our coat of arms?

how did i not know about her until now

What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.


- Susan Sontag

People talkin shit, but when the shit hit the fan, everything I'm not, made me everything I am

our next blog name. or our first collectively written autobiography of this summer.

"What are you doing, Human Being?"

goodbye apartment 79

I am currently sitting by my desk in my apartment, waiting as a bunch of young guys with wheely carts take my precious belongings to a storage facility where they will be hiding under tarps next to other people's belongings for a year. It is weird, because while I am sad about losing my things (my couch is pretty damn comfortable), I am more sad about what the loss of my furniture represents. My apartment has been the site of countless werewolf meetings, beyonce dance-offs, and joints smoked resulting in mind-bending conversations. Topics ranged from boys, to boys, to why we don't get boys, vagina brains, nature of gender difference, what constitutes proper, life-lasting friendships, how good pizza tastes, how I don't like pizza, what constitutes a proper "cheese dinner," why president's choice chocolate chunk ice cream is god's gift, and why we are god's gift to mankind. THEY SHOULD BE BEGGING. This apartment has been my place, our place to just escape from the reality of how people are, and has served as a utopia of how people should be, to the point that I squint from disorientation when I am outside. I will miss it.

"I can see that we're not happy here, So why would we keep pretending when there's nothing there? Maybe you like it, well, I don't, And maybe you'll settle, well, I won't"

For example. let's pretend I'm crying. Ok, Let's pretend we are all crying.

that thing where never before have I related to Kelis lyrics

Mutism, is like a drug. It is so addictive. You don't have to do it.

in a continuation of this maya angelou thing we seem to be embracing

Love is a condition so powerful; it may be that which pulls the stars in the firmament. It may be that which pushes and urges the blood in the veins. Courage: you have to have courage to love somebody because you risk everything – everything.

people rant # 1 - I think I will start a series

In a recent conversation, my fellow werewolf and I got to thinking about while people ostensibly strive for monetary success, somehow it remains cool to some people to appear poor even if they have money. It seems weird and uneasy to talk about money and how much people make. Owing people money is the biggest deal to a lot of people, attaching a sense of pride to not owing people anything, even if it is not to a bank but to a friend. Yet, while people want money and need it to live comfortably, somehow being seen as poor is more attractive to some people, where they create this charade of poverty while secretly having all the money to do all of the things. A most extreme example would be hipsters, mainly because they live in faux-squalor, wear grungy clothes, never shower or shave properly, yet have the money to buy all of the drugs and records and concert tickets. ughhhhhhhhhh. I don't get it. rant over.

stoner thoughts of the evening

I was just thinking about the birth control/ insurance coverage debate that was happening earlier this year, where more conservative right wing baddies were contesting companies need to insurance that covers birth control. K but listen to this. If women were given more access to birth control, they would not have to have babies as early as some do when they do not believe in abortions, and then women would not have to leave the workforce early. Because of more birth control access as well, women could marry later because they would not get tied down by early marriages due to pregnancy. Thus, they could then marry when they actually knew truly they loved somebody when they are say, 30 something, and that marriage will likely last longer than say, one that began when the couple were 18 and pregnant. As a result, marriages may in the future be more stable and continuous than marriages of the past. Thus, increased birth control access in effect protects the sanctity of the nuclear family idea. Thus, conservatives are in effect stunting the success of their ultimate agenda to preserve the traditional family.

nothing like waking up on thursday morning with this fear hovering over my head

"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee."

Excerpt from Nietzche's Beyond Good and Evil

#women

"She resisted the notion of rescue. She was not particularly interested in rescue. Since the age of twenty she had supported herself, financially, emotionally. It was one of the few things she was actually proud of, though she understood it had come at some cost. Like, she thought, the cost of being with anyone, even this passionate, tender, settled man, at once so solid and so miraculously permeable. She also doubted very much that she deserved him."

