AcademicKate

There’s a lot of whispering going on right now about the fact that America’s Next Top Model is going to have a contestant who is M to F. Apparently ANTM has previously had a women-born-women policy, and this is a break with their past, but really who are we kidding? It’s a continuation of their history of using some token girl with a big-deal problem to get ratings and OMG moments.

That aside, I’m already frustrated with the ways in which this is being spoken about. I’m hearing a lot of “Yeahhhhh they’re having a transvestite on the show.” I’m here to say, transvestite and transsexual/transgender are not the same thing. Being a transvestite involves wearing the clothes and enacting the habits of the opposite sex/gender — however, the emphasis is not on passing but, rather, on maintaining one gender identity while performing another. Having a trans identity is, instead, focused on passing/becoming, and eschewing previous gender identity.

This got me thinking last night about kinds of literacy. There are certain kinds of literacy we expect the education system to provide students with — mathematical literacy (being able to perform basic mathematical processes), scientific literacy (chem bio physics), historical literacy (what was WWII all about?). But where in that picture is any kind of gender/sex/sexuality literacy? From my point of view, this kind of literacy would involve being able to “read” gender/sex/sexuality and differentiate them and their different instantiations. As much as the way we relate to the world is governed by these things, it seems crucial that this enter into our expectations of what people know…

I guess it’s frustrating to see certain kinds of knowledge/literacy valued and others neglected. I’d never be one to argue that mathematical/language/scientific/historical literacy aren’t important (and they are), but where are our standards for basic knowledge about the complex ways in which we comport ourselves as related to our sex/gender/sexuality identities and those of others?

Got a call today (by the way hi haven’t seen you in a long time) from something through the University about how I qualify for classes based on my feedback on some form. I was curious, so I gave them enough info that they could release the names of the classes I could take. They were

Nutrition and weight.

I responded that I feel pretty good about these areas of my life, but thanks.

Really? I eat healthier than most people I know (although it is a constant struggle to accommodate my easy boredom with food), but I really REALLY don’t think I need schooling on nutrition. And weight? I eat enough everyday and I’ve weighed the same damn thing for the past six years. I realize this puts me on the low side of things for my height, but there’s very little I can do about that.

I was really expecting something like depression or anxiety issues. Or maybe cardiovascular care, since I have a heart condition.

So it goes!

Hi kids. Back from vacation. More on that later. Probably another post soon about things we did, things I’ve learned (although I’m already learning: public transportation is excellent and I vow to live somewhere that has it, when that is within my control).

So, when I move back to Santa Cruz in a month and a half, I will:

1. Go to meditation once a week and see how it goes from there.
2. Go on a long run/walk at least three times a week and go on a decent walk every day.
3. Fill up my gas tank once a month OR LESS.
4. Continue not washing my hair (more later).
5. Be more disciplined with the pups.
6. Cross-stitch, especially for: my mom, my grandma, my dad and his fiancee (first projects)
7. Write letters to my ladies.
8. Suggest going out to coffee instead of going out to eat, in the interest of curbing my spending.
9. Have a date night with Jesse.
10. Grow cooler-weather foods, including: radishes, potatoes, kale, lettuce (I will prevail this time!).
11. Meet my 52 books a year goal (I’m halfway through the year and going strong!)
12. Figure out what to do with my life…

I’m realizing, regularly, that my 20’s are going to be hard.

1. Oh yeah, no money, unless I really want to sell my soul (and even then there are no guarantees).
2. I will probably lose all my grandparents before I turn 30.
3. Moving regularly.
4. Transitioning out of college may be more difficult than transitioning into college (I went to a college prep school; why was there no life prep school?)
5. Ever-changing lives make it really hard to maintain any kind of relationship — romantic, platonic, familial.
6. Everyone else is going through the same shit.
7. A job that is just a job.

Things that have been great about my first year post college:

1. Best friends ever (I know everyone says this but it’s true for me)
2. Getting closer with my family
3. Making an amazing relationship work over serious distance
4. Learning how to grow plants
5. Opportunity to figure out what I don’t want to do with my life which, even though it came with a heavy helping of disillusionment, has been seriously important
6. Lots of reading

So a lot of my food comes from a local CSA, as I’m sure you’ve all gathered. I get my produce from South Coast Farms in San Juan Capistrano bi-weekly, supplemented on off-weeks from farmers’ market.

With our produce email today and our summer quarter renewal forms, we received a letter from the farm. I thought I’d reproduce it here (I hope that’s okay!) to illustrate the importance of thinking critically about where your food is coming from. Up until a few months ago I was convinced that all organic was created equal and totally utopian; it’s becoming clear that by shopping at larger chains that offer industrial organic produce that is rarely local, seasonal, or sustainable, I’m perpetuating an approach to food that is still based in consumer culture and an individual approach to change. Phew! Moral of the story: if you’re choosing to fight the food battle, the best way you can stick it to the man is by supporting local farmers through farmers’ markets and CSAs.

Letter is as follows:

A Letter from Farmer George

Hello everyone. It is renewal time, for the summer quarter of 2008.

To say change is in the air is an understatement. Never in my 30 years of farming have I seen so many forces working together and making what used to be easy decisions most difficult. High fuel costs, a looming mandatory 30 per cent water reduction and the flood of cheap imported organic produce from Mexico and China have made it difficult to compete at many levels of the marketplace.

With all the change, a new attitude, work ethic and plans are being discussed and implemented here on the farm. We have come to our decision on this. We are going to scale way back our wholesale growing, put some ground fallow, that is resting and out of use, and concentrate on growing more and better varieties of fruit and vegetables for our farm stand and our CSA program.

We can’t compete with the cheap imports for a market shelf at Whole Foods any longer, so we are going to concentrate on supplying our local community with fresher and more nutritious organically grown food. Our focus will be on more and more varieties of more and more fruits and vegetables. There are many seed banks and dedicated seed companies now specializing in heirloom vegetable seeds. Recent research suggests that many of these varieties, when grown organically, contain more and better nutritional profiles per plant then does conventionally raised hybrid produce.

We are excited to take the growing of nutritious, delicious, local food to the next level.

It is obvious to us, and many other family farms in America, that locally grown, locally consumed organic fruits and vegetables are beyond the organic label. Unfortunately, being organic these days to corporate America is just a market niche they could no longer ignore. The companies that grow conventionally but now have an organic division are not in it for ethical/philosophical reasons, they are only it for market share and sales volume numbers.

We thank you for your support. With your support we are ready for the challenges and it is our privilege and honor to be your local farm, your local source of organic, fresh produce!!

Farmer George

I’m moving back up north in September. Yay! Pieces are slowly coming together for this move, but in the meantime, mimicking Erica, a list of things I hope to be in Santa Cruz:

1. House-sitter
2. Dog care-giver
3. Short-distance, long-term lover (yay!!!!!!!)
4. Limited car user
5. Seller of knit wares
6. Barista
7. Gardener, food-grower (radishes, potatoes, garlic)
8. Farm apprentice?
9. Chef/baker extraordinaire (hoping for weekly breakfasts)
10. Avid reader
11. Runner
12. Happy?
13. Broke (not a hope, just a reality — the hope comes in being okay with this)
14. Farmers’ market frequenter
15. Irish flute player
16. Regular flute gigger
17. Meditator
18. Dancey more often

From Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction, in it an essay by Nicole Blackman:

“…I started seeing patterns in how male anger often tended to focus outward — Fuck you — while female anger often seemed to focus inward — Fuck me.”

More later, but food for thought. I feel this book pushing on something really huge I need to produce something about.