letters i'll never send.

dear boy who thinks he is a rockstar,
yes, you are the best guitar player i have ever known personally. that is if you dont count an hour encounter with tom morello of rage agaisnt the machine. but do not treat me like a stupid groupie. you are not getting in my pants. i am not going to compliment you on shit you already know is good. and no im not going to that show because you are going to be there. however if you offer to help me refine my bass playing skills, or to fool around with your mixer, or want to collaborate on somethign ewith me, other than physically or egotistically jerking you off, i will be more than willinng to comply.
heart,
lady who likes your music but hates talking to you.

dear old friend,
thank you. i'm willing to take baby steps. and if you dont want/need/ are not ready for having "the talk" for a long time, thats okay. i want more than anything to be there for you through this stressfull time. if i can help you in anyway let me know.
and i'm baking you a Toffutti cheesecake soon, cause being lactose intolerant sucks, esp for you:(
love,
yr wench

dear boss,
i need more hours this week okay?
-heart
-computer kid/token female employee

dear weather,
stop being cold and snowy.
-vicky

dear kids in brooklyn,
i want to see you before i go back to school but im shy about calling. so call me.
-vicky from lang island.

dear political prisoners i write to,

if i could recieve 1 letter back from any of you, it will make my day.
-vicky


dear spirit of the world/ force,
thank you for hearing me out and being good to me lately
love
the pagan cat lady,

am i too old for punk?!

so i just killed brain cells my watching 3 episodes of Tila Tequila and Danni is HOT. my god, who knew the day would come when a butch lesbian would be seen on TV and not be a fucking parody?!

other than that it stereotypes bisexuals, Asian women, and is a completely chauvinistic show. like i said, burning off brain cells.

anywya
pretty sure I have a fever. whatever...

yesterday i went to a punk show, and there was a mosh pit.i spent the entirity of the show thinking of how tired i was and trying to amp myself up to go in the pit, and in the end leaving early cause my ears hurt. I felt so damn old!
when I was 16 I would get in a leftover crack pit and some howcome out still standing. now I was barely in the border of the pit and im nursing a swollen nose and have scratches on both elbows.
either I have gotten weaker, more scared, or the older i get the more fear i have. and quite honestly i got to cut that shit out!

i don't wanna grow up man, where the fuck is peter pan?

partially i think it's also that in college fucking parties are stupid having a VIP section everyone trying to look glamorous and adult and shit. peope make fun of you if you dont dance okay you dont get booze at parties if you don't "look cool" and everyone wants to have an intellectual conversation to scared to look stupid.

so being around that, for months and now im not used to drinking a 40 oz and dancing like a dumb ass yelling at the top of my lungs. the punk scene has gotten more diverse, so as much as that used ot be an old complaint of mine, that has gotten a lot better.


i know that partially what pisses me off about it, and new york in general, os how elitest it can be. especially when you don't know anyone. but yeeah....
now i'm older so im also elitest cause some of the alternative barbie looking kids were pissing me off. most of the kids though i was cool with. i have always just had a hatred of "anarchy barbie" as i would call, it meaning girls wh go to punkrock shows or are into other cool shit because their boyfriend does it, and in the end don;t know sit about it. this is also present off, although i try to not get too annoyed over it cause there's so much misogyn the last thing i need to know is hate women too.
but yeah...when I was little i used to worry cause my hair was long and i knew i didnt look punkrock enough, even if i was into DIY culture activism and punk music. now i know i'm not a fashion pun, but i no longer care. guess thats a perk of being on old fuck haha,

WTF Immortal Technique?!?!

So listen to the song, read the lyrics. Did he just admit to being a rapist?!?!?!?!


Alright. I tried to mantain solidarity with the guy because he's rad and an amazing rapper, has great politics, and is Peruvian like me, came to the US because of civil unrest going on in Peru, just like me.
Also cause he gets such amazing shit done, is real talented, and an asset to the movement and left in general.
This is all DESPITE sexist homophobic lyrics.

