A project.

Friends, I have been up to some creative things lately. Most notably, perhaps, is this guy.

That link will take you a Tumblr site for an ongoing art project my friend Evan and I started. It involves found poetry, upcycling, GENIUSNESS, etc. Please take part.

An Elegant Discrimination : LGBTQ Students at Messiah

As I bite the Alma Mater that fed me, I seek to do so with its due respect and with a significant cache of fondness. I count my years as a student as some of the most meaningful, and certainly the most intellectually formative, of my life. And it is with a strange feeling of loyalty that I peel my glove and slap Messiah College across the face.

The recent decision by Isaiah Thomas, an openly gay Freshman, to transfer out of Messiah has brought national attention to the college's policy restricting "homosexual behavior." From my perch in Midtown Harrisburg, there's an argument within earshot that Isaiah, a graduate of Harrisburg's own Sci-Tech High School ought not to have chosen a local college so famous for its stance against something so close to his identity. The argument is based on the assumption that Messiah sings this tune loudly enough to be heard by prospective students, and that self-identifying as the Lion's Den affords amnesty for itself. Saying that he ought to have known better distracts from the crux of the issue: Messiah's policy is bad for everyone, Messiah included.

I happen to be straight and unambiguously gendered. That this was the story experienced by most of my classmates, my encounters with the LGBTQ community remained embarrassingly casual and distant until my senior year. In the Spring of 2007, the LGBTQ activist group, Equality Ride, reared its deliberately non-normative head to challenge students and faculty alike to engage in conversation and action concerning the culture of exclusion on campus. Their business model is simple: storm the castle of college policy prohibiting LGBTQ rights and ask people to ask themselves why. (Be prepared for a night in jail.) Four years later, I'm still asking why such a blaring contradiction to Biblical standards remains the skeleton in the closet of an institution identified by and named for its Christian values. It is not the raised fist of the Westboro Baptist Church, sure, but a quieter, even elegantly subtle discrimination of a specific, singled-out population. Isaiah Thomas has certainly helped bring this struggle to light recently. But this discussion needn't rest on the shoulders of Isaiah, easily dismissed by some for missteps in his campaign for equality. This is sustained discrimination hidden cleverly behind critique of the social polish of a nineteen-year-old. Recent news coverage of Isaiah's story has included the nuanced input of Louie Marven, whose work as the Director of Education and Youth Services at the LGBT Center Coalition (which earned him the Wheeler Freedom Award) has gone unpublished by Messiah's Bridge Alumni Magazine employment information section each time it was submitted. He stands in a long line of his predecessors quietly, politely ousted from Messiah's good graces, which invites conversation around the table at the cost of meaningful action. Try this on for perspective: Another local campus, Dickinson College, recently moved to campus-wide gender neutral bathrooms. This choice was made in effort to protect individual dignity, to challenge conventional binaries of gender, and to address the entitlement many of us have had the luxury of leaving unexamined.

Public opinion these days exists on as wide a spectrum as gender, and much of the rhetoric replaces nuance with passion. I have been disheartened to read and hear comments that criticize Messiah's anti-gay policies in the same breath as classist cracks about its student body being comprised of hicks. Calling Christians stupid lets them off the hook too easily. We musn't be afraid to expect good sense from individuals we know have the capacity to deliver it. And of course, my public opinion that discrimination in any form against a population of any form is both immoral and a classic example of sin will only find resonance with those of you who already agree with me. But the truth remains that the LGBTQ apartheid within some circles of Christianity is bad business for schools like Messiah. There used to be a billboard up for the school that touted claims of, among other things, being "rigorously academic." No fibbin'. Messiah ranks fourth among the "Best Regional Colleges in the North" by U.S. News and World Report. The caliber of imparted skills in critical thinking has helped co-create a growing number of frustrated alumni, eager to see the college subvert its own archaic language and paradigms. These frustrations are among the loudest sung songs, resulting in significant energy by alumni to organize formal petitions, like that in the recently formed Inclusive Alumni group and the older, established Gay At Messiah group. I count myself among that number of graduates who are responding financially to our regret that the quality of education, progressive and vigorous in certain areas of social justice, drops the ball so heavily in this regard. Incidents like that in Isaiah Thomas' case shackle the student body and faculty to a conversation we ought to be past by now. It isn't merely that Messiah College isn't keeping up with the national conversation; these archaic policies stunt its own growth as an institution of learning.

