I don't usually untitle posts, but I have been having this really hard time with this trip, and wanted to write a long piece, and then Jane and I ended up talking about it via chat, and I don't have time to make up a pithy title even. So consider this the context for a longer piece that will hopefully come tonight. I don't have time to edit this so please excuse all typos.

4:17 PM me: are you actually awake right now?
Jane: yup
me: how's it going?

4:18 PM Jane: mega computr and work bullshit and super hyper manic
me: hmm
sounds unpleasant
Jane: not that bad
me: okay well that's good

4:24 PM Jane: how are you?
me: This one is really really hard
I will have some funny stories to tell when I get home
that were really painful here but will be hilarious later
I am so out of love with the work,

4:25 PM the people are still really nice though
which is the only thing that is keeping my head on straight
and I am homesick
but I'll be okay

4:29 PM me: well mostly I think with me it's a combination of realizing how politically against the fundamentals of this culture I am
Jane: yeah, that's gotta be brutal
me: The totally mind-boggling misogyny
all the time everywhere

4:31 PM Like there are sauna's here with call girls
and one of the poker players who has a young wife
keeps a bell for calling her
I went upstairs to read a book before bed

4:32 PM and came upon a section dealing with rapes of girl political prisoners in Iran
and the evenings stories plus the book left me bawling
Jane: jeebus
i guess it's reassuring that this rattles you to the core
imagine if it didn't?

4:33 PM me: I know
then I would be freaked
I would know i had lost a really important part of myself
Jane: i think it's good that you have reinforced you sense of who you are and what you want
maybe that's what this experience is about
me: I think it is totally

4:34 PM in fact while I was bawling yesterday I was like
"please don't forget this experience because you never want to live it again"
then I made a mental list of all the men I knew who weren't prick dog assholes who use a bell to summon their wives

4:35 PM I had to do that or I would have literally cried all night long
started with Evan and my Dad and just went down the list
Jane: yup

4:36 PM i suppose it's easy to slide into a black and white vision of things in these situations.
good on you for pshing through that
me: yeah I was lying there feeling this very extreme hatred for men, in a way I never had before

4:37 PM I could totally understand militant feminists radical anti-male thinking seemed about 1 heartbeat away
and I had to talk myself out of it

4:38 PM Jane: i think it's about what people give permission to themselves to do in a given context more than it is about gender - doing shit because they can, and it just happens to be a gender role
people do such bad shit, it's hard to reconcile

4:39 PM makes me really sad - can't imagine seeing it as close as youhave

me: I think here things are so incredibly black and white, every thing is exactly steretypically what I am against. there is no nuance

4:40 PM its greed and exploitation and dehumanization writ so large it's huge

Jane: wow

me: and it's impossible after a while to feel any sort of detachment or objectivity.

I end up being as angry and full of hate in the other direction

" I hate all men, men are just pigs it's obvious"

4:41 PM Jane: that makes sense

me: instead of the reality - which is as you say
people give themselves permissions to behave certain ways
I lose my perspective because here there is not perspective

4:42 PM I may blog this by the way
I wanted to write a post about the feeling but I couldn't figure out the words
next week you'll have to join me for a discussion called

Jane: go for it

me: why is betting someone to eat a ducks head in china racist
or is it not?

Jane: awesome
i'm there baby

4:43 PM me: wicked
are you going to go to sleep soon
?
you should it's late

Jane: unlikely sleep is for pussies

me: now now

Jane: i love you very much, by the way

me: let's not use the word pussies indiscriminately here

I am very sensitive ;)

I love you too, thanks for saying that

I miss home

Jane: i miss you

me: I miss you too