Never mind.

My brother bailed on the trip, but that's ok. It's 2 months away. I have just booked four nights in a Budapest hostel.

I think it's interesting, the way my brain is handling the anticipation. I guess it can't get a good grip on how fucking cool the whole thing will be, so instead, I've been cycling through the most minute worries:
-should I pack this skirt, or that skirt. Or both. Or any skirts.
-Should I hold off reading that Nabokov book until my trip, and take that with me? Or should I take that book of short stories?
-Which flavor of Clif bars should I take with me? mmm.


What I really should be doing, though, is reading about Budapest, and Zagreb, and Vienna, and Istanbul. And Berlin. Booking various flights and rail passes. Big picture, important stuff.


Berlin has emerged as the anchor, the centerpiece of my trip for a few reasons.
First, because I have a very, incredibly, ridiculously generous friend there, an Australian expat. He is letting me use his apartment as my base, and aims to show me not what it's like to visit Berlin, but to move there and live there (This is no joke. This is a free place to stay in Berlin for like, a few WEEKS. Unless he gets sick of me and throws me out).
Second, because the idea of the place appeals to me. It is still cheap, still emerging. Interesting people are still moving there from all over. English is widely spoken. It sort of appeals to me in the same way that Detroit appeals to me (though it's in a much different place than Detroit, economically, demographically, etc. Obviously.). (Detroit is a once-great city but it's got vast swaths of unused land, it is a blank slate, it is lawless, it is cheap. It is barren but full of possibility.)

Finally, you know how new age types will say that "the Universe is trying to tell you something," or that "the Universe has revealed an answer to you" ? I hate to venture into that territory, but this weekend I was in the bar that used to be Hell (the bar that used to be the best bar in Chapel Hill), with one of my best friends, and we said, "we should move somewhere together."  And then suddenly, organically, out of a mutual interest, we were all talking about Berlin. About living there.


In closing, I would like to offer up a small request to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. PLEASE don't ruin my itinerary.  There's been some talk on the internet about "if flights remain grounded through June." EXCUSE ME????

Though I should say I do approve of how metal it looks here.

a travelin' partner.

It looks like I may not be traveling solo after all. I was visiting my family this weekend and said to my brother, offhandedly, “get a passport and come on.” And he said, “Ok.”


While it doesn’t have the same devil-may-care, I-do-what-I-want-yo, appeal, it is still good. Mainly because my brother is kind of a ne’er-do-well and shiftless layabout (aka gamer—see, e.g. Call of Duty/Xbox live), so it would delight me to expose him to the world, to force him to spend an entire day checking out the Lipizzaner stallions with me (I plan to go all out and spend a whole day indulging my childhood penchant for horses. I had a big, expensive coffee table book about horses and the Lipizzaners really captured my imagination, so why WOULDN’T I go chill at their training stable at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna OH MY GOD), or to go explore some WWII history with him and hear him wax on about, like, whatever aircraft they were using, etc.

I've got 4 and a half years on him. In the fashion of any good older sister, I am overly-invested in knowing "what's good for him," and perhaps a bit overeager about his moral edification, but it really excites me to have the opportunity to share this kind of thing with him, to show him new places, show him how to travel and be bold and all that. Getting cheesy, so...

There are other good reasons for him to come along.

1.  It becomes exponentially easier for me to get the obligatory pictures of myself standing stiffly in front of various historic and scenic attractions with the awkward/self-conscious face of a person who suspects she looks like a giant tool but is doing the damn thing anyway. If Jamie comes along, I can just get him to snap my photo, and vice versa. I don’t have to approach other tourists and hope that they don’t run off with my camera or anything. And I don’t have to settle for pictures of all scenery (which no one will bother to look at if I post them on facebook without tagging people in these pictures. And what is the point of doing anything in life if no one is going to look at and comment on the facebook photos of it?)
2.  I would be very interested to see how people react to him. He’s quite tall and has shifty eyes, and his ears are gauged and he has tattoos. He gets enough comments on the ears here (rednecks especially are fascinated/repulsed: boy, whatchu done to yer eeeeeurs?).
3. He is straightedge! sXe! NAILED TO THE X. this means that if I want to linger in a bier garden or something, and he comes along, I can maybe have two beers instead of one. I can get fairly tipsy instead of just mildly tipsy (which is what I will limit myself to if I am drinking with other backpackers, probably. I mean, just because I don’t want to have something bad happen, but I also don’t want to embarrass myself by getting silly.) Because he will be the sober voice of reason. (This is a whole other post though, my feelings about my feelings about a single woman getting drunk in foreign lands. I have feelings about it.)
4. Sibling bonding, or something. We get along and all, but we haven’t talked as much as we could have since we have both grown up/I’ve moved away. When I’m home to visit, I usually get a “Sup, mika,” in between COD rounds or on his way out the door. So yeah, on this trip, we might actually get to know each other. !!??
5.  He may be a deterrent to dudes and other unwanteds. I get it, hostels are all about meeting people. I have done that and it was my favorite part of the last trip and I am looking forward to it again. But once or twice, I’ve had kind of unpleasant people append themselves to my sightseeing group for the day. Since I was with my friends, I could take/leave the annoying hangers-on. If I’m by myself and don’t WANT to be by myself on a given day, I’d have to make do with whatever assholes are going to check out the castle that day. 
6. One less person I have to send a postcard to.

