You Ask, I Answer

The birthday meme was fun. You all give good advice. Now, question-answering time:

1. If you were going to make a pizza with no restrictions on what you could top it with, what would your perfect pizza be?

Mozzarella cheese, garlic, basil, roasted red peppers, pineapple and red pepper flakes. Mmm.

2. What do you think of the Nintendo Wii? Do you want one? If you have one, how do you like it?

I don’t even know what the Nintendo Wii is. Is that the thing where you can stand up and actually act out playing sports and whatnot? I don’t want one, and I definitely don’t have one, but I think it looks like fun.

3. Mr. T is pretty awesome, right?

He’s the coolest.

4. In 100 words or less, why should Everybody Hate Raymond?

Raymond is an annoying, useless comic. He is not funny. Patricia Heaton is an anti-choice nutbag. The show is not funny, and has never been funny, and deserves to be relegated to TV Hell. It is neither clever nor original, and is premised on the tired plot of the bumbling foolish ugly dude with the pretty, patient wife. Dumb, boring and uninteresting.

5. What is the most ridiculous comment you’ve gotten while blogging?

You know, I really regret not creating some sort of database of dumb comments, because I’ve gotten a lot. This email was pretty funny, and being told to go abort yourself is always good, but those were both directed at Zuzu. This recent one from Tony made me laugh:

Yeah, people pay attention to you because you’re really, really smart, and it has nothing to do with being the freak show of the World’s only living visually non-repugnant Feminist. Your work is derivative and banal. Life has a way of sifting out the meritless, as you will soon discover.

Have a nice life bringing abortion to the world like some self-important Prometheus.

He followed it up with something about how he’s seen the boys who like me and they’re pathetic (um, creepy much?), and that I only got into law school because I sent in an admissions package full of liberal drivel, and NYU Law will apparently let in anyone who sends in a liberal application. I got bored of him and deleted the comment. He left another one saying something about how it must have hit “too close to home.” Aww.

I also once got an email from a guy saying he was collecting all of my personal information so that I could be prosecuted once abortion is illegal and they hold Nuremberg trials for abortion providers.

6. I’m planning to attend law school sometime in the next five years; do you have any advice for surviving the first year?

First: Chill. Don’t stress out too much. The first year is hard, but it’s kind of nice because everyone drops everything else in their life to concentrate on school. You won’t have that again, so enjoy just being a learner for a while. Second: Treat law school like a 9-6 job and you’ll be fine (and you’ll still have enough extra time to enjoy yourself). Between 9 and 6, only do school stuff. Go to class. When you’re not in class, study. Those nine hours will give you more than enough time to get all your stuff done, if you just do it and don’t screw around. Then you can screw around all evening. Third: Go to the gym, join a sports team, take a class or do something else athletic. Especially keep it up during finals. I am not an athlete, but I started going to the gym regularly my second year, and it made a world of difference in terms of my stress level and general health. Good luck!

7. What do your parents do for a living? Do you have school loans? When do you first remember thinking about being a journalist?

My dad is a criminal defense attorney and my mom is a nurse-turned-hospital-administrator. I have horrendous school loans. My parents paid for undergrad but I’m covering law school, so I’ll be graduating with debt somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 — plus interest. Loans suck. I’m not sure when I first wanted to be a journalist… probably around fifth or sixth grade. I always wanted to be an author, and then journalism just kind of made sense. Actually studying journalism and doing some limited journalistic work cured me of that pretty quickly.

8. If you could have 3 wishes, what would they be?

World peace, universal human rights, and a puppy for everyone.
Or, if the three wishes are selfish ones, then unlimited time/resources to travel, a love life that would make a great novel, and a black AmEx card, with the bill sent to my fairy godmother.

9. How did you know/decide what you wanted to do with your life?

I’m still working on that one. There was some point in high school when a career counselor pointed out the obvious fact that it’s entirely possible for people to have many different careers in their lives, and that you don’t have to choose one path and stick to it forever. That was a pretty great realization, and since then I’ve just started listing the things that make me happy, and figuring out a way to combine them into careers. Future careers include human rights/feminist lawyer focusing on reproductive justice, travel writer, and author (academic writing and fiction). Hopefully the list will only grow.

10. When are you going to Hamburg?

I arrived today, and I’ll be here all semester.

11. Jill, you’ve written before about your conviction that you (probably) won’t get married. What would have to change about you, about men, or about the institution of marriage itself to make the prospect more appealing?

I’d have to grow up a lot and be less selfish. Right now, though, I like being selfish, in terms of doing what I want to do and not having to feel the need to balance my own goals with someone else’s. I think that’s a healthy way to be at 24, but that would have to shift before I could be in a good, long-term relationship. Men would have to change a lot. They’d have to see women as equally human and as partners, not as compliments to their existence. Marriage would have to allow for gender equality and would have to be based on love and commitment as opposed to dominance and gender roles — and that would have to be a universally-held ideal, not just one that a few people are lucky enough to find. And by that I mean that marriage would have to be between men and women, women and women, men and men, and whichever combinations consenting adults desired. A lot of the opposition to same-sex marriage comes from adherence to gender roles, and an idea of marriage as a male-dominated institution; allowing same-sex marriage throws a huge wrench in the father-knows-best model, which is why it’s so troubling to so many people. That would have to change both in practice and in law before I’d enter into the institution.