excerpt from Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz

On Friends - via a fellow werewolf

"its like im being forced to be friends with hitler and stalin and i just wrote angry letters to hitler and stalin and hitler is pretty sorry about what he did but like killed a couple more jews this week and stalin is ignoring my letter"

via. The Playboy Book (Fifty Years)

dear evil hipster ex-boyfriend

I am writing to you here, on feministwerewolf, not because I expect you to read it because let’s face it, I am pretty sure you can’t read. Also, you demonstrated no interest in me, or knowing anything about me after we broke up. Somehow, guys are able to just clean break away from ex girlfriends whereas girls now use social media in its various incarnations to keep tabs on any and all previous boyfriends or even one night stands. As is mentioned in the book Admission, which I am reading, which you do not know I am reading because you stopped caring what I do with my time, there is a key passage where the protagonist (sorry, main character) Portia Nathan rightfully states that “Every single woman on the planet with internet access and a modicum of curiosity possessed the vital statistics of every man or woman she had loved, let go, been spurned by, come to loathe, or still longed for.” I am writing this letter here because it is a good venue for me to voice my frustration at you, especially since I deleted you from facebook because seeing your face so glib and at ease was frustrating. So, there you go. There are a number of things I wish to express to you at this very moment. Stop doing Facebook wrong. Stop liking pictures that I am in. It ruins them. You are really not allowed to do that. Let’s be honest, why don’t you return to ex boyfriend/ hipster oblivion where you belong. Stop being mentioned in stories by my best friend who happens to be friends with you for whatever reason. I particularly did not like hearing that you have a new girlfriend when you distinctly said you did not want to be in a relationship. I knew you were lying. I told you that. Yet you looked at me dumbfounded. 5 months of beyonce have passed. Yet, every time your name is mentioned, it is like I am being jabbed in the back by a little pixie holding a pixie-sized pencil.  It is not really that painful, but an odd reminder that you once meant something to me, but that now all you are to me is this evil, bad person. All I ask is that you stop existing in story and facebook avatar form, and recognize that it sucks to be you right now. k?  

that time i lost all patience and exploded

I think I have reached my breaking point. In the last 24 hours, I have written thorough letters to old friends who are trying to reconnect with scathing attacks on their character and their ability (or inability, rather) to be good friends. This is so not something I do. Ordinarily, I would let them come back into town, and would skip merrily singing “lalala” as they continued to live under the assumption that I was still there, living in a glass box, ready to be taken out when they came back into town. Perhaps, as a result of being box girl for an excessive amount of time, I exploded out of the box, leaving shards of broken glass everywhere, including in me. Even though I am ostensibly the victim here, I feel like crap. I don’t wish to inflict pain on anybody! This stuff just needs to be said. So, this summer has been about complaining about boy problems with the same two people, and thus I developed a rather insular understanding of gender dynamics. That is why it was interesting when talking about boy stuff with an outsider, she said, “I can see that you are looking for a good boyfriend who upholds certain traits, but have you considered thinking about what kind of girlfriend you want to be, or what kind of wife you would like to be?” I never really thought about it in that way. Mind, exploded. I think after hearing her say that, I started to think about that and its application to my friendships. I think with good friends I act in a way that is consistent with how I would like to be treated. I expect loyalty, honesty, a general interest in each other’s lives and whereabouts and problems because I do this for my friends. Previously, when someone claimed to be my friend but acted inconsistently with my understanding of proper friendship, I laughed it off and chalked it up to their respective idiosyncrasies. However, I am kind of over that. I have lost all my patience for bullshit it seems. 

it's this thing I am trying

So you told all the boys that you were gonna take me out 

Ya even ya even had the nerve to make a bet a yes you did 
That I, I would give in all of my love you would win 
But you haven't, you haven't won it yet 
You took me for a pushover 
Oh you thought I was a push over 
Wo I'm not a push over 
You thought my love was easy to get 

All of the girls think you're fine 
They even call ya Romeo 
Ya got 'em, yeah you got 'em runnin' to and fro 
Yes ya have 
But I don't want a one night thrill 
I want a love that's for real 
And I can tell by your line, your's is not the lasting kind 
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/etta+james/pushover_20291218.html ] 
You took me for a push over 
Oh you thought I was a push over 
Whoa I'm not a push over 
You thought that you could change my mind 
Your temptin' lips (m m hm) your way hair (oh yeah) 
Your pretty eyes with that (ahhhhhhh) come hither stare 
It makes me weak and I, I start to bend 
And then I stop and think again 
No (no), no (no), no don't let yourself go 

