the one bad habit

What a frustrating waste of a day. As usual, I sleep through festivities, awake to trouble, and then have trouble falling asleep again. I get no work done-- the vicious cycle. I have no one to blame but my own stubbornness and tendency towards ill decision making. You can even say that I would do better listening to a Magic 8 ball. "Ask again later" how I'm doing.

I just finished writing an excruciating long email to my old high school creative writing teacher (yes, this is the one Ishle and I shared, and the commonality I won't stop bragging about), who I both equally fear and admire mostly for the fact that loving her is something earned. The woman has challenged everything I've done and said to date, and while it makes for good sparring practice (at the absence of a significant other for the time being), this time, I think it's truly personal. Perhaps it was my fault for assuming that everybody I adore is a radical or my naivette that this late October event Witchdoctors and Assassins series is one which is readily accepted by all audiences. Perhaps I am so stuck in the process of making that I haven't stepped back from my liberal arts, social justice-y head that not everybody agrees with Baraka or that even quoting him as the title of our series is one that might be off putting to some. Not that this has shaken my beliefs in the slightest, but I think I typed up a storm of an email because it's not like my breaking it down for the average SLC kid or even someone who hasn't had access to the higher education I've had the privilege of receiving. This is my mentor we are talking about, and like most mentors, she is someone I've put up in the figurative pedestal. I think my point is-- why aren't her politics aligned with mine? I might as well have asked why I don't have my own gravitational orbit. It is kind of like that time a certain beloved performing poet of mine squashed my view of her the moment she started exoticizing her travels and generalizing about Black men (you know who I'm talking about!) I suppose it would make more sense if I described in detail the contents of our exchange, but that would be disrespectful to copy+paste someone's words without their consent. And so, ask me in person if you really want to know.

In more heartening news, somehow a question about a drastic haircut led to a question of femme identity, which led to me reading a pretty slammin' blog piece about femme identity that I totally vibed with. Here is the blog piece, but if you are too lazy, here's my favorite exerpt:

"My basic definition of a femme is someone who consciously chooses to embrace fem(me)ininity as a “deviant” identity. I believe femme is a conscious genderfuck in the rouse of traditional femininity. The major difference between a feminine woman and a femme is conscious gender performance, and anyone who consciously takes on the role of femininity as a deviant identity can be femme." -FemmeGuide

Now that that is clear, I still don't know whether or not I should cut my hair (because obviously, that is what matters most at the end of the day).