i enjoy being a girl

So facts are facts: the field of poetry is friendlier to women than the field of science, based on an N of one (me {that whole N thing is a stats term for those unfamiliar}). Not to rant or anything, but I had a physics professor announce to the class that the girls in our section couldn't do physics, but we could write neatly. I was told by my classmates that I was given better grades on my homework because I had neater papers, once again because I was a girl. Bullshit like that. I never really saw men as getting in the way of what I wanted to accomplish and for that reason I don't think I ever identified as a feminist. I'm uneasy with labels like that in general.

A little while ago, I went to see Tracy + the Plastics at the Exloratorium. Tracy--real name Wynne Greenwood or something, is a lesbian video artist with a decidedly feminist agenda, and of all people, she got me thinking about feminism. Perhaps not she, but the cracked-out dude who couldn't handle her use of creative space & time and started barking at her. Not cool dude. And to that dude's friend: You cannot pull off the Hitler mustache. No one can pull of the Hitler mustache. You're walking around SF reminding people of Hitler; is this a worthy goal?

So this show made me think about two things:
(1) The difference between hip and hipster. Hip people and hipsters show up at the same events. Hipsters don't understand what's going on at said events, e.g. a male hipster barks at a feminist who's into not dominating space with her personality.

(2) Maybe I should learn something about feminism.

What I'm doing with thoughts:
(1) Scowling at hipsters and cursing them for getting tickets to things before I do. Also the joke Geri told me: Q: Why did the hipster chicken cross the road? A: Omigod, you don't know?

(2) Taking a class next semester about Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop that promises to tackle modernism, postmodernism, and feminism in one fell swoop. We'll see how that goes.

first post

'Bout time I got myself one of these here blogs. Will be hosting thoughts, poems, and thoughts. So as not to waste this first post, we'll stick in a poem from my ongoing page-by-page daily love affair with Gravity's Rainbow.

Page 5

The bed shuffled itself straight out the door,
little jerky movements on squeaky casters,
until one leg planted itself in the flower bed.
The dust ruffle was bunched,
leaving the tender leg exposed
in Victorian peep show fashion.
In September the zinnias explode:
fiery oranges and fuchsias that
attract sleepy bumblebees
who seem utterly confused by this
abrupt steel monstrosity
with hibiscus, of all things,
blooming on the pillowcases.