I hate to spoil your reputation 
I want true love not an imitation 
And I'm hip to every word in your conversation 

Who took me for a -- push over 
Whoa I'm not a -- push over 
Whoa you thought I was a -- push over 
Whoa you can't (push me over) 
Nobody is gonna (push me over) 
Oh you're not man enough to (push me over) 
Everybody thought you was gonna (push me over)

Maya Angelou – Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them
They think I'm telling lies
I say
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips
The stride of my step
The curl of my lips
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please
And to a man
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees
Then they swarm around me
A hive of honey bees
I say
It's the fire in my eyes
And the flash of my teeth
The swing in my waist
And the joy in my feet
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see

I say
It's in the arch of my back
The sun of my smile
The ride of my breasts
The grace of my style
I'm a woman

Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud
I say
It's in the click of my heels
The bend of my hair
The palm of my hand
The need of my care
Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

i mean, really, all i have to say is read maya angelou.

...as if i haven't highlighted half the novel already.  but for FW's sake, here are some quotable segments, that might assure the 2012 HBO Girl in you - because even Maya Angelou has done and felt and said, these things: (via The Heart of a Woman)

(p.85)

"I made my way through the busy streets of Harlem, dressed in my best and wearing just enough make-up.  Along the way, I received approval from lounging men or passers-by.

"Hey, baby.  Let me go with you."

"Oowee, sugar.  You look good to me."

"Let me be your little dog, til your big dog come."

I smiled and kept walking.  The compliments helped to straighten my back and put a little swing to my hips, and I needed the approval."

(p.101)

"What was Tommy going to do with them?  And for goodness' sake, she wasn't even pretty, so what did he see in her?

If they had asked me, instead of each other, I could have informed them with two words: sex and food. 

At first, my eagerness in the bedroom shocked him, but when he realized that I wasn't a freak, just a healthy woman with a healthy appetite, he was proud to please me.  (...) We enjoyed each other's gifts and felt easy together.  I had only one regret.  We didn't talk.  He never introduced a subject into our evenings and answered with monosyllables to my questions asked.

just leave me alone.

I just began to wonder why friends fight and how different friends fight with each other, and what it is about really with these different friends. I think with the friends you have an actual meaningful relationship with of worth, you can easily call them on their shit, on the weird character quirks/flaws/habits they have. Essentially, you bully your best friends because though you know they are the best, no one is perfect, we are all different, and when we don’t like something one of them is doing, we tell them to stop doing it. Not because you will actually stop being friends with this person because you are criticizing them for these things because that is not a thing with these types of friends. We just do it because we are family and family is critical of family. You are just trying to  keep them tough, make them see their weakness in order to help them survive! However, with friends who try to maintain friendships long past their expiration date, you wonder how to tell them you are just not interested in doing the friendship effort thing. Ughhh just let it die organically. If we are meant to be friends at some point, it will happen. But right now, is it not a thing that they must sense that the whole thing is over? Friendship breakups are different than relationship breakups because we expect friendships to just dissipate while presumably a relationship breakup is supposed to come to a severe, pointed end.  You have to let the other one know in a romantic relationship that it is over, but with friendships you almost half expect for the other to just kind of get it and stop the charade of its success. However that does not happen a lot of the time, which is absolutely frustrating. I have come to a point in my life where I know and recognize my great, amazing, wonderfully weird friends who share my understanding of what constitutes a solid, easy friendship, where the relationship is understood to be based on reciprocity. The others, who come to me only when they need me for something, are no longer worth my time. With time, I have developed the self-confidence (or ego, depending on how you perceive it) to understand that one of my best qualities is my ability to be a good friend, and thus I understand my friendship has value reserved only for those who deserve it.  I no longer wish to be the person who seeks to appease everybody and be well liked by everybody because it is leaving me feeling like a pushover who is constantly used by others when they need and placed aside when it is convenient. I am over this high school bullshit. Get over your shit. Be good friends. Or get the fuck out of my life and disappear into faded friendship oblivion. 

