to HERE
2010 has really been a year of change and flux so far, y'know? Anyway i hate this blogspot bullshit so much and i've really let it go on for way too long. Also i can't type a capital i on my keyboard anymore and the formatting on this means i can't use the lowercase L trick. so that's really just further incentive.
So anyway, alexandrahart.tumblr.com. Peace, google overlords.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
BALLOON PANlC ATTACKS FOR WOMEN
if i was slightly more into writing this blog i'd try to figure out how to make those hideous google ads go away, but in the meantime i had a good snicker at these suggestions.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
home decor fail
For perhaps a full decade this frame/mirror/hook combo has hung here, on this shrieking-yellow wall, in my family's home. Take a good look at it. See those charming, professionally photographed white people? They came with the frame. I guess my mom never thought we were an attractive enough family to warrant taking out the manufacturer photos.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
"Hey! Do you believe in anything beyond troll-guy reality? I do, I do, I do"
"Kathleen Hanna Papers" @ NYU library
Our library has a "Riot Grrrl Collection"?! My love for my school is renewed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwh7iilWrp0
Our library has a "Riot Grrrl Collection"?! My love for my school is renewed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwh7iilWrp0
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Balloons Of My Youth
Or, Why I'm So Glad My Parents Eventually Gave Me Siblings
When I was a little kid, I had this intense, hysterical fear of balloons.
More accurately: It wasn't the actual balloons themselves I was afraid of, but rather, what would happen if I let go of one. Nothing could strike greater fear into the small heart of my preschool aged self than the threat of seeing one's balloon, one's favorite balloon, only balloon, generously gifted by one's mother, precariously tied to the plastic handle of a Grand Union shopping cart, drift vulnerably, permanently, into the sky. If I was bought a balloon at the grocery store, I would insist that my mom double and triple knot the ribbon around my wrist, then I'd shriek with anxiety until we made it to the car, where the sound of taught latex against the carpeted car roof soothed my frayed nerves.
I was a high strung, anxious child. If the Jewish Jason Schwartzman-esque neurotic stereotype came in a WASPy flaxen-haired 5-year-old model, that neurotic would be a younger Alex Hart. Over the following decade and a half, that anxiety would be invested in a number of more rational but still grossly exaggerated fears--bad skin, weird unflattering haircuts, getting dumped, getting fat, getting rejected from college. But even when I was blissfully un-self-conscious, I was wrought with despair over the balloon: a universal symbol of joy and celebration.
Around my third birthday, my mom was trying to jam a bunch of latex balloons into a car that had been sitting in a parking lot in August for an hour, and 3 or 4 of them exploded on contact with the car's roof. I couldn't deal. I hurled myself to the floor, pounding the seat in hysterics. What waste! What squandering! What abuse! They were mine and they were so vulnerable and so fragile and now they are gone! It was too much for my little self to handle.
Eventually, after spending too many neighborhood parties consoling a wailing me after I watched a balloon amble off into the sky above our condo courtyard, my mother nixed balloons at my birthday altogether.
Anyway so the point of my story is this: today a little girl got on the 6 train, probably around 3 or 4, wearing a pink windbreaker and pink socks and clutching a fat pink balloon. And she was screeching with fear that her balloon would "float away." She clenched it against her chest with her little fingernails, and her mother advised her not too hold it to tightly or else it could pop. This made her more hysterical; I empathized immediately. "Don't worry," her mother cooed. "We're on the train now, there's no where for the balloon to go, see?" And she wiggled the thing out of her daughters' arms and the entire train watched it wobble slowly to the roof of the car and rebound lightly off the ceiling support bar.
Basically, my fears were a hell of a lot more justified than that kid's.
When I was a little kid, I had this intense, hysterical fear of balloons.
More accurately: It wasn't the actual balloons themselves I was afraid of, but rather, what would happen if I let go of one. Nothing could strike greater fear into the small heart of my preschool aged self than the threat of seeing one's balloon, one's favorite balloon, only balloon, generously gifted by one's mother, precariously tied to the plastic handle of a Grand Union shopping cart, drift vulnerably, permanently, into the sky. If I was bought a balloon at the grocery store, I would insist that my mom double and triple knot the ribbon around my wrist, then I'd shriek with anxiety until we made it to the car, where the sound of taught latex against the carpeted car roof soothed my frayed nerves.
I was a high strung, anxious child. If the Jewish Jason Schwartzman-esque neurotic stereotype came in a WASPy flaxen-haired 5-year-old model, that neurotic would be a younger Alex Hart. Over the following decade and a half, that anxiety would be invested in a number of more rational but still grossly exaggerated fears--bad skin, weird unflattering haircuts, getting dumped, getting fat, getting rejected from college. But even when I was blissfully un-self-conscious, I was wrought with despair over the balloon: a universal symbol of joy and celebration.
