Feminist Indoctrination Camp

The best thing, I think, about feminist indoctrination camp (aka Act Like a GRRRL!) is that there is a big bowl of M&Ms.  Okay, maybe not the best thing, but it is a great thing.

My talk went fine, I think.  The girls were all very quiet and listened, which, I guess is what you’re supposed to do as a teenager when you’re being attentive and respectful, but I was worried I was boring them.  Still, maybe they’re at that age where they expect most things to be boring…

But the girls!  Holy shit.

When I got there, they were African dancing.  A woman who is an incredible dancer was leading them, and she was fabulous.  But there was something so cool about seeing them being unfabulous–a little awkward and not very good at first–that just blew my mind.  I just don’t think I would have, at that age, been willing to be not very good in front of others.  It seemed really brave to me.

At the end, they got in a circle and each girl was supposed to share some movement with everyone else.  The girls who were shy were brought into the middle by the teacher in this graceful supportive way and they would just move, even if it was just to walk back and forth.

Before me, a woman talked about zine making and the girls were really inspired, I think.  And then I talked about blogging and helped them do some blogging (although, let me tell you, the fact that Blogger just refused to send invitations to everyone on Yahoo about made me have to drive to Blogger world headquarters and start kicking folks.  Still, we worked around it). 

At the end, I came back and had some more M&Ms and told the girls I’d see them at the performance and the ones that heard me seemed taken aback.

Anyway, it was really, really cool.  I just don’t remember being that brave or open to things when I was that age.  I was a little envious and so amazed.

They were just all so cool.

Finally, It’s Here!

I’ve been waiting all week for this feeling.  Creative energy is flowing through me (as evidenced by the amount of blogging I’m doing, I suppose).  I’m feeling calm and together and excited.  I’m ready to get in the shower, get dressed and sketch out a brief outline, just to make sure I hit the things I want to hit.

But I’m feeling good, like I rock and you’re lucky to know me.

I Want to Smell like Magnolias

The Playwright has a smell–like Ivory soap and thyme and incense from a sacred temple.  I think she has a friend make it up for her.  And you can always tell when she’s been somewhere because there’s always a hint of that scent lingering after she’s gone.

I think that’s so cool.  I wish there were a smell that was that good and particular to me.

But the problem with most perfume is that it’s really a complex smell.  It’s got main tones and undertones and overtones and stuff and I don’t want to have a complex smell.  I want to smell like magnolias, thick and sweet and heady.  You smell magnolias and you’re overcome with this need to feel someone between your legs.

That’s what I loved about the magnolia trees in Winston-Salem.  They didn’t trim them up into "good" tree shapes.  They let those trees spread all over, reaching up to the sky and spilling across the lawn.  Big ole white blossoms and dark cool spots under the green, out of the way of prying eyes.  Knotty roots pressing into your thighs…

Yep, if I were to smell like anything, I’d want to smell like magnolias.

Sock

Last night, in order to prepare for feminist indoctrination camp, my part of which is today, I read Sock by Penn Jillette.  It’s got some things going for it as a book.  First, it’s a quick read.  I sat in the big plastic chair on my back porch at about four, stopped to go to the bathroom, blog, and play some Age of Mythology and still finished the thing before ten.  Second, it’s narrated by a sock monkey.  Third, the writing is beautiful.

The blurbs are perplexing. 

Kinky Friedman says, “Possibly the best original fiction I’ve read since A Confederacy of Dunces.”  I don’t know what to make of that, either.  Perhaps Kinky Friedman has only ever read A Confederacy of Dunces?

Kaye Gibbons writes one of those “I’ll use this opportunity to sell my own writing” blurbs–“Penn has written a strange, sometimes still, sometimes thunderous novel that is unlike anything I’ve ever read… Reading Penn’s novel left me joyfully exhausted, which is how we should feel when we’ve been in the presence of such seriously good writing.”

Which means, thank good for Booklist, which actually comes through with a blurb that tells you whether you’d want to read the book–“A blizzard of smart-alecky, philosophical wit… Perhaps the only thing like his style is Stephen King streaming the consciousness of one of his crazed, possessed lowlifes.”

And it is like that! 

It’s very King.  Not in terms of the subject matter, but in that good way King has of just sticking you right at the business end of a funnel as he’s shoveling everything he can grab from the world around him and stuffing it into your brain.

The only thing I didn’t like is that it appears to have some kind of moral at the end.

Thanks, Dear Reader

I don’t know which one of you was driving the red Tahoe-looking thing up Acklen Park this morning, but I appreciated the wolf whistle. 

If it wasn’t one of you, I swear I’m going to stop showering and just hang out at the bus stop in the early morning hours to try to hook up with one of these early risers who finds me so delightful.

Either that or eye boogers and fuzzy hair are just a hell of a lot more attractive than I realize.

Anyway, I figure it was one of you, because I was wearing my Tiny Cat Pants t-shirt.  So, thanks.  It made my morning.

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