Messiah College has significant work ahead. If this is work that remembers dignity, equality, and common sense, then shoot, I'll carry the banner. Until then, I can only afford to give my money to student loans. My hope is that the college would catch up with its own standards of excellence. My hope is that we can do better as a community in the way we expect decency from each other.

new things, old things

just so we're all clear, i'm still alive most days.

and even sometimes, i still post things. but usually it's here.
rarely, but more meaningfully, it's here.

maybe i will do better this next year and posting HERE here.

in the meantime, i hope you're keeping dry on this rainy day.

How to Raise Half Your Student Loan Debt in a Single Night (or, Be Excellent To Each Other)

Spoiler alert: I have student loan debt, y'all. Not only do I have it, but it rages through my blood and characterizes the culture I live in. Coffeshop-haunting, pho-eating, McSweeny's-reading, mason-jar-water-glass-drinking, whitewhine.com-embodying, hard-working, sleepy people who have probably graduated from something and who have probably thrown an ironically titled party recently and who have counted That Time When Doug Finally Bought and Installed the Beatles Rock Band System In His Living Room and Invited Me Over to Play as one of the highlights of the past two years. What was strange for me to realize, since graduating college, was that This Is My Life, and that the part of it that feels like whistling Dixie actually takes a long time to get through, and by the end of it my face will have laugh lines. (Spoiler alert: I have some laugh lines.)

When I realized that amazing things could be accomplished by me and my riffraff friends, I felt empowered in a way that Kevin Spacey usually does in a film he's in. Way back in January, my tiny hometown of Harrisburg clapped its hands together and threw a benefit show for Haiti. Bands ranging from folksy Koji On the Roof, the twangy bluegrass tunes of Wake Yankey and Hank Imhof, improv punk electronica outfit Bats, and driving, synthy rock group In Wilderness, a varied mix expressed a whole city reaching out. We raised $5,500 dollars all sent for emergency relief in Haiti, all in a single night in a dinky town. (Wait, wait. Stop this blog post. Why is this being written a month later than is appropriate? It's because I am a person who says "yes" to a lot of things, and that usually means that I'm not usually an early bird. Special apologies go to my dad and Benjamin Franklin.)

The night I heard about the earthquake in Haiti, I was halfway through the January of the strangest year of my life. I wouldn’t hear until late that night in my bedroom, clicking through pictures of ashen faces, my entire axis shifting. I would read the news right to left and think about what a year does to a person. I think about the fact that a little more than a year ago, I was sitting across from a boy outside the Hotel Oloffson in Port Au Prince as he taught me how to properly sink my teeth into sugar cane. I think about the low wall we sat on, wondering if it still stands. I think about the rows of newly planted trees, an effort by the mountain church of Sainte Etienne to counter the monster of deforestation. How climbing down the sliding slick mountain toward those rows was a task too great for my ancient sneakers, and I would spend the rest of the trip leaning on a length of tree cut from the side of the mountain by a farmer to help me hobble out of the valley. I think of Jean, our translator, who had tried to flee the country four separate times unsuccessfully and who on our last night in Port au Prince offered me a voodoo flag and his son’s phone number. I think of the dinner party on Christmas night, hunched over ceviche and mumbling the four French expressions I knew, surrounded by strangers who had taken pity on an awkward, gawking American tourist accidentally separated from her group. I think of the dripping moss of Jacmel, how the roads could have been in New Orleans, and whose artists climbed through piles of trash to find raw materials for sculptures and mixed media pieces and collages and paintings. Traveling to Haiti a year ago, when it was still Then, was more meaningful than I had prepared myself for, and watching the Now footage seep into every corner of the media, After, makes me feel older than I can describe.

