i’m sorry, but this makes me cringe a little. alas, despite the stiffness and stilted acting, i’m still xxxtremely excited and am counting down the days til march 6.

got the SFIAAFF program in the mail a coupla days ago, and i already got into my obsessive ritual of printing out a blank calendar, grabbing a pencil, and gettin cozy with the program to plot out a robust movie-watching schedule. srsly, there’s no way to plan for this unless you have a chart or calendar system to visualize how the days play out.

so i sent my mom and sister a tentative plan of what films we should watch when the fest has its share of screenings in san jose.

this is mom’s reply:

even though this NYT article is like 50 pages long and tragically mis-titled (splashed with ryan mcginley photos to boot = my ambivalence) , i do think it’s something everyone should take the time to read. there’s nothing novel here, except maybe increased “empirical” grounding for things we already knew or assumed. sex science has always been on my list of dream careers. is that weird?

a big chunk of the piece posits how the sense of being desired is crucial to female sexuality. duh, right? but i think the researcher/scientist sound bites (that i list below) come across eloquently and succinctly. it’s all so very true. am i pig-headed or naive to believe so?

a consistent feeling of being desired is key to any relationship’s vitality and longevity, and core to any person’s pysche and confidence, whether you’re male or female. everyone needs to feel nurtured, loved, and adored. everyone needs to feel special, admired, respected for his/her unique traits, or sense of humor, or intelligence. but let’s face it, we all need to feel like sexy, hot, desirable pieces of meat too. it fits into the equation, and we can’t live without this healthy sensation. conversely, it’s just as important to feel that same sparky, uncontainable lust for your partner as well, and express it best you can.

maybe what i’m describing is an impossible reciprocation. but i’d like to believe this kind of relationship can exist.

without further ado, here are the striking snippets from the article that resonated with me. and yes, please file this blog entry under “random” and “no $hit, sherlock.”

She, even more than Chivers, emphasized the role of being desired — and of narcissism — in women’s desiring.

The critical part played by being desired, Julia Heiman observed, is an emerging theme in the current study of female sexuality. She pronounced, as well, “I consider myself a feminist.” Then she added, “But political correctness isn’t sexy at all.” For women, “being desired is the orgasm.”

The generally accepted therapeutic notion that, for women, incubating intimacy leads to better sex is, Meana told me, often misguided. “Really,” she said, “women’s desire is not relational, it’s narcissistic” — it is dominated by the yearnings of “self-love,” by the wish to be the object of erotic admiration and sexual need.

And within a committed relationship, the crucial stimulus of being desired decreases considerably, not only because the woman’s partner loses a degree of interest but also, more important, because the woman feels that her partner is trapped, that a choice — the choosing of her — is no longer being carried out.

A symbolic scene ran through Meana’s talk of female lust: a woman pinned against an alley wall, being ravished. Here, in Meana’s vision, was an emblem of female heat. The ravisher is so overcome by a craving focused on this particular woman that he cannot contain himself; he transgresses societal codes in order to seize her, and she, feeling herself to be the unique object of his desire, is electrified by her own reactive charge and surrenders. Meana apologized for the regressive, anti-feminist sound of the scene.

back in college, or as peg likes to call it, “the dark ages,” i got hooked on call & response, a favorite band of mine from oakland. their musical aesthetic totally nailed it for me. they managed to create funky, jazzy, soulful, substantial californian breezy pop that was super infectious, sweet, and sway-inducing. classic. you couldn’t listen to them and stand still. golly, even thinking about emperor norton records catapults me back to the “dark ages.”

two of the sassy gals from call & response have formed another band called rubies. they sound more or less like C.A.R., but with even more depth and maturity. i dig the sophisticated layering.

i am so addicted to this tune! i’m not into catching live shows anymore, but i immediately looked up their schedule and saw that they were playing at mollusk gallery in april. alas, i will not be around for that. anyway, i hope you are as mad about this sexy song as i am.

i called my dad twice last night, no answer. this morning, he calls at like, 630am. i’m too sleepy to pick up. i get to work, sit through meeting, do things, then check my phone. NINE MISSED CALLS FROM DAD. of course i panic, fearing something happened to my grandma. i call him immediately. the conversation goes something like this:

me: dad why did you call me 10 times today? is everything okay?!

D: i was worried about you! you called me twice last night and this morning i kept calling

me: what do you mean, why were you worried? it wasn’t a big deal i just called last night cuz i had a question to ask.

D: well, i thought something happen to you. i thought you died! you didn’t answer phone.

me: /breakout laughter/ why would you think i died?

D: allergies are very bad right now, your allergies are bad. and you have asthma, and sometimes…asthma…can make you go to heaven.

hahahahaha

and bonus, here’s a quaint txt msg from my mom (who is on the road):

we are in the middle no where thanks for you girls nice gift GPS we are feeling more secure and safe

followed by another text:

we safe arrive to desert spring now *:-D