bites that do not hurt the aminals

Food places with more than one vegan option I have discovered in Greensboro so far:

• Jack’s Corner. Great vegan or vegetarian falafel wraps. They also have baba ganouj wraps, hummus platters, and vegan mac n’ cheese. It’s clean, fast, well-run, and plenty of options for everyone, carnivore and vegan alike. Also, near school.
• Boba House. A bit heavier, and offering those “faux-meat” options, like vegan drumsticks that taste really meaty and drumsticky, if you’re into that. On the pricier side, but a good choice if you’re really hungry. I went there last night and got a “shrimp” salad, with little pink shrimp made from tofu or some other veg. protein ingredients. One thing though is that most of the beer is almost $4.00. Not to sound skanky, but do you know how much Wild Irish Rose you could put down for that money?! I’d rather just get a decent six-pack or a bottle of wine for an extra $3 at the grocery store.
• There’s an Earth Fare with some good take-away soups.
• My apartment in College Hill. I make good stuff without dead animal parts or artery-cloggin’ goo in it and I nom it up.

There’s also a Vietnamese noodle place also on Battleground I hope to try soon!

Also– Fall ‘08: There will not be blood. There will be vegan brunches.

Also– I wish my job right now was to eat myself out of a room made of these donuts.

beyond XX/XY

The Riddle of Gender: Science, Activism, and Transgender Rights is a supremely interesting collection of essays. I picked it up at the UNCG library, whose HQ section does not disappoint. It’s been hard to put it down. The history of what we now refer to as transsexual identity has a very compelling one.

For instance, I learned in one of the essays that the reason sexual reassignment surgery was against the law for so long had to do with an English law from the 16th century. This law, adopted by the States and existing into the 20th century, was called a ‘mayhem’ statute. It prevented doctors from lawfully amputating anything from a man that might disallow him from becoming a soldier if drafted. The wicked irony there speaks for itself. Especially in the gorgeous form of ex-G.I. Christine Jorgensen, who had to have her SRS done in Denmark partly due to this law. The military is so trans-friendly, don’t ya know.

Anyway, y’all should read this. My one issue is that it could have included more transman writers, but overall it provides a comprehensive look at the strange constructions we call male and female.

deep dark nights

Elizabeth Shippen Green, ca. 1902.

Nighttime was my first love.  When I was old enough to be cognizant of time (around three or four years old), I began having trouble going to bed at the appropriate hour. Twenty years later, thinking about darkness, shooting stars, whitish blue moonshadows on fields and houses, owls, sitting in yellow light doing crafts with a glass of red wine, evening parties, sitting on porches watching a navy sky turn to lampblack– all these things appeal to me and excite me. Orange juice, sunrise walks, ‘early bird’ anything…no.

Given these feelings, I’ve always had difficulty going to sleep on earlier schedules– for work, school, whatever. I’ve been on sleeping meds a couple of times, and been to see a sleep doc. During college I managed to find a groove in which I feel like I functioned really well, and performed at my best academically and felt energetic. That was around senior year, when I was going to sleep around 2 a.m. and waking up around 9 a.m.

With my new job, I have to go to bed around 11:30. It’s the pits, and I’m hardly ever able to sleep. I tried this natural supplement, Melatonin, which I got from a natural foods store nearby. That helped me sleep alright, but in the mornings I felt detached and weird, like my head was floating, also kinda like destroying something. So I stopped with that.

I didn’t realize there’s a name for what I have, but I guess it’s this: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Through researching it a little bit, I learned that most times it’s totally untreatable, and people with lifetime DSPS typically just find jobs that allow them to stay up a little later. I guess it’s good I’m trying out the writing world.

ymca sheepishness

yesterday i copped out and joined the Y. i actually have to pass by a prayer board and chapel with a huge american flag in it before i can get in the pool! including uncg and nearby community pool (suitably named Grimsley), i just can’t beat the hours, size, number of lanes, and lack of decaying refuse at the bottom. i get the college price so it’s pretty cheap. it’s ok cause i know all those motivational posters basically translate to this, right?

zzzz. i’m so glad for a 3-day weekend coming up. i’m thankful for my assistanceship, but cubicle work is startin’ to get to me. lowercase typing with left hand cause I got some kind of weird carpal tunnel thing with the right hand and it feels like a claw.

MFA: on the bright side

So, I got into an MFA creative writing program. For a year and half before this I wrote and edited like an insane person, read books about programs, visited websites that told me how slim of a chance it was that I would get into any programs at all. I don’t know where all of these scare tactics came from, but there are a lot of them out there. That attitude of exclusivity is a major turn-off to me about the writing world.

So I’m in, right? Where are the streamers and dancing girls? Now I’m bombarded by messages that MFA programs won’t get me a job, even though from what I can tell it can be just as hard to get a spot in one of the good programs as to get into a decent medical school (or harder).

I don’t need a 400k/year job. Just a little charm. And just moving to a bigger place and trying something new has brought back quite a bit of it already.

Girls! Girls! Girls!

Taking West Wendover out towards I-40, I emerged from the tree-shaded residential roads around UNCG to an area thick with car dealerships, chain motels, and some kind of weird cabaret called Twilight Fuzzies or something. There was a picture of an airbrushed blond lady on the sign with gigantor yellow hair and a scary expression.

Turning off from that strip, I found the Best Buy, and browsed the laptop section. On my way out, I picked up ”Exile in Guyville,” Liz Phair’s album of 1993 that was recently re-released with a few B-sides. I’ve heard it in bits and pieces and always wanted to own a copy.

See-monkeys, do-monkeys
Story of my life
Send three bucks to a comic book
Get a house, car and wife
Send three bucks to a comic book
Get a house, car and wife

“Gunshy,” above, seemed especially still relevant, despite the fifteen year gap, when I was navigating the monstrous consumer-driven boxes of West Wendover. A lot of people focus on the novelty of a woman using lots of cuss words and writing a songs like “Fuck and Run,” but beyond that, I think these songs are challenging to notions of empowerment and gender today. That Phair can present as femme and use domineering, base language directed toward male interests (but not in the silicone dominatrix way) still shocks. That she can reveal vulnerability and not be a total jerk while doing this is also refreshing. Even the cashier at Best Buy pointed to one of the album tracks on the CD insert and said, ”Aren’t you surprised they didn’t ‘bleep this out?’”

(I’m eliding Phair’s next turn to Capitol Records, which was less subversive…but she’s back on an independent label again so that’s cool.)

Instead of a pop-ish trip to strip mall America, this husky, lo-fi album is better suited to a golden late afternoon sipping bourbon & water and giving it your undivided attention. Wish that was today, but I still have a few more hours to log in my cube until my weekend…

weather and other patterns

5 minutes ago on weather.com…preparing myself for another pair of soaked shoes.

This Saturday I’ll celebrate my three week anniversary of living in Greensboro! Already I’ve been pummeled by hail twice, caught twice and soaked by two thunderstorms, and seen two rainbows.  With no mountains to guard us, the weather here is more problematic and delightful than in the Shenandoah Valley. The wild, sometimes dramatic nimbus clouds giving way to intense heat and light– all of this suits my desire for excitement and variety well.