tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90830958050645039232024-03-18T23:38:53.722-04:00The Vagnino Monologues"It is better to write something now than everything never."Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.comBlogger316125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-39693355359192081862021-09-03T16:36:00.009-04:002021-09-03T17:06:37.771-04:00I Am Thinking Today About the Women in Texas<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmbZeMWvBQfykcGeNyI-0mkagLQGPugCxx_XxLaCajZ3kezCoog1VYyXZHudMQeGn8WQzUrn_2tRY1MyjKqNncaPaXT5JSWlF0fO36Hh7LZ6OdJS1B85jVxaw9QFA-fQD3U7jaRIsVDf4/s832/Screen+Shot+2021-09-03+at+3.10.21+PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="822" data-original-width="832" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmbZeMWvBQfykcGeNyI-0mkagLQGPugCxx_XxLaCajZ3kezCoog1VYyXZHudMQeGn8WQzUrn_2tRY1MyjKqNncaPaXT5JSWlF0fO36Hh7LZ6OdJS1B85jVxaw9QFA-fQD3U7jaRIsVDf4/w320-h316/Screen+Shot+2021-09-03+at+3.10.21+PM.png" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">My only tattoo which I got right after Brett Kavanaugh<br />was confirmed to the Supreme Court <br /><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">How many women in the U.S. found out today that they are pregnant? Hundreds? Thousands maybe?</span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Of those women, how many live in Texas?<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Today I am thinking about those women.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />For some, this is joyful news. Some of these women probably have been trying for a baby for months or years. Some probably didn't expect or plan for it, but are still excited despite it being a surprise. I am of course happy for all these women.<br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />For other women, though, <b>today is the worst day of their lives</b>. However they came to be pregnant, they do not want to be pregnant. And <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/insidious-draconian-cruel-new-texas-abortion-law-empowers-vigilantism-experts-n1274642" target="_blank">their state government has put a bounty on their heads</a> if they decide to do anything other than carry to term. Their state government has given their neighbors 10,000 reasons to remove their bodily agency and make their lives hell. The question of with whom to share this news just got a lot more complicated. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Let's get one thing straight: Whether or not to have an abortion is a decision that no woman wants to be in a position to have to make. <b>Being grateful to have a choice is not the same as <i>enjoying</i> making it</b>. I don't think it's wild to suggest that if it were possible to travel back in time and not get pregnant vs. have an abortion, most (if not all) women would choose the former. The barriers of time and space, however, result in many women having to make a decision they would prefer not to have to make. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Still, <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/01/416421/five-years-after-abortion-nearly-all-women-say-it-was-right-decision-study" target="_blank">nearly all women who make the decision to get an abortion don't regret it</a>. The few who do make a lot of noise. I don't want to discredit their pain. It's real, it's their truth. But given that it is such a slim minority, it is what researchers would call statistically insignificant and should not be the focus of the debate. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Another thing: <b>Banning abortion will not make abortion obsolete</b>. Women with money and privilege will still get them. So restricting access to abortion only harms poor women. The women who can't afford to take off work to cross state lines. Who can't afford the procedure. Who can't get a ride. Who can't arrange childcare. It only makes dangerous abortion drugs and procedures more common than safe ones. <br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2017/abortion-common-experience-us-women-despite-dramatic-declines-rates" target="_blank">Almost 1 in 4 women in the U.S. will get an abortion before age 45</a>. How these unplanned pregnancies occur should not, from a policy standpoint, matter. The woman who was raped is no more or less deserving than the woman whose partner's condom broke, or who forgot take her birth control pill, or who grew up in one of the 26 states where sex education is not mandated (or one of the 5 states where abstinence is the only method of pregnancy prevention that is allowed to be taught). </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">It doesn't matter if you're 14 or 40.</span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I was 25. I was living in New York and I went to a clinic referred by my OBGYN. It's not a particularly remarkable or harrowing story. And I'm in the 95% who do not regret the decision I made. But this isn't about me; I only share this information because I don't think it should be taboo to talk about or that anyone should feel ashamed about having gotten an abortion for whatever reason. Bottom line: If a woman is pregnant and does not want to be pregnant, she should be able to get an abortion if she wants one. The End, thanks for coming to my TED Talk. <br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">
Finally, an existential question that might seem crazy to ask: <b>Is it always better to be born? </b><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">
I'm thinking of babies born to people who don’t want to be parents, who don’t have the means or skills to properly care for a child. Who don’t have a stable, safe environment in which to raise a child. Who struggle just to feed and take care of themselves. I think of the struggles facing the children born to those parents. Who may end up being emotionally or physically abused or neglected, who may come to understand that they were/are unwanted. Against all odds, yes, some of them will thrive. But some most definitely will not. <br /></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">Not to mention we’re also in the middle of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09678" style="font-weight: 400;" target="_blank">a mass extinction event</a>. We feel like the world is ending because, well, it is. The planet is literally dying and the earth's ecosystems are collapsing. I'm thinking of the tremendous challenges ahead for future generations. <b>Do we really want to be making it harder for people to decide whether to bring children into this world we are in the final stages of destroying?</b> </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyone born now is going to grow up dealing with the catastrophic repercussions of our climate science denial (not mention other reckonings coming like the backlash of unchecked capitalism and the hard work of dismantling white supremacy and systemic inequality etc etc). </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">The unborn that some want so desperately to protect - I wonder, are we essentially consigning them to an existence defined by pain and struggle? Dropping them into a hopeless, unsalvageable situation they cannot fix? </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">These are questions I think about, when I think about having children. The future of our species is an open question, but I'm pretty sure policing reproductive health and forcing women into motherhood is not the solution. There are people alive right now who are suffering due to a lack of resources, from healthcare to clean water to housing to education, who are more deserving of our energy and attention. </span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: arial;">So I'm thinking today about the women in Texas. They need more than my thoughts, however. They need all the help and protection they can get, so here are some places I am sending my money:</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="MeretPro, sans-serif" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space: normal;"><a href="https://teafund.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef5b24; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">TEA Fund</a><br /><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><a href="https://avowtexas.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef5b24; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Avow</a></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="MeretPro, sans-serif" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space: normal;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><a href="https://www.aclutx.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef5b24; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">ACLU Texas</a></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="MeretPro, sans-serif" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space: normal;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><a href="https://fundtexaschoice.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef5b24; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Fund Texas Choice</a></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="MeretPro, sans-serif" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space: normal;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><a href="https://www.wholewomanshealthalliance.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef5b24; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Whole Woman’s Health Alliance</a></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="MeretPro, sans-serif" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space: normal;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><a href="https://www.lilithfund.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef5b24; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The Lilith Fund</a></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="MeretPro, sans-serif" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space: normal;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><a href="https://prochoice.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef5b24; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">National Abortion Federation</a></span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span face="MeretPro, sans-serif" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0.2px; white-space: normal;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><a href="https://reproductiverights.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #ef5b24; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Center for Reproductive Rights</a></span><br /><br /></span></span></div>Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-19662248753186468072016-11-11T16:59:00.000-05:002017-01-31T23:18:54.482-05:00Open Letter to the Trump Supporter Who Contacted Me About My Star Tribune Article<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">November 11, 2016</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Dear Mr. [redacted],</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thank you for reading <a href="http://www.startribune.com/her-thoughts-on-the-presidential-race-this-uw-eau-claire-teacher-isn-t-telling/400271351/" target="_blank">my essay in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Minneapolis Star Tribune</i></a> about the challenges of teaching during this election.
I appreciate you taking the time to reach out and express your views. Most of
your e-mail explained why you are supporting Donald Trump for President, and I
don’t think it would be productive for me to respond to your opinions on that
matter (though I respect your right to belie<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ve</span> whatever you want and vote accordingly).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">However, I do want to engage with your claim that you are “99%
sure” that despite my efforts to maintain a politically neutral persona in the
classroom, my students knew that I would be voting for Hillary Clinton. <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I think you may be </span>right, and I want to explore why.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It can’t be because of my race or gender, given that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/10/white-women-donald-trump-victory">53%
of white women supported Trump</a>. And it can’t be because of where I grew up
and where my family resides – I’m from Missouri and still have family there, as
well as in Florida and Arizona, all of which are red states. So what could have
given me away? Let’s get to the bottom of this.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Given that I teach at a university, my students could
probably guess that I myself hold a college degree, and indeed, it was <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/">non-college-educated
voters that accounted for much of Trump’s base</a>. So that could have been a
clue, that as someone who is not just a product of higher education but also is
dedicating their career to it might not support a candidate who appeals to
uneducated voters and <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/11/10/trump-university-lawsuit-trial-november-28/">is
being sued for creating a fraudulent for-profit “university.”</a> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Could it have been that I repeatedly encouraged them to
exercise their right to vote and provided them with information about how and
where to register? That might have indicated my leanings, since the Democrats
historically are the party that tries to enfranchise voters and not suppress
them by doing things like <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html">gutting
the Voting Rights Act</a> (which a Supreme Court with a conservative majority
did in 2013). And since <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-09/what-this-election-taught-us-about-millennial-voters">millennial
voters did overwhelmingly vote for Clinton</a>, one could argue that I assumed
encouraging my students to vote would translate to a victory for Democrats.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Or maybe it's that I require them to cite their sources
and only rely on credible information in their papers, since <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/person/donald-trump/">Trump proved in all three
debates and countless interviews to have little regard for facts</a>. For
instance, <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/aug/30/donald-trump/donald-trump-wrong-inner-city-crime-reaching-recor/">he
said crime in inner cities is up; it’s actually way down</a>. His comments
about <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2016/10/20/no-late-term-abortions-dont-rip-babies-out-of-wombs-but-they-are-needed/#4098e71c1bc4">late-term
abortions</a> were fraught with dangerous misinformation. There are many more
examples I could cite. I teach my students information literacy and how to back
up their arguments with actual evidence – an approach that seems completely at
odds with President-elect Trump.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But now that I think about it, I think maybe I showed my
hand on the very first day of the semester, when I didn’t cordon off a section
of the classroom for the students who were “other” (and by other, I mean not
white/straight/Christian/able-bodied/cisgender) and disrespect their
personhood. Maybe that was when a collective lightbulb went off and they all
realized Professor Vagnino does not support Donald Trump. And every day since that I have endeavored to move through the world as an articulate, intelligent, compassionate human being
who cares about the welfare of others and the planet-- perhaps that tipped them off. When my
students disagree with me or each other, I don’t threaten to put them in jail
or deport them. I don’t even threaten to flunk them. My classroom is a safe and
tolerant space, and yes, there is a trigger warning in my syllabus since we
cover some very sensitive topics that relate to our course theme of mental
health.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So which of these things was the culprit? I guess we’ll
never know. Maybe I just don't come across as a woman who would enjoy a non-consensual pussy grab<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. </span>But I can see why you think it might have been apparent, my
preference of one candidate over the other. And to that, I say: Guilty as charged.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Best,</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Katie Vagnino</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span>Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-18887819015386896452016-04-28T15:28:00.000-04:002016-04-28T15:28:37.973-04:00So You Think You Don't Like Poetry<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">If you had told me that a Beyonce visual album would have introduced me to my new favorite poet/poem, I might not have believed you. But here we are, and thanks to "Lemonade," I have discovered this poem by Warsan Shire. Let's just say it hits very close to home.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">for women who are "difficult" to love</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> you are a horse running alone<br /> and he tries to tame you<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> compares you to an impossible highway<br /> to a burning house<br /> says you are blinding him<br /> that he could never leave you<br /> forget you<br /> want anything but you<br /> you dizzy him, you are unbearable<br /> every woman before or after you<br /> is doused in your name<br /> you fill his mouth<br /> his teeth ache with memory of taste<br /> his body just a long shadow seeking yours<br /> but you are always too intense<br /> frightening in the way you want him<br /> unashamed and sacrificial<br /> he tells you that no man can live up to the one who<br /> lives in your head<br /> and you tried to change didn't you?<br /> closed your mouth more<br /> tried to be softer<br /> prettier<br /> less volatile, less awake<br /> but even when sleeping you could feel<br /> him travelling away from you in his dreams<br /> so what did you want to do love<br /> split his head open?<br /> you can't make homes out of human beings<br /> someone should have already told you that<br /> and if he wants to leave<br /> then let him leave<br /> you are terrifying<br /> and strange and beautiful<br /> something not everyone knows how to love.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIa_aYaiWNrjEZGXMWCaDg67lruVt3uXxKSSncZonP3P98aXZ5g4Vm8AVqfqYQCigrEUzxhess4U1x9WZbhDyU2AnJBdFJddDtNVj1ykLkeWUhTkTNW2E4PQJUgpGNtMPrFNHkEvJBqRI/s1600/warsan_shire_1-600x450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIa_aYaiWNrjEZGXMWCaDg67lruVt3uXxKSSncZonP3P98aXZ5g4Vm8AVqfqYQCigrEUzxhess4U1x9WZbhDyU2AnJBdFJddDtNVj1ykLkeWUhTkTNW2E4PQJUgpGNtMPrFNHkEvJBqRI/s320/warsan_shire_1-600x450.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Warsan Shire. She looks pretty easy to love to me.</span></span></span></div>
Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-22135879136894044372016-01-17T19:36:00.000-05:002016-01-18T13:42:40.817-05:00What I Know About FootballFor most of my life, my attitude toward football has been indifference mixed with a little disdain. I had no interest in understanding its rules; it looked barbaric and chaotic. Men in suits commenting on the plays. Men on the sidelines calling the plays. Men on the field chasing and tackling each other. Men in bars and on couches cheering. Men men men men men. The only women you really see or hear about are the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/sports/a-wage-fight-gains-momentum.html" target="_blank">egregiously underpaid cheerleaders</a> and the wives and girlfriends who make headlines when a player gets suspended for beating them. <br />
<br />
In spite of this, I have always made a habit of watching the Super Bowl, and <a href="http://thevagninomonologues.blogspot.com/2013/02/jalapeno-hands.html" target="_blank">sometimes even hosting a viewing party</a>. But that's only because I like spectacle and taco dip. The halftime show is always a shitshow for one reason or another (wardrobe malfunctions! left shark!) and the ads are usually amusing. And let's be real, I will jump on any excuse to entertain -- I love throwing parties. Oscar parties, election night parties, and sure, even Super Bowl parties. When it comes to parties, I don't discriminate. I never cared about the actual outcome of a Super Bowl game -- I would just randomly pick a team to root for, and be only mildly disappointed if they lost. <br />
<br />
But as Elphaba in Wicked would say, something has changed within me. Something is not the same.<br />
<br />
I sort of like watching football now. (I am actually watching the Broncos/Steelers game as I write this. Go Broncos!)<br />
<br />
I know. It's crazy. But I live in Wisconsin, the state with the most notoriously rabid and devoted NFL fan base. Inevitably, I started watching more games -- purely for social purposes. Everyone knows when the Packers are playing. And when there's a game, the streets in Eau Claire are like a ghost down, eerily deserted. Because literally nearly everyone is glued to their TVs. Bars that don't serve food regularly have free food on game days -- crockpots of deliciousness, hot dishes galore, lemon and lime jello shots at the ready. <br />
<br />
The more I saw, the more I had to (somewhat begrudgingly) respect the complexity of the game. Because it really is complex. And the athleticism is astounding. It doesn't hurt that Aaron Rodgers is easy on the eyes AND <a href="https://youtu.be/VzCkDmbCRbE" target="_blank">the king of Hail Mary passes</a>. Seriously. So for the first time in my life, I actually self-identify as a fan of a professional sports team. I am a Cheesehead. And I am proud. I am seriously considering buying Packer paraphernalia.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-3VBfKJYaZf0lQ-27vd1xQH-ik_cWd_pZNENkDfuB7P9uManpSilofC3PHqZjmq1AIcveaBTtgsBwmZg1TTkUXfKdJzTooznE8Z-_zPCRhlSGtPscAbfRZX-PRdtHtLbIRNVbdlCDYF8/s1600/101314-NFL-packers-fans-arrive-for-game-ahn-PI.vadapt.620.high.50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-3VBfKJYaZf0lQ-27vd1xQH-ik_cWd_pZNENkDfuB7P9uManpSilofC3PHqZjmq1AIcveaBTtgsBwmZg1TTkUXfKdJzTooznE8Z-_zPCRhlSGtPscAbfRZX-PRdtHtLbIRNVbdlCDYF8/s320/101314-NFL-packers-fans-arrive-for-game-ahn-PI.vadapt.620.high.50.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Now I would like to show off some of the things I have learned, mostly from watching with people who have been watching football their entire lives. Every game I feel like I learn something new!<br />
<br />
1. It is important to "protect the pocket." I think this refers to keeping the quarterback from getting sacked before he can throw the ball. The pocket "collapsing" is bad for the offense. I think.<br />
<br />
2. A football team is really like several teams! There are the offense guys and the defense guys, and the special teams guys like kickers. I JUST LEARNED THIS! I had no idea the quarterback didn't play the whole game. Mind. Blown.<br />
<br />
3. People talk a lot about "the line of scrimmage." Important shit goes on there. I'm not sure exactly what. Regardless, "scrimmage" is a fun word to say. Also fun: "blitz." <br />
<br />
4. Penalties can be declined. I find this a little confusing, to be honest -- in other sports, I'm pretty sure fouls are fouls.<br />
<br />
5. Time outs are not just breaks -- they are strategic ways to slow down the game and are often reserved for the final minutes. But the clock also stops during a time out, so I'm not sure how that works. Maybe it can break the other team's momentum? I just know that if a team still has all their time outs toward the end of the game, and they are losing, it's good that they have those time outs. For some reason.<br />
<br />
6. There are tricks! I just learned about fake punts, when the punt team (another team!) comes on the field, but then instead of punting, the QB runs a play. They fake out the other team, and it's sneaky.<br />
<br />
7. Everyone is guilty of holding, but the goal is to not get called on it. And which way your body is facing can mean the difference between getting busted for pass interference and....no pass interference.<br />
<br />
8. Fumbles are exactly what they sound like. Adrian Peterson fumbles a lot, which is a bummer for Vikings fans.<br />
<br />
9. Onside kicks are rarely successful but are exciting to watch.<br />
<br />
10. Calling a time out right before a field goal is called "icing the kicker" so he might get psyched out and miss. It's kind of mean, in my opinion. Dude's been waiting to whole game to do his thing, so just let him, alright?<br />
<br />
I'm really impressed with my knowledge. But not as impressed as I am with Aaron Rodgers's arm. <br />
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Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-76911993194298281112015-11-23T00:35:00.003-05:002015-11-30T00:13:18.536-05:00On Hating Eau Claire (and Elephants)<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3GBDyT0m_Q5GS3725nkfEpI-GqVYpAZXeBvVl5HVMDgo9t8IlJTZXfmFx83nb3rnyVBRi0kQL5bArRhZr7xOPbUw-bQa675WdYTY9dwQqohfu8EyogZ9RT5MgcGDm4qSvH0AjW2GjVd0/s1600/quiet%252Bzone%252Btrain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">T</span>he railroad crossing on Starr Avenue in Eau Claire will
always remind me of the night I came close to driving at full speed into a
moving train. <br /><br /> </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3GBDyT0m_Q5GS3725nkfEpI-GqVYpAZXeBvVl5HVMDgo9t8IlJTZXfmFx83nb3rnyVBRi0kQL5bArRhZr7xOPbUw-bQa675WdYTY9dwQqohfu8EyogZ9RT5MgcGDm4qSvH0AjW2GjVd0/s1600/quiet%252Bzone%252Btrain.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3GBDyT0m_Q5GS3725nkfEpI-GqVYpAZXeBvVl5HVMDgo9t8IlJTZXfmFx83nb3rnyVBRi0kQL5bArRhZr7xOPbUw-bQa675WdYTY9dwQqohfu8EyogZ9RT5MgcGDm4qSvH0AjW2GjVd0/s320/quiet%252Bzone%252Btrain.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> It was the night of the day when I discovered that the person I
loved and wanted to spend my life with, who the previous week had been helping
me recover from a major surgery, had cheated on me. Had been messaging
strangers online and on at least one occasion, fucked one. I thought the pain I
felt would surely kill me; the train was just a way to expedite things. As I
sat in my car, contemplating (how fast would I need to be going to ensure
instant death? Should I unbuckle my seatbelt?) the point became moot – the
train finished crossing and I was still breathing. The urge to annihilate
myself temporarily abated. I continued on to my destination – the regional
two-gate airport to pick up my best friend who had gotten on a plane to be with
me after receiving my distressed phone call.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />Every time I drive to the airport, I have to cross those tracks. It’s a strange sensation to be living through something,
right in the thick of it, and still have a sense of how you will view it in hindsight. I still live in Eau Claire, but I
already know I will look back on this period (two years and counting) as
incredibly difficult. A time when I cried more days than I didn’t, struggled to
get out of bed, and tried my best to downplay my misery for my few local
friends who were, on the whole, happy and healthy. I can say without a doubt
that this trauma has and will continue to transform me in ways I can’t yet
articulate. I can only hope some of the changes are positive. Like, maybe I
will get a good poem or two out of it. Or maybe if I find myself in a similar
situation again, I’ll be better equipped to handle it and won’t consider death by train.<br /><br />I wasn’t miserable when I first moved to Eau Claire. I had a
stable teaching job with good benefits. For the first time, I had an office. I
was able to afford a one-bedroom apartment as opposed to a cramped studio. And
within three months of moving here, I fell in love. The kind of love that
announces itself as major right away. Our feelings for each other were so
intense that we even had an inside joke that involved elephants – we knew it
would be silly to say “I love you” after only knowing each other a few weeks,
but we acknowledged that it felt like an elephant in the room because the feelings were so clear, so palpable. So we sent each
other pictures of elephants and signed e-mails “I elephant you.” One day I came
home from work to find a necklace with an elephant charm hanging from my mailbox.
After we started actually saying “I love you,” elephant ephemera continued to
be a gift theme—I brought him back a stuffed elephant from Mexico, and he gave me a
black-and-white scarf with an elephant print and earrings carved in the shape
of elephants for my birthday.<br /><br /><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">N</span>ow when I see elephants, I want to punch something.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />When our relationship abruptly ended, a strange transference
occurred that has made living here very difficult: I find that my rage and hurt
is now directed at Eau Claire itself, the setting <span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">of</span> my most ill-fated love
affair (to date, at least). The city feels somehow complicit, like an
accessory or co-conspirator. It’s the scene of the crime and no matter what I do, the faint chalk
outline of a body (my body) resurfaces, refuses to fade. Everywhere we went,
and even places we didn’t go but might have, feels toxic, tainted, ominous. Needless
to say, the campus where we both work is a minefield – I could run into him literally
at any time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Whenever I see his car in the parking lot, I have to resist the urge to key it. </span><br /><br />I know this could have happened anywhere – but it happened
here. Would I have found happiness in Eau Claire without meeting him? I’m not
sure. It’s possible I still would have found much to dislike about the culture
of an upper Midwestern college town. But we’ll never know -- unfortunately I'll always associate Eau Claire with this experience; it'll always be the place that broke my spirit to the
point where I became almost unrecognizable to myself, where I flirted with
oblivion. It holds the distinction of being both where I have been most happy and most miserable in my adult life.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span>Obviously, I hope that I will achieve a new zenith of happiness (perhaps not tied to a romantic relationship. Hey, there's a novel idea!). When that happens, maybe I will be able to appreciate some of the good things I found here, the friends I made, the not-horrible moments. I hope so -- but I don't see that happening until I live elsewhere and can use physical distance to help me achieve emotional distance. From him, and from here. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(Forgive the self-indulgence of this post. I know that in light of all the things going on geo-politically and domestically, it's rather silly to whine about a boy hurting my feelings. But this is a personal blog, and not<i> The New York Times, </i>so I hope an occasional post that looks solely inward is forgivable.)</span></div>
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Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-60047212518053643792015-02-08T21:52:00.003-05:002015-02-09T17:51:20.781-05:00Everything You Always Wanted to Know About My Breast Reduction But Were Afraid To Ask<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiOJj7crcza9LMwLvJ81MfDdbb86x3DivErDoXona5XE1JOcG3UIG0-TYN2OT87XfRsaWUPiAzVUp55cy8oOZ6VWbwC-43ey-WaZoxlQheYacma8U8XwhlUR_UVGALJtME6hagSQDbtB0/s1600/boob+party.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiOJj7crcza9LMwLvJ81MfDdbb86x3DivErDoXona5XE1JOcG3UIG0-TYN2OT87XfRsaWUPiAzVUp55cy8oOZ6VWbwC-43ey-WaZoxlQheYacma8U8XwhlUR_UVGALJtME6hagSQDbtB0/s1600/boob+party.jpg" height="320" width="234" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The above picture is from the goodbye party I threw in honor of my breasts, two days before my surgery. But let me first back up and explain how I got to the point of scheduling said procedure. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have always had a love-hate relationship with my boobs. I don't really remember "getting" them -- I remember not having them and wanting them, and then suddenly they were huge and unwieldy. Finding shirts and bras and dresses that fit became a chore; I spent a fortune on alterations. Before my surgery, I was something like a 32 H. When I looked in the mirror, all I saw were BOOBS. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">However, men always seemed to like them and I'd be lying if I said I didn't sometimes like the attention my breasts got me. Sometimes my big rack made me feel sexy and empowered. However, I didn't really like my boobs upstaging me -- I would rather men be attracted to my intelligence, my humor. Or in terms of physical features, my eyes or my smile. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I never wanted to be flat-chested, but I longed for breasts more in proportion to the rest of me, which is relatively petite. I'm curvy, but short (5'3"). I used to joke with one boyfriend that I felt like a tall, voluptuous women who had been compressed, like a smushed Jessica Rabbit.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinDq4KjL2vaOk5OuJw-nCNs810ujDije77UbK_rqDn4wy7RRB5Dx9c0S9DRLo_vbz9dK4gdBbKp2PpcYTgIyHF4j_2TaLpvS9HJMFElOVdw_hxrP7kxQvDpDbN3dZ9kTJw1UzikxSpNG0/s1600/j+rabbit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinDq4KjL2vaOk5OuJw-nCNs810ujDije77UbK_rqDn4wy7RRB5Dx9c0S9DRLo_vbz9dK4gdBbKp2PpcYTgIyHF4j_2TaLpvS9HJMFElOVdw_hxrP7kxQvDpDbN3dZ9kTJw1UzikxSpNG0/s1600/j+rabbit.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Like this, but with much shorter legs</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I read a few articles about women who had gotten reductions, but that seemed too drastic. I talked with one friend of a friend who'd had it done and said she was very happy with the results. Still, for years it was something I only very casually entertained. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Then suddenly, in 2014, I found myself with really, really good health insurance and I thought, well, it couldn't hurt to get a consultation with a surgeon. I had gained some weight and my breasts were even more pendulous and annoying. So I went to see a plastic surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in April. He took some measurements and said I was basically an ideal candidate and that getting the insurance approval would be no problem. He took some pictures (they blur your face out, allegedly) to send to the insurance company, along with my file.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Side note: I love imagining the guy whose job it is to look at pictures of boobs all day and decide "yes" or "no" to surgery. For some reason, I picture him like this: </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihpX3OG6xfa1_8cFOulM8bBUtCuW9aFlrBNZd8Ok5H6krDaGZlTlvnB-gbd68eCt14gTczD17YBT2QQ26-rUZNURek2KbsJVyAA5FzFmmVoNmPr-KKmWvuEgoqIRYoMYr-v_SoV-YLdFc/s1600/doctor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihpX3OG6xfa1_8cFOulM8bBUtCuW9aFlrBNZd8Ok5H6krDaGZlTlvnB-gbd68eCt14gTczD17YBT2QQ26-rUZNURek2KbsJVyAA5FzFmmVoNmPr-KKmWvuEgoqIRYoMYr-v_SoV-YLdFc/s1600/doctor.