ethics

ethics happen before the law.
the law takes over where ethics can't regulate your life anymore.
I went to a discussion group today.
I think people don't understand.
and I think that distinction needs to be made.
They kept wanting to talk about intellectual properties:
but the discussion was about ethics.

and that precedes the law.
Am I wrong?


In other news, I really miss my brother.
he told me today that he is starting to dream in German.
I remember those days.

I thought about having a crush, but decided it's not a good idea.

Confession: I am lonely.
How can ethics help me?

I need to write more about how BYU made us have low self-esteem (conversation from tonight...).
More later.

Focus.
Focus.
Focus.

There is just so much

I frequently feel that my brain will explode with the extremely large amount of items that swirl around therein.

The biggest things on my mind lately (not surprisingly, or infrequently the case) is Native American history. In particular, the poem by e.e. cummings:

Buffalo Bill's

defunct

        who used to

        ride a watersmooth-silver

                                  stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                  Jesus



he was a handsome man

                      and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

I love this poem. I have been thinking a lot about the appropriation of Native American culture and traditional practice in mainstream culture. 

I am going to ride this wave and see where it takes me. In the meantime, here are some images to tide you over til I decide I can write about this.

Images are the most important thing. 

no...

nooo...

Please, no...

Seriously? NOOOO!

Now I am depressed.

THIS: not cool.

I get it: you don't realize that you are racist. 

 And just a little education so that you don't close this tab feeling completely racist, and so that you can know

 some things for future use:

1. Women do not wear war bonnets. 

2. War bonnets are sacred.

3. Many feathers have traditional uses (not to mention the impact the trend is having on other industries...)

4. Racism is still alive and well. 

5. The term "buckskin" and calling a US Dollar a "buck" are racist. Historical background: 

When colonists were settling, particularly around Virginia, they invested in the fur trade, particularly the fur of the deer,

a native animal to the North American continent. For the hide of one male deer (a buck), a person was paid one US dollar. 

Thus, the dollar took on the nickname, "buck". As wars with native peoples began, the derogatory idea was to 

refer to dead Indian men as "bucks", as they were piled in heaps like the dead deer whose hides would be traded.

So... the point in telling you this? I'm not trying to make you feel terrible for telling me how many bucks you just 

scored while big pimpin, I just want us all to be a bit more aware of the etymology of the stuff we say.

My dear sweet sister-cousin sent me a really lovely book about the history of Indian trade blankets. 

I was so excited to get some good history on them!

Here is a fun little article talking about how they have been appropriated by hipster culture. With slideshow!!

 Hippies were always trying to be Indians. As we can see, this is not a new trend.

 (PLEASE click this. This is the best scene.) 

This is from artist Arthur Amiote. He is great. Maybe I will write more about him someday.
 

so i am going home and taking a nap.

So... winter crept up and stole my sunshine*. It was a sneak attack of the most calculated and intricate variety. It was 96 with a heat index of 109 (which felt like 290). So hot... SO sweaty.
Ahem.
It is currently 50 degrees outside, and I am bundled up in my office, which apparently didn't catch the memo that it is no longer summer.
I drove to work/school because there was a cloud sitting on my house when I left this morn, and I wasn't sure my face could deal with cloud bits hitting it as I rode my bike. I like to think about my face thanking me for my well-informed decision to hide it behind a quarter inch of tempered glass.
My boss isn't here today, and I have officially completed the tasks she assigned my for this week.
I think I will now drive that tempered glass home and call it a day. My face will probably thank me for that as well.
I do not know how I am going to make it through a Midwest winter.

Also... (Imagine a rather lengthy conversational pause here, because if we were talking face-to-face, there would be some awkward body-shifting and hair pulling and twirling because i don't really know how to talk about this because, well, I don't know EXACTLY how I feel about it, but I guess it fits in with my post lamenting a larger group of friends that come with a complimentary list of other options for fun timesss)

...I am planning to go to a regional YSA dance tonight in Omaha.
I am terrified.
I haven't been to one of these guys in... years. I went to precisely ONE dance since I left high school (during which time I also attended exactly ONE officially sponsored dance). It was terrible and I left after about six minutes. I am not ready for the awkwardness that is about to ensue, and I am fairly certain that humiliation will be the outcome. I am probably psyched out (Still) from having devoured this book with K-rah during an epic weekend during senior year at BYU. I have a general distaste for organized activities for adults, PARTICULARLY ones that have a soundtrack of music that was played on Top 40 radio stations spanning a time period circa 1992-2005.

 this will be me. it will be awkward when I tell him that I don't eat meat, and then he tells me that his parents own a cattle ranch.

Furthermore, I think I was tricked into thinking that I was semi-normal in my time in Provo, where I was basically surrounded by fairly liberal thinking, globally minded people who were interested in the same things I was/am. I didn't realize how excruciating it would be to announce to my new ward family that I am a vegetarian, a feminist, or wearing DI dresses everyday (and no, not because there's something special that I am dressing up for today, but really that's basically the only clothing option that I own. I promise.), or that I am studying art history, even weirder that it is Native American art that I am pursuing, or that I am interested in the earth and what it actually means to practice the doctrine to which I espouse my belief....I came a wee bit closer to understanding how one might feel coming out as a homosexual or some other social deviant.

 I guess I am socially deviant in a lot of ways... I guess I didn't realize how strange that was. The uncomfortable stares have begun to get to me, though. I was raised to not care what people think about me. The mantra of my childhood was, "Act, don't react". My dad said it to me a trillion times in my 25 years. It taught me a lot of good lessons, and I became a strong internally motivated person who was happy to be different and acknowledge that there is a whole myriad of difference in the world. Why can't I remember what that means now? Why can't I remember that it feels good to be self-assured and confident in your own nuances and quirks?
(quarter-life crisis ensuing now...)

Maybe I should stop being a prideful-jerk-face and just decide to have fun by dancing to "Play that Funk Music White Boy" one more time??

maybe...

ugh.
wish me luck.



*okay, SERIOUSLY- remember how amaaaaaazing that song was in 8th grade!?!?!

sommetimes the internet cracks me up.

I was searching for something by the artist Morris Louis:

but was instead greeted by this:

Whaaaat?

I have been here for a month and I feel like a failure

I had a goal to feel settled here in four weeks.
It has been one month exactly since I arrived.
I do not yet feel secure not settled.
Was that an unrealistic timeline?
Or have I really failed?

In other news, sometimes I don't want to do things that my church (read: only) friends want to do (read:FHE).
But I have been reading about the Renaissance for three hours, and I need a break.
It makes me wish that I had other friends here who could give me alternative options.
I miss you.

Haiku for Lincoln, Nebraska

I spend lots of time these days
waiting trains which pass
and then make me late for school.

writing

Sometimes I write emails and send them... to myself.
I do it to report on the day, and to remind myself about things. Usually when I do it, I think to myself, "Maybe someday, when I am dead, someone will figure out that most of my passwords were one of four or five combinations of the same basic things. And when they do they will unlock my email, and they will see how bonkers I really was. I am writing an email to myself. I know this is crazy, but it is also cathartic, and it makes me feel like I'm not alone."
So I keep writing.
Other times, I get emails from other (real) people, with poems that are perfect in them. Perfect because they are true and because they are real life.
I am not pregnant, though. 

Do not ever tell me that money is not magic.