Around my third birthday, my mom was trying to jam a bunch of latex balloons into a car that had been sitting in a parking lot in August for an hour, and 3 or 4 of them exploded on contact with the car's roof. I couldn't deal. I hurled myself to the floor, pounding the seat in hysterics. What waste! What squandering! What abuse! They were mine and they were so vulnerable and so fragile and now they are gone! It was too much for my little self to handle.
Eventually, after spending too many neighborhood parties consoling a wailing me after I watched a balloon amble off into the sky above our condo courtyard, my mother nixed balloons at my birthday altogether.
Anyway so the point of my story is this: today a little girl got on the 6 train, probably around 3 or 4, wearing a pink windbreaker and pink socks and clutching a fat pink balloon. And she was screeching with fear that her balloon would "float away." She clenched it against her chest with her little fingernails, and her mother advised her not too hold it to tightly or else it could pop. This made her more hysterical; I empathized immediately. "Don't worry," her mother cooed. "We're on the train now, there's no where for the balloon to go, see?" And she wiggled the thing out of her daughters' arms and the entire train watched it wobble slowly to the roof of the car and rebound lightly off the ceiling support bar.
Basically, my fears were a hell of a lot more justified than that kid's.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The long awaited return
It is a scientifically proven fact that the only hits ohcollege.tumblr.com got for the past two years were either the authors' parents or lecherous unrequited lovers (mostly our parents). Tragically, this charming and delightful blog on the curious nature of female-dom in NYC (and live-blogging dominos orders and some other shit) went on hiatus when one of its anonymous dueling she-authors spent four months in central Europe (she was not kidnapped). I can't tell you any more on the matter, but suffice it to say this blog will once again be enlightening and informing you.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Top 5 things at NYU that no campus tour guide will tell you
5. NYC hates you. It's a justifiable enough hatred-- we eminent domained the shit out of them and fill the sidewalks with drunk 18 year olds walking four abreast. But it's a hatred intensified by New Yorkers timeless aversion to new people. And by the hyper sensitivity of said 18 year olds, who are probably lifelong perfectionists, do-gooders, and general confrontation-avoiders.
4. There are an unfathomable number of people here. Try to find a place to eat lunch and do your homework. Oh, is it cold/rainy outside? You need a power outlet for your computer? Happy hunting.
3. Undergraduates are garbage. Don't get me wrong-- I am satisfied and impressed with the level of education I've received here. It's endowed me with, among many other things, the skills to write snappy blog posts. I think very hard here and it feels good. But we have virtually no agency in the bureaucratic labyrinth that is NYU, are internally referred to as "clients", and our dissatisfaction with the system is discounted because, huzzah!, we are the Infinity Plus Dream School of America and there will always be a slew of Midwestern high schoolers with big Sarah-Jessica-Parker dreams who will come here. In the eyes of this private university, a service is being provided for money. I still believe it's a very good service, but the undergraduate school at NYU is less a symbiotic academic environment than it is a service-for-payment exchange. I'd imagine the administration likens last year's TBNYU protest (which was misguided and unproductive but rooted in SOME basically good ideals, i.e. budget transparency) to going into a restaurant and ordering food and saying, 'fuck this restaurant! This restaurant needs to change its policies, and support Palestine! I'm gonna occupy this restaurant!'
2. It's more than just the lack of a traditional campus that gives NYU its distinctive non-community community. It's also the concerted efforts of culture-shocked undergraduates who want to establish their "NY savvy" as quickly as possible, and do so by adopting an air of total indifference and isolation. A lot of time at NYU is spent in big anonymous crows and lines (see #4); consequently, a lot of time is spent shoving and not saying excuse me. [I don't know, honestly, what a more traditional campus vibe feels like, but something tells me things must be much different at a school where running into someone you know is not a nice rare surprise.] It fosters a lot of acrimony, a lot of envy, particularly among the ladiesss, which brings me to:
1. The huge number of girls (and to a somewhat lesser though not to be ignored degree, boys) involved/engrossed in various crushing states of self-destruction and self-loathing. Oh, how often I have found the barely-digested remnants of someone's salad lunch in a Bobst bathroom. Emaciated girl picks through loose fruit at space market. Coffee coffee water water cocaine. This is agonizing for me-- you are supposed to be of the world's brightest and most talented young women. You are attending this incredible school in this amazing city. You are scorning your thighs and staring wishfully at some other girl's protruding pelvic bones when you SHOULD be writing your opus. Sigh.
4. There are an unfathomable number of people here. Try to find a place to eat lunch and do your homework. Oh, is it cold/rainy outside? You need a power outlet for your computer? Happy hunting.
