a further intro to the intro

I'm at home this weekend(this intro is very patricia williams by the way), eating pringles and perfecting my slob persona. i can't bring myself to study, so i've taken instead to surfing music channels and checking my hotmail once every half hour for updates. this would be an effective use of time if it weren't for the fact that only two people have my hotmail address and both are away from their computers this weekend.

i did begin a prayer for owen meany yesterday on my train and bus journey home so i'm not completely absolved from mind usage this weekend. the volumes of coke i am drinking might change that though. the christian references throughout the book are causing two distinct reactions. one is a guilty sensation beginning in the stomach and working its way up to the conscience, stemming from the reminder of how little scripture I've read in my short lifetime. i am still very reluctant to give up the catholic 'tag' despite the fact the pews in my 'local' have not been graced/dammed with my presence in a very long time, and i don't know where my bible is. nor do i care, unless it is 2 am and my mind is racing with the thought of actually having to go to sleep.

going to sleep means having to wake up, which seems a pointless activity to me. why do something so you can return to doing what you were doing before the act?sleep tends to make me tired. returning to the original reflection i was attempting to make, that book-like all other literature, encouraged me to think. you see, thinking really means 'confronting'. i had to confront the fact the book evoked in me a strong urge to be schmaltzy with my friends and family. schmaltzy? i don't know what that means but it is very American Bronx isn't it?you could imagine some mafia members over an Italian supper fiddling with their guns, and when one member mentions his 'chick', another snarling a heavily accented 'none of that schmaltz'. the snarl would come from a hat tipped face shrouded in darkness.

in Ireland(not that that corresponds with being more logical according to the 1970s oxford dictionary) i believe i mean closely tied to, or affectionate. literature(just some kinds) always reminds me of my own mortality(yes that again). Although literature(read widely-Ann rule is literature to me) always scares and delights me both at once. art makes me feel ecstatic, but also dreadfully scared. my mind(and often my mouth too)starts uttering fears of general incompetence, envy that i cannot write like the 'greats' and fear that unlike the 'greats' i am going to disappear into obscurity.

of course i could just watch 'it's a wonderful life' again, any fears could be brushed away into the fire ashes once more. I could console myself with thoughts of all the lives i have touched, even when it seemed insignificant to me. like the time i allowed somebody to walk through the door of castlecourt shopping centre before me, and by doing that i inadvertently saved their life. due to their further existence, they managed something spectacular and won a Nobel prize. due to my manners, i could be accredited in some small way to this greatness.

i suppose it does sound good. but deep down, the ambition in me is crying out for a task to carry out. it is the bird that Emily Dickinson calls hope, only in my soul the bird is a vulture known as ego.

speaking of ego, i am reminded of what was a life defining moment for me. like all life defining moments not involving self induced epiphanies, mine came about by interaction with another person. it was a turning point. for a couple of years i was a scared feminist, but this 'moment' made me want to be what some people call some women. 'bolshy'. I'm guessing it means fun and fearless (thanks cosmopolitan), and for the purposes of this blog this is exactly what it means. there is no subsequent female, i like my words genderless. to say bolshy female suggests two things. one is that there are no bolshy men, and the other, that female alone cannot imply fun and fearless. bolshy sounds like something a cushion would be, and i like my cushions to bounce back up when sat on.

i will detail this next blog, and will sign off with a quote taken from a 'schmaltzy' book of wisdom

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!live the life you've imagined!"
Thoreau

introduction (credits)

Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy. ~Henry Kissinger


Its an unusually mild morning in Belfast so I got up early to enjoy the relative warmth of the student house. late last night i done my usual worrying, accompanied by christy Moore in my ears. usually I just think about all the men in my life and then the general question of "what am I doing with my life". i have vague goals, mostly revolving around my fear of disappearing forever into the ground with no mention made of me again. i keep thinking the way forward might be to start doing cave wall art, so in thousands of years time people will speculate who i was and my existence. i would quite like that they discuss what kind of clothing i was likely to have worn.not animal skins sweetie.

i suppose the world has moved on from cave wall art times and into the galleries. I'm not sure Charles Saatchi would care for my general vague comparisons, but then why should he care?he is eating Nigella Lawson- the original earthy goddess. complete with plum accent and incredibly glossy hair. the cave walls are apt because of the cave man euphemism (is that the right word?) that is often associated as the 'creator'. cave men are still ever present in my life. from the pages of my library of self help books (there they are from mars) to the nightclubs i frequent at night-they are everywhere and yes I am a lady of the night. in the nightclubs they pummel whatever piece of female body that comes their way, followed with bellows of 'yeah!' and 'biatch!'. articulate and knowledgeable, they never fail to hit the spot. precisely the polka 'spots' on my brand new shoes as they swagger around.

I stereotype, but instead of losing sleep at night I've decided to be 'constructive'. seeing as i live in a world where you always have to be doing(read openly), seeing and going, being 'bored' is simply not allowed. (i read an article about this in the zine 'the vacuum' last night-i love cutting and pasting). constructive pursuits (read night classes, sporting activity) are De rigeur is one is to be seen as having a purposeful life. therefore i create this blog with the intention of documenting my half-arsed confused feminist thoughts. emphasis on the confused please. the point of my life is something i grapple with on a daily basis (whilst completing my degree) but i am not different from any other student. this blog is a postmodern exercise (read-no intellect-its all about the experience) about finding love as a young feminist. there isn't much love, note, but there is plenty of the much stereotyped anger. laugh out loud.

i am young, but old enough to know the feminist movement cannot die on my generation. we may reap the rewards but there is still plenty more to achieve. I hate the word feminist though, socialisation helps me equate it with 'dirty'. I suppose i am a child of the noughties after all, where it's not cool to say you are (hush hush) a feminist. after all, aren't we equal?

that notion 'equality' makes me submit a wheeze and a sneer together. that is the really dirty word in this equation. but feminism, is perhaps one area of academic thought that really gets the mind going like a Ferrari. in my teenage years (i am only a baby though so no nostalgia here) it was the female voices coming out from the pages of a well thumbed book that made me feel i was not alone in my observations. originally i had thought, on inspection of 'the way things are', it was i(small town girl) with the problem. these women(hate that word) made me almost weep with the ecstatic thought that i was not 'wrong' as my peers told me.

this is all becoming slightly Americanised(that just came up with a capital in spellcheck-post modernists take note) peppered with pop psychology throughout. I've painted myself as a tortured soul seeking solace in the heavy weights of intellect. not so much as just coming to the realisation that change still has to take place. i was told 'you can't have your cake and eat it too'. that is a very annoying proverb but one that is rather relevant when talking of the women's movement in contemporary terms. i am constantly told that there is something wrong with my logic. I'm at university, world is your oyster (gritted teeth), things have changed. they have changed alright.

Ariel Levy's book 'Female chauvinist pigs' is probably the book that has resonated with my own observations most. We are living in a raunch culture and there appears to be no escape unless you are a fan of the hot wax. we are a confused generation, and i would like my personal subjective experiences here in northern Ireland to illustrate that. believe me, there are few men, who when they say they 'love women' mean they love 'women'. what they mean is they love 'what a women should represent to them'. dating sites are full of men who 'love women'. did you ever read the poem about the red light on some body's head post-sex?i will post the name of the poem in a later post. these men should come with a sign 'approach with caution'.

Men will often admit other women are oppressed but not you. ~Sheila Rowbotham