But dude, rape?
No, not cool. And I can't excuse that no matter how sorry you are or how you frame it in your song as a shitty thing to do. See, I'm torn up about this because part of me is like "well it's in his past, and he's not a rapist now, and realiuzes the error of his ways..."
And I'm all about fucking over the Prison Industrial Complex and actually deconstructing internalized isms within people and you know, uniting our community and shit. I was totally blown away by Moe telling me of that program that simultaneously therapy-fied sex offenders and sexual assault survivors.


But rape is the most violent crime against humanity, which has systematically been used against women since civilization started.
It is so inherently misogynist, (nevermind sexist!) that you cant just forgive forget and move on.
as a woman i can't see myself forgiving that. you know?

but i feel at the same time it goes against my belief in the ineffectiveness of the PIC and giving rehabilitated people chances.

word vomit

it's too cold to sleep tonight
We could freeze to death I warn
It's so hard to want to fight
When you wish you were never born

This time you're gonna have to choose
You can stick with me, but you're gonna lose
But it's the same thing that I hear
Ya can't go home and ya can't stay here

And I'd do anything it takes
I wish that I could change it all
But I'll drown in the pain of my mistakes
Cause when I'm done searching, you know I'm gonna fall

We'll get a bottle to keep us warm
A little fuckin' shelter from the wicked storm
But it's the same thing that I hear
Ya can't go home and ya can't stay here - Leftover Crack


It's not that I miss home. It's not that things are particularly shitty here.
I just feel trapped.
knowing imma spend 4 years here and get24,000+ dollars in debt and a useless liberal arts degree. and do what with it? be a social worker? no that requires grad school and fuck me if im gonna do that. I want to learn "the secret" of the kids in brooklyn. how the fuck dont you gotta job and can afford an apartment and food on your'e plate so you can do activism and be so fucking free. i'm a liar if i say i'm not the least bit envious because i'd kill to live without a job so i could devote myslef doing anything i want.

i have aquaintances here no one who's really a friend.
and i can't do clique but thats the way the world works. everyone' gotta click and i jsut wander without any 'friend insurance" security.


i'm not miserable here. i just feel like somehting is "off" and i should be doing something else, like living for the moment. instead of succumbing to an institution because i dont know what it is i want to do. i'm waiting for something life changing. i want to paint. instead im taking classes im not passionate about public speaking, some mandotry freshmen bullshit intro course, and anthroplogy. anthro's not bad. but everything else i can live without.
and and especially cause i keep hearing all this shit. the eric mcdavid case, the parade without a permit, so much stuff, rod cornado, etc and i'm so...idle. that's it. i hate idle-ness and i feel i've reached a plateau in my life. i really hate comrpisieng myself to anythign wether a perosn or shcool. it feels like bondage.

Conclusion

I do have an alcohol problem. I've had 2 black outs and 2 hospital rides in the past year.
because of drinking excessivley. and i dont want this ti ruin/ take over my life. yet i hate the feeling of being told I can't have something, even if it's me doing ht telling. I hate limitation. My tarot card is the Trump card for excess and impulse; The Devil. I like extremes because it makes me feel so alive.
I like fucking letting go.
And my problem is I have to get drunker than others to feel satisifed with my drunkenness.
I talked to devyn about this for a good while. he was so supportive as usual.
and gave metips to control my drinking and let me know that this wasn't the end of it all.
I can take control of my decisions and actions. I have made the choice to cool down on the partying. I'm happy because today although getting offered a million times and getting made fun of for taking "wuuuaaater" (yes mock my new york accent) instead, i didnt take the whiksy or beer offered to me.
granted I got high instead. but I don't have a problem with weed.
I can control that, and although quite high i made the decission to leave and not smoke past a number of hits.

tommorow i wake up early to donate blood and go swimming with Nea. then farenheit 451 and public speaking. then the radical foods group. I am so inspired in campous. we have ac ommutntiy garden, a free store and its completely rad!!and we may be starting a food not bombs which im thrilled about.


