I just bought cigarettes for work...

I never thought I would get to say that, but it’s true. Before I tell you what that was all about, I should at least give you some idea of what I do for work at U of L.

I have a sweet deal where I get to split my time between the Women’s and Gender Studies Department and the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research. Here some fun details:

Anne Braden Institute – you see, Anne Braden rocked harder than Bon Jovi. She was a journalist and a social activist and for over five decades she fought to end oppression in the United States, specifically in the south. She endured mistrust from the government, her family, some friends, and a great deal of the population of Louisville because of her convictions concerning race—but she never faltered. Here she is fighting for racial justice:

My jobs for the Institute:

1. Campus Social Justice Coalition Liaison. Translation: Hang out with the most amazing people on campus who are out there kicking ass to end every conceivable type of oppression and help with fun events like Take Back the Night, Pride Week, Peace and Justice Week, Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, International Women’s Day, etc.

2. TA Duties. Translation: Hang out with a professor I have already come to love and adore and help her keep track of grades, maybe grade easy writing assignment, etc.

My jobs for Women’s and Gender Studies:

1. Community Internship Liaison. Translation: Hang out with people from some of the coolest non-profits in Louisville so that our senior undergrads have places to do their 100 hour internships.

2. Women’s and Gender Studies Outreach. Translation: Hang out with other WGS students, area high school students, alumni and friends of WGS to talk about the WGS program and feminism in general.

That’s right. My job is awesome. I’m like fucking Jesus. The only way I could be more like Jesus is if my duties actually required walking on water.

Okay, so the cigarettes. One of the fun things that I got to do for both WGS and ABI was help decorate altars for the Dia de Los Muertos celebration at the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts. This year they are doing an installation honoring a few of the incredible men and women who have worked/taught at the University of Louisville. 

Two of these women were Lilialyce Akers and Anne Braden. Lilialyce is the reason I get to attend graduate school and be like Jesus. When she passed away she left $500,000 to start a scholarship fund, of which I am one of the recipients. You already know a little about Anne. 

Part of decorating the Altar requires gathering personal mementos or items that would have had significance to Lilialyce and Anne. Below are some fun pictures of me helping set up the exhibit. Anyhoo…Anne smoked Vantage cigarettes for years so I was sent on an errand to find a pack which allowed me to utter a phrase I never thought I would, “I just bought cigarettes for work.”

Me and the cigarettes

Anne's Altar

Lilialyce's Altar

17 year old Allie was a moron but I still love her.

If you would have told 17 year old Allie that she would end up moving to Kentucky to earn a Master’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies, she might have laughed—and then punched you in the junk for forecasting such a TERRIBLE fate. Nonetheless, fifteen years later, here I am (Yes, I am 32…congratulations on learning to add). As it turns out, Kentucky isn’t so horrible and studying women’s history, feminist theory, queer literature, and the intersection of the multiple oppressions that shape this incredible, interconnected, beautiful but sometimes tragic world…well, it’s not nearly as boring as it might sound.

But, maybe I should back up…

I don’t exactly come from a feminist-friendly family. I like to say that I was born fundamentalist and born-again (many years later) feminist. I can remember the day that my dad told me that no matter how high a woman manages to climb on the ladder of life, there will always be a man above her because that is how God created the world to function. That is not a direct quote, but it’s close enough. 

I tell friends stories from my childhood that both amuse and horrify them. Want to hear some?

- On the day I was born, the whole world went dark—no joke, I was born on the day of a solar eclipse.

-I was born at home, on plastic sheets, in the very bed where I was conceived. Ewwww!! My parents didn’t believe in modern medicine. In fact, I was never immunized because my parents didn’t believe that God needed medicine to heal our bodies—just prayer. I was in the fourth grade and dying from a severe case of pneumonia before I ever went to a doctor.

-I chose the spelling of my own name. Seriously, I can’t make this shit up. When I was about four my parents decided that it might be time to order me a birth certificate so they wrote down a few ways to spell Alicia, Alycia, Alisha, Alesha, etc. and I got to circle the prettiest. Damn my four-year-old self—that little asshole really screwed me over for the rest of my life. How do you pronounce Alisha? Aleeeesha or Aliiiiiiisha? Aliiiiisha, right? I chose the only spelling of my name that is not actually my name. That’s why you can call me Allie.

-My parents bought three goats when I was little and named them after me, my sister, and my brother. Then they had Allie, KaKa, and NaNa butchered and we ate them.

