sex
Yes, i am doing Blogathon this year … if three people pledge a donation to my charity by Sunday.
For those of you not in the know, Blogathon is a yearly event that involves blogging through an entire twenty-four hours while your friends and readers sponsor a charity on your behalf. The longer you stay awake and keep posting, the more the donation will theoretically be – though you can pledge a flat amount: you could donate $6 for a whole 24hrs of blogging or $.25 an hour for the same result. This year during the ‘thon I’ll be posting a newly recorded song every hour on the hour in addition to blogging nearly every half hour. Take a look at the archive of my efforts from last year to get an idea of what to expect.
While Blogathon is excellent publicity for both blogs and their authors, its most important aspect is that it gets the extended blogging community aware and active in supporting hundreds of worthy charities around the country… and the world. Last year my charity was Manna, a local organization that brings meals to housebound AIDS and HIV patients. This year i wanted to choose a national charity who made donation possible through their own website; i chose Planned Parenthood.
For those of you who are under the assumption that Planned Parenthood directly conflicts with some of your political beliefs i would like to point out that, among other things, Planned Parenthood certifies and subsidizes Peer Counseling programs in high schools across America. The goals of these programs (which i was a part of) are to prevent unwanted pregnancy and the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections through frank peer to peer education. Though i cannot promise that pledge money will go directly to that purpose, i think it’s important to keep in mind that Planned Parenthood represents a lot more than the highly polarized issue of abortion. So, if your political stance includes keeping the nation’s youth in the dark about important facts that they could be learning from peers who they trust and relate to, then please refrain from pledging your support. However, if you have an open mind and think education and support are the keys to America’s youth making informed decisions about sex and sexuality, then please consider sponsoring my squawking and strumming.
Okay, enough of that, back to work i go. Oh – one last thing – i haven’t even started recording, so you still have plenty of time to request a song. No promises, though.
Sorry, i’ve been having a life.
My view has varied throughout my life, as i never can see the same thing out of my bedroom windows from place to place. As a child it was just the desolation of SouthWest Philadelphia with a hint of the city skyline buried off in the distance, and then it was a calm schoolyard with its swings and endless ranks of row-homes beyond. It was a shock to go from such typical views to Freshmen year, where i could see a postcard version of our entire city skyline from the window above my bed.
Kenny and i had an ongoing joke that year about how i would invite girls up to the room and ask them if they wanted to “see the view.” Of course, they’d have to climb right onto my bed to see what i meant, which played right into my plan of seduction via the illumination of the city lights.
No one ever took me up on the offer of the view, but it might have been because i never really offered it seriously; always packaging it with the joke that it was, in fact, my surefire means of seduction — which tends to diffuse the seductive power of the plan.
Right now it is raining. My neighbor has his blinds closed, so all there is to see is the oblong diamond overlay of his mottled brown siding, and the strange rust-orange of the next house with cabinets backed up against its windows so that all i can see is what’s on top of them. Stricly speaking, it’s the most restricted view i’ve ever had … even last year’s view of rowhomes sometimes came through with something a little more noteworthy. So, my window isn’t much to be proud of . . . except, between here and those houses on the other side, there is a tiny backyard world that is separate from the people in the houses that surround it. Staring out into it is like watching the interior of a snow-globe, only it is the outside and we are the in, and we are staring out at it through the protection of my tiny back window.
Right now it is raining, and the patter-splash-patter of it on the world below my window is easy to pick out from the street sounds and the sighing of my heater. On Monday all that was out there was sun, and in the afternoon it had reached its zenith and was headed home to sleep as its light was projected down through that tiny window.
My bed was magnified; all warmth and comfort. And, i’m thinking… it might not be the most impressive view that i’ve ever had, but it could be my favourite.
Top five reasons having a lesbian roommate rocks:
1. Unlimited free passage of Ani DiFranco and Indigo Girls cds from her bedroom to yours.
2. Accurate consultation in romantic issues, from the side of the suitor and the suited.
3. Without prompting, asks if you’ve ever heard of her favourite girl-on-girl porn sites and then offers to show them to you.
4. Absolutely no chance of romantic entanglement. None.
5. Potential hints, corrections, and suggestions about your interactions with the female erogenous zones, if you’re brave enough to ask.
The first time it goes off is around six in the morning, for no discernible reason. I mean, it obviously goes off because i set it to go off then, but Lindsay is constantly asking me why i set my alarm to ring four hours ahead of time. No reason other than it’s like a two-minute warning for having to wake up and deal with another day.
I was happy to have the warning this morning, since the day seemed especially dreary. I didn’t even need to look out of my tiny back window to know; i could feel the chill sliding in through the cracks and twisting up to raise goose-bumps on my legs. Deciding to sleep through my first two classes was not the most wrenching decision i’ve ever had to make.
The other thing Lindsay can’t seem to understand is why my alarm rings over and over again. I tell her it’s a warning… life ahead in four hours… three hours… until finally it’s just “Time to wake up. Fucking Blastoff.” Apparently, one ring is enough to convey the message to her. Today the blastoff ring was #6, and the reason i got me out of bed was because the sun had decided to accompany it. I was up and navigating the mess of my floor to turn down the alarm before Courtney could start screaming, and i could feel the diffuse runny-egg yellow of a damp sun on my back. The day had made an ugly duckling transformation for me, and i felt as though i was headed for something not entirely dissimilar.
It’s strange to go from kneading a palmful of shampoo past damp curls down to the suffocated scalp beneath to sliding a dime sized drop down the middle of centimeter long strands on the top of my head. It’s the shortest my hair has ever been. Stepping out past my fish-curtain i caught my nude reflection in the mirror, and something seemed different other than my hair. No new pimples, no unexpected muscles. It was something about how the slope of my shoulders changes, the line of my neck becomes smoother. And, something else as well — as if my haircut was emblematic of some greater change that was working its way out from my heart and up through the skin.
I wasn’t sure of what the change might be, but i hoped it would go well with my grey turtleneck and sexy jeans.
It wasn’t until i had gotten halfway to my destination of skipping class that i started feeling the way my reflection looked. Nothing tangible, but my change in carriage had seeped down from my neck and shoulders and out from my gut to pervade my whole being. By the time i got down to the Green Room i definitely felt different, although to everyone in the room it read as something closer to narcissistic conceit. Really, could i help wanting to have attention paid to me? I had Changed and they wanted to talk about midterms. Ridiculous.
Amazing what a $10 haircut, losing three pounds, and being in my scientifically determined sexual prime can do for morale. Whatever. I try not to dissect the positive moments of life too much. I just felt … fuckable. And, not just hot or easy or anything like that, but like someone covetable. Someone other people have strong opinions on. And, well, fuckable sounded like a good adjective at the time, but now that i’m looking at it in writing i can see where that narcissistic angle came in.
So, maybe it wasn’t so different from most other days, really, but usually i’m more of a pity fuck, you know?
Nevermind.