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Your breasts are entirely too large, young lady"</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />The surgeon told me it would take 3-4 weeks to hear back from the insurance company and once they green-lighted me, I could schedule the procedure. At this point, I was still not totally sold, but I was intrigued. It seemed like the best time to do it, if I was ever going to -- I wasn't working over the summer, so I'd have plenty of time to recover, and this might be the only time I would have insurance to cover it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In May, I got approved. And weirdly, once that happened, the decision sort of made itself. I historically agonize over minor decisions (Caesar or spinach salad??????) but make major decisions (like moving to Wisconsin) without hesitation and this was no different. I scheduled my surgery for July 1, a Tuesday. I would stay overnight in the hospital for observation and then was told I'd need about a week to 10 days recuperating in bed before I could resume my normal activities. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I was most afraid of the pain of recovery -- I'd never had major surgery and it was estimated that I would be under anesthesia for 4 hours. The plan was to remove about 2 lbs from each breast. I was also nervous about compromising my ability to breastfeed (about 1/3 of women can't after breast reductions), but since having a child is not something on the immediate horizon for me, it seemed odd to factor that in too heavily. Plus, some women have difficulties breastfeeding even if they haven't had surgery. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When I called my dad to tell him I was having this done, he said he wanted to come help out -- I didn't think it would be necessary, but in hindsight, it was a really good thing he was there. My boyfriend at the time had just started a new, demanding job and has a young daughter, so I think it would have been too much for him to take care of me for a week. Instead, he took in my cat so I wouldn't have to worry about her jumping on me and clawing my stitches accidentally.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In the days leading up to Tuesday, July 1, I made preparations -- I bought a tray for eating in bed, as well as some button-down pajamas (I had been told that moving my arms/pulling things over my head would be painful for a few days) and some loose-fitting nursing bras with no underwire. I loaded up my Netflix queue and my Kindle. Cleaned my apartment. And planned my farewell party for my bosoms, which included ordering the tit cake pictured above and, of course, slippery nipple shots:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih0cWO3vKhSXSXXRIM56AnQ7kxw6pSRCgbOZnsVgtuJBZ_3B8_oVkpMWGOgOwcQUifEcT3aspF7eGpwEEuJXi6_I4xOAM-RJDwKKFLZKDqD-UKOIdajOtQnb9gNgG37SMBVOZ_qS9C71c/s1600/slippery+nipple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih0cWO3vKhSXSXXRIM56AnQ7kxw6pSRCgbOZnsVgtuJBZ_3B8_oVkpMWGOgOwcQUifEcT3aspF7eGpwEEuJXi6_I4xOAM-RJDwKKFLZKDqD-UKOIdajOtQnb9gNgG37SMBVOZ_qS9C71c/s1600/slippery+nipple.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />The party was on Saturday, and I took lots of photos so I would remember my old boobs. I wore my bustiest, most cleavage-revealing dress to show off The Girls one last time. My dad drove up from St. Louis on Sunday and I showed him key locations in town (the pharmacy, the grocery store, the hospital). He came with a case of wine, God bless him. On Monday, I had my pre-op appointment, where the surgeon marked on my breasts where he would cut. That was a little unnerving. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Tuesday morning, we drove to the hospital. I got checked in and met with my anesthesiologist. Around 11am, I was wheeled to the operating room. And that's the last thing I remember.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I woke up as I was being wheeled into my room where I would be sleeping for the night. I was pretty out of it, but not in much pain. My dad and boyfriend were waiting there. The surgeon said the procedure had taken less time than expected (he had thought my tissue would be denser than it turned out to be). I was really, really thirsty and my lips were super dry -- I kept asking for water. I managed to eat some tomato soup and then I slept for a long time. A nurse came in to check on me and give me antibiotics and painkillers every few hours. I also needed help getting up to pee. I felt sore, but again, the pain was really not bad. I was wrapped up tight, like a mummy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The next morning, the surgeon came back to change my bandages and take a look. This was terrifying. I was really afraid to look down and see my mangled body. So I didn't look down, I looked straight ahead and tried (unsuccessfully) not to cry. My body had undergone trauma and I felt very vulnerable. He said everything looked good and that in two days, I could shower and change from bandages into one of my nursing bras. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I went home and my dad cooked for me for the next few days. I mostly slept. I was afraid of falling over in the shower, so he bought me a plastic chair to sit in. My boyfriend helped me with the first shower, washed my hair. Again, when it came time to unwrap/expose my chest, I freaked out and started crying. I can't explain why, it was just a reaction I had. It took a long time before I was willing to look at my new boobs. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">After about 5 days, I felt almost like myself again. I only needed the hardcore painkillers for a couple of days before regular Tylenol was enough. The physical pain was so much more minor than I had thought it would be -- the emotional repercussions, that I didn't even anticipate, have been harder to navigate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Other than an allergic reaction to the strips of fabric placed over my sutures that resulted in a few miserable days of itchiness and hives, and one spot under my right breast that stubbornly wouldn't close up, the healing process was fine. The hardest adjustment was having to sleep on my back for a few months. Now I'm totally back to normal -- I can sleep on my stomach and wear normal bras. And clothes fit a lot better!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I knew I would want to write about this experience, but I really wasn't ready to until some time had passed -- there was a lot to process. To be clear: I am very happy with the results and do not regret getting the surgery. But I didn't realize that losing a familiar part of me, even a part I had resented and disliked for years, would be, well, emotionally upsetting. My giant breasts were MY breasts. And these new breasts don't feel like mine yet. I'm terribly shy about them. The scars aren't bad at all and I have feeling in them (thankfully) but I'm still pretty self-conscious about them. I can't decide if they are beautiful. When I shower now, I don't look down at them much. They still seem foreign, alien, like someone else's boobs. I hope over time I will come to love them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So, in the spirit of love and acceptance of this new part of my body, I present My New Boobs: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhJbsJrcIGf8rnjhXmF95rjYosmRPZFRAFRhr-5q1H3QRjp9Xcrmf1BHMTW7X5-xfNrm0r3iTT98CxU69WwFJ-38z9CPV7COhlSe2BaP5lmNKFWEAjXn8Q_lt_r8lBdjm1EHzFjEu5rlY/s1600/boobs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhJbsJrcIGf8rnjhXmF95rjYosmRPZFRAFRhr-5q1H3QRjp9Xcrmf1BHMTW7X5-xfNrm0r3iTT98CxU69WwFJ-38z9CPV7COhlSe2BaP5lmNKFWEAjXn8Q_lt_r8lBdjm1EHzFjEu5rlY/s1600/boobs.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-15620653458717056252015-01-28T21:36:00.000-05:002015-01-28T21:36:23.305-05:00So You Think You Don't Like Poetry<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Hello friends....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Per usual, I'm busy and blogging has fallen by the wayside. I thought I would take a moment, though, to post a poem that I just discovered, thanks to a student! In my Introduction to Creative Writing class, I asked my students to send me a poem they are fond of and briefly explain why they like it. Most of the poems I have received are familiar to me, but this one wasn't and I am quite taken with it. I think you will be, too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Famous </b> by Naomi Shihab Nye</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The river is famous to the fish. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The loud voice is famous to silence, </span></div>
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</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">which knew it would inherit the earth </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">before anybody said so. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">watching him from the birdhouse. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The idea you carry close to your bosom </span></div>
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</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">is famous to your bosom. </span></div>
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</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The boot is famous to the earth, </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">more famous than the dress shoe, </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">which is famous only to floors. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br />
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">and not at all famous to the one who is pictured. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br />
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I want to be famous to shuffling men </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">who smile while crossing streets, </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">sticky children in grocery lines, </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">famous as the one who smiled back. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<br />
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">but because it never forgot what it could do. </span></div>
<br />Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-90099211556282533172014-12-20T02:14:00.000-05:002014-12-20T18:37:15.032-05:00I'm an adult and I'm not sorry about it<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Tonight, out celebrating the birthday of a colleague and dear friend who is somewhere in his early-to-mid 40s (he claims to not know his exact age), we somehow got to talking about romantic relationships and what we want out of them. He admitted to knowing he was somewhat difficult to date, but claimed that for the right woman, he would amend his ways. I simply said I was still searching for a real partner -- an actual companion, an equal, someone willing to put as much energy into a relationship as I am. And after a long pause, he said, "You're really a grown-up."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And you know what? I am. And I'm fucking proud of that fact. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I don't know why it's become trendy or cool to put off adulthood and maturity for as long as possible. I confess, I am always baffled when I meet someone over the age of 30 who advertises the fact that they're still "kind of a kid." Being young at heart is fine, but perpetually avoiding responsibility and commitment is less cute. It's not even, in my opinion, entirely a gendered thing -- the man-child has become an archetype in various films and TV shows, but there are plenty of women who are guilty of the same thing. They are just less visible in pop culture. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My question is, why is it a point of pride to not grow up? (I totally feel like Carrie Bradshaw, posing this rhetorical question)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Not growing up = getting to date this douche</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have always felt like an old soul, despite my youthful appearance. And ever since I can remember, I have wanted to be a grown-up. I insisted on reading adult books even when I was too young to understand them. When I was 8, I demanded to borrow my mom's copy of Stephen King's <i>Pet Cemetery</i>. I think my parents were savvy enough to realize that there was no way I could comprehend the inappropriate content, so they let me nobly schlep around the heavy hardback edition and played along with the ruse that I was actually reading it. I was trying but obviously I was in over my head. So I just carried it around because it was An Adult Book and I wanted to be taken seriously as An Adult. Even though I was 8. The same thing happened with the Andromeda Strain when I was 10. I didn't want to read kids' books -- kids' books were for kids. I didn't want to be a kid or be treated like a kid. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Now I'm actually an age where I am, legally at least, supposed to be a grown-up. And the kicker is, I actually am! So it's frustrating to meet charming, intelligent men who confess/boast about being "big kids." You know what? I don't want to date a fucking kid. I'd like to date a man. Being an adult doesn't mean not having fun. I have fun all the time. I go out, I stay up late, I still get drunk sometimes. But I self-identify as an individual who is not reliant on any outside support systems (parents etc). In other words, I'm in charge of my shit and I'm the boss of me. I pay my bills, I have a job, I live in an apartment I pay for. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But it's not so much the trappings of adulthood that matter. It's psychological -- <i>I think of myself as an adult</i>. Someone who has experienced a lot of stuff and grown into a fully realized human being. I'm not all that nostalgic about my youth -- I'm not sad to no longer be a teenager or in my 20s. You know why? BECAUSE I GREW OUT OF THEM. I am a smarter, better person than I was then. So no, I don't wistfully long for the days of living with Craigslist roommates and eating cereal for dinner. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The days when I had a fake ID that I used to buy the cheapest vodka I could find.</span> The days when I didn't have health insurance, when I still had to ask my folks to bail me out occasionally because I accidentally miscalculated my finances and couldn't pay my rent. I don't regret my 20s, but mostly I value them for how they shaped me into the adult I am today. I would never want to live forever in them. That sounds like a nightmare. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Alas, I'm in the minority. So many people, it seems, delight in promoting how un-adult they are. It must be attractive to fellow non-adults, but me? I'm still holding out hope that I will find a man who knows who he is and what he wants in life and can appreciate what I have to offer. Because I do think I have a lot to offer. I just have yet to find someone who's smart and funny and wants to be in an adult relationship. Not a boring relationship -- a fun, dynamic relationship built on a foundation of trust, respect and love. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Time to end this post before it goes full-Oprah. But hopefully, you get the gist. Growing up is an unavoidable, normal, HEALTHY part of life. I grew up and I'm glad I did. </span>Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-53955215873444271832014-09-30T00:10:00.002-04:002014-09-30T00:19:35.777-04:00A Poem For Autumn<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The English department at UW-Eau Claire is lucky enough to count <a href="http://www.wisconsinacademy.org/content/current-poet-laureate" target="_blank">Max Garland, Wisconsin's Poet Laureate</a> among our current faculty. Max is an incredibly talented poet (obviously) and also one of the nicest people I have ever met. The choir I recently joined, <a href="http://www.themastersingers.net/index.html" target="_blank">The Master Singers</a>, commissioned Max to write a poem for our composer-in-residence to set to music for our upcoming Fall concert. It's just starting to feel like autumn here so I thought I would post it. It's beautiful and if you want to hear it set to music (with a gorgeous cello accompaniment), come to our concert on October 12!</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">October Song</span></span></b><br />
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />Show
me the changing light on the river<br />
And I’ll show you a portrait of time<br />
Its blessings and burdens and blurring of borders<br />
Between what’s yours and what’s mine<br />
<br />
High in the arc of the waning season<br />
The wild ragged flocks wind their way<br />
By reckonings older than roadmap or reason<br />
Moonlight, starlight, the land’s old sway.<br />
<br />
Pay attention to this, cries the moon<br />
How time pares the light away soon<br />
Though deep in the sky, constellations and I<br />
Will tend to the darkness’s wounds.<br />
<br />
Rapids are the water wanting to sing<br />
Wind is how cottonwoods earn their wings<br />
Intimations of snow in the field’s afterglow<br />
Tell more of what’s coming than we want to know<br />
<br />
There’s wealth in the mill and the market<br />
And a singular wealth of mind<br />
There’s a wealth of gold in the tamarack<br />
That the lucky among us may find<br />
<br />
For the silos wearing sunsets like crowns<br />
And the oak leaves changing ruby to rust<br />
For the marshes on the outskirts of castaway towns<br />
This is a song for the fugitive dust<br />
A song for the fugitive dust</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></span><br />