this is directed to all the people in my life currently who don't know how to be

Sappy pathetic little me 
That was the girl I used to be 
You had me on my knees 
I'd trade you places any day 
I'd never thought you could be that way 
But you looked like me on Sunday
You came in with the breeze 
On Sunday Morning 
You sure have changed since yesterday 
Without any warning 

I thought I knew you 
I thought I knew you 
I thought I knew you well... so well 

You're trying my shoes on for a change
They look so good but fit so strange 
Out of fashion so I can complain 

You came in with the breeze 
On Sunday Morning 
You sure have changed since yesterday
Without any warning 

I thought I knew you 
I thought I knew you 
I thought I knew you well... so well 

I know who I am, but who are you? 
You're not looking like you used to 
You're on the other side of the mirror 
So nothing's looking quite as clear 

Thank you, for turning on the light 
Thank you, now you're the parasite 
I didn't think you had it in you 
And now, you're looking like I used to! 

You came in with the breeze 
On Sunday Morning 
You sure have changed since yesterday 
Without any warning 
And you want me badly
You cannot have me 

I thought I knew you 
I've got a new view 
I thought I knew you well...oh well

sounds about right. hey saturday night.

o so i do have emotions? k. great.

#shit people in relationships tell their single friends

"well, somebody's bitter"

i'm currently in a so good/ through with love state of mind

fantasy / phantasies

dear x, what about my body body? i'm not feeling it.

nu-uh.

"so maybe it's built in women, where we try to change people"

one of my favourite songs, of all. time.

Last night, again,

you were in my dreams

several expendable limbs were at stake

you were a prince, spinning rims

all sentiments indian-given

and half-baked

I was brought

in on a palanquin

made of the many bodies

of beautiful women

brought to this place to be examined,

swaying on an elephant:

a princess of india

We both want the very same thing.

We are praying

I am the one to save you 

But you don't even own,

your own violence

Run away from home-

your beard is still blue

with the loneliness of you mighty men,

with your jaws, and fists, and guitars

and pens, and your sugarlip,

but I've never been to the firepits with you mighty men

Who made you this way?

Who made you this way?

Who is going to bear your beautiful children?

Do you think you can just stop, 

when you're ready for a change?

Who will take care of you

when you're old and dying?

You burn in the Mekong,

to prove your worth,

Go Long! Go Long!

Right over the edge of the earth!

You have been wronged, 

tore up since birth.

You have done harm.

Others have done worse.

Will you tuck your shirt?

Will you leave it loose?

You are badly hurt.

You're a silly goose.

You are caked in mud,

and in blood, and worse. 

Chew your bitter cud,

Grope your little nurse.

Do you know why

my ankles are bound in gauze

(sickly dressage:

a princess of kentucky)?

In the middle of the woods

(which were the probable cause),

we danced in the lodge

like two panting monkeys.

I will give you a call, for one last hurrah.

If this tale is tall, forgive my scrambling.

But you keep palming along the wall,

moving at a blind crawl,

but always rambling.

Wolf-spider, crouch in your funnel nest,

If I knew you, once, 

now I know you less,

In the sinking sand, 

where we've come to rest,

have I had a hand in your loneliness?

When you leave me alone

in this old palace of yours,

it starts to get to me. I take to walking,

What a woman does is open doors.

And it is not a question of locking

or unlocking.

Well, I have never seen

such a terrible room-

gilded with the gold teeth

of the women who loved you!

Now, though I die,

Magpie, this I bequeath:

by any other name

a jay is still blue

with the loneliness

of you mighty men,

with your mighty kiss

that might never end,

while, so far away,

in the seat of the west,

burns the fount

of the heat

of that loneliness.

There's a man

who only will speak in code,

backing slowly, slowly down the road.