I hope I can keep this promise to myself not to drink. it helps that I havent gotten to the point of physical addiction.
It would ge great to have a support group to go to. but AA is for 12 stop "give up power" motherfuckers. and believing in a higher power christian shit. which doesn't work for me.

Knox

so finally moved in!! this will complete my one week stay at college. i like it here. a lot of radical acitvism and cool peeps. theparty scene is a little dry mainly because theres been alcohol busts like woah this yearon the frats:(
but whatever will make do.
i met this guy who is kind of dreamy.
and im a sucker for boys with a dark demeanor, and he has that. and he's a scorpio which kills me even more.

jordan is still in the picture i guess as a polyamourous lover. hye plans on visiting,. yay. going to try to stay on top of my studies. do activismk especially with estuiantes sin fronteras, an anti-border and anti-imperialism group.
oh yeah and party. althoough im very self concious about my relationship to alcohol.

gentrification, friend drama

YIIIIIIKES!! I move in 2 days. excited/stressed/ nervous, happy, exanimate, sad, all at the same fucking time.



one fact has become rather self-evident: need to leave new york.
i was in williamsburg yesterday ad it was basically disneyland for hipsters. i saw more whitepeople than people of color!!

and it was like the aquabats video of fashion zombies.


that and i think im unconciosuly distancing myselffrom everyon e in brooklyn. like my body is emotionally preparing for it. regardless when i said bye to eveyrone i was so close to tears, i was barely able to get out without crying.
granted i sniffled my way back to the subway station.
i'm gonna miss some kids. other kids i thought were friends aren't. or maybe im taking drama too seriosuley. idunno. ill get back to it when i calm my ass down.
so much fucking packing to do!!!gaaaah!!!

Green livin'

I want this book. we used it to make vegan cupcakes. and while in my opinion the cupcakes werent the best, that was because we lack a few ingredients and replaced some with others. But the amazing thing is THE CUPCAKES ROSE! I am so paranoid when it comes to vegan baking cause Im scared my shit won't rise. which is exactly wat happened when I made brownies for Prison Letter writing.

Frustrated.

Today I went to do court support for Mariah Lopez with two friends. The judge wa sso grumpy old man as usual. same depressing shit. Se didnt get a lowered bail, despite suicide attempts, court support, etc.
I annoucned to my friends that I was moving to Illinois. Both told me shitty things about Chicago like the cold weather for example. It almost gave me second thoughts about staying. Thinking how much I'm a msis everyone in New York and activism and thediversity, fucking Chinese food, etc.

Then I went to the FIERCE! meeting. I am so used to being in anarchist settings that to be in a non-anarchist setting seemed so stuffy to me. Not to say FIERCE! is stuff it's certianly not, but it also most defintly isn't anarcho-casual. One thing about them is right on though; THEY GET SHIT DONE.They are very communtiy orietned and organized. I think us anarcho casual folks could learn a bit from them and they can leanr a bit from us (such as consensus).
While at FIERCE!I saw a vide on the Pier. and That just confirmed my need to move from New York. I hate how gentrified it has become. How by enforcing a curfew and such giving the police libertie to keep pushing people out of what was ours. Same thing with the West Village, East Village, Brooklyn. I wouldnt if in the next few years even the Bronx is a hipster playground. Thanks Guliani, Pataki, Bloomberg.

It just reinforces how much I truley feel the need to leave New York.
I keep thinking of how government keeps pushing out queers, people of color, the working class, anarchists from the city systematically the same way they push out animals from their forest homes for profit. How easy that connection is. There are so many paralells on so many struggles.
I dont think Chicago is gentirfication free. But there is no permit law. There is no need for a permit to take pictures.
It keeps getting worst and this uphill battle gets so depressing sometimes because I honetly don't know what to do.
Maybe I need to just not see it for a bit. I don't know.

i'm so excited

so the only thing i can think of is my fuckin move to Illinois. Today i was at Vanessa's and I realized how much I'ma miss her and wondered how i dealt wit being on long island without this girl.
There's an animal rights potluck at the park on Thursday. I am debating going. One part I do want to go to netwrok and have fun and be all vegan and animal rights-y. On the other hand. I could risk just sulking in a corner for an hour cause I don't really get along with the long island activist scene kids. at least the ones I met. and maybe there will be some rad ones there. so i don't know...
Going to see some kids from Brooklyn tommorow for Mariah's Court Support. Happy about that.


