senna, warrior princess

lula with freida pinto, girl rising spokesperson, at sundance 2013

one of the brightest spots at sundance 2013 was the preview we saw of 10 x 10 girl rising, a film spotlighting ten girls around the world and the impact that education has had on each of their lives.

we viewed the story of senna, named after a great warrior who fought for poor people (aka, xena the warrior princess). senna's beloved father loved to watch the warrior princess on television, and wanted his daughter to be as fierce and protective of her people as the televison xena.  senna is fourteen and lives in la rinconada, a high mountain mining town.  she witnessed her father's terrible, slow death after a mining accident, and found solace and courage when she discovered cesar vallejo, and became her own warrior poet.

lula is hosting a screening of this film in provo on march 14th.  i hope locals can join us--here's the link to reserve your seat.  and if you can't make the screening, you can purchase a ticket to donate to a low-income utah valley teen.

lula and i loved the film, believe in the cause, and think you will too.

hope you can come!

ALSO:  special for GITP readers--we are donating two tickets to one of our readers.  please leave a comment in the comments section to enter the drawing!  if you want, give us your perspective on global education for women.

GITP six month anniversary giveaway

julie and i want you to join us in becoming unblocked. . . .

to celebrate six months of being in a tight place and trying to love it, trying to create more space in our lives, GITP is giving away a copy of julia cameron's the artist's way to a reader who leaves a comment in the comments section of this post.  we will randomly select a winner and post the winner's name on july first, the day of our six month anniversary.

Julie:  Lara, I'm on Week Two of The Artist's Way and I want to corner everyone in the playground about it.  I can't stop thinking about it, especially because the reason why I'm doing it is because the friend I know who did it changed her life in a radical way after eight weeks of "morning pages."  And I need something on the same level and scale of rad to happen to me.  So this is my way of willing it to happen and/or figuring out what it is I really should be doing to enact the kind of change I need.

Does this sound too "infomercially" already?

The summer solstice is tomorrow, too.  So I'm thinking of writing a very short story for the shortest night of the year. I also need to start assessing the last six months.  Re: the video, Lara: Like morning pages, this is annoying (the graphics, particularly) in a lot of ways, but also enlightening in a lot of ways in light of tightness. Gemini New Moon is good!



lara:


i'm half-way through week 2 of morning pages.   i've been wanting to try the artist's way for over five years, but never felt i had the wherewithal to do any kind of program.  julie inspired me to try it though, and it feels like a great companion to daily blog writing.

summer is always a tight place for me, so i'm hoping julia cameron will help me through it.  

also hoping that someone out there will be inspired to join me and julie on our path to becoming "unblocked creatives."

(and that we don't sound like an infomercial, julie!)

so far i'm loving what cameron has to say about "shadow artists" (those who support other artists in doing their work when they really wish they were doing their own work), "synchronicity" (the coincidences that happen when you set intentions), and her insight that "blocked creatives" fantasize about the work they will do rather than actually doing it.  that one has been especially true for me over the years.

so, leave a comment.  and if you've already done this program, let us know what it was like for you.  if you're blocked or unblocked, we want to know more!

last warm pair--a give away!

in celebration of making it through thirty-one days of posts on our new blog, girls in tight places are holding a tights give away.  make a comment in our comments section by midnight of january 30,  and we will randomly select a winner on january 31st of two thousand and twelve.

shortly thereafter, the lucky reader will receive in the mail the fabulous falke "sign" tight in "cosmic," made of  polyamide and elastane, pictured above.


lara says:

when i was at the end of my pregnancies, i always caved and bought a new outfit.  i had become more enormous than i could have possibly imagined at the beginning of the pregnancy, and i was sick to death of all the clothes i'd been wearing.  i figured it was worth the price of a new outfit that wouldn't be worn very much in order to preserve my mental health through the looooong final 5 weeks or so.


buying winter clothes in january is a little like buying maternity clothes in week 35.  logically, you know you should save your money for new spring dresses, and buying winter clothes just isn't that appealing at this point in the year.  so you don't buy.  then you get up one freezing morning in february cursing the same tired old choices you've been making all winter.  you really don't want to get dressed.  you really don't think you can stand your pilly old tights one more day.  but by then it's definitely too late to buy more winter clothes.

well, girls in tight places want to help you out with this.  we're giving away the last warm pair of tights you will need for the season just for leaving a comment in the comments section.  girls in tight places want their readers to:  1) have a drawerful of cute tights, 2) have something to look forward to, and 3) have pretty things to wear, do, read, and think about every day.

girls in tight places also want to celebrate our one month anniversary.

we hope to make you and your legs happy until you start to glimmer & spring.

julie says:


You can keep your tights in a drawer.  You can keep your tights in a cardboard box like I did in graduate school.  You can hand wash your tights and sling them over a shower rod like Marsha Mason in The Goodbye Girl (were those tights?).  In graduate school, I had a pair that looked like a Kandinsky painting on caffeine.  In San Francisco, I had a leopard skin print pair that looked like the manager of a local rock club's leg tattoo.  My black-and-white striped pair are like Proust's madeleine--I wore them to work through the latter half of a bleak winter under a pair of cut-off shorts and combat boots.  My co-workers, boys with Faith No More hair, called me "crazy legs," which I loved, but pretended to hate.  I've put my finger through a pair of spiderweb tights on first wearing.  It's time to create some new tights' memories--some tights memories you can share with us!  It's time to get yourself through a lot more frigid winter weeks.  It's time to win the best and last warm pair of tights we can offer.