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Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-77296251063668333042014-09-16T21:41:00.000-04:002014-09-16T22:03:09.262-04:00I Can't Tell Yet If I'm Grateful for the Gratitude Challenge<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As a means of kick-starting my path back to happiness, I've decided to embark on my own (scaled down) version of the infamous <a href="http://www.gratitudechallenge.com/" target="_blank">Gratitude Challenge</a>. Despite the recent batch of cheating-boyfriend- lemons handed to me by Life, my spirit will not be broken! I will cheer up by recounting things I am grateful for! Over the course of 21 days!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Wait, 21 days, for real? That is a big commitment. I thought this was like a 4-day Facebook thing. I don't know I can stick with the full three-week regimen. But I guess there's no harm in starting....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">One of the first activities suggested, after taking The Pledge, which I'm not taking because I'm not sure I want to do this for 21 days, is to use the alphabet to make a list of things I'm grateful for. Way to start off easy, Gratitude Challenge. 26 letters in the alphabet and I have to come up with something for each one that I'm grateful for? Well, here goes nothing and no worries if you get bored around letter N.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">A - Antidepressants because they keep me sane and arguably saved my life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />B - Boston. I'm grateful for having gotten to live there for four years and for my friends there.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">C- Cats, specifically this one:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBlcUnPF13p0K7afasWzHevOaMndzxID3JLCSLKuldgMRg3ibLsOfRi4wWeb3Hdbgcuf3zWZh-JTKUQl7nDPqvCD9QpDqDmTUdLfKVyAiqP8xmS9vR-i_uSwtVerAQQspjqneFOLfRpE/s1600/Maude2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimBlcUnPF13p0K7afasWzHevOaMndzxID3JLCSLKuldgMRg3ibLsOfRi4wWeb3Hdbgcuf3zWZh-JTKUQl7nDPqvCD9QpDqDmTUdLfKVyAiqP8xmS9vR-i_uSwtVerAQQspjqneFOLfRpE/s1600/Maude2.JPG" height="216" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">D- (my) Dad. <a href="http://thevagninomonologues.blogspot.com/2008/06/fathers-know-best.html" target="_blank">He's pretty swell</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">E- Emotions and being in touch with them. Yes, sometimes I wish I could turn off my Big Feelings...but then I wouldn't be me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">F- <a href="http://www.thevagninomonologues.blogspot.com/search/label/feminism" target="_blank">Feminism</a>. Duh. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">G- Gonzo, my favorite Muppet. He's deeply in love with a chicken. Stay chaotic, my friend. </span><br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">H- (my) hair, which is pretty easy to deal with. A lot of people hate their hair, or fret about losing it. Mine never really stresses me out. Anything that doesn't cause me anxiety = something I'm grateful for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I- the Internet. Are you familiar? It's great! <a href="http://bigquizthing.com/" target="_blank">My friend Noah</a> was once recounting to his mother his attempts to find a picture of matzo brei on the Web and she said, "There are pictures of matzo brei online?" And Noah said, "Mom, there are probably pictures of people having sex on matzo brei online." (note: a brief Google image search yielded no results, but that doesn't mean it's not out there somewhere. Different folks et al.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">J- Job, as in the fact that I have one (a lot of folks don't) and one that I actually like most of the time and pays me enough to live on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">K- Karaoke. Seriously, if I could be a professional karaoke singer....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">L- Laughter. Few things feel better than a good belly laugh. I crack myself up fairly regularly, either because I'm a narcissist or because I'm funny. Jury still out. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">M- the <a href="http://www.themastersingers.net/index.html" target="_blank">Master Singers</a>, the choir I recently joined. My heart is happy when I am singing. Corny, but true. And my Mom, because she reads this blog and if I say I'm grateful for my Dad and not her, I will get an angry phone call. Also, she is a wonderful person.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">N- Netflix. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">O- <a href="http://giphy.com/search/oprah/2" target="_blank">Oprah gifs</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">P- <a href="http://www.thevagninomonologues.blogspot.com/search/label/poetry" target="_blank">Poetry</a>. Here's a poem written by a friend's four-year-old that pretty much sums it up: <br /><br />Poetry, poetry<br />I like poetry<br />It can be about ice cream<br />It can be about anything</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I like poetry<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Q- Quiche. It's one of my favorite comfort foods, far superior to omelets and much less appreciated.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">R- RuPaul's Drag Race, aka the best show on television of all time, hunty!</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxipOQVIPENTHZ1E2tNkqrLwY2KM-JN3Mz4e9fK7MQ9ipYO6Wk_twThi9_kQYwUbYR1vbO_k_t52m9rwG7V61o7SfkxBtFuuG9w1Hco1Tr6H6g3I-tAa5OQp8n32o1ldCj_LYI-T1SD3Y/s1600/rupaul.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxipOQVIPENTHZ1E2tNkqrLwY2KM-JN3Mz4e9fK7MQ9ipYO6Wk_twThi9_kQYwUbYR1vbO_k_t52m9rwG7V61o7SfkxBtFuuG9w1Hco1Tr6H6g3I-tAa5OQp8n32o1ldCj_LYI-T1SD3Y/s1600/rupaul.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">S- Sleep. I take my sleep seriously. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">T- Tough love. It's not always what you want, but it's sometimes what you need. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">U- Ursula the Sea Witch, because she's the best Disney villain. So sassy! </span><br />
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">V- Vaginas. They're neat, no? If everyone had a penis, well, that would be...problematic. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">W- Wine. Duh.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">X- X-rays, I guess, because yay science? Xerox machines also make my life as a teacher easier.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Y- You, dear reader!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Z- ....zebra stripes? Because they're fashionable?</span>Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-39541356939213660692014-09-07T22:47:00.004-04:002014-09-08T01:18:41.902-04:00Relationship Remnants<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Breaking up is hard to do, but once the dust settles, it's sometimes interesting to take an inventory of what remains. I'm not talking about crap of the other person's you accidentally or intentionally inherited or even stuff given to you by your ex. I mean interests, habits, expressions that you tend to pick up, whether you want to or not, when you spend a lot of time with another person. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">From my most recent breakup, I leave with a recipe for a Mediterranean-inspired guacamole. The ex made it for me on one of our first dates and it's just too damn delicious for me to never make again. I made it this past weekend for a friend's party and it was gone within minutes; a chef in attendance even praised it. It's not a family recipe or really all that ingenious: it's basically <a href="http://dinewithadarling.com/2011/06/22/avocado-feta-dip/" target="_blank">this</a>, but with more garlic and balsamic instead of red wine vinegar. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I also must credit this same ex for getting me hooked on <i>Game of Thrones</i> (my attempts to hook him on <i>Masters of Sex</i> and <i>Veronica Mars</i> were less successful) and teaching me how to play Cribbage.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I don't know if I imparted any culinary wisdom that he will carry on with him into his future relationships. He often made fun of my creative efforts to make salad dressing (admittedly they didn't always come out as planned). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The only thing I can think of, for now, that I can take credit for is introducing him to the best Mexican place in Eau Claire:<a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/taqueria-la-poblanita-eau-claire" target="_blank"> Taqueria la Poblanita</a>. He has lived in EC for eight years and I have lived here for one, but I still managed to discover a restaurant he had never tried and convince him of its superiority over the competing taquerias. It doesn't have much "curb appeal" but it's super tasty and cheap.<br /><br /> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsUP3Y2dJDodDu6wTOPK3Mv-12LVcr4gKD96V7tp6VgCu5mU7s5aIVfz_Cj2tWzOROO42NntnocS8I9J5iIzCeeF4U2XW4AvRgKaxLc6vOEfsk_VkXkIKHfLQre14yJeu6ebNG2DyPLRk/s1600/tacos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsUP3Y2dJDodDu6wTOPK3Mv-12LVcr4gKD96V7tp6VgCu5mU7s5aIVfz_Cj2tWzOROO42NntnocS8I9J5iIzCeeF4U2XW4AvRgKaxLc6vOEfsk_VkXkIKHfLQre14yJeu6ebNG2DyPLRk/s1600/tacos.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I think most of my contributions in my relationships are related to food, now that I think about it. Or alcohol -- probably most of the men I've dated emerged with more knowledge about wine than before. I'm probably most proud of the ex that I got to fall in love with sushi. When we first met, he claimed not to like it and refused to eat it, but further questioning revealed that the only sushi he had ever tried came from his college dining hall. Now he's a sushi fiend, thanks to me. Which hopefully hasn't landed him in the poor house. I realize a Cup-of-Noodles habit would be more financially viable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">What did sushi ex give me? Well, he was really into reading recaps of TV shows on websites like Television Without Pity (R.I.P.). Before him, I never followed commentary about shows I watched, but now it's pretty essential to my viewing rituals and I have him to thank. Even when binge-watching shows like <i>House of Cards</i> or <i>Orange is the New Black</i>, I pause between episodes to read recaps (mostly on Vulture now that TWoP is gone). It's a weird behavior -- to read a summary/flash analysis of something I literally JUST WATCHED. But it's pleasurable, what can I say.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">From the Boston boyfriend, I got a lot of music -- I was exposed to a bunch of bands I never would have discovered had we not dated. And we're on good enough terms that I can still like those bands and not, like, think of him and collapse into tears. He got me listening to Bon Iver, Wye Oak, Robyn, Lucky Soul, the Pipettes, and a whole bunch of other stuff. He also is responsible for me becoming obsessed with <a href="http://www.theroommovie.com/" target="_blank">The Room</a>. It's the gift that keeps on giving. He took me to my first screening and explained to me when to throw the plastic spoons at the screen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I introduced him to the best burger in Boston:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOR4DLj22jXWcVISlr9LBPxgUrQnGOyDL7LeIOvoDymrLqRuOyvpuRHaMeEhSGikafp9NRxMVsCvLBqhmYIuSYWI7mq3YYdI5pcghH2DNgoXsvnE76FZWQUOqXaKC25WIOzt6e1eXRlPg/s1600/russell-house-tavern-burger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOR4DLj22jXWcVISlr9LBPxgUrQnGOyDL7LeIOvoDymrLqRuOyvpuRHaMeEhSGikafp9NRxMVsCvLBqhmYIuSYWI7mq3YYdI5pcghH2DNgoXsvnE76FZWQUOqXaKC25WIOzt6e1eXRlPg/s1600/russell-house-tavern-burger.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It's at the Russell House Tavern. It's served on an English muffin. And perhaps best of all, as this picture shows, they give you the option of fries, salad or 50/50. The 50/50 option is so rad because you can feel good about eating some salad with your bacon cheeseburger. EVERYONE WINS. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When I left Boston, this ex made me a lovely photo essay documenting him eating this burger as a tribute to the impact I made on his life. It's incredibly funny and if I had a scanner at my disposal, I would post the pictures here. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Chicago boyfriend was a tech guy and helped me see the beauty in things I previously only valued for their utility, like cell phones. He had an amazing collection of sample phones and other gadgets that were sent to him to test out. He also inspired me to finally suck it up and get an iPhone and he was right, my life is better. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">New York boyfriend (well, the 2nd one -- sushi boyfriend is NY boyfriend #1) helped me rediscover my love for board games. And he got me into the live trivia scene -- from now on, wherever I live, I will seek out the best bar trivia because of him (and probably end up disappointed since his caliber for live trivia was very high). He also had some handy euphemisms for marijuana ("green shoes") that I have passed on to others (though my favorite is still "tickets to the Al Green concert" which I stole from someone in college). I think I got him to be a slightly less picky eater -- I know at least he now knows better than to order meat well-done. You're welcome, future foodie girlfriends of his. I laid some groundwork, made some headway. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> ....That's probably enough self-indulgent reflection for one blog post. Whenever I'm newly single, I find myself ruminating on relationships past, looking for patterns. I have dated a lot of interesting people (and <a href="http://thevagninomonologues.blogspot.com/2008/12/communication-fail.html" target="_blank">one famous one</a>) and at first glance, they don't have much in common. (I used to joke about creating a reality show where all my ex-boyfriends are on a cruise together and have to figure out what they have in common: me. Not that I have enough exes to fill a cruise ship -- more like a moderately sized yacht.) But what they do all have in common is they are smart, funny, interesting, kind human beings. And I still carry a little love for all of them and always will. </span>Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-37141033703649014882014-08-27T17:54:00.000-04:002014-08-27T17:54:27.964-04:00Reporting from America's Dairyland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The other night, when I couldn't sleep, I spent over an hour just reading old posts on this blog. I reached two conclusions: 1) I'm a pretty funny lady. There were things I had written and totally forgotten about that made me LOL. 2) I really should try to blog more - as in, once a week, minimum. So in that spirit, here's a post I started writing six months ago and abandoned -- a rumination on my new life in the upper Midwest.</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Now it's finished (and updated to reflect that I have now been here - gasp! - a year).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbXSF_emu72Fr6S6EvrsYtUVO3xn9K6ghKxKZaf05Vru1k_w28wYKb7gNxcbtiSpzi0c9h6bnqW8zXCT1oB1w9I0-Ps7RFrfXgv5AK4xNLkBmm32uo-PzZ3aB4cieoWlROjVdhHD1-doA/s1600/wis+flag.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbXSF_emu72Fr6S6EvrsYtUVO3xn9K6ghKxKZaf05Vru1k_w28wYKb7gNxcbtiSpzi0c9h6bnqW8zXCT1oB1w9I0-Ps7RFrfXgv5AK4xNLkBmm32uo-PzZ3aB4cieoWlROjVdhHD1-doA/s1600/wis+flag.gif" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />This is the state flag of Wisconsin. Seeing as I have now been a resident of Wisconsin for over a year, I thought I should take a look at the flag. According to Wikipedia, it is not highly regarded in terms of design when compared with other state flags (oh snap!). Our motto is "Forward" -- simple, direct. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_of_Wisconsin" target="_blank">The state seal</a> pictured on the flag "emphasizes mining and shipping." And yes, that's a little badger on top of the coat of arms. Cute!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It still seems incredibly bizarre that I live in Wisconsin, to both me and my non-Wisconsin friends and family. But here are five things I have figured out in the one year I have lived here:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">1. "Wisconsin nice"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">People here are really nice. Like, crazy nice. They always give you the benefit of the the doubt. Total strangers will offer you a ride at a bar if you're too drunk to drive (I have witnessed this, not been the drunk person, Mom). People will help you dig your car out of a snow bank. The locals take great pride in their kindness, especially in comparison to their neighbors to the west, Minnesotans, whom they claim are fake nice. I don't know a lot of Minnesotans, so I can't really comment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">2.The unofficial state condiment is Ranch.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Where I come from, Ranch is just a salad dressing. But lo, people dip everything in Ranch here! French fries, sandwiches, chips, their children (well, okay, maybe not that last one). Pretty much anything can be a vehicle for Ranch delivery. Cheese curds dipped in Ranch are especially tasty. Fried cheese dipped in Ranch: It doesn't get much more Wisconsin than that. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMbr7ZV8ok9u4-lj0etoLB2wm2l_jrubrW1NxMrCEQmxjb8J6kthnvOD6iANLloDbm_hTMjhsftcJy0pI0hiEaEPu0yA-xTgmw4r4eYLGizJe_x6xYXu6Q_GtsY923NznMReShS_lQoQA/s1600/l.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMbr7ZV8ok9u4-lj0etoLB2wm2l_jrubrW1NxMrCEQmxjb8J6kthnvOD6iANLloDbm_hTMjhsftcJy0pI0hiEaEPu0yA-xTgmw4r4eYLGizJe_x6xYXu6Q_GtsY923NznMReShS_lQoQA/s1600/l.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">3. The water here is delicious!