we could not have a turkey, but could have other items made with animal products. This was shot down. I asked if we could have a turkey and no other items contributing to the problems outlined in a ramble above. This was also shot down, despite my offer to do the cooking. Some people were worried some other people wouldn't come unless they could indulge all their destructive sentiments. And if I am threatening not to come, that is crazy. That is unreasonable. That is unfair.

And that is your background information. This is the last time I will be using my Birthday to ask for a gift.

I will also be a brat when I refuse their birthday cake or gifts that someone may have bothered to get me. (I will accept something from Callista. Something from Chris. Everyone else needs to stop kidding themselves . . . If they ever were.)

If this wretched holiday of gluttony and greed had not fallen on the marginally less wretched (though much more vain) holiday of my birth, I never would have thought to ask for such an apparently unreasonable gift.

I think my family is harder than most. I say this not only because I've had my fair share of stepmoms, so the rules are always changing, but also because I know other people's families. I know a couple that is getting married this weekend, and they are cooking an all vegan Thanksgiving for their families on Thanksgiving. (This is something I didn't even consider asking. I know people hold deadly sentiment too dear.) I know people who have gotten family members to go completely vegan for a week or a month in honor of birthdays. My husband's extended family has gone to vegetarian restaurants to celebrate birthdays that weren't even ours just to be respectful. People have suggested I offer to cook the meal if I want it to be vegan, as if this would solve the problem . . . Because to reasonable people, it would. To a normal family, having all the sides vegan would not be a big deal . . . especially if Thanksgiving fell on a vegan's birthday and that vegan offered to do all the cooking.

(This is what is unreasonable: I wanted to spend the day doing something I don't enjoy and have that be my sole birthday present.)

Gluttony, gluttony--the deadly sin that kills (see rambling list above if you would like to know how.)

I hate this situation. I don't want to even fly across the country. This would not make things better. People would still say, "Where's Calla?" and the response would still be, said in a snarky tone, "Oh, she refused to come because we didn't make the side dishes vegan." (For the record, I didn't ask you to make the side dishes vegan. I asked you to let ME make the side dishes vegan.) So, this would not make things better in terms of call and response . . . but at least I wouldn't have to see these people. No one would come by my sister's house before or after the meal, see me there, and lecture me about how stubborn and bitchy I am.

I am stubborn. I am not bitchy. I am quite the opposite of bitchy. I care too damn much. I care about animals, and people, and the environment, and this makes me unable to take part in the dominant social discourse. I won't sit down at your selfish table of gluttonous lies. "

"Thanksgiving." Can you imagine giving thanks for global warming? For an unsustainable use of land and water? For cancer? For diabetes? For theft? I can't. And I won't. And I won't be a part of this dinner. And I will bear the brunt of, "Stop acting crazy and just COME" because I have a $481.00 ticket and a 5 year old to visit.

These nerves and shakes and pains are making it hard to get through the days. And I don't want them anymore. And I don't want to fly across the country and watch others soak up sentiment.



Too upset to find a picture.

Calla's Forty-Eighth Post

I am procrastinating. I have to write this review of this academic article. And it is boring and stupid and about ska. So, I don't want to write it. But I am listening to No Doubt now (third wave ska and what not). And that makes me mad because of my loss of CDs. :( So what happened is as follows: I never really had a permanent home. My parents got divorced when I was 7. So I guess I had one before that. So, the judge gave them joint custody. This was like as joint as it could get, as in my dad had us Thursday, Friday and every other weekend, my mom had us Mon-Wed and every other weekend. That was the school year. During the summer, it was split right down the middle half and half. Though my dad claimed he was supposed to have us every weekend to make up for the discrepancy during the school year. . . But he didn't start claiming this until, I dunno, I was ten or twelve or something. . . So, I don't know if that's true or not, but regardless we didn't follow it. So my point is this. My dad moved like every other year. When he finally moved into a house he supposedly liked we had to rent another house for like ever anyway as he and one of my crazy ex-stepmoms put a million dollars into remodeling the other house. So anyway, I NEVER knew where my stuff was growing up. This was, to say the least, obnoxious. It is also the reason I never want to leave the East Village despite the expense and the whole gentrification thing that has been going on since the 1980s of which I am clearly a part. 'Cause here is where I finally felt I had a permanent home, ya know? To have only ONE home and live in it all the time and to have kitties and a boyfriend you get to see EVERYDAY and then to work in the same neighborhood and to like to go to the park to look at the puppies and wish you could have a dog as well as two cats. . . well, that is what having an actual home feels like. So, back to the CDs. I took all my favorite CDs to college with me my first year, right? And so what happened was I lived in school housing. This small apartment right on Union Square with 8 of us inside it. RIDICULOUS. Probably, you will hear more about the ridiculousness someday. The kitchen was like 10 square feet the four bedrooms were the size of walk in closets literally. . . SO, it sucked. So I also had to move out right away in May. And I stored some stuff with Tabby (where I live now! It was stupid cause I moved the stuff out of this apartment in September and right back in in January!) OK, so, some stuff I stored with Claudette. . . who I then stopped talking to. . . I hope she is enjoying my green blanket, green lamp with flowered lampshade, laundry basket etc. So the rest of my stuff I managed to lug back to Ohio in two overweight suitcases. Well, there were my CDs. And I had them at my dad's house (the one that had been redone.) And I meant to load them all onto my computer, but didn't get around to it. So, I left them there when I went back to New York because I was trying to bring back every single book I owned, and so there wasn't room for music. (Isn't that depressing, to choose between music and literature!?) OK, so I didn't go back to Ohio until 2 years later. That was this past summer for Cristina's wedding. The summer before, I was supposed to go for a weekend, but my plane got all delayed and then cancelled and Tabby's dad had to get me from the airport at like 3 a.m. OK. So, that one year later I didn't have a chance to get those CDs. By the time I got back to Ohio again, my dad had divorced crazy stepmom #2 and that stupidly expensive house was on the market. While, crazy ex-stepmom had changed the locks on the house, so I couldn't get the CDs. So, that same weekend my dad called and asked if I needed anything from the house because he would be there the next weekend. I told him I needed my CDs. But he never called me and never mentioned them again, so I think it is safe to say he either forgot or they were already gone. Well, I get sad quite often that music collection has vanished. But I still have Tragic Kingdom because Christin rebought it or something and I put it on my computer one time in Arizona. But where is the rest of No Doubt, Outkast, Jewel, TFK, Nickel Creek, etc? (Yes, I have elcectic taste.) I am sad.

Well, I don't have any kitty pictures right now because I have to load them from the camera onto the computer. And I didn't yet. Just deal with it. I'll add two sets to the next post to make up for it. (THE NEXT POST WILL PROBABLY BE ABOUT GALACTICA)

You're only sixteen
Try to cross the line
But your little wings are intertwined no whoa no
Yeah you're only sixteen
And you're such a tease
And there's nothing you do
That can really please no whoa no

love, Calla and her kitties