Jessica

+ 9 assorted public schools

Bryn Mawr College, Attended 1994 - 1998, Bachelor's Degree, Peace and Conflict Studies, minors in Africana Studies and Economics

labor/political organizing, health care advocacy

the aurora project: ask me about it (solid politics not new age crap.)Unions, SEIU, Working Families Party, Young Democratic Socialists, Professional Staff Congress, LAPC

my family-- especially the christian relatives i spent most of my life judging. getting to what's real: in relationships, books, radical politics, feminism, education, life, and things that smell--earth, food, and bodies (not in a hippie way). taking care of each other in the process. sex and gender. joybiking. enjoying joy as a prefix. home-making. prioritizing life and community over work for a while. seeing the sky and not the ceiling.

Sermons. Annie Dillard! Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer. Katherine Mansfield. Dipping into Chekhov. Eggers and his projects. Watership Down (re-read it!). Exploring cervantes. Joe Gould's Secret. Mary Oliver. Norman Rush! I resisted Murakami for a bit but he's totally seduced me. Alice Munro. The Dream of a Common Language/Your Native Land, Your Life, All of Toni Morrison, East of Eden, Homage to Catalonia, Mike Davis--i don't quite trust him but i can't quit the dystopic urbanism--, Last Temptation of Christ, Housekeeping, i'm deeply conflicted by Midnight's Children, Roosevelt bios by Wiesen-Cook, Caucasia, Naguib Mahfouz, The Interpreters, The True History of Paradise, Nervous Conditions, Woman at Point Zero, Jhumpa Lahiri, The Freedom (got my ass into gear on this war, thanks cp), Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Audre Lorde ("poetry is no luxury"), Phillip Roth, Barbara Kingsolver, The Brothers Karamazov, Alma Guillermoprieto, Eduardo Galeano, Underworld

The Wind that Shakes the Barley.Dave Chappelle's Block Party: community building/affirming, hip hop for the soul and the hips, heart breaking, redemptive, and funnier than a beautiful film has a right to be. Go see this movie. Can't wait for Catch a Fire! Perennial favorites: Mira Nair: especially Salaam, Bombay, Land and Freedom, Vertigo, Garden State, The Station Agent, Chinatown, too many documentaries, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.The Dreamers.

Garden State Soundtrack, Mystic, Jill Scott, Joni Mitchell, Costello, Liz Phair, The Coup, The Clash, Billy Bragg, Lauryn Hill, Mahler, Carlos Vives, Adjusters, Battlestar, Indigo Girls, Bjork, Stravinsky, Nina Simone, Otis Redding, The Roots, Dixie Chicks, Johnny Cash, Spearhead (and earlier franti)

Star Trek: The Next Generation. Never thought I'd do it. Now I can't get enough. And ladies: I know why you're resisitng, but don't. it is so worth it.

Pisces

Passionate, focused when I have to be, happy, struggling. i tend to feel too much and care too deeply and want to find a way to sustain rather than excise that. currently re-orienting my life to marginalize power and appreciate everything else more. Wondering if it's possible that people move right as they get older--or is that people that were not getting older in an age of frank imperialism, rampant capitalism, katrina, and mass-incarceration?
"And how have I used rivers, how have I used wars
to escape writing of the worst thing of all-
not the crimes of others, not even our own death,
but the failure to want our freedom passionately enough
so that blighted elms, sick rivers, massacres would seem
mere emblems of that desecration of ourselves."
Adrienne Rich, 21 Love Poems: VII

People with beliefs--political, religious, and otherwise. Organic intellectuals. People who can change my mind. People that can center me and help me be a better listener. Folks that are struggling from a moral place. People who can dance as if nobody were watching. Risk takers. People who can put themselves out there. Brilliant committed thoughtful left wing people who also know how to have a really good time. Good readers--and not just of books. Men who read women and women who write men. People who walk that fine line between holding each other accountable and remembering to laugh and keep it all in perspective. People whose sincerity outweighs their irony. The emotionally intelligent. Touch people.