May he master everything 

that such men may know

about loving, and then letting go.

speaking of keeping hope alive... (0:51)

this needs to be on feminist werewolf, if only because it gives me hope

we used to be friends

In elementary school, you couldn’t really stop being friends with somebody. They were always around, and for the sake of understood social propriety (yes this existed in elementary school), you remained friends with people you may or may not have actually liked because they had scented markers or were good at a&c (this may have just been my checklist for childhood friendship). When high school hit, a pandora’s box of emotional upheaval was released. In the 7^th grade you were just happy to have any friends at all to help you survive the frigid stares and exclusionary practices of the popular girls. Eventually, in high school, your crew of people became established, but again I am not sure if for the most part this was maintained because you actually were compatible as a whole or if they were just convenient. Well past this era, as a 23 year old who thinks she is an adult but is self aware enough to know she is not, I wonder what makes us now remain friends with people who we clearly do not like or who deviate from our established set of values.  Why do people continue to associate with people who make them feel badly about themselves, or use important information divulged in secret as a means to attack ones character, or even just basically, act in ways that counter their understanding of what constitutes a proper friendship? I am guilty of maintaining friendships with people who regularly frustrate me with their behaviour and their flakiness, and who demonstrate a general insensitivity to others. When I think about why I do not cut these people out of my life, it is because it is not worth the effort and hassle. I would rather the friendship end organically, with it slowly dissipating with both parties recognizing that the relationship wasn't sustainable. It is mostly frustrating when those bothersome friends cling to the idea of your friendship in name, claiming for all those who are listening that you are their possession as their "best friend." I disagree with this practice because it ostensibly cheapens the real friendships that I have which I value so deeply. 

lies we tell ourselves

My friend recently told me that she works with my ex boyfriend’s current girlfriend. This was our interaction.

Me: ok, cool, so she’s a dumb bitch right?

Friend: No, I mean she’s all right.

Me: so what you’re saying is she’s a dumb bitch. Right? (eyebrow twitch)

Friend: I went to school with her. She was ok. We were never really friends.  She thinks she is an intellectual but she isn’t really.

Me: No. You don’t get.  You’re supposed to tell me she is a dumb bitch.

Friend: Oh. Of course. Yes.  She is a dumb, dumb bitch.

Me: I knew it!  

british sexy talk from the 80s

How To Not Get Laid, by Curt Smith

How does AskMen.com exist? No, seriously. This is literally the worst thing I've ever seen. It's basically the male equivalent of Cosmopolitan.com, except worse. 

My fellow werewolf directed my attention to this fantastic little nugget of an article entitled "The Fake Female Trap" by Curt Smith.  Basically, Mr. Smith here is explaining to men all over the world how women attempt to "trap" men by - you know what, I can't even finish this.  This is nuts. Also, buddy, you have a degree? You just seem so wise. I'm sure, since you know so much about women and their traps (like shaving our legs, and wrapping sweaters around our waists), you must be getting laid all of the fuck over the place right? Nice job, Curt. Also, apparently everything single thing I do is in some way an effort to trap a man into marrying me, after which I will eat my weight in pie on a daily basis, hate his friends, remain unemployed, and not make sandwiches for him or have sex with him. Ever. 

Oh, okay.  Well, see, now apparently I've just been severely misinformed, because I was under the impression that, ultimately, I lived my life for me, and I made decisions based on my judgment, my morals, and how they would effect those I cared about.

But some things I do, I do for me.  I shave my legs because I like my legs soft. Sue me.  I go to the gym because I like it.  I don't give a fuck what you think about my thighs touching.

But seriously, this is so wrong. As if women don't get screwed over enough by their own magazines (Hey, Cosmo, stop telling women how to please men like Curt), we have to get shit from the men's side too? Goddamn. Can someone write an article about how men can respect women by just being a person? 

It just scares me that this article can be written, and read, and enjoyed by so many guys out there.  And yeah, yeah, I know, there are a whole bunch of people who disagree with it, and a bunch of guys who aren't like that, but apparently not enough because this garbage is still read, and believed.

Oh wait, nevermind, I retract everything I said.  I just saw Curt's disclaimer about how it wasn't meant to offend anyone.  You wrote this knowing you were offending people? ...Dude.

fiona apple reads my brain (again)

“I think I figured out the most important thing, and I don’t want to make this sound negative, at all, but in the best way possible, I fricking give up. I give up. You can’t try to make your life perfect, I’m just trying to have a good time, just trying to appreciate the things that I have around me.. I give up on the “dream” dream, I think every life’s all a dream.. it’s all wonderful… and terrible, and I give up, in the nicest way.”

— Fiona Apple (via quotnation)

now the summer is gone, there's another to come

"no, no, seriously."

if only