Greetings from San Francisco!

The view from my window.

It's been a while since I last updated...but I am currently writing from the city on the hill! I just arrived on Monday and I'm here until the end of August, living with a friend's family in the Sunset District (the trees on the left of the picture mark the edge of Golden Gate Park, which is truly lovely).

The real purpose of my being here, however, is interning at NARAL Pro-Choice California. Unfortunately I won't be able to give a whole lot of details about the experience, as we have to be really careful about confidentiality (because there are a lot of anti-choice crazies out there), but suffice it to say that my first day was awesome and I'm excited to be working there. The people are all incredibly friendly and sweet, and I'm going to get a chance to work on a few different projects, which will be great for figuring out what kinds of areas I enjoy (media, communications, outreach, etc.).

As for San Francisco, I'm already a big fan. We've had great weather so far, though I'm told not to expect this in general - certainly, there has been plenty of fog in the mornings and evenings, but the days have been quite sunny and nice. Proof of the mild climate: there is a lemon tree in the backyard!

Highlight of my wandering around the Financial District (which I have dubbed "Baby Manhattan") alone yesterday: riding a cable car! Definitely an experience that is deserving of the hype.

Oh, and Pride is this weekend! Now I just need to find a friend to go to the parade with me...

Belated Commencement Goodness

Ellen DeGeneres gave an awesome commencement speech at Tulane. Check it out! It's worth watching to the end. Congratulations to all of the high school and college graduates!

TGIF (Tonsillectomy Edition)

My lovely suitemates from the past semester - I miss them already! From left: me, Karynn, Katie, Masumi, and Caitlin.

1. All I've been doing since my tonsillectomy has been resting at home.
2. My favorite thing for dinner lately has been black raspberry gelato...mmm.
3. One of many things that annoys me about dogs relative to cats is their bark! bark! bark!
4. A nice long walk would be nice if I had the energy.
5. Knowing that friends wanted to pay me a visit would be some good news.
6. When all is said and done, this recovery thing hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sleeping, tomorrow my plans include watching movies and Sunday, I want to watch movies!


Awesome movies I've seen this week (the first two were the only ones I hadn't seen before), any of which are highly recommended for a sick day:
Casablanca
Milk
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Animal House
Good Will Hunting
Mr. Holland's Opus
plus Season 1 of Arrested Development

Dang, I really have nothing to talk about. My life consists of hydrocodone, movies, and frozen beverages.

Too tired for anything of substance. Later, y'all.

Klezmer Sax?

For our last concert of the year, the Wind Symphony invited awesome klezmer clarinetist Margot Leverett to join us as a guest soloist. I got to play a duet with her during the Doina section of the piece that she and Matt arranged, called Klezmer Fantazi for Band. The two videos together make up the whole piece, but if you just want to hear me, I play at the very beginning of the first video. I was incredibly nervous, as I'd never played klezmer and hardly ever improvise, but it went really well. If you have time, listen to the whole thing - Margot is incredible. She's also an incredibly sweet person and I'm so glad to have gotten a chance to work with her.

a poem about grapefruit

Yargh, sorry I've been a terrible blogger. Finals! Commencement week! So much has gotten in the way. In any case, I'm home, eagerly(?) awaiting Monday, when I will be getting my tonsils out. Send me healing vibes! I'll be drugged up and sore for at least a week, maybe two.

For now, I'd like to offer up a poem, written by my talented friend Leora Fox.

ways to eat a grapefruit

for devon, jon, nat, and abe

1. screaming romantically: two
fingers, frantic, scooping chunks
of pink flesh along with inner,
outer peel.

2. in series of semiquavers, in
perpendicular planes, with
thirds on the brain, on
unsteady wooden chairs.

3. with holes bored to siphon
juice, periodic compression and
release, two-palmed, downward;
fitfully at best.

4. sluiced truthfully
through the middle in
imperfect halves, with
serrated spoon.

Street Sights

Check out this article by the amazing Adrienne on Street Sights, a monthly publication about issues in the homeless community of Providence. The cool thing about this paper is that the vast majority of contributers are homeless themselves - giving them a place to let their voices be heard. It also serves as a forum for discussion and a way for the community to organize. I find it really inspiring that a publication like this can exist - it seems like such a productive way to bring together and support a community that is often alienated, to say the least.

Speaking of inspiration, thanks to everyone who voted for my friend's project - ImMEDIAte Justice won the $10,000 grant!! I'm so proud of them and excited for the amazing work they're going to be able to do.

Scientific study finds that promiscuity is culturally-based. Feminists say, "No kidding."

(x-posted at Women@Brown)

Jezebel had a good post the other day about a new study showing that promiscuity may be more culturally influenced than biologically/evolutionarily. Well, yeah, no kidding. But evolutionary biologists have long held that, based mainly on studies of fruit flies, males are more promiscuous than females. Spreading one's genes is an evolutionary advantage, but producing eggs is more of an investment than insemination, so females tend to have fewer mating partners while males tend to have more. While these findings are undoubtedly important, the subsequent application to human behavior has been, well, problematic. Claiming cultural norms/stereotypes as "natural" tends to lead into dangerous territory, reinforcing expectations of men's and women's roles in society.

However, a new study that actually takes a look at human behavior has shown that "Evidence for sex differences in variation in reproductive success alone does not allow us to make generalizations about sex roles, as numerous variables will influence [previous findings] for men and women." But not only is the notion of promiscuous men and choosy women culturally based, it may also be wrong. While men had more children by different partners than women did overall, number of sexual partners is extremely difficult to measure because people lie about it. The social expectation for men to sleep around and women to want committed relationships tends to make men exaggerate upwards and women exaggerate downwards when surveyed about the number of sexual partners they'd had.

This study is encouraging, because it shows an awareness by the scientific community that humans are embedded in culture - a fact that tends to be ignored in evolutionary biology. On the other hand, Elizabeth Wilson (who gave a talk at the differences colloquium a few weeks ago) got me thinking about the fact that feminism tends to ignore biology, too. To paraphrase Wilson, although nothing can be explained in purely biological terms - especially biology - feminism does need to be more engaged with biology. When we distance ourselves from the scientific community, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot when we could be focused on working through similar issues. And the last thing we want is to show how completely out-of-touch we are by suggesting that fruit fly research is unimportant.

How to engage biology is, of course, the difficult question. But I get discouraged when I end up in arguments with my biology-focused friends about things like the influence of evolution and/or culture on sex and gender, because it gets in the way of our shared commitment to social justice. I make a habit of calling out science out for its assumed objectivity - nothing is purely objective; we don't exist in a vacuum - but the last thing I want to do is alienate it because it isn't self-aware enough. It would be more productive to help it become more self-aware, and then work in conversation with it.