12. what’s been your best birthday so far, and why?

I’ve had a lot of really memorable birthdays, so I have two that tie for first place. Last year, when I turned 23, I was in Serbia, which my grandfather fled during WWII. No one in the family had been back since he left. I met up with my father’s cousin, who is in her 70s, her daughter, and her daughter’s children, and I celebrated my birthday with them. My father’s cousin doesn’t speak English, but she has a whole bunch of old pictures of my grandpa, his brother, great-grandparents, and all kinds of extended family, so I just sat with her at the kitchen table and she showed me the pictures and told me everyone’s name. Here’s one of them. So that birthday was pretty great. My 21st birthday was also fun. My boyfriend at the time (who was basically the best boyfriend ever and who I’m probably foolish for not marrying, but that’s another story and he’s still my best friend) told me he had a surprise evening planned, and I love surprises. I met him after work and he took my to a great raw bar, where we had oysters and cocktails. Then he took me up to midtown, where we got on one of those double-decker New York City tour buses. We sat in the back seat on the top and drove through the city as the sun was setting. He broke out a bottle of champagne and two glasses, and we drank it on the bus. After the two-hour boozy bus ride, he took me to this little French-Thai fusion restaurant in the East Village, and we finished out the night at a very romantic lounge that has since closed. As a birthday present, he gave me two little stuffed animals, Simba and Nala from the Lion King, which had been a running joke/cheesey-cutesy thing between us for a couple of years. It was all very thoughtful and very sweet, and I was very happy.

13. What are the three biggest reasons behind your decision to go to law school?

One: I can’t get the kind of job that I want with just a BA. Two: I like being a student, and law school is very intellectually rigorous. Three: Before law school, I was under the impression that law was a great tool to promote social change. I wanted to promote social change, so I went to law school, only to learn that I was largely wrong. Whoops.

14. Where did I leave the keys to the Wombatmobile?

Probably on the kitchen counter.

15. Will feminism die with the end of cheap energy?

Didn’t you hear? It’s already dead.

16. what prompted you to become such a kick ass feminist?

Ha. I’m glad I kick ass. I don’t know what prompted my feminism. I suppose these things start when you’re young. I remember my mom pointing out instances of gender inequality, and encouraging my sister and I to play sports, take science classes, etc. When I finally sat down and read some feminist literature and took a women’s studies class in college, it just clicked, and everything suddenly looked very different. I found that really fascinating, and started reading a lot and writing about it more and more. Now I really value the feminist communities that I’m a part of, and I feel like I’m learning so much from all the feminist women I have the privilege of interacting with. I like being a student, and I’m more of an ideas person than anything else — feminism offers that.

17. As for the “ask me anything” game, as the guy sitting next to you on the floor Friday, the question has to somehow relate to your fantastic hair. Lemme see… I could ask how much a haircut costs you, or how long it takes you to get ready in the morning… but those aren’t questions I legitimately care about. I’ll just stick with the unadorned compliment.

I know you don’t care about the answer, but I’ll bite anyway. I actually haven’t paid for a haircut in years. This sounds ridiculous, but I’ve been doing this “hair modelling” thing where a genius named Tom (or another instructor, but usually Tom) at Bumble & bumble cuts my hair in front of an audience of stylists in order to teach them new techniques. However, I recently had to pay for a cut because I was leaving and they couldn’t it me in. I’m not telling you how much it was.

18. What was the easiest and hardest part of college?
If you could tell your freshmen self one thing, what would you say?

Easiest: Finding things other than school that I enjoyed doing.
Hardest: Balancing those other things with school.

And if I could tell my freshman self one thing, I’d say to relax, and quit spreading yourself so thin. You don’t have to do everything.

19. What is something you’ve always wanted to do but have so far talked yourself out of doing?

Move to Buenos Aires. And now, being super in debt helps me to continue to justify my fear of picking up and going.

20. my biggest question would be if you had any advice for how to reach a young girl who is thoroughly trapped in anti-feminist heaven and who is resistant to any attempt to talk to her about feminism (she’s 12). I am trying to just sneakily talk about feminist ideals and values in conversation, but I’m not sure what else I can do.

The sneaky feminist talk is the best kind. She isn’t going to listen if you sound preachy — I sure never did. I think what works is to point to small, day-to-day inequalities that make a twelve-year-old pause and go, “wow, that really isn’t fair.” Representations of women in the media are pretty good for that — just making little comments about sexism on TV or in movies can plant a seed. Pointing out how sexism affects her life will help, too. Catering comments to her specific experience is going to make feminism seem more important and more urgent to her.

Oh, and also of all the places you have visited so far, where was your favorite place to visit and where would you most like to go in the future?

Ah, that’s an impossible question. Paris is my favorite city in terms of where I would want to live for an extended period of time. I think my coolest travel experience was watching the sun rise from Mt. Sinai. Capri, Dubrovnik or Santorini were probably the most beautiful. Sarajevo also makes my list of favorites.

I have a whole list of places I want to go, so I don’t think I can pick just one… but topping the list are Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in particular), India, Brazil and Argentina. While I’m in Europe this time around, I’m going to try to get over to Prague, Vienna, Krakow, Moscow, Berlin, Lisbon, Stockholm and Tunisia. So those are the immediate list-toppers.

That’s all she wrote, folks. Thanks for giving me airport and empty-apartment entertainment.