Telluride Bluegrass Festival

Anyone wanna go with me??

http://www.bluegrass.com/telluride/

Ani DiFranco is playing and it is sure to be an excellent time. I compel you come visit me and let's play in the mountains!!!

V-Day

It doesn't really work to be anti-Valentines day when everyone else in your life is quite pro. It is one of my mom's favorite Holidays so I feel obligated to get her something even though I personally despise the entire card/boxed candy industry it creates. Annoying. At least the bar I am going to tonight is doing an anti-Valentine's day event complete with champagne, chocolate fountain and bluegrass jam-I know you are all jealous!

In light of this Happy V-Day http://v10.vday.org/ and with the Vagilogues being in their tenth year I hope that we continue to eradicate violence against all people regardless of their vaginal status and that V-Day continues to symbolize this for some people!

Everything I Need...

I love this little ditty by Melissa Ferrick-It is so fitting
--
Everything I Need, Melissa Ferrick

well i got money in the bank
and i got a car to drive
and i got a working set of hands that my
guitar seems to like
and i got love that wont quit
and i got time to rest
and i got clear and able mind that sees my life going fine....
yeah cause everythign i need is right here in my hands, right here in my hand right here in my hands everything i need , is right here in my hands right here in my hands right here in my hands.
and i got floor to dance and i got phone to laugh in and i got tub to cry in yeah and i got bed to hide in
ohhhh but sometimes i only see whats wrong and sometimes im convinced my god has up and gone i'll never write a hit song, my love will leave me hanging on
yeah casue everyhting i need is right here in my hands, right here in my hand right here in my hands everything i need , is right here in my hands right here in my hands right here in my hands.
--

Shameless, Ani DiFranco

So today I traded in my Toyota Prius Hybrid for...duh duh duh...the gayest car in the world...the Subaru Outback Legacy. It is awesome and spacious, with heated seats, rear windshield wiper, and anti-skid protection. In light of this I have decided to dedicate the song shameless by ani difranco to myself. I love this song and it very much describes my mood currently. So here's to me and my shameless-ly gay car and my shameless-ly good mood.

ani difranco, shameless lyrics

i cannot name this
i cannot explain this
and i really don't want to
just call me shameless
i can't even slow this down
let alone stop this
and i keep looking around
but i cannot top this

if i had any sense
i guess i'd fear this
i guess i'd keep it down
so no one would hear this
i guess i'd shut my mouth
and rethink a minute
but i can't shut it now
'cuz there's something in it

we're in a room without a door
and i am sure without a doubt
they're gonna wanna know
how we got in here
and they're gonna wanna know
how we plan to get out
we better have a good explanation
for all the fun that we had
'cuz they are coming for us, baby
they are going to be mad
they are going to be mad at us

this is my skeleton
this is the skin it's in
that is, according to light
and gravity
i'll take off my disguise
the mask you met me in
'cuz i got something
for you to see
just gimme your skeleton
give me the skin it's in
yeah baby, this is you
according to me
i never avert my eyes
i never compromise
so nevermind
the poetry

we're in a room without a door...

i gotta cover my butt 'cuz i covet
another man's wife
i got to divide my emotions
between wrong and right
then i get to see how close i can get to it
without giving in
then i get to rub up against it
till i break the skin
rub up against it
till i break the skin

they're gonna be mad at us
they're gonna be mad at me and you
yeah, they're gonna be mad at us
and all the things we wanna do
they're gonna be mad at us
they're gonna be mad at me and you
they're gonna be mad at us
and all the things we want to do

just please don't name this
please don't explain this
just blame it all on me
say i was shameless
say i couldn't slow it down
let alone stop it
and say you just hung around
'cuz you couldn't top it
--
here's a link to a photo by the way
http://images.cars.com/main/DMI/113146/1888.jpg

loves it!!