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have no idea why this is, but the tap water here is sooooo good. It doesn't have any weird flavors, no metal/mineral/chemical notes. It's crisp and cold (well, probably because the pipes are super cold) and tastes really pure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">4. Beware the Hodag</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Wisconsin has its very own cryptid: the Hodag, a mythical (?) lizard beast that lives in Rhinelander. Here is a statue of the menacing creature:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUz4xYtBWPoLbyIGj486_YpV4v0peUbcz3IKpdkNY156Sn46PwLFsNU-r2cH2PxkA5FGUWABJWSvacsCriUP5V2f4E3KPVh2KArzolquaNlb9k9L26pLvPXA7-qsHHED1p-zic4v-9Bo/s1600/hodag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUz4xYtBWPoLbyIGj486_YpV4v0peUbcz3IKpdkNY156Sn46PwLFsNU-r2cH2PxkA5FGUWABJWSvacsCriUP5V2f4E3KPVh2KArzolquaNlb9k9L26pLvPXA7-qsHHED1p-zic4v-9Bo/s1600/hodag.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The Hodag is now my second favorite folkloric creature, second of course to the chupacabra. Apparently the Hodag is not so much vicious as mischievous, presumed responsible for golf balls that are never recovered, interfering with local fishermen, and other mild recreational annoyances. See, even the state's monster is Wisconsin nice!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">5. The summers are as lovely as the winters are brutal</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When it finally began to warm up and all the inches upon inches of snow began to melt, I truly felt that I had survived something epic and terrible. This summer, in terms of weather, has been as intensely wonderful as the winter was intensely horrid. Glorious, sunny high-70s days, enough rain to keep everything verdant and some exciting thunderstorms, very mild humidity. Temps dropping low enough at night to turn off the A/C and just open the windows. Now that I know what's coming winter-wise, I understand why people try to soak up every last drop of summer. I'm in serious denial about Labor Day weekend, otherwise known as this weekend, otherwise known as the end of summer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As I embark on Year Two in Eau Claire, it feels both familiar and strange. Sort of like home, but also, due to some recent major life ruptures, a foreign and potentially scary place. But I still love my job, I've made some solid friends, and hey, I just joined a <a href="http://www.themastersingers.net/index.html" target="_blank">semi-professional choir</a>, so I'll be singing again and meeting some new folks. I'm not in the same place I was when <a href="http://thevagninomonologues.blogspot.com/2013/12/everythingsgonna-be-alright.html" target="_blank">I rhapsodized last December</a>, but hopefully I'll get to that state of relative contentment again soon. As my homegirl <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbN0nX61rIs" target="_blank">Florence</a> says, it's always darkest before the dawn.<a href="http://thevagninomonologues.blogspot.com/2013/12/everythingsgonna-be-alright.html" target="_blank"><br /></a></span>Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-40438579383315611022014-08-24T14:43:00.001-04:002014-08-27T16:56:18.603-04:00Another poem<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I know it's unusual for me to have back-to-back posts with poems, but I am too emotionally spent to write/reflect, so I must use Dean Young's words instead. It's been a doozy of a summer -- I had major surgery and my heart broken all within a month. The healing from both events has been complicated -- allergic reactions and one incision that refuses to close up, and my heart, well, it continues to beat for the one who destroyed it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I am teaching Introduction to Creative Writing this fall and the task of selecting poems for my students to read has proved daunting only in that there are SO MANY I want to share with them. Some, like this one, I don't think fledgling writers would necessarily be able to really "get" - it breaks a lot of rules (which is why it's great) and it's hard to get away with some of the things Young gets away with here unless you really know what you're doing. From a craft perspective, the takeaways might be inscrutable for beginning creative writers. <br /><br />Some of this poem, I would argue, is filler, is clutter -- but very intentionally so. The effect is that the astonishing lines and images (and there are a lot of them) seem to burst out from the din he creates with the frantic rhythm of his very free verse. And those moments in the poem become all the more transcendent because of how they explode out from the white noise. They are, literally, arresting. Read it and I think you'll see what I mean. Is every idea in this poem "essential"? I don't think so -- except in how the non-essentials make the drama of the jaw-dropping lines all the more impactful. This poem has the power to stop you in your tracks. Enjoy.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Whale Watch</span></b> <br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Sometimes you may feel alone and crushed </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">by what you cannot accomplish </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">but the thought of failure is a fuzz </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">we cannot rid ourselves of </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">anymore than the clouds can their moisture. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Why would they want to anyway? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">It is their identity and purpose </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">above the radish and radicchio fields. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Just because a thing can never be finished </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">doesn't mean it can't be done. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">The most vibrant forms are emergent forms. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">In winter, walk across the frozen lake </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">and listen to it boom and you will know </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">something of what i mean. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">It may be necessary to go to Mexico. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Do not steal tombstones but if you do, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">do not return them as it is sentimental </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">and the sentimental is a larval feeling </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">that bloats and bloats but never pupates. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Learn what you can of the coyote and shark. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Do not encourage small children </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">to play the trombone as the shortness </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">of their arms may prove quite frustrating, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">imprinting a lifelong aversion to music </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">although in rare cases a sense of unreachability </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">may inspire operas of delicate auras. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">If you hook, try to slice. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">I have not the time to fully address </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Spinoza but put Spinoza on your list. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Do not eat algae. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">When someone across the table has a grain of rice </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">affixed to his nostril, instead of shouting, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Hey, you got rice hanging off your face! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">thereby perturbing the mood </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">as he speaks of his mother one day in the basement, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">brush your nose as he watches </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">and hidden receptors in the brain </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">will cause him to brush his own nose </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">ergo freeing the stupid-looking-making rice. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">There is so much to say and shut up about. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">As regards the ever-present advice-dispensing susurration </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">of the dead, ignore it; they think everyone's </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">going to die. I have seen books with pink slips </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">marking vital passages </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">but this I do not recommend </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">as it makes the book appear foolish </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">like a dog in a sweater. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Do not confuse size with scale: </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">the cathedral may be very small, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">the eyelash monumental. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Know yourself to be made mostly of water </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">with a trace of aluminum, a metal </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">commonly used in fuselages. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">For flying, hollow bones are best or </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">no bones at all as in the honeybee. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Do not kill yourself. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Do not put the hammer in the crystal carafe </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">except as a performance piece. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">When you are ready to marry, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">you will know but if you don't, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">don't worry. The bullfrog never marries, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">ditto the space shuttle </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">yet each is able to deliver its payload: </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">i.e. baby bullfrogs and satellites, respectively. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">When young, fall in and out of love like a window </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">that is open and only about a foot off the ground. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Occasionally land in lilacs </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">or roses if you must </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">but remember, the roses </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">have been landed in many times. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">If you do not surprise yourself, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">you won't surprise anyone else. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">When the yo-yo "sleeps", give a little tug </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">and it will return unless it has "slept" too long. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Haiku should not be stored with sestinas </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">just as one should never randomly mix </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">the liquids and powders beneath the kitchen sink. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Sand is both the problem and the solution for the beach. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">To impress his teacher, Pan-Shan lopped off </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">his own hand, but to the western mind, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">this seems rather extreme. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Neatly typed, on-time themes </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">strongly spelled are generally enough. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Some suggest concentrating on one thing </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">for a whole life but narrowing down </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">seems less alluring than opening up </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">except in the case of the blue pencil </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">with which to make lines on one side </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">of the triangle so it appears to speed through the firmament. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Still, someone should read everything </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Galsworthy wrote. Everyone knows </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">it's a race but no one's sure of the finish line. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">You may want to fall to your knees </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">and beg for forgiveness without knowing precisely </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">for what. You may have a hole in your heart. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">You may solve the equation but behind it </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">lurks another equation. You may never get </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">what you want and feel like you're already a ghost </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">and a failed ghost at that, unable to walk through walls. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">There will be a purple hat. Ice cream. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">You may almost ruin the wedding. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">You may try to hang yourself but be saved </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">by a kid come home early from school </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">or you may be that kid who'll always remember </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">his mother that day in the basement, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">how she seemed to know he'd done something wrong </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">before he even knew </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">and already forgave him, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">the way she hugged him and cried. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Nothing escapes damage for long, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">not the mountain or the sky. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">You may be unable to say why </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">a certain song makes you cry until </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">it joins the other songs, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">even the one that's always going on </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">and is never heard, the one that sings us into being. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">On the phone, the doctor may tell you to come in. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">It may rain for three days straight. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">Already you've been forgiven, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">given permission. Each week, cryptograms </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">come with the funny papers. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">You're not alone. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);">You may see a whale.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: start;">
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlnXZDTkzpeRCBG8BN51zKhYdObZNSPFRO1hF3g4HD8BGG_BPXFqqZDbhsb1y4utr1abn3xP1yvNc600ypQWxghKFNmi_dHb-R4kXdxYwsAwg8eK5cikB3jzM0jU1NNy4DasNrqPducvU/s1600/Whale+Watching+Pic+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlnXZDTkzpeRCBG8BN51zKhYdObZNSPFRO1hF3g4HD8BGG_BPXFqqZDbhsb1y4utr1abn3xP1yvNc600ypQWxghKFNmi_dHb-R4kXdxYwsAwg8eK5cikB3jzM0jU1NNy4DasNrqPducvU/s1600/Whale+Watching+Pic+1.jpg" height="150" width="400" /></a></div>
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Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-34484804149409680312014-04-22T15:54:00.002-04:002014-04-22T15:56:04.383-04:00So You Think You Don't Like Poetry: Happy Birthday, Nabokov edition<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Today is Vladimir Nabokov's birthday and it's also National Poetry Month, so I'm celebrating both by posting a poem of my own (!) that was recently published in <a href="http://www.measurepress.com/measure/index.php/the-journal/" target="_blank"><i>Measure</i></a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Nabokov and his wife Vera shared a love of lepidoptery (collecting butterflies) - and he drew butterflies alongside his inscriptions in first editions gifted to her. </span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQdfkrvxt6cOJBk6db_sB4fSOTGeirHN4dwijn2tLSztMoJwakktaikcYU1SJXupKxoALBUeux-lf3nvdhLKQ9c9Dh0_Bmu5xlt3X3gqynmDR6NvahUJoEtso9-OEieXIFpN1yVIs_f_I/s1600/NabokovInscription2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQdfkrvxt6cOJBk6db_sB4fSOTGeirHN4dwijn2tLSztMoJwakktaikcYU1SJXupKxoALBUeux-lf3nvdhLKQ9c9Dh0_Bmu5xlt3X3gqynmDR6NvahUJoEtso9-OEieXIFpN1yVIs_f_I/s1600/NabokovInscription2.png" height="214" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Their relationship is legendary -- in a recent article in the Atlantic entitled <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/04/the-legend-of-vera-nabokov-why-writers-pine-for-a-do-it-all-spouse/359747/" target="_blank">"The Legend of Vera Nabokov,"</a> Koa Beck considers how Vera's support and devotion to her husband's career impacted his success. They are the original power couple; think Claire and Francis Underwood, replacing politics with literature and minus the murder and <a href="http://gawker.com/here-s-that-house-of-cards-scene-everyone-is-talking-ab-1525398860" target="_blank">creepy threesomes</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Vladimir died in 1977; Vera, not until 1991. I wrote this poem in grad school as I tried to imagine what she did with all the butterflies after his death. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Vera vs. the Butterflies</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The eastern side of every minute of mine is already colored by the light of our impending meeting.<br />
