Every once in a while I google myself for a reality check. It may come as a surprise to those who think they know me that in spite of my seemingly sedentary lifestyle, I've been rather busy.
While posing as a writer in Cambridge, MA, I've been sneaking in a feminist studies degree at University of California, Northridge. In fact, I was just at the "Locating Womern's Studies: Formations of Power and Resistance Conference," serving on a panel about linguistic gender binaries. While I'm not sure what a linguistic gender binary is, I seem to be doing well on the good friends front. One buddy glowingly referred to me as a Vagina Warrior on her myspace.com page-- apparently I convinced her that not all lesbians like to go whale watching. Major coup!
Some may think that I'm contradicting my ultra-feminist contention that the whims of fashion have intervened with nature by turning the feminine frame into a female skeleton, when I tell them that I rock on the balance beam (maybe that's not quite the verb my gymnast self would use). In any case, I'm a proud high school regional gymnastics champion in Southern California. Yes-- under these clothes hides a ninety pound gazelle.
Outside of the leotard, I just won an essay contest on Martin Luther King-- in the 7th grade category. You could say that I was cheating because I'm really in the 31st grade. Hey, call me a cynic, but these days all's fair, right Kaavya? Coming down from that high, I was completely floored when the University of Minnesota gave me a departmental scholarship in English when I wasn't even enrolled. This may or may not have had anything to do with my award-winning MLK essay. However, the scholarship came as terrific news because on my first go-around at college I didn't even get a measly cum laude.
Oh-- and if you missed the party, I passed the Alaska Bar on my first try, though as a public defender, I hang out with a rather creepy lot. Sometimes I wonder... is this what I slaved away in law school for? Great grandma Cohen (who just died last year, if you missed the announcement in the New York Times) would have been proud. She financed the whole enterprise, I think.
In spite of all this, I still have enough downtime to play the Brigadier General for the Kahanistan Imperial Marines on a simulation game website called "nationstates.net" where you can "build a nation and run it according to your own warped political ideals. Create a Utopian paradise for society's less fortunate or a totalitarian corporate police state. Care for your people or deliberately oppress them. Join the United Nations or remain a rogue state." I, Brigadier General Rachel Levitt, try to do the right thing, but I'm working for a bloodthirsty megalomaniac, so every day is an internal struggle.
From this disclosure, you can see why I haven't returned your phone calls, mom. Maybe when I get a break (sometime this summer?) I'll be sure to drop you a line. In the meantime, be proud of Rachel Levitt. On the web, she's a champ.