This is for YOU

picture this...imagine you are me. It is a Friday afternoon, you have been working with screaming children all day. It is finally nap time and everyone (well almost everyone) is sleeping. The children are tucked in on their mats and in their cribs. Their blankets cover their little faces as they snore, an occasional cough, but mostly just a rhythmic breathing sound. You have just gotten the internet at said workplace. You decide to catch up on (not with mind you) some of your friends. You turn to their blog and begin to read. You are signed in on-line but none of your friends are talking to you-in fact it seems as if they are actually avoiding you. Your mother seems to be acting strangely the same. it is as if everyone is avoiding meeting your gaze, looking in your eyes, answering your chats. You start to go through the profiles of the people who write-you generally like and respect all of the people who post. You think they are interesting-with good things to say. Something randomly catches your eye and you click on it. Immediately you are infiltrated with images, words, texts that rack your brain. Confuse you. Hurt you deeply. Imagine that. Imagine your anger, your hurt, your frustration. Imagine it is you who has just been infiltrated-that in fact everyone has known something you have not including your own mother an no one has told you. Maybe they don't think it is their business to share, maybe they don't want to hurt you, or maybe it doesn't cross their mind, or maybe it is a variety of other things that I cannot even fathom right now.

For those of you "mutual friends" I do not blame you for passing along information-but I want you to think very long and hard about your own stake in my life and the lives of others. i want you to consider my place in having felt duped by EVERYONE. Would you not hurt? Would you not cry? Would you not question the very fiber supposedly holding your being together.Would you not write? That is unfortunately what I do. I accept responsibility for the fact that a specific previous post may have seemed slandarous and inconsiderate-but I also stand by what I wrote. Which is, that it was written in a heat of rage. Hands shaking, tears falling. This is my space-to write and process. Should I possibly not have published said post-perhaps-but I stick by the fact that those were my emotions and feelings and that time. I removed them later as I felt they revealed more my lack of self control and anger than anything else. I ask that you think of multiple factors when deciding who to blame, who to degrade, and who's information to pass along and why. In turn I promise I will be more ethical in my decisions of what to post-when and why. I realize that this is a public space and in it I am a public figure. I also think this is one space that directly speaks to both the personal and the political and as a scholar and human everything is up for interpretation and that includes my blog, your website, my body, and my heart.

After processing that day I later wrote this post and I am posting it here as a clarification. You may think whatever you may, you may be flabbergasted that I am being so honest and direct in this post-you may not care one way or the other-you may be hurt that I am indeed speaking directly to you, but I am displaying it here as my attempt to show the difference in tone and emotion that went through my body that day and if nothing else I continue to use this space to explore pedagogical moments and mostly what not to do in one's personally public space. I use it to be reflexive and to hold myself accountable for my actions.

--
not like anyone really reads it anyway...

I should iterate that the last post was in response to some illicit tactlessness I just discovered. but I choose not to linger and dwell on things that don't matter and instead write and perform things that do. I am also not going to erase the post because that would erase the validity of the feelings that created it and those feeling are more than justified and valid.

I start with my initial point-it is easy to move on in long distance relationships (at least for me and the select few I have spoken too about it) because the relationship is often warped into something illogical and insane-it has to in order to survive. Instead of spending time with the person of desire you spend time on some mediated device (phone, internet, etc) having conversations that tend to not matter because in the end you both have to continue living your completely separately contstructed lives anyway. When you end those relationships its kind of like "I have had this life the whole time I- have been doing it (living said life)"-you just have more free time to say blog, or write, or whatever because you don't have to invest the time you once did maintaining a warped version of reality through a telephone." It's like oh I don't have spend countless hours with something held up to my ear or my fingers tapping away on keys. It is a relief when that is over, it is a burden rescinded, it is a weight lifted off my shoulders. Not the relationship itself-but the medium through which it was performed.

So my relationship existed it just sucked-I shouldn't have said it didn't exist that totally demeans it which I don't want to do, but I do want to be honest about it and about myself-reflexively. Not that the actual "it" sucked, I mean it kind of sucked, but the way it was maintained and negotiated on a daily basis without daily being in each other's physically embodied lives-that sucked. As someone discovering performance and embodying others and self as other it just makes little sense to me to have a relationship with a phone-a morphed version of the physicality of the body. Where is the interaction, the dialogue, the co-presence of bodies co-mingling in a space, where is the beauty in that. Oh right there isn't a whole lot. Yes this is bitter, yes I am sure this is not everyone's experience, all I know is that it is mine. and feel free to tell me I am way off, that I am wrong, that I am evil. I believe my experience is up for all the criticism it can handle-but be careful with the fact that I do have a heart and it does beat and get sad and hurt sometimes.