All the rest is dark, boring, you-less. – Vladimir Nabokov to his wife Vera, 1937</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />She had already lost him<br />
and now his winged darlings<br />
were hers to keep or kill.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />She shared his fascination<br />
with fragility and flight,<br />
but walking in the woods</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />alone, armed with the net<br />
he had given her, noting<br />
each abandoned chrysalis,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />unusual flecks of blue<br />
on a <i>Parnassius apollo</i>,<br />
she knew they had to go.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />A book suggested pinching<br />
thorax between thumb<br />
and middle finger to snap</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />the exoskeleton for a quick<br />
death, but she couldn’t bear<br />
their blood on her hands.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Suffocation in a kill jar –<br />
too inhumane. She decided<br />
finally to freeze them, let the air</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />do her dirty work. Watching<br />
their wings pulse to stillness,<br />
she imagined his delight</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />at the sudden flutter<br />
of company, diaphanous<br />
prologue to their reunion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">V & V</span></div>
Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-16293319182874334482014-04-19T23:27:00.005-04:002014-04-22T17:22:34.558-04:00A Tale of Two Voice TeachersAt one point in my life, singing meant everything to me.<br />
<br />
Nowadays, it plays a peripheral role. I sing in the shower and in the car and semi-regularly at karaoke bars in whatever city I happen to be living in. I have joined some non-professional choirs over the years. Nothing too serious.<br />
<br />
But once, it was my world -- it was the first thing I remember being good at. Before I knew I could write, before I knew I was reasonably intelligent, I knew I could sing. I knew it even before my first music teacher, the lovely Diane Ladendecker, told me I had a nice voice. It's the first skill I recall feeling like I just <i>had</i>-- as in, no one taught it to me. I somehow magically just could sing Happy Birthday <i>correctly</i>. I could hear a song and sing it -- and it did seem like a miraculous gift.<br />
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As a child, I sang not just in the school choir, but in community choirs as well. Choirs that had real paying gigs. And then I started doing theater -- specifically musical theater and opera. So once I hit high school, it seemed logical to start taking voice lessons. And of course, I wanted to take them from the best teacher in town, the teacher with the best reputation: Sheila Dugan. Her name was spoken in hushed tones among child performers and their parents. She was expensive. She didn't agree to work with <i>just anyone. </i>She had to agree that you were worth teaching to take you on as a student. But as far as I was concerned, there was no one else from whom I could possibly study voice. So if she was willing to work with me, my parents said they were willing to pay for it.<br />
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I owe a lot to Sheila Dugan. She taught me that singing is all about breathing. For the first three months, we did no singing-- only breathing exercises. My tone was too airy and I had no breath support. She taught me how to focus my tone and sustain -- she taught me how to control my instrument. She was tough on me but I appreciated it. She helped me turn raw talent into real skill.<br />
<br />
Sheila Dugan is still, I believe, revered among St. Louis singers. Many of her students have gone on to illustrious careers on Broadway. She's the real deal. She's also, however, the person who almost managed to make me hate singing and give up on it entirely. I left my final lesson in tears, convinced I had no talent whatsoever. <br />
<br />
I started working with Sheila my sophomore year of high school, but the trouble started my senior year, when I wanted to enter a vocal competition sponsored by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. The competition was open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 35 not enrolled in a vocal performance program, so clearly winning would be a long shot. My high school choir teacher encouraged me to enter not because she thought I could win, but because she thought it would be good experience. To compete, you had to prepare two songs in non-English languages, so she also said it would be a great excuse for me to expand my repertoire.<br />
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At my next lesson with Sheila, I told her I wanted to start preparing material for this competition. And Sheila was aghast and appalled. She told me that I had no chance and I would be wasting everyone's time. She said, "My students enter these competitions and win them. If you want to enter, I will not allow you to list me as your vocal instructor. I have a reputation to uphold." She also told me that I was her weakest student, that she could line up all her students in a row and every one of them could outsing me. <b>She actually said those words, exactly. </b>My memory of this afternoon is crystal clear.<br />
<br />
It was my last lesson. I was shattered. To this day, I don't understand why she had to be so, well, mean. I stopped taking lessons. I didn't enter the competition. I never saw Sheila Dugan again.<br />
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Next fall, I went to college at Yale and joined an a cappella group. Did a bunch of shows in my four years, some musicals, some not. After graduating, I moved to NYC and started auditioning. And inevitably, the idea of resuming voice lessons (once I had a steady job and could afford them) occurred to me. But I was scared -- I'd had such a negative experience. I really felt like Sheila Dugan had broken something inside me. I wasn't sure I could make myself vulnerable enough to work with another voice teacher one-on-one.<br />
<br />
Somehow, through circumstances I can't recall, I was put in touch with Nomi Tichman. Hesitantly, I went to my first lesson. We hit it off like gangbusters. She was just as good a teacher as Sheila, but unlike Shelia, she actually seemed to like and respect me as a person, to have my best interests at heart. When I wanted to audition for a part I was unlikely to land, she encouraged me. She didn't lie to me, but she supported me. And in the arts, as a young artist especially, that's invaluable. Her apartment on the Upper West Side was a safe space for me to experiment with my artistry. I studied with Nomi for several years while I was in New York and even when I barely had enough money to pay my rent, I never stopped budgeting money for voice lessons. It was good for my spirit. I remembered what it felt like to enjoy singing again.<br />
<br />
I have referred Nomi to a number of my friends because it's fucking hard to be an actor/musician in New York and having someone in your creative corner is so, so important. She's a wonderful teacher. When I first started working with her, I had a lot of notions about what I could and couldn't do. I thought primarily in terms of limitations and boundaries. I can't sing this type of role, I can't belt above this note, etc. She helped me think past all that. And I will always be grateful for her for that.<br />
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(You might wonder what prompted this apropos-of-nothing post about singing and studying voice -- well, last night I went to see a local production of Jesus Christ Superstar. And reading the bios of the actors in the program, I saw that the actor playing Jesus was from St. Louis and had studied with Sheila Dugan. A flood of memories came back -- not just about Sheila but about my own evolution as a singer -which coincided with my evolution into adulthood.)<br />
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For anyone on an artistic or creative path, there will always be an infinite number of Sheilas. You have to learn how to tune them out and find the Nomis. Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-32625062200824760112014-03-25T16:46:00.003-04:002014-03-25T16:46:20.275-04:00The Mysterious Origins of My Feminism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Let me share a little secret: I honestly can't remember when I started self-identifying as a feminist. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">A few years ago, I remember a friend in Boston saying that my feminism was one of my defining characteristics, that I was one of the most feminist women he knew. I was surprised and flattered, but mostly surprised. It's not like I'm all that active in the community and I know of a number of women whom I consider to be more hardcore about their feminism (such <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti-Grace_Atkinson" target="_blank">radical feminist Ti-Grace Atkinson</a> who is celibate because she's heterosexual but thinks all heterosexual penetrative sex is a form of rape. Now THAT's extreme feminism). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And yet, I can't deny it -- when tasked with choosing a theme for my writing course at Emerson, I immediately chose gender. Well, actually, first I chose the Women's Movement, but switched to gender in an attempt to be more inclusive and less political. Gender is the theme of the course I currently teach at UWEC. Many of my students are pleasantly surprised at how much they end up investing in the topic and comments on end-of-year evaluations like "This course opened my eyes and made me see things differently" warm my heart. But then, of course, there are a few comments like these:<br /><br />"If you are going to teach a class on gender, get an instructor that isn't biased to one side of gender issues."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"I feel the proffessor [sic] pushed her feminist views to [sic] much"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"Theme seems sexist; the professor's personal views were apparent throughout"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Cat's out of the bag, y'all. Turns out, I'm a raging feminist! My students have figured it out!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But wait -- is that so bad? Let's be clear, I'm teaching writing and critical reading, not Women's Studies. And I do believe I keep the focus on those skills. But is it really the worst thing in the world for a teacher to have an opinion? I mean, if I were a racist, I could see the problem. But being a feminist simply means I think men and women should be treated equally. Is it such a terrible shortcoming that my students have picked up on the fact that I'm a woman with some views about things? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">If I were gay, would I need to hide the fact that I support gay rights? Surely no one would say I would need to present "both sides" of that issue -- i.e. bring in some hate speech just for the sake of balance. So yeah, I'm a woman and I support equal rights for women. (And for the record, I use texts in my class from the IWF, an anti-feminist conservative org, and "equity feminist" Christina Hoff Sommers, whom I personally loathe, so that seems pretty balanced to me). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I don't hate men; my best friend is a man. I'm dating a man whom I love very much. The world is full of awesome men. I just think women should be respected as human beings and valued based on the same qualities as men, namely their abilities, compassion, and character, not how hot they look in lingerie. We live in a world where shit like this exists:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">and yet many of my students, both male and female, think feminism is obsolete, no longer necessary.<b>The fact that so many people put so much energy into making feminism seem unappealing to young women is precisely why it is so necessary.</b> Duh.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But where did my own feminism come from? My mother is not a feminist. She certainly didn't try to shield me from Disney or girly girl stuff. I wore tons of pink. I told everyone I wanted to be a princess when I grew up. I actually once, in second grade, cried because I wasn't blonde and blue-eyed and my name wasn't Crystal. True fact.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I remember first feeling what I'd now identify as feminist outrage in high school when the philosophy behind my school's dress code was explained to me in terms of sexy outfits (spaghetti straps, short skirts) being too distracting for boys....implying that their education was somehow prioritized over mine and that without the dress code, the poor male students would never be able to concentrate. I didn't really object to the dress code until it was framed for me in that way. Boys had to wear coat-and-tie and let me tell you, some of the butt-ass ugly ties these dudes wore was PLENTY distracting to my learning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Fast-forward to college, where I took my first <i>and only</i> Women's Studies class junior year. Yes, you read that correctly. I took exactly one Women's Studies class in college and it was the intro survey course. So for anyone who thought it was my liberal college education that made me into the feminist I am today, think again. Some foundations were laid, surely -- I was blown away by much of what I read and was exposed to in that class -- but it's not like I took any follow-up upper level courses. I was an English major, I had a lot of Virginia Woolf to read. And I was more focused on theatre and a cappella than academics anyway. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">After college, I started working for a rare book & manuscript firm, and after a year of being an administrative assistant, I was upgraded to cataloging material for one client. A client who was specifically <a href="http://www.glennhorowitz.com/dobkin" target="_blank">building a collection of books/ephemera by and about American women</a>. And this is maybe when I started to, how should I put it, transition. I handled some incredible primary source material from the suffrage movement -- letters, pamphlets, speeches, photographs. I got a little obsessed. So many incredible women fighting and writing and nearly dying for what they believed in. I was hooked. And I was struck by how little I really knew about American women's history - why is it that I studied the Civil Rights Movement in AP U.S. History but not the Women's Movement? Why did I have to write papers on the War of 1812 but not the Feminine Mystique? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So yes, the theme of my writing class is personally important. Because most of these kids will never take a Women's Studies class. I want my students to become better writers. I don't expect them to be converted to feminism because of my class; that's not my secret (or not-so-secret) agenda. But if it happens? Yeah, I don't feel too badly about that. Sorry. <br /><br />But not really. </span>Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-50217060760586111062013-12-05T00:46:00.000-05:002013-12-05T02:26:29.459-05:00Everything's...Gonna Be Alright?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This image, by <a href="http://webtypographyforthelonely.com/" target="_blank">Christopher Clark</a>, has been my desktop wallpaper for about a year and a half now. I saw it exhibited as part of Cooper-Hewitt's "Graphic Design: Now in Production" show in May 2012. I was at the time gearing up for another major life change; I had decided, despite having a good job and being in a stable (at the time I would have probably said "good-ish") relationship, to uproot myself from Boston and move back to midwest after over a dozen years on the East Coast.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I felt stuck. I felt like I was going through the motions. While I loved my friends in Boston and was successfully supporting myself, something was not clicking. So I moved to Chicago. And as I wrote about nearly a year ago, <a href="http://www.thevagninomonologues.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-truth.html" target="_blank">I got very very depressed</a>. I was lethargic, I felt utterly purposeless. On days when I didn't have to be anywhere, I stayed in pajamas and ordered pizza (and not even good pizza! I'm talking Dominos, which, when you live in Chicago, is a travesty to consume). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So Clark's typographic art - the clash of the beauty of the image and its sad, sober message - really resonated with me. I looked at it a lot, when I was trying to convince myself to write poetry, or blog, or even just write a damn Yelp review, anything to get my brain functioning, to reconnect to my writing self.