I miss the boy. But I am trying to think of other things to get my mind off of it. It won't work, it won't work, it wont, it won't, it won't!


I could burst with excitement about moving. and I'm sure everyone is sck of listening to me ramble about it. But I'm going to miss so many things, so many people. I hope things don't change.

Court Support

I'll be there, as will other rad folks including people from FIERCE!
A latina trans activist was arrested and assualted by officers. Herre's info on it:
Transgender Activist, Survivor of Police Abuse and Misconduct

© davidberkwitz.com

My name is Mariah Lopez. I am a young, transgender person of color. I also am an activist who does street-based outreach in the West Village, where I also socialize.

Let me tell you how the police often respond to this.

With verbal abuse.

Sexual harassment.

Unwarranted arrests.

Withholding food, water and medication in detention.

Humiliating and inappropriate strip searches.

Physical assaults.

This is what I have endured at the hands of police and corrections officers - and not just once. What occurs is a systemic abuse of power, one that is seemingly inflicted on whim. For my friends and me, it seems that something as inconsequential as an officer's mood can dictate whether we spend time in jail.

I have been arrested a number of times in the West Village - including as recently as three months ago - always for solicitation, or loitering with intent to solicit. Most of the time I plead "guilty." When you're young, aren't told your full legal options, have no bail money and face abuse, what do you do? You plead "guilty," just to get everything over with as quickly as possible.

Sometimes that's not fast enough.

Here's an example. In April of last year, I was walking in the West Village with friends. Several undercover detectives approached us and told me to leave the vicinity immediately or I would be subject to arrest and prosecution. I refused to comply, as I had the right to be there. Less than two hours later I was arrested and charged with "loitering with the intent" of prostitution.

At the 6th precinct, I was verbally abused and forced to disclose my "real" gender, though my ID clearly states that I am female. I requested that officers refer to me with female pronouns, which is my legal right under the New York City Human Rights Law. They continued to abuse, harass and degrade me, referring to me as "it," "he/she" and calling me by male names rather than my own.

Later I was arraigned; I pled "guilty" and was sentenced to ten days (of which I served seven). Upon intake at Rikers Island, I was told that I couldn't get alternative housing based on my gender identity, which would have provided safety from other inmates (all of whom were male). I had to undergo an embarrassing and degrading strip search and was badgered about the size of my genitalia and for having breasts. Next a nurse examined me in an open, clinic-based setting with no regard for patient confidentiality, where she surmised out loud that I must be HIV positive or have AIDS.

I was placed in a cell for several hours with no food, water or access to a bathroom. I brought this to the attention of the corrections officer; in exchange, the officer assaulted me, leaving me with severe bruising and abrasions. His justification? Claiming that I was being disruptive, all because I demanded my basic rights.

I was then transferred into a dorm with other inmates, which led to a week of physical and emotional abuse, as well as sexual harassment, at the hands of inmates and corrections officers alike. The inmates ordered me not to use the open showers when they did; to avoid trouble and for privacy reasons I requested to shower early in the morning or late at night. Corrections officers denied this request. They also refused to intervene when the inmates repeatedly threw hard objects at me - even after an object slammed into my face while I was reporting the incident.

Finally a more responsible area captain took note of my bruises, and I was moved to alternative housing - just one day before my release, too late to offer relief from what I had been through. According to her, this housing had been available all along.

I am here today because no human being deserves this treatment. I am here today because what happens in New York is replicated in Los Angeles and cities and towns across this country. I am here today because one more LGBT person suffering police abuse is one person too many.