When the conversation came up last night (specifically that it is real easy to move on when the relationship was long distance-something somebody else brought up-) I was sitting with two lovely friends listening to some tunes and having some beverages. It did cause me to think reflexively about my own break-up space and not that it is the first time-but it put it into an interesting context for me. A context that is ever so true and present in my life.

I often think to myself-Did I move on too soon. Yes probably-do you hear that world? Was my break-up clean and lovely-no. Are they ever? Am I responsible-of course? Do I realize that I am stepping out on a limb being with someone else-even in a "dating" relationship-yes? Do I see the danger to myself and others that I have the potential of creating-yes I see that too. Do I think it is ok to be dangerous, and spontaneous, and to do what I want to do because it feels right and makes me happy? Yes I think that as a physically embodied space right now it is a really really good place to be. Negotiating a relationship on a daily basis is something new to me and something I haven't experienced for almost two years, so does it feel completely different-yes it really does. So for all you naysayers and skeptics I offer this, when a relationship has been morphed (my own doing nonetheless) into something way beyond whatever I thought it could be it is somewhat of a relief to have it be over. From what I have seen and witnessed this seems to ring true for many people involved in long distance relationships.

I do not want to demean or degrade the relationship. But I want to be honest about it and my feelings about it, which I was not in my earlier post. it was unfair and although I am pretty sure no one reads it was posted in hurt and immense anger and pain and those things happen to all of us. Allow me my human-ness and I will allow you yours. we all make mistakes.
--

Dear Elphaba

Dear Elphie,

My little green bubble. We have had many good times together u and i. We have traveled to two different MWMF together, we have driven to Denver many a time, and up and down the mountain canyon. We have seen from Colorado to Washington DC and many stops along the way. We have seen friends, lovers, acquaintances, and people I honestly don't like very much between your walls. We have been through oil changes, and wiper exchanges and that popped tire that one time. There has been the crack in the windshield that has grown so ever bigger. You have made me friends and probably enemies with your outrageously gay stickers for peace, justice, and equality. Sadly I feel our time coming to an end-dwindling and idling by. You see we were once so happy together but now in the days ahead of driving up and down a mountain you are no longer the kind of bubble i need. you see elphie i need reliability, the kind that can only come with four wheel drive, I need a back window wiper for the icy snow days ahead. I need anti- skid protection, and if possible heated seats. I love you elphie my dear bubble with 50 mpg gas mileage and 6 disc cd changer. I love so many things about you, but sadly you are no longer what I need. I wish I could keep you but alas my budget and my heart cannot stand the strain of two relationships fighting for my heart and attention. So I have to say goodbye Elphie you will be missed, you are my baby, my freedom, my pleasure and my love. But it is on to new and different things something like a Subaru Outback wagon perhaps-a girl can dream you know.

Take care Elphie and stay calm like you always do,
Kathryn

for my sanity...

i sometimes question living in the mountains on days like today. I am snowed in up here...again. Not going to be able to make it to school-I am currently in the process of finding a more weather friendly vehicle-like a Subaru Outback or another four wheel drive car so that I can make it down to school. I love my life in the mountains, i don't want it to change. Can't afford to change it currently-it takes a lot of capital (loans etc) to start up somewhere new, alone, especially in a city. And I know some people have the financial meas to achieve this but I just don't. And I love my life. I love that I woke up this morning to a herd of elk outside my window-I had no idea I was in for hazardous weather conditions. It just stinks-I love school and I love the mountains. I feel it is not too much to ask to have both at the same time. I take this time to write and read while the snow falls lightly but ever s steadily outside...I know I can give up and call it quite I just don't know what good this really does anyone. I don't like missing school, I know my professors do not particularly like to have a student who misses class especially in graduate school where the climate is mediated by the discussion and vice versa. But I am a good student, passionate about my work, and learning to do that work through the University of Denver and the HCOM department. It is better than I could have expected. Dr. Calafell-wow! She is so smart and yet understated at the same time, I love that she questions and admits she has to read things bunches of times before getting them. That's real. And the whole department-their commitment to the now and doing things that really matter here and now-that's the kind of life I really love and admire. So with that I will "get back to work" and enjoy the fact that my here and now happens to be snowed in on a mountain.