My only cons are:

1.  He may be a deterrent to dudes. What if some total BABE thinks about chillin’ with me but thinks I am “with” my brother? The HORROR.
2.  He kind of whined a lot two summers ago when we were in Charleston. It was the hottest week ever (pretty sure it was at least 100, maybe with a higher heat index and stifling humidity) and we were traipsing all over downtown in the blazing midday sun and he was wearing bad shoes that made his feet hurt, so all in all it was fairly mild whining on his part, but still. I will expect him to be a trooper.
3. I wouldn’t care about changing my clothes in a co-ed hostel in front of randos. But I may have to figure other arrangements if he’s sharing the room.

Anyway, this might all be moot because, like I said, shiftless layabout. He might never get around to booking the flight or getting his passport. in which case, w/e w/e.

Begin

Maybe in this age of hyper social mediation, I am a Luddite and/or fuddy-duddy, but I'm not sure I can keep up with my Tumblr .

I don't think I'm suited to the medium (even though I DO think their platform is fun and easy and aesthetically pleasing). So I'm back.

I am planning a 2 month trip to Europe (followed by a week in the American west; followed by a weekend in Richmond, VA). I will start in Budapest and work my way down the Dalmatian coast before joining friends for a week in Corfu, Greece (and then returning with one of them to Berlin, maybe making excursions to Rome, Vienna, Poland, or...?).

One of the first things people ask is, "Really? Who are you going with?" When I tell them I'm going by myself, they are surprised and, I think, a bit skeptical. Skeptical that I'll have a good time, or that I'll survive, or, almost, skeptical that this is even ALLOWED--I'll just be roaming around with no plan and no "adult" supervision--who let this happen?

I'm sure part of this is a gender thing--women out in the world on their own? PREPOSTEROUS--but I think an even bigger part of it is that I don't think we have carved out much space in our culture for solitary being and doing. You always hear people say they fear they'll get funny looks if they go to a sit-down meal or movie on their own (and I admit, I've looked at solo diners pityingly before).

The purpose of this trip is twofold...threefold...the reasons for this trip are manifold. It's primarily about staking out a sense of excitement and purposefulness, a refuge from the sucking sameness of work with no end in sight; it is also an exercise in learning new patterns of thought: being decisive, throwing myself into unfamiliar situations, etc.

When I was waiting to hear whether I'd be admitted to grad school, I was alternately so excited I could hurl, or so terrified (about the prospect of getting in) I could hurl. So it goes with the anticipation of this trip. Sometimes I think things like, "holy shit. I am incredibly bad at reading maps. I can't really remember how we managed to get around western Europe last time (when there were three of us!)--how did we get on the right train and how did we get off at the right metro stop and how did we....etc" and I worry about how I am bad at making decisions and how I might get lonely and might overdraw my bank account and might get a blister and might annoy people on buses, trains, and easyjet flights with my backpack (it's the maximum allowable size for carry-on luggage) because it's unwieldy and has lots of dangling straps.  But other times I think things like, "I'm pretty smart and likable! I will rule at this and wear the same outfit the whole time because I am not going to be one of Those Girls who packs like she's going to a photo shoot and not a backpacking trip, and I will secure all those damn dangling straps on my backpack and diffuse any hostility with a winning smile!" And I start telling myself to stop being ridiculous: Europe is not the backcountry. When I let myself get worried about all the Bad Things that could happen, I am guilty of slipping into that melodramatic line of thinking where Europe is some scary untamed wilderness with no phones, no tourist desks, no ATMs, no computers; a place where tourists who make minor mistakes are doomed to, like, live in some sort of Purgatory, destined to wander the bowels of a Paris metro station for eternity (or something). So what if I get lost? I will be somewhere, wherever I am. So what if I can't get a room at a hostel? I can always find a hotel, or spend a shitty night in a train station. You know?

My flight to Budapest departs RDU on June 17. NINETY DAYS!

Brooks and Wax, bff

UPenn law professor Amy Wax is coming to UNC on Monday to talk about her latest book, Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century.

At first glance, it sounds like something progressive and cool. But.   

