Belly dancing at the writers' house tonight! And wow, did that make my middle sore fast. Also I need to finally get around to making myself some harem pants, I've only wanted some for *years*.

. . . . And the flist has gone up in controversy again. My views on the matter haven't changed in three months, I'm still annoyed that nobody's looking at this thing logically, but at the moment I'm being puzzled by all the snarking over happiness. Granted, I am not a lawyer, but I did pay attention in Mr. Bright's ninth grade law class, and my understanding was that the "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" clause *had* previously been cited in constitutional law decisions, as an intent / common law / whatever sort of thing, same way as there's supposedly a "constitutional right to privacy". 'Cause, you know, we may *have* an explicit written document, but that doesn't mean we don't have a British style constitution too. And the Declaration and the Federalist Papers are a part of it.

Am I just totally makin' that up? 'Cause some of the people complaining about legal "right to happiness" arguments *are* lawyers, and I'd like to think they know what they're talking about, but it's not how *I* understand the law . . .

Random tangential anecdote: My image of traditional American weddings is intricately tied up with my understanding of the New Testament, because the first wedding I can clearly remember, I was a bridesmaid, and the couple were hours late to the reception, and therefore I had to stand outside the reception hall waiting to greet them, at night, in the dark, in my uncomfortable dress and shoes, tired and hungry and bored, staring in at the lighted room where all the other guests were already enjoying themselves . . . luckily, the lights were electric, and I did eventually get to go in. Someday I should discuss my feelings about the phrase "walk in the way of the Lord," too. . .

Some true mcognates: gaijin, gadjo, gringo.

A large part of my search fro my *self* these past years has been my search for a *heritage*. Because I'm just about as lily-white american as it's possible to be : all my ancestors were in the US by 1720, all Western European-- english, scotch-irish, and german-- and all through school we'd do multicultural stuff - you know, talk about a family tradition, write about an immigrant ancestor-- and I never had anything interesting to say, because my family heritage is about as boringly typical as it's possible to get. So I studied history & family history avidly, looking desperately for an ethnicity to call my only, and it's only through studying other cultures that I've started to realize I already *had* one.

Discussing roast yardbird at the dining hall, of all things, with Jen, because she found the idea comical and incomprehensible, but I've stayed with relatives who have chickens running around the yard, making scruffy nests in the hulks of old cars & farm equipment-- and it struck me suddenly that it *is * sad to live here in the US and utterly lack that sort of context, bone-deep familiarity with all the foundations of the culture. Of course, a lot of my people are losing that these days, too...

Belly dancing has fascinated me since I first read "The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." The heroine is a horrible, normal suburban girl who runs away in desperate search of *something* to make her special, if only to herself, and one of the things she tries is mimicking the graceful, hip-swaying walk of an East Indian tour guide. Sharing her feelings, I tried it too, for a while, but it never felt right-- the day I first had the *leverage*, the breadth, to do that was the day that I realized my body had finally started to mature-- I *was* going to grow up, after all. It's half the reason I love long skirts, they add that bit of *swish* to my step-- hey, I'm female, I'm curvy, child-bearer, sex-object, provider, housekeep.er-- and I *like* it.