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Tonight, for the first time since May 2012, I am thinking about changing my desktop wallpaper. Because something kind of incredible and unexpected has happened and the message no longer strikes a chord.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">On July 15 of this year, I got a phone call that changed everything - an offer to teach at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire. I was a little terrified; until Eau Claire, I had only lived in major metropolitan areas. You know, places with amazing restaurants and good public transit and culture around every corner. I read Eau Claire's Wikipedia page and was not sure how I would fare in the Horseradish Capital of the World, population 65,000. Now, I know 65K is not tiny -- but compared to Chicago, it feels pretty podunk. When I visited the campus, there was a deer hanging out in the student parking lot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But it was a good job offer and I didn't have much going on in Chicago -- part-time teaching gigs supplemented by hostessing at a trendy late-night dining spot downtown. I loved living in Chicago but nothing was tethering me there, so once again, I decided to just move. My contract was only for a year, so I figured if I hated Wisconsin, I could always move back to Chicago after the school year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I have now been here for 4 months. I have no plans to leave anytime soon. It actually feels like home to me, the girl who couldn't wait to live in NYC after graduating from college. The people I have met here feel like lifelong friends. I love my job and my colleagues. I love my little weird one-bedroom apartment. I love my "new" car (new to me - it's a 2004 Honda Civic. Her name is Loretta.). I am writing again. I'm singing in the shower again. Something inside tells me I could really be happy here, for a while. Forever? I'm not sure. I do miss some city stuff (mostly ethnic food and liquor stores that are open past 9pm and not having to drive everywhere) and I have yet to experience true "Wisconsin cold," but if I can stay here and keep teaching next year, I absolutely will. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Oh, and another really unexpected thing: I'm in love! With a wonderful man who makes me so, so happy. I have been in a lot of different kinds of relationships over the years that offered some of the things I was looking for, but always with some compromises. I had pretty much given up on certain things and was starting to believe that if I wanted to get married and have a family, I would just have to settle for close enough, assuming I could find someone who would have me. But this is different. It's still a new relationship, so who knows - <a href="http://www.thevagninomonologues.blogspot.com/2010/06/happiness.html" target="_blank">the last time I wrote on this blog about being happy and in love</a>, the shit hit the fan almost immediately (and the guy in question turned out to be a total sociopath). So we'll see. Fingers crossed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Yesterday, some psych students came by my office and asked if I would take a quick survey as part of a project they were doing, comparing beliefs/values of humanities vs. non-humanities faculty. The questions were about being satisfied with your life -- one statement that I had to rate on a scale of strongly disagree to strongly agree was "My life is very close to my ideal." Six months ago, I would have strongly disagreed with that statement. And now, after a momentary flash of "well, ideally I would be 10 lbs lighter, a millionaire, and have a book deal, and an apartment in Paris" I realized what I do have, which is pretty ideal: a job I love that is rewarding and pays me a living wage, a family that is healthy and speaking to one another, friends that care about me, an apartment I like to spend time in, enough money to get by, and a man who thinks I'm beautiful and smart and tells me so daily. If my ideal is to have a fulfilling, happy life filled with adventures and wonderful people, I'm getting pretty close.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I circled "somewhat agree". I mean, a book deal would still be nice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Definitely have to find a new image for my desktop wallpaper. Being cynical about life no longer feels authentic. Don't worry, I don't think I'll ever look as happy as the people in this ad who are really ecstatic about the accredited nursing program that offers flexible night and online classes:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Come on, NO ONE is THAT happy (or has that group of wildly attractive, racially diverse friends). </span>Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-32840650249089365132013-11-04T23:05:00.000-05:002013-11-04T23:05:32.802-05:00So You Think You Don't Like Poetry<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">First, a confession: I haven't been writing poetry lately. I haven't been in the right head space. Which is an excuse, I know, and not a very good one. I actually just felt ready to reread some of my thesis (a collection of 40 poems) and I'm surprised that I don't hate it all. There are poems in there I feel ready to revisit, perhaps revise. (Yeah, I know, they are supposedly "done" because they were part of my thesis, but a lot them aren't really done. And when is a poem done, anyway?)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So I read this poem today and I loved its negativity, its concession of futility. It's a downer of a poem, for sure...and yet, because it's good, it made me feel good. Counter to the message of the poem, the poem's very existence made me happy. I love reading good poems! I love that people are still writing good poems! Whenever I find a new poem I admire, I feel hopeful even if the poem's message is darkly Hobbesian, a.k.a. life is brutal and short and the world we live in is terrible. <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/natalie-shapero" target="_blank">Natalie Shapero</a>, the world is a little less terrible with this poem in it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>Not Horses</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="poem">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">What I adore is not horses, with their modern</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">domestic life span of 25 years. What I adore</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">is a bug that lives only one day, especially if</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">it’s a terrible day, a day of train derailment or</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">chemical lake or cop admits to cover-up, a day</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">when no one thinks of anything else, least of all</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">that bug. I know how it feels, born as I’ve been</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">into these rotting times, as into sin. Everybody’s</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">busy, so distraught they forget to kill me,</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">and even that won’t keep me alive. I share</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">my home not with horses, but with a little dog</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">who sees poorly at dusk and menaces stumps,</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">makes her muscle known to every statue.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I wish she could have a single day of language,</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">so that I might reassure her <em>don’t be afraid</em> —</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
</span><div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><em>our whole world is dead and so can do you no harm.</em></span></div>
</div>
Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-58777914965298695522013-10-28T15:08:00.000-04:002013-10-30T12:05:43.521-04:00Reasons Why I'm a Feminist This Week<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Last week, I had the pleasure of getting to hear a personal hero of mine, <a href="http://jessicavalenti.com/" target="_blank">Jessica Valenti</a>,
speak. She gave an inspiring and powerful talk that reaffirmed all the
reasons that I call myself a feminist and am proud to do so. In my
teaching work, I meet a lot of young, intelligent women who are hesitant
about the label, usually because they imagine it means they have to
stop shaving their legs and start attending man-hating rallies. Or just
get a lot more pissed off about stuff. As Valenti noted, a quick Google
image search confirms these stereotypes - the first subcategory that
comes up is "angry."</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Valenti began her talk addressing this issue of young women not wanting to call themselves or be called feminists. And then she explained why she was a feminist THIS week, as in, the recent events that fuel her to do the work she's doing (which is blogging about women's & gender issues for The Nation and generally being an awesome activist role model).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So I'm going to steal a page from Valenti's playbook and tell you why I'm a feminist this week.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">1. The reports coming out of Emerson College (where I went to grad school) re: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/08/emerson-sexual-assault_n_4059083.html" target="_blank">their failure to take sexual assault reports seriously</a>. This is the case on far too many college campuses -- administrators prefer to handle the matter without actual police involvement, and as result, rapists get wrist-slaps and the female students brave enough to come forward and report their assault end up feeling traumatized all over again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">2. On a related note, <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/10/sexual_assault_and_drinking_teach_women_the_connection.html" target="_blank">this well-intentioned but highly problematic Slate article</a> by "Dear Prudence" columnist Emily Yoffe, which implies that if college women get less drunk, they would get assaulted less frequently. So if you're drunk, you're kind of asking for it, maybe? A firestorm of debate has erupted over this piece (and some great satire, <a href="http://annfriedman.com/post/64213173982/college-men-stop-getting-drunk" target="_blank">like this piece</a> that reverses the genders and advises men to drink less so as to not end up raping women), and while obviously underage binge-drinking is a problem in its own right, suggesting causality (as opposed to correlation) is dangerous and dumb. If you need a refresher on causality vs. correlation, this graph does a good job: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">3. Speaking of rape culture, this video by an Indian sketch comedy group is the best thing I've watched on the internet in a while. It's funny and also incredibly disturbing. </span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/8hC0Ng_ajpY" width="420"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">4. The fact that Plan B costs $50. I don't know why that's bugging me this week, but it is -- it's legal without a prescription, which is good, but it's not exactly in an accessible price range.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">5. Finally, I came across this over the weekend when I was perusing a website listing 100 easy Halloween costume ideas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> <span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"> 53. Gift box or Christmas gift (<b>suggested for a young girl</b>)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Emphasis mine. I'm really dying to know why this is a great costume for little girls -- to further remind them that they are a prize waiting to be unwrapped? Sounds a lot like the subject of Valenti's 2009 book, <i>The Purity Myth</i>, which was also made into a documentary. Watch the trailer here:</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/oAGqfEU-FpQ" width="560"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Young women shouldn't grow up thinking that their self-worth and their sexual identities are intertwined. Your decision to have sex or not have sex does not impact your value as a human being. The whole mythos surrounding the hymen is out of control - <a href="http://podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/smnty/2011-06-22-smnty-hymens.mp3" target="_blank">as this excellent "How Stuff Works" podcast explains</a>, it isn't, as most people think, a membrane that can be punctured, but rather a ring of tissue that gets stretched from a variety of activities (and never, even when "'intact," completely covers the vaginal opening). SCIENCE! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So that's what's making me a feminist this week. </span><br />
<br />Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-8054184599490088632013-06-16T18:16:00.003-04:002013-06-16T18:35:57.252-04:00Bright College Years<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; font-size: normal;">Two weeks ago, I celebrated the 10th anniversary of graduating from college by attending my reunion in good ol' still-crime-stricken New Haven. It was, in a word, surreal.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Compared to the 5th year reunion, this weekend was way more chill. There were some similarities -- mediocre food, weird/amazing dance parties (see above photo), pretty low-shelf booze considering how much we all spent on tuition (not to mention spent to attend the damn reunion -- $225!). You see some friends you've stayed in touch with, a few that you haven't and are genuinely delighted to reconnect with even though because of Facebook you know about their new job/spouse/baby/book/sexual orientation. And then there are tons of randos -- folks you literally haven't thought about for ten years and those you never met at college. In other words, complete fucking strangers. But that's okay, that's what the open bar is for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">But after only five years out, reunion felt more cutthroat; many of my peers were in law school or med school, or in the throes of applying to one or the other. We all looked relatively the same. Few had married and there was maybe one baby. We were all basically the same amount of mature at 27 that we were at 22. And instead of just being pleasantly filled with nostalgia, I remember actively longing to still be in college instead of working and paying bills and dealing with shitty Craigslist roommates.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Not so this time around -- now we're in our thirties. Lots of my classmates have "settled down," so to speak. A few are even on their second marriages. Instead of bragging about careers, we have funny stories of failure to share that we all can relate to. Because despite our expensive degrees, we fucked up as much as any other 20-somethings and now we can admit it and have a good laugh.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I appreciated the more mellow vibe. And instead of apologizing/justifying my career choice, like I felt I had to do at the last reunion (one person literally said, "wow, that's so brave!" when I said I was getting my MFA in poetry), I fully owned up to the fact that I am a poet. And instead of snickering, people seemed supportive and curious. Despite not having a ring on my finger or a pregnant belly (babies were THE must-have accessory of this reunion), I felt okay about my life. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Of course, no Yale reunion would be complete without a ton of a cappella singing. Whiffenpoofs ranging from age 27 to 90 performed, and my senior women's group sang a few songs as well, despite the alumni association's utter inability to provide us with any concert logistics. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And speaking of singing, I'm proud to say that I was able to refrain from drunkenly wailing Adele's "Someone Like You" to my college sweetheart, who was there with his wife. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> College boyfriend on the left; the guy on the right is my current roommate. Picture taken Sept. '99. I still have those pajama pants.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I also finally learned the words to our school song, "Bright College Years," and have to admit, they resonate a lot more now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Bright college years with pleasure rife<br />The shortest, gladdest years of life<br />How swiftly are ye gliding by</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Oh, why doth time so quickly fly?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>The seasons come, the seasons go</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>The earth is green or white with snow<br />But time and change cannot avail</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>To break the friendships formed at Yale.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>In after years when troubles rise</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>To cloud the blue of sunny skies</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>How bright will seem through memory's haze</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Those happy, golden bygone days.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Oh let us strive that ever we </i> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>May let these words our watch-cry be</i>,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>Where'er upon life's sea we sail:</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i>For God, for country, and for Yale! </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When you are a Yale student and everything is coming up roses/the future seems blindingly bright/you feel invincible, it's hard to believe troubles will ever cloud your skies. But it's true that when that happens, there are friends from your bright college years that will stand by you and remind you that things could always be worse. For instance, you could have gone to Harvard.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">At Yale, we sometimes drink alcohol out of giant trophy cups.</span></b></span></div>
Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-39057484294718674962013-05-24T13:01:00.000-04:002013-05-24T13:39:15.609-04:00Top Ten Ways to Blow a Skype Interview1) Watch porn simultaneously on your browser with the sound on<br />
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2) "It's a good thing you guys can't smell my breath!"<br />
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3) Casually sip a glass of wine during the interview<br />
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4) Introduce the interviewers to your adorable cat<br />
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5) Do the interview from the bathroom at Starbucks ("The wifi signal is really great in here.")<br />
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6) Live tweet the interview with hashtags #thisinterviewblows #skypemydick<br />
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7)Make a joke about the camera adding ten pounds<br />
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8) Talk about how Chat Roulette helped you prepare<br />
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9) Fall asleep<br />
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10) Google-stalk your interviewers during the interview and creep them out by asking personal questions<br />
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**Note: This post was inspired by my first actual Skype interview this morning, during which I did none of the above. I did, however, greatly enjoy not wearing shoes, but kept that information to myself.<br />
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Ok, maybe I also didn't brush my teeth. Don't tell.Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-63451656488573560272013-05-17T17:38:00.000-04:002013-10-30T12:12:18.358-04:00That Silent, but Troublesome G<br />
I *think* I have blogged before about how I deal with people who feel compelled to comment on the, er, unusualness of my last name. (It's not that I'm too lazy to check, I'm just blogging from my ipad and can't figure out how to search through my old posts. TECHNOLOGY.) The name for this blog encapsulates my philosophy of embracing the obvious word my name resembles, instead of trying to deny it. I've gotten pretty steely about it, but still, when I have to spell my name for anyone, in person or on the phone, I feel a nervous twinge that the person will either a) laugh or b) think I'm crudely pranking them and get mad. But overall, I have been impressed with customer service folks -- they must see a lot of crazy-ass names and be trained to not react.<br />
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In the category of Words Your Last Name Can Look Like, mine is pretty bad. On the plus side, it is memorable. And it's become enmeshed with my identity -- when people think of me, they think of my whole name (or so I've been told). Katie Vagnino. Even my closest friends and ex-boyfriends have admitted to this phenomenon of being unable to just think of me as "Katie."<br />
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I used to think about changing my name -- really, just getting rid of the "g". Back when I was fantasizing about being an Academy Award-winning actress, on the cover of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People issue, I saw my name appearing as KATIE VANINO. My father, when he ventured briefly into the world of winemaking, got rid of the "g". I guess he worried no one would want to drink vagina wine.<br />
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I really can't imagine getting rid of the "g" now -- it's grown on me. However, there are moments when it's a little annoying. Like when I applied for a Wikipedia account and requested the username KatieVagnino and got an e-mail telling me that my username did not comply with their username policies. Here's the entire e-mail thread, for your amusement:<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 9:19 PM, &lt;<a href="mailto:accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org</a>> wrote:<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Many thanks for your interest in joining Wikipedia. Unfortunately the username that you have requested does not comply with our username policy, and so I am unable to create this account for you.<br /><br />Please take a look at our username policy (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Username_policy</a>) and choose a different username. You may be able to create the account with the new name you have chosen yourself at<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&type=signup" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&type=signup</a>. If so, I wish you all the best and hope you enjoy your time on Wikipedia.<br /><br />If you are still unable to create the name yourself, we will gladly process your new request here, and I look forward to hearing from you again with your new choice of username.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b><span lang="EN-US">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> <a href="mailto:accounts-enwiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">accounts-enwiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org</a> [<a href="mailto:accounts-enwiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">mailto:accounts-enwiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Katie Vagnino<br /><b>Sent:</b> Monday, 13 May 2013 1:46 PM<br /><b>To:</b> <a href="mailto:accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org</a><br /><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Accounts-enwiki-l] [ACC #99734] English Wikipedia Account Request<u></u><u></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Is my last name, Vagnino, considered inappropriate? I'm very confused. I just requested my name as my username: KatieVagnino. Katie Vagnino is my name.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I guess new username choice would be KatieV2013. But Vagnino is my last name, not an offensive word, and frankly, I find it a little offensive that you think my name is an inappropriate username!<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Please respond,<br />Katie</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>From:</b> "User:Callanecc" &lt;<a href="mailto:callanecc.wiki@gmail.com" target="_blank">callanecc.wiki@gmail.com</a>><br /><b>Date:</b> May 13, 2013, 7:53:50 AM CDT<br /><b>To:</b> "'Katie Vagnino'" &lt;<a href="mailto:katievagnino@gmail.com" target="_blank">katievagnino@gmail.com</a>>, "'Internal discussion between the English Wikipedia's account creation team'" &lt;<a href="mailto:accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">accounts-enwiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org</a>><br /><b>Subject:</b> <b>RE: [Accounts-enwiki-l] [ACC #99734] English Wikipedia Account Request</b></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hi Katie,<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">My apologies, your explanation has changed my opinion of your request.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I apologies most sincerely for any offense caused, it certainly wasn’t intentional.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I have created your account with your originally requested username “KatieVagnino”, and again you have my sincere apologies.<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Kind regards,<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Callanecc<u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">English Wikipedia Account Creation Team</span></div>
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Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-43364795196005170942013-03-12T19:58:00.000-04:002013-05-02T01:38:11.838-04:00So You Think You Don't Like Poetry<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In one of my first grad school poetry courses, I came across a Muriel Rukeyser poem that struck me as rather perfect -- simple, elegant, and effortless-seeming -- the kind of poem you instantly understand and enjoy reading the 1st time and the 1,000th time. I've continued to read her and the more I read, the more it seems downright criminal that she's not more well-known. At the AWP conference last week, I picked up a nonfiction book by her called <i>The Life of Poetry</i>. It was published in 1949, was out of print for a while, and then reissued by the Paris Press in the mid-90s. I started reading it on the plane home and it's mind-blowing. Everything she says about poetry is so relevant, so topical for today even though it was written over 60 years ago. She makes a case for why poetry is a cultural necessity, something all human beings need, and might in fact be the very thing that saves us from ourselves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">So I'll share two of her poems with you here-- the one I discovered back in grad school, "Yes," and one I read for the first time last week, "Coney Island," which is awesome because I LOVE Coney Island (I've written a poem about it as well, though it's not as good as this one).</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Yes</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It’s like a tap-dance<br />Or a new pink dress,<br />A shit-naive feeling<br />Saying Yes</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Some say Good morning<br />Say say God bless–<br />Some say Possibly<br />Some say Yes.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Some say Never<br />Some say Unless<br />It’s stupid and lovely<br />To rush into Yes.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />What can it mean?<br />It’s just like life,<br />One thing to you<br />One to your wife.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Some go local<br />Some go express<br />Some can’t wait<br />To answer Yes.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Some complain<br />Of strain and stress<br />Their answer may be<br />No for Yes.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Some like failure<br />Some like success<br />Some like Yes Yes<br />Yes Yes Yes.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Open your eyes,<br />Dream but don’t guess.<br />Your biggest surprise<br />Comes after Yes.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-FpffmWUbh3cUtrocLT_aOnLLomRscWHcEdYtVpq99W7CyEs8Q0_ojvGG7WFCamY26-cXGnTc4MXr3QNKOjnkq1eMgqTA62dhD6aIi1zHvG3WClajqNm_4GyNouSYFNLmS7aGhCS0XOc/s1600/coney+island1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-FpffmWUbh3cUtrocLT_aOnLLomRscWHcEdYtVpq99W7CyEs8Q0_ojvGG7WFCamY26-cXGnTc4MXr3QNKOjnkq1eMgqTA62dhD6aIi1zHvG3WClajqNm_4GyNouSYFNLmS7aGhCS0XOc/s320/coney+island1.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Coney Island </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Coney Island, Coney island,<br />No need to let me know,<br />No need to tell me so<br />I need you now to show me…</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />Show me what’s under the counter,<br />Show me what’s under your skin,<br />Show me the way to get out<br />And I’ll show you the way to get in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Show me life, show me lives, people in dives,<br />Show me yells, show me smells, and grimy hotels, <br />Clams, yams, lobster and shrimps,<br />Sand, candy, panders and pimps,<br />Show me bim, show me bam, bamboozle me,<br />Booze me and use me and foozle me,<br />Show me rides, show me slides, people in tides,<br />Show me money, show me funny, show me the sea,<br /> You, show, me.</span>Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-36089267607626503472013-02-27T20:16:00.000-05:002013-02-28T02:14:25.275-05:00How the Other Half Flies<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Let me start by stating something obvious: Flying sucks less when you're in First Class.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAzCY7dbJFpDbh6oeYikj3N4UosToAL9LwPbAhtITgiPw3bj4VIXATFwYJ0mRuw3hPPnhBJBowMzJt626paajelnQqOz03pbUH5vewzF2X_HtoCdc2Z2tdMJx6SJ-bY-fRs9jSSxrpThU/s1600/flying1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAzCY7dbJFpDbh6oeYikj3N4UosToAL9LwPbAhtITgiPw3bj4VIXATFwYJ0mRuw3hPPnhBJBowMzJt626paajelnQqOz03pbUH5vewzF2X_HtoCdc2Z2tdMJx6SJ-bY-fRs9jSSxrpThU/s320/flying1.jpg" width="272" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Is the captain pouring coffee?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I never fly First Class so I had forgotten that it was any different. I am pretty ambivalent about flying in general -- don't hate it, not scared of it, but certainly don't love it. Sometimes flights can be excellent for being productive/getting work done or catching up on reading. But sometimes you end up next to a crying baby or a chatty weirdo who wants to play 20 Questions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When I was kid, I flew First Class a handful of times with my parents on long flights. The first plane ride I recall was when I was 6 and traveling to Switzerland. I sat next to my mom in the roomy leather TWA (R.I.P.) seats. I don't remember much about the flight, but I do remember receiving a chocolate-covered Oreo before take-off (presumably a bribe to keep me on my best behavior during the 7-hour flight) and thinking that the tray tables that came out of the arm rest were funny-looking.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Ever since I've been buying my own airfare, I have always opted for the cheapest seats available. I don't have long legs, so I don't even splurge for the EconomyPlus extra legroom seats. Just good ol' coach. With the rest of the non-rich plebes. I have to admit, I didn't get the allure of First Class -- we all arrive at the same destination at the same time. Okay, the First Class people get to get off first (and get on first, but I don't see the advantage of that. I want to minimize my time breathing recycled air in a confined space). And I suppose the ratio of lavatories to people is better, since they have their own bathroom that's off-limits to the masses. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">However, due to the generosity of a friend, I was able to experience First Class as an adult. And while I still don't think the extra expense is worth it/necessary, I have to admit, it made flying <i>enjoyable </i>as opposed to just a way to get from A to B. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">First of all, the getting-on-early has the perk of a free pre-flight drink. That's pretty nifty. Though if you get something alcoholic, you have to down it pretty quickly, which may lead to regret. Also, in First Class, the flight attendants make a point of knowing your name. It's like <i>Cheers</i>, at 35,000 feet. Pretty much everything in First Class is free. Oh, and blankets and pillows are still available, like in the old days. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZEFzCrz6sZa4hiszL7GLJEgd4083YAvAMXaW2mqt1x5cSSyH4mmN-t6g3AgdHhUBYtaptfHLJo6Fe3izGCz9HiPdR5WQKTY0sREkGxjSJFpkdr39s1cc7BKNLEE-b7sVbQrldmro6OvM/s1600/flying2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZEFzCrz6sZa4hiszL7GLJEgd4083YAvAMXaW2mqt1x5cSSyH4mmN-t6g3AgdHhUBYtaptfHLJo6Fe3izGCz9HiPdR5WQKTY0sREkGxjSJFpkdr39s1cc7BKNLEE-b7sVbQrldmro6OvM/s320/flying2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Speaking of the old days, apparently First Class used to be much more glamorous. A friend recalls on a flight to Hawaii watching a stewardess (they weren't called Flight Attendants back then) carve a prime rib roast right in the aisle mid-flight. That was sometime in the late 80s. Hot food is pretty much non-existent on most flights nowadays. And if there is food, it's not gratis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My conclusion is that I think my money is better spent on things other than first class airfare. Traveling is already mighty expensive (remember when it was free to check a bag?) and for a little more comfort for a few hours, it doesn't seem justified unless you have truly disposable income. Still, it was a fun glimpse of the other side of the blue curtain. Which, for what it's worth, I agree with Kristin Wiig that it should be kept open "because of Civil Rights." </span><br />
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Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083095805064503923.post-57337007825229537062013-02-14T14:30:00.000-05:002013-02-14T19:43:04.377-05:00Happy Valentine's Day<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Single or not, gay or straight, young or old, I think we can all agree that this is a quality love song:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /><br />If you have a special someone, I hope that he/she is more attractive than Lisa/Johnny and that you have lots of rose-petal-covered sex tonight.</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to rent or buy Tommy Wiseau's 2003 classic film The Room as soon as possible.</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">If you purchase it from the <a href="http://theroommovie.com/" target="_blank">official movie website</a>, he'll sign it for you!</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Trust me that this movie is the gift that keeps on giving.</span>Katie Vagninohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00390767278598304797noreply@blogger.com0