Make me a Mixtape: 5 songs for the queens of the neighborhood

Today, let's listen to some grassroots, third-wave feminist-y, DIY embracing, empowering, educative music that is about something.  Music that forces you to confront things in a world where people don't often want to think about things that matter, especially in their spare time. Because what grrrls have to say is important and relevant.  We are undeniable, capable, indescribable, revolutionary.  We are fucking beautiful.  

Listen While: Crafting a zine about how you show up in the world-  without apologies.

PUSH PLAY

Let's start things off with a voice-over, because every good mixed tape has a voice-over:

"Certain people are like 'Oh, here come the Feminazis!' You end up acting 10 times nicer than you even need to be, to be the opposite of the stereotype like 'You're the man haters!' We're always bending over backwards being extra nice. And I don't know if being nice is my legacy.

While everyone's experience of oppression is different and complicated and often overlapping, I really believe that if you have privilege, you need to learn as much as you can about the world beyond yourself.

I can't constantly be trying to write the unwritten song, the song that the 15-year-old girl needs. I need to write the song that I need." -Kathleen Hanna

SIDE A

1. Rebel Girl // Bikini Kill
"When she talks, I hear the revolution/In her hips, there's revolutions/When she walks, the revolution's coming/In her kiss, I taste the revolution."
Listen Here

2. A Real Man // Sleater-Kinney
"All girls should have a real man/Should I buy It?/I don't wanna/I don't wanna join your club/I don't want your kind of love."
Listen Here

3. Do You Like Me Like That? // Bratmobile
"I've got a story about D.C. to tell/And I don't think you are going to like it very well/It's about boys and girls and the rich and the poor/But what if no one can afford to live here anymore?"
Listen Here

4.  Her Jazz // Huggy Bear
"You think you're going far, but you're going nowhere/You think you're taking me, but I'm going elsewhere."
Listen Here

5.  D.A. Don't Care // Team Dresch
"They tell you you lie/It's your word against his so tell me who's right...I had on a polyester basketball uniform/and I can't forget this if I try."
Listen Here

INTERACT: What's on the B Side of YOUR Queen of the Neighborhood Collection?

first snow

Snow makes whiteness where it falls,
The bushes look like popcorn balls.
The places where I always play,
Look like somewhere else today.

Author: Mary Louise Allen

So our first snowfall came and went and now everything is absolutely covered in snow here. It's so amazing how different a place can look when covered in snow, even as you look at it every day. As I wade thru piles of snow and scrape my windshield with a plastic cup from Jimmy Johns, I'm still amazed at how fast the roads can be cleared and still struck by the magic of snow. I feel like a child these days (in all the best ways) and I may or may not have been seen multiple times around town standing out in the snow with my head tilted back cathcing snowflakes on my tongue.

My friend Tom often shakes his head at me and utters, "oh you are so southern." Oh and no one here knows about snow cream. WHAT?!

So I owe you an update on my fall commitments that we discussed over caramel apple and coffee:

Short and sweet: I'm feeling good. I loved fall and I'm living and loving winter (as evidenced above). You can still find me on Thursdays drinking beer and covered in clay. I've still got a long way to go. I'm almost there, but I'm still here.

INTERACT: How are you? Have I told you lately that I miss you?

a lifetime of turningpoints

I've had a few experiences recently that I truly feel will eventually change my life.

My friend MK would often say something like, "We never know the impact that this experience has on people down the road of their lives."  I have a strong sense that one day I will look back at my time in Lafayette, IN as not only a formative time but also an immensely magical and shifting time in my life.

I'm not really ready to share the details (mainly because I don't know all of them yet, but I want to acknowledge out loud that there's something out there, "down the road of my life," and its going to be good.

I'm also consistently reminded that when congruence is a valued discipline and utilized strength, every day and every moment can have a significant impact on shaping who I am and who I am becoming.

I think its high time for a list (oooh I love a list!).

Possible Life-Changing Happenings:

• Presented at the Indiana Women in Nonprofits Leadership Symposium and met some amazing thoughtful women.