The benefit show in January was one of the most meaningful examples of pulling together I've ever experience. Each band donated their performances, The Midtown Scholar Bookstore donated the space and food, and a million billion local folks donated money, time and silent auction pieces. What we raised was a drop in the bucket in terms of the need, but it was a beginning. A push out the door. And it expressed exactly who we are, here in this (oh) little town of Harrisburg.

I have felt my world, my culture, shift toward Haiti. I will not claim an expert voice in this process. I haven’t yet been to Haiti more than once, and even that was for five days, crammed between Christmas and New Years. My French and Creole are parsley-small. What I can tell you is that I think about Haiti more than I think about men, a fact that makes my mom pretty sad. I can’t have a nuanced conversation about the environment, racism, classism, educational reform, poverty, public health, personal responsibility, faith, art or social justice without mentioning the state of affairs in Haiti. What makes me hopeful is a long string of stories about riffraff friends banding together and using Exactly What They Have and Who They Are and What They Like to engage the issue. It's important us to not separate what happens in Haiti with what happens in a dive bar. It's important to remember that whatever is to be done has to be done with excellent words, excellent music, excellent art, excellent lighting. This is the part of the article when I end with a warm handshake and a reminder to be excellent to each other. All of the each others.

an important thing.

apples, obviously

i spent some time in the hudson river valley this past weekend. this was the land of my childhood, and the leaves and rain and sun and river were so nostalgic, i could throw up. (i won't get into the amateur body building competition which was the ACTUAL reason we went that way any more than to say that i was entirely fascinated by all of the bronzer and egg whites.) (okay, i will get into it a little bit: louie's sister, rene, has found herself drawn to this aspect of fitness and health, and that meant that on saturday, i sat with the marven family, including grandma emily, in poughkeepsie high school to watch people who look like this walk around on stage.)

we also went apple picking, which is the aspect of this entry i hope you'll stress when you talk about it later over dinner. guys, apple picking is the BEST. if you have absolutely no pressures on your time and a penchant for plucking, i urge you to give into your whims. megan and i returned home with more apples than is okay, and that is why i am making apple pie this evening.

an internet shout out to Twig and Thistle, a blog i found when trying to find an adorable pie recipe.



spoiler alert: ain't no way you can be a body builder AND eat this adorable pie.

the day i lost my friendship with megan bennicoff

it was today! i'm not sure how much recommending y'all do for people, but i have been doing my fair share lately. i have all sorts of friends who are doing things like "applying to college" or "applying to the sycamore house" or "trying to get parole", etc etc. one of these "friends" is megan bennicoff, and she asked me (via the internet) to fill out a recommendation form for the peace corps.

the first sign of trouble was when i was given the option to fill out the pre-set form questions or to upload my own letter of recommendation. SUCH A TRAP. obviously if i go with the pre-set form questions, i am occupying the lowest stratum of intentionality available on this green earth. it's like the Looking For: Whatever I Can Get option on facebook: all you really need to be my friend, at this point, is a finger to click Accept with. maybe a face.*

after clicking the pre-set form question box, i was then made to click a box that would adequately describe why i know her. (what i WON'T tell you is that it took me about twelve minutes of trying to figure out a way to honestly describe why i was her employer before seeing that Friend was an option on the line over.) HERE is where the peace corps blew up my spot. after each description of relationship, the recommend-or is required to fill out a timeline. a timeline! and when i wrote "2003-present" i got an error message that read "The field format for this question needs to be MM/YYYY."

THE PEACE CORPS SPOKE THE END OF OUR FRIENDSHIP INTO BEING.
sure, there was still the option of picking a future date, but that seemed a little fatalistic. which is why it came to a close today, guys. 09/2009 marks the end. i feel liberated, sure, but i also feel cheated out of my right to be friends with megan bennicoff indefinitely. i'll miss her. she ate the strangest food of anyone i knew. also, she is still my roommate. and we spent the day together, which was super awkward since we're not even friends.




*one of the stranger things i learned recently was that a lady in france GOT A FACE TRANSPLANT when her dog ATE HER FACE. that is all.