Wax argues that discrimination against blacks in the U.S. has dramatically abated and that the most important factors impeding black progress are behavioral: low educational attainment, poor socialization and work habits, drug use, criminality, paternal abandonment, and non-marital childbearing. [Event page]

It doesn't sound like she has changed her tune much from the 2007 paper she wrote, Engines of Inequality: Class, Race, and Family Structure (which, once again, that title is totally progressive/pc/feminist bait, and you think it is going to be all awesome and about intersectionality and systemic oppression and lingering institutional racism, but NO):

The article concludes that society-wide changes in economic conditions or social expectations cannot account for these patterns. Rather, for reasons that are poorly understood, cultural disparities have emerged by class and race in attitudes and behaviors surrounding family, sexuality, and reproduction. These disparities will likely fuel social and economic inequality and contribute to disparities in children's life prospects for decades to come.  [Abstract]

Maybe Wax influenced that David Brooks column on Haiti that got Matt Taibbi (and everyone else) outraged. According to Taibbi's translation, Brooks was basically saying:

Haitians are a bunch of lazy niggers who can’t keep their dongs in their pants and probably wouldn’t be pancaked under fifty tons of rubble if they had spent a little more time over the years listening to the clarion call of white progress, and learning to use a freaking T-square, instead of singing and dancing and dabbling in not-entirely-Christian religions and making babies all the fucking time. I know I’m supposed to respect other cultures and keep my mouth shut about this stuff, but my penis is only four and a third inches long when fully engorged and so I’m kind of at the end of my patience just generally, especially when it comes to “progress-resistant” cultures.

See? This is what Wax will probably be getting at. I wonder why students aren't all outraged about this like they were when Tancredo came to campus. Maybe because Wax's bigotry is better veiled/buried in boring ass law review articles?

Anyway. What is the Federalist Society thinking? I don't see how she is relevant to their so-called organizational aims. Not really sure how this has anything to do with a more fundamentalist/originalist (is that a word?) interpretation of the Constitution. And did they think other faculty members/students here wouldn't get wind of this and judge them? Or am I naive, is this acceptable and cool with most law students?

So I will be there on Monday to hear this. I  am looking forward to an uncomfortable q+a session wherein some of our faculty, or any of our other students, ask this lady where the hell she gets off spewing this stuff.

Capitulating

NOW's president has decided that we should just give up and give in. Re: a proposed excise tax on cosmetic surgery:

Terry O’Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, said middle-age women, who make up a bulk of her group’s financers, would be particularly susceptible to the tax, especially now. Many who have lost jobs might be considering surgery, she said, because they are looking to impress potential employers.
“They have to find work,” Ms. O’Neill said. “And they are going for Botox or going for eye work, because the fact is we live in a society that punishes women for getting older.”
[NY Times]

What, did Naomi Wolf write The Beauty Myth for nothing?

This is a weak argument, especially coming from NOW.  The societal demand that all women look perpetually taut and youthful is an unreasonable, oppressive one. Every 45 year old woman who Botoxes herself back into her 30s reinforces the rule, making it that much more accepted that we must all be smooth and perfect if we are to be judged competent and worthy.

Cosmetic surgery, when it's elective and "just to get ahead," puts women in a double bind. Go for the surgery, look younger, get ahead. But play by rules that are unfair. Participate in a system that undermines all women, everywhere, and that is exactly the problem with NOW's president trying to defend it like it is a liberating, feminist act.

She could argue, though, that it is unfair to levy a tax that will predominantly affect a single group that is already economically disadvantaged and already gets charged more by insurance companies (though I guess people getting elective cosmetic surgery can't be TOO disadvantaged).

And finally--she could simply focus her energy on the jillions of other more important issues right now, like language about reproductive rights in the healthcare bill, or making sure that insurance will have to cover costs for women's health procedures and preventive visits.

Betty haters

I made it through Sunday night, the first without Mad Men, but it wasn't easy. I felt the pain.

January Jones' stint on SNL has been mocked/panned/dissed. It's just more Jan-Jo/Betty Draper hate.

There are two categories of disses--those related to the actress, and those related to the character of Betty Draper.

Here, a diss in the Atlantic about how "clumsily" Jones portrays Betty.

Or here, Gawker calls Jones/Betty "the worst part of Mad Men.

Pretty harsh, bros. I think she sucked on SNL, true, but the rest of the hate is unwarranted.

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the ANTEATERs dream

Some of my friends in Greensboro have started a sketch comedy group. It's called The Anteater, and yesterday, one of their skits got picked up by a Comedy Central blogger.



NOT TOO SHABBY, since this stuff has only been online for about a day. So I really want to know how Comedy Central FOUND it so quickly.

here is their Youtube channel. I can't figure out how to embed things.

 Some puns, some sophomoric humor, some gross-out stunts.

I am always so jealous of cats and the time they spend luxuriating in sunbeams.

I'd rather hang with him than study for the GRE.

Mountain Goats

There are a lot of people--authors, musicians, actors, directors--you might suspect are awesome. You hold a fondness for them. You have a feeling they may share some of your ideological leanings.

And then they go and make a public statement that settles it one way (like supporting Roman Polanski. ugh) or the other. Like John Darnielle being an out feminist.

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Playboy Photographs Attractive Blond Woman.

 

-Today's Daily Tarheel gives a front page headline to the UNC School of Law 3L Stephanie Christine (aka Stephanie Haney)who will appear, partially nude, in some "girls of the acc" issue of Playboy. The whole thing has a salacious/slut shaming undertone. Is it really worthy of front page coverage? Imagine this headline, instead. "Student Pursues Extracurricular Interests." O RLY!!!?

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