-Movies I wasn’t allowed to watch: E.T., Bedknobs and Broomsticks (or anything with magic as it is evil), Beetlejuice, Dirty Dancing, Pretty Woman, Adventures in Babysitting, Sixteen Candles, When Harry Met Sally…the list could go on but I will stop. Movies I wasn’t allowed to watch but snuck over to friends’ houses to watch: the entire list above (minus E.T.—I still have never seen it. Yes, I split my infinitive and I don’t care). Movies I was allowed to watch: anything Disney put out. Don’t get me started on the shit that Disney movies do to little girls psyches. Indoctrination into the cult of the romantic starts early in the United States thanks to Walt Disney. I really want to punch him in the junk, but he’s dead. (Despite how it may seem, I don’t actually go around punching people in the junk—I am not a violent person. I just like saying “junk” and I work it into conversation whenever I can.) p.s. Can anyone tell me who this guy is? He's funny looking:

But I digress. Where was I? Oh ya, 17 year old me. So, I went through my own uber-religious phase. I never saw myself going to anything other than a Bible college and meeting a man so I could get married, have a litter of ill-bred children, and move to a commune somewhere in Siberia. Most of my high school friends took this route (okay, they moved to Alaska but close enough).

Thankfully, I was poor. This meant I couldn’t go right to college. It gave me time to grow up, meet the love of my young life (D.C., my best friend to this day) who encouraged me to go to a community college until I decided what I wanted to do with my life.

In my first class, on my first day of college, my political science professor asked the class, “How many of you consider yourselves feminists?” A few hands (all belonging to women) were tentatively raised. Mine of was not one of them and I was horrified by the thought that I was sitting next to a bra-burning man-hater. (Only later did I learn that feminists didn’t actually burn their bras but instead threw them into trash cans.) As I began to take Women’s and Gender Studies courses, I also discovered that sex and gender are concepts that are much more complicated than I was brought up to believe in my conservative, Christian home. Learning about intersexed infants threw me for a major loop (from which I have never returned). Talking to and reading about transgendered, homosexual, bisexual and other gender identified people was both fascinating, enlightening, and life-changing. 

Studying feminist history and theory as it relates to gender became my passion. Unfortunately, it was a slow-blooming passion. It took me ten years, a marriage, a divorce, and a shit-ton of work to finish my Bachelor’s degree. It wasn’t until about year nine that I came up with the brilliant idea to go to graduate school for my passion (and by, “I came up with the brilliant idea,” I mean my advisor told me to).

Fast forward to 2011—it’s January and I think, “hmmm…is it too late to apply to graduate schools for the upcoming fall?” The answer is yes, but I am an annoying sonofabitch when I get an idea in my head. No only means no when it comes to sex (okay, and a few other things but that’s not the point). So, I applied to a few schools with programs I liked, begged the most amazing professors I know to write me recommendations in a short amount of time, and sat back with my fingers crossed. Somehow I got in to all of them. Win! Now, I had to decide where to go. About a month before decision time, I told a friend, “I would love to go to school in Chicago but I just have this feeling that it’s going to be Louisville. I just somehow know it.” I did. I am a little psychic sometimes (but that’s another blog for another time). A month later, the University of Louisville called me to tell me that I had received a graduate assistantship—thank you Lilialyce Akers—and that sealed the deal. Double Win! Suck it 17 year old Allie—you didn’t have a clue.

I really do feel like I already had a life before this and I am, in many ways, starting all over. I have already worked in Corporate America, worked for non-profits, volunteered, owned a house, been married, had step-kids (but I returned them to the store because they were defective—I’m kidding. That joke is really only funny if you knew my kids). Now, I live 2000 miles away from the nearest family, 5000 miles away from my parents, in a southern city that melts in the summer and freezes in the winter. Nothing could be more awesome! (Sorry mom—I really do love you!).

Why the blog?

1. I want to have a place to share my stories with friends I left behind and miss more than anything in the world. I don’t always have a ton of time to call each of you up and give you details about what is going on with me. Now, when I call, we can just talk about you because you will be all caught up on me. I am brilliant.

2. I want keep a record of my second life and I hate diaries. As such, I will use the blog to share experiences from my work as a graduate assistant for the Anne Braden Institute and the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies. I will also use it to talk about things that come up in class or in my research. Sometimes, I may even tell stories from my personal life (gasp!).

3. I want to open up a dialogue with others about feminism, gender, sexuality and what exactly it means to study these subjects. I welcome your comments and thoughts. I am not always right. I am in a continual process of learning and changing, and I need all of the help I can get.

A word of warning: I swear. A lot. I would apologize, but I’m not sorry. I’m an adult and it’s fun. Also, I sometimes make slightly inappropriate jokes—they are meant to make giggles not offense. If you are offended, please tell me but don’t necessarily expect that much will change. The number one complaint I hear when I talk to people about feminism is, “Feminists just take everything way too seriously.” I don’t. Life is too short and too fucked up not to laugh at ourselves a little. That being said, there are some subjects that just aren’t funny, that need to be treated seriously and I will do my best to be respectful and appropriate in those circumstances.

In closing, I would like to clarify that this is the longest blog I will probably ever post. If you’re still reading…congratulations! You would do well in graduate school. I plan to blog about once a week. However, this is last week’s blog and I was just extremely slow in writing it. So, the next blog, entitled, “I Just Bought Cigarettes For Work” will be arriving in a blogosphere near you soon. Stay tuned.