3. Undergraduates are garbage. Don't get me wrong-- I am satisfied and impressed with the level of education I've received here. It's endowed me with, among many other things, the skills to write snappy blog posts. I think very hard here and it feels good. But we have virtually no agency in the bureaucratic labyrinth that is NYU, are internally referred to as "clients", and our dissatisfaction with the system is discounted because, huzzah!, we are the Infinity Plus Dream School of America and there will always be a slew of Midwestern high schoolers with big Sarah-Jessica-Parker dreams who will come here. In the eyes of this private university, a service is being provided for money. I still believe it's a very good service, but the undergraduate school at NYU is less a symbiotic academic environment than it is a service-for-payment exchange. I'd imagine the administration likens last year's TBNYU protest (which was misguided and unproductive but rooted in SOME basically good ideals, i.e. budget transparency) to going into a restaurant and ordering food and saying, 'fuck this restaurant! This restaurant needs to change its policies, and support Palestine! I'm gonna occupy this restaurant!'
2. It's more than just the lack of a traditional campus that gives NYU its distinctive non-community community. It's also the concerted efforts of culture-shocked undergraduates who want to establish their "NY savvy" as quickly as possible, and do so by adopting an air of total indifference and isolation. A lot of time at NYU is spent in big anonymous crows and lines (see #4); consequently, a lot of time is spent shoving and not saying excuse me. [I don't know, honestly, what a more traditional campus vibe feels like, but something tells me things must be much different at a school where running into someone you know is not a nice rare surprise.] It fosters a lot of acrimony, a lot of envy, particularly among the ladiesss, which brings me to:
1. The huge number of girls (and to a somewhat lesser though not to be ignored degree, boys) involved/engrossed in various crushing states of self-destruction and self-loathing. Oh, how often I have found the barely-digested remnants of someone's salad lunch in a Bobst bathroom. Emaciated girl picks through loose fruit at space market. Coffee coffee water water cocaine. This is agonizing for me-- you are supposed to be of the world's brightest and most talented young women. You are attending this incredible school in this amazing city. You are scorning your thighs and staring wishfully at some other girl's protruding pelvic bones when you SHOULD be writing your opus. Sigh.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Are you a woman and/or someone who loves a woman?
Stupak-Pitts will screwwww you!
(Well, probably.)
This is obviously something a lot of people are pissed about-- it's this huge step back for reproductive rights, it basically nullifies the House's health care bill's mandate against gender discrimination by insurers, etc. But I just came from PPNYC's legislative overview training and it's made me think a bigger problem might be understanding that this isn't just a problem for poor women. This is going to be a problem for MOST women. The reproductive health of any woman depending on any health care plan that receives one dollar
of federal funding or subsidy is going to be jeopardized by this. If this amendment were to pass, and I don't think it will because cooler heads are supposed to prevail in the Senate right, here are some women who would not get insurance coverage for abortion services:
-Any woman who gets health insurance in the exchange including:
-self-employed women
-women who work for small businesses
-unemployed women
-divorced/single women
-low-income women
-women who are satisfied with their current health care plan and would not purchase insurance in the exchange but whose insurer would cover JUST ONE SINGLE subsidized individual including:
-everyone
-you
-me
-any woman who gets insurance from her employer or her spouse's employer once said employer enters the exchange!
And we haven't even begun to consider the overwhelming number of federal employees using employer insurance denied comprehensive health care coverage here: public school teachers, post office clerks, the people who pick up our garbage, the people who drive our subway trains, law enforcement: it's not just stupid policy, it's bad politics. Stupak violates the very tenet of health care reform meant to appease its right wing opponents: if you're already happy with your health care, you can keep it.
(Well, probably.)
This is obviously something a lot of people are pissed about-- it's this huge step back for reproductive rights, it basically nullifies the House's health care bill's mandate against gender discrimination by insurers, etc. But I just came from PPNYC's legislative overview training and it's made me think a bigger problem might be understanding that this isn't just a problem for poor women. This is going to be a problem for MOST women. The reproductive health of any woman depending on any health care plan that receives one dollar
of federal funding or subsidy is going to be jeopardized by this. If this amendment were to pass, and I don't think it will because cooler heads are supposed to prevail in the Senate right, here are some women who would not get insurance coverage for abortion services:
-Any woman who gets health insurance in the exchange including:
-self-employed women
-women who work for small businesses
-unemployed women
-divorced/single women
-low-income women
-women who are satisfied with their current health care plan and would not purchase insurance in the exchange but whose insurer would cover JUST ONE SINGLE subsidized individual including:
-everyone
-you
-me
-any woman who gets insurance from her employer or her spouse's employer once said employer enters the exchange!
And we haven't even begun to consider the overwhelming number of federal employees using employer insurance denied comprehensive health care coverage here: public school teachers, post office clerks, the people who pick up our garbage, the people who drive our subway trains, law enforcement: it's not just stupid policy, it's bad politics. Stupak violates the very tenet of health care reform meant to appease its right wing opponents: if you're already happy with your health care, you can keep it.
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