• Started the "unravelling process" with about 140 other women around the world by joining them in this Susannah Conway e-course that I have been eyeing for awhile.  

• Walked through a magical paper lantern lit path to a Tator Fry, laughter and love at Warren Piece.

• Learned from the wisdom of labor union organizers in hospitality at a Unite Here site visit. 

• Spoke with Cornell West about Ella Baker and participatory democracy in a last minute lecture sneak-in.

• Decide to start a community V-Day Campaign in the local Lafayette area.

INTERACT: What is happening right now that (might) change your life? 

let's slow things down a little

There's nothing that a coffee pour-over and chocolate covered caramel apple can't fix. That's what I always say.  At least that's what I'm saying these days.  This past weekend as I sipped my coffee at the perfect patio spot and graded papers, I waited for a rain storm to come in and I breathed.

I decided that I need to slow down.

Here are some commitments I made to myself to help me take more moments to breathe.

#SacredThursdays. I've been taking pottery classes at here for about 3 months on Thursday nights and meeting up with some folks after for drinks and laughs.  I love that the clay requires me to unplug and be present, physically and mentally.  I've come to value the friendships made in the class and really appreciate what I am learning about letting go of control and perfection from the craft and my classmates.

#MondayNightMadness. An old habit in a new town.  I know myself too well to commit to walking out the door when the clock strikes 5.  However if I commit to one night a week of working late and barreling through tasks, I'm sure to ease my anxiety and guilt from the nights when I'm hanging with friends.  Best part about Monday Night Madness? A few of my student friends join in on the fun and set up post to study in my office.  Lots of laughter on those 5 min breaks.

#JustOneThing. I will do one thing every day towards my decision to choose to live. Inspired by this post When I am overwhelmed with how long the list is, I have decided to do JUST one thing instead of freezing.

#ExperienceFall. I absolutely love fall and I haven't gotten to enjoy it in the last 8 years in Texas.  I do not want to miss it because I am running from one thing to the next or sleeping in on weekends.  I'm committing today to NOT miss it, but to LIVE it.  

When we get our first snow, I will check in again with an update on how I'm doing with these.

Interact:  Do you need to slow down?  What will you do this fall to ensure that you take a moment to BE?

Make Me a Mixtape: 5 songs for working people

Labor Day is more than an opportunity to mark the end of summer; it is an opportunity to reflect on the contributions of working people and the American labor movement. Organized labor has a lot to teach the broader community about leadership and social change.  Listen to some tunes below and think about how solidarity can show up in your life more often and remember the lesson of the working people: each person has a responsibility to look out for the interest of all.  

PUSH PLAY

Let's start things off with a voice-over of my favorite Woody Guthrie musings:

"I hate a song that makes you think you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody.No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim. Too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. I'm out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you.

I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own songs and to sing the kind that knock you down farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow." -Woody Guthrie 

SIDE A:

1. Which Side Are You On? // Pete Seeger

"Don't scab for the bosses/Don't listen to their lies/Us poor folks haven't got a chance/Unless we organize."

Listen Here

2. Solidarity Forever // Pete Seeger

"When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run/There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun/Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one/But the union makes us strong."

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3. Bread and Roses // Julie Collins

"As we go marching, marching/We battle too for men/For they are women’s children/And we mother them again/Our lives shall not be sweetened/From birth until life closes/Hearts starve as well as bodies/Give us bread, but give us roses"

Listen Here

4. Ballad of Joe Hill // Joan Baez

"From San Diego up to Maine/In every mine and mill/Where working men defend their rights/it’s there you’ll find Joe Hill."

Listen Hill

5. Three Miles Down // Gil-Scott Heren

"Hard to imagine workin' in the mines/Coal dust in your lungs, on your skin and on your mind/I've listened to the speeches/but it occurs to me politicians just don't understand/the thoughts of isolation, ain't no sunshine underground/It's like workin' in a graveyard three miles down."

Listen Here

INTERACT: What would you suggest for the B Side?