Uncategorized | E. Rowan Mena

Moving Wrap-up (I Hope): aka, The Move Part 4

June 21, 2014 by E. Rowan

[Part 1 & Part 2 chronicle the unbelievable nightmare of moving with Fidelity Moving Group. Part 3 has some advice and things I wished I had thought of before moving.] We finally arrived, the day before what was supposed to be our delivery date, in San Francisco, exhausted, sun-burnt, stressed out, and at night. We knew that we should expect a strange, overstuffed couch sitting in our apartment, in addition to what we hoped was all of our own stuff. And there it […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: cross country move, fidelity moving, fidelity moving group, moving nightmare, moving scam

What I Learned About Moving, AKA, The Move (Part 3)

June 11, 2014 by E. Rowan

[Part 1 & Part 2 chronicle the unbelievable nightmare this move has been in more detail.] Though I’m still in the middle of the country, well, not exactly the middle anymore – now we’re in Arizona – and so the move has not finished because I still have to deal with getting a stranger’s couch out of my apartment when we arrive to San Francisco, I’ve been thinking a lot about this experience. The various other options we had. How […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: cross country move, fidelity moving, fidelity moving company, moving nightmare

Providence to San Francisco: The Move (Part 2)

June 10, 2014 by E. Rowan

Oh, and actually that wasn’t the end of it.[Part one: pickup, and botched delivery before we arrived.] Today, June 9, I heard from my friend that the driver had contacted him (not me, not the manager or dispatcher) to get access back to our apartment. Because he had accidentally delivered someone else’s stuff as well as ours. I told my friend not to do anything, and that we would handle it, since I didn’t trust these people to figure out which stuff […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: cross country move, fidelity moving, fidelity moving group, moving nightmare

Providence to San Francisco: The Move (Part 1)

June 10, 2014 by E. Rowan

Moving with Fidelity Moving Group The estimate was extremely low, almost unreasonably so, but Manisha seemed professional, and was very reassuring. The estimate was for 40 medium UHaul boxes, a 3-person couch, a queen sized mattress, a cedar chest, and a large piece of artwork, and was $1100 from Providence to San Francisco, including carrying up 2 large flights of stairs in San Francisco. The communication was bad from the beginning. Manisha told me that we would get a call […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: cross country move, fidelity moving, fidelity moving group, moving company, moving nightmare

The Hair Experiment, The 1st Month

March 3, 2014 by E. Rowan

It’s been a month since I cut all my hair off, and it’s getting a little longer. I’m still getting compliments on it from friends I haven’t seen in a while (hello AWP). And today, on the train back to the Seattle airport to get back to Boston, something really nice happened. I had just gotten onto the train and was putting my headphones on when the man sitting across from me said “Excuse me…” I looked up at him, […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: body hair, feminism, hair, shaving, short hair

The Road to Seattle: Unicorns!

February 22, 2014 by E. Rowan

AWP, the largest writers’ gathering known to man, is in Seattle this year. Sometime next week, about 10,000 writers, editors, publishers, MFA program representatives, and essentially anyone who things they can earn a living working with literature in some capacity will be descending on Seattle. Like lemmings running to their doom a herd of unicorns running into the sea to escape the red bull. I came out a week early, to visit family and friends, and generally enjoy the awesomeness […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: AWP14, Seattle, unicorn

The Hair Experiment, Week 1

February 3, 2014 by E. Rowan

It took me a long time to come up with something to do for the new year. (Self-improvement being the go-to for change in the new year, perhaps needs examination, but that’s a project for another year.) I’m happy with my weight, I no longer smoke, I eat well, I have a good work/life balance (in that I work all the time, for almost no money, but I love what I do so it’s still satisfying). I floss my teeth, and […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: curly, feminism, feminist, hair, shaving, short hair, women's hair

In A Landscape Of Having To Repeat by Martha Ronk

October 28, 2013 by E. Rowan

Another book in three sections – that makes quite a few I’ve read recently. I wonder about this – the trinity, the triptych, is this indicative of something wanting to go on? Something that needs to move in different ways across the same set of pages? The sections, not overtly connected like the ones in Susan Howe’s That This, are still noticeably linked by images and phrases that repeat. This is the landscape. It has to repeat. The first eponymously […]