I know for many it is easier to give in than to struggle. I've been there. Sometimes you feel so disenfranchised, so damaged by constant rejection, abuse and scorn, that you don't realize there is power behind your voice - or that you are worth the fight.

But I am evidence of that power, and we are all worth the fight. Others have voices as big as mine, as loud as mine and as effective as mine. Change can happen, sometimes with less effort than people realize. The launch of this report will help, especially if we join forces to insist upon a society where police protect all human beings. We cannot rest until that time comes.

Thank you.

Details on getting there:
Tuesday, August 7
Criminal Court, 100 Centre St., Part B on the fourth floor (all the way to the right)
The time is never sure, but it will probably in the late morning—be there by 10:30!

Please come if you can—your presence will increase the chances that Mariah will get out of jail and cut short the abuse she’s facing there!

Gabriel Arkles
Staff Attorney
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
322 8th Ave. 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
(212) 337-8550 ext. 113
fax (212) 337-1972

Moving Away

It's official I'm leaving for Galesburg, Illinois in 25 days. Iwill be a train ride away from Chicago. Meeting new people, making new connections, networking, traveling, learning, living on my own.
Finding new communities.
I can't wait. I will be going to Knox College, this itty bitty liberal arts college that has a radical contingent of students, fair trade vegan options, lots of queer wimmin, and a beautiful campus.

My college experience in general has been wacky.
I first went to Earlham College in Richmond Indiana. which was due to a free ride. I got there and it had gloomy gray skies and humidity that made my face break out into monstrous zits. This, my friends, was a sign I didn't belong there.
It was like being in the twilight zone. I felt like Wednesday Addams when she goes to camp and everyone is singing Kumbayas. Lots of liberals, no radicals. Lack of queer presence, diverse but segregated.
And every one of the liberal upper class white students reached peace and non-violence for all, blind to the possibility that peace isn't always an option (I'd like to see yr non-violent priveleged ass in the hood for example) . So I hated it.
That and indie hipsters annoy me and they grew from trees there.
So i dropped out and everyone raised hell over it.
Next I went to Queens Collelge which honestly wasn't too bad at all. Itwas diverse, there was an SDS and had for the most part a great faculty.
Through Queens I had the privelge of being a subway ride away from the city, so I got to meet really rad people who I will never forget. Some of these rad people have traveled a lot and have lived in the boonies and through thos experiecnes have networked and changed their life.
So I started rethinking being a die hard New Yorker ("I'ma never leave New York!") and looked around to see the fact that people are traveling and everyone is leaving new york. Shit's changed a lot around here. and I think leaving wouldn't be bad at all. Not forever. But to experience something outside of New York. and I need to not live with my mom anymore. I lvoe her to death. But she's always gonna be a mama. And I'm too grown right now to have my mama living with me without suffocating a bit. There's just not enough room.


And now I'm at Knox.
It will be my second semester of College and I have already been to three schools. Oh dear.

First Post!

So I got a blogger not to be pretentious but because Vanessa has one and she is rad, so I thought if I got a blogger I could be rad too.

quick background on me:
I was born in Peru and came to the United States when I was 5 due to the political turmoil in Peru at the time. My family moved in with my aunt and my cousins in the abyss that is Long Island.
Although I am a half hour away from New York City, I feel trapped and stifled in my hometown. But then again, who doesn't?
I became political concious when I was 9 and my aunt told me to send Christmas cards to political prisoners and my couisn came home form college with Rage Against the Machine's Evil Empire in his cd player.
Jigsaw Youth the zine by Kathleen Hanna introduced me to Riot Grrrl. Riot Grrrl and DIY punk introduced me to feminism and anarchism.
Punks introduced me to animal rights and veganism.
Experience taught me about racism.
Girls showed me what true love really is.
Chuck Pahalniuk's novels changed the way I look at the world.

And now I'm here. Trying to get a good start at the game of adulthood while keepin' it real and never growing up.