New Haven to New Orleans

"Oh my god."  Sarah had to catch her breath from laughing.  "This place is awesome!  Are they really playing Edge of Seventeen on the tuba?  At 3 in the morning?"  She collapsed into one of the metal chairs.  The server at the edge of the cafe shook his head.  "I fucking love this place!"

"You mean they don't have that in New Haven?  You're so weird."  Felicia responded sarcastically, eying the street band.  "Two coffees and a plate of beignets," she told the server.

"Trust me, there's a lot of things New Haven doesn't have.  Like me!  New Haven doesn't have me anymore!  I'm here, not in that hellhole!  They'll never find me!"  She burst out laughing again.

Felicia wiped away some of her runny eye makeup.  "You're a whole different person with a few drinks in you.  And you have to go back sometime.  Here."  She handed Sarah one of the cafe au laits.  "Drink this.  It might help you sober up."

"Oh, you have no idea!"  Sarah had never been drunk before.  She had been to a few cocktail parties, and she and Chris had gotten a bottle of champagne to celebrate their engagement--not that she wanted to think about being engaged at the moment, or about Chris for that matter--but she had always just had one drink.  She was pretty good at making some of them last the whole night.  This time was different.  Actually, the whole experience was sort of surreal.  One day, she was an responsible and rational engaged woman who worked as a communications assistant at Yale University.  Another day she had thrown her engagement ring into the Mississippi River and gone out dancing and drinking with someone she had just met the day before.  Time to carpe the fucking diem, she figured.  Let someone else be the responsible and respectable one for a change.

Oh my god

Oh my god.

It's here.

Breathe, Alex, breathe!

The thesis has been defended successfully!


The last class has been completed (waaaah....I really like that class).

One of my papers will be put in the archives and on the research initiative's website, so I really did literally go down in history.

Oh my god.

Now all I need to do is make the necessary revisions to the thesis that my committee asked for...

Pick up my cap and funny-looking gown (what's up with those weird sleeves?)...

And then GRADUATE!

I want to both sing and cry at the same time...this is three years of hard work paying off!

You cannot spell massively intense without M-A

This past few weeks has been literally CRUNCH TIME!  With the exception of an intercultural music concert yesterday that I went to, I feel as though I've been running on all cylinders through most of this quarter!  Weekends have turned from being packed with fun social get-togethers to me being lucky if I get one event that isn't related to my thesis.  Meanwhile, I've been writing, revising, and drinking copious amounts of a certain super-delicious hot caffeinated beverage until 5 AM on weekends.

I cannot wait until my defense is is scheduled and done successfully and the revisions are complete!  Then I will take a nice vacation and plan the whole summer full of concerts, parties, and friend get-togethers.  If the defense goes successfully, I will take my immediate family out for dinner at the cute little gastropub on the corner and plan a friend get-together at the Haus of Revel later in the summer.  If it does not go successfully (which is highly unlikely, since my committee has been good at telling me exactly what to change and not change), I will still make plans with the family and the friends so I can vent to them about the process and get their support.

But soon it will all be done, and I will then only have work to worry about.

And yet...

Does anyone else think it's weird that I'm seriously considering another degree after this one?

Talking to Strangers

Blow out the candles
Turn down the songs
You're looking so pretty,
But where did this go so wrong?

Maybe you've changed
Maybe I have too
There used to be nothing
We couldn't talk through

What happened to your spirit?
The you I knew wouldn't stand it
Now I'm talking to a stranger,
And I can't understand it

I don't need your sympathy
You can have it for yourself
If I'm going to lose the friend I knew,
Then I can handle being by myself.

Two paths diverge for ambition and love
I don't think they should be separate at all
Now we're just talking past each other
With no common ground at all

I don't know why you act this way
The you I knew wouldn't stand it
Now I'm talking to a stranger
And I can't understand it.

I just don't know what's happened
The you I knew wouldn't stand it
Now I'm talking to a stranger
And I can't understand it.
I can't understand it.
I can't understand it.

(C) Revel with a Cause Productions

Really?

All names and identifying information have been changed, but really, how do you go through life so that an exchange like this happens??

Me: It's important to speak up when you don't agree with something, otherwise how does it change?
Denyse: Well, I'm still getting used to speaking up.  Before, I just thought that when I didn't agree, it was a problem on my end, but apparently, it's a problem for more people than just me.
Me: No, no, some things are social issues and not just because of something you did or didn't do.  The personal is political, you know.
Denyse: The personal is...the personal is political.  The personal is political!  Ooooh...that's brilliant!  I love it!  Did you make that up, Alex?

HOW DOES ONE GO THROUGH LIFE WITHOUT HEARING "THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL"? 

That's, like, downright un-American!  That phrase is way older than me!

I pity the folks who didn't major in women's studies!

Cut that out, WBEZ

I love NPR!  Really I do.  I think it's a smart, well-researched radio station, and I literally grew up listening to WBEZ in the car (when I wasn't listening to Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter or hearing my dad tell the Christmas Carol story) on the way to school.  I don't necessarily think it's a liberal program but rather a news program in the way that news should be--well researched and truly balanced.

But can we talk about their um, interesting, ad campaign?

Whenever I go into Chicago, I never fail to see it.  Damn signs on the el telling me to "get a room already and put a crib in it."  Damn big advertisement on the side of the building and visible all the way out to Waukegan telling me that they "want my babies."  Damn ads popping up on my iPod telling me that "interesting people make interesting people" and that I need to "do it for Chicago."  They even have an "interesting people" dating app now...

Really, WBEZ?  While I guess I should be flattered that you want me to have a healthy sex life (although, seeing as you are not my gynecologist, I fail to see how that is your business), I would like nothing more for you to fire whoever the idiot was that came up with that ad.  While you might be trying to mix it up and do something different with your ads, surely you could do better than urging your listeners to produce little future listeners or assuming that your listeners all want to or can do that.  And do LGBT people exist in your world?  Your dating app is for straight couples only!  Honestly, those damn ads are so full of wrong I really could take this in all sorts of directions, but let me say this main thing...

I expected better from you.

I would have thought that a station with a reputation for being intelligent and free-thinking would understand that families come in all forms, not just one way.  I would have thought that you'd see that it's important that we all decide when and if to start our families on our own terms, not someone else's.  It's really not that complicated.  At the end of the day, only we can make that decision, as we'll have to live with the decision.  For a longtime listener like me, I know that I absolutely could not have a child right now.  I am not at a point in my life where I could afford it financially or be emotionally present enough to care for one.  And to get very personal on you, if I do decide to become a parent, I want to adopt.  I've wanted to do that since before I could even drive, as I think adoption is awesome and that the most precious gift you can give a kid is a family.  And who better than me to give it?  I can't tell you all the criticism I've received for that, even from supposedly well-meaning people.  I've had people tell me I have "good genes" that I "need" to pass on.  (Who knows which genes the kid would get??)  I've had people tell me I'm "not really an adult" until I give birth.  (How do you tell that to someone who is infertile?)  Hell, I've even been told that it's just a second-rate option and that I "couldn't really love" an adopted child.  And those are some of tamer things I've heard!  (Some of the others would really make you sick.)  While I am not in a place in my life where I would want to adopt just yet, that is the only option I would want if I decide to be a parent.  And I can assure you that even if I didn't "make" him or her, I know they would be interesting.  You know why?  Because interesting has nothing to do with genetics!  It's more to do with how you were raised and how you choose to live your own life.  Surely you should know that.        

I don't need someone telling me what I should and shouldn't do.  I don't need a dating app trying to set me up with someone "interesting."  And I do not need any auditing of my reproductive or relationship choices.

WBEZ, I just want you to stick with what you do best--news.  You are not an opinion  program.  You are not FAUX News.  And you aren't a tell-people-what-to-do program.  You are a news program.  Please stick with the news and leave the relationship and reproductive auditing out of it.

Milestones

Milestones

Finish school?  Check!
Leave home?  Check!
Get married?  Check!
Buy a home?  Check!
Have kids?  Check!

Congratulations!  You are a REAL ADULT now!
All right?

All wrong!

Meeting milestones isn't living, so don't tell me they're the same.
I'm the kind of gal who lives out loud, so I won't play your game.

Some boxes for me to check off won't show the kind of life I lead
Or exactly all the things that happen for me to get what I need.

And all your comments on milestones have such a hollow ring
If you're working eighty hours to get by, a life milestone won't mean a thing.

Or if you escaped a relationship that had withstood abuse
Having the home, marriage, and family really won't serve much use.

Or if you're so in love and thinking that getting married would be great,
You can't check the box if they won't let you marry in your state.

There's a point where you know that society's rules are wrong,
At which point you realize it's for the best if you didn't go along.

There's so many more like me out there, but I can just speak for me alone.
I'm going to live my life the way I want and tear up this list of milestones.

(C) Revel With a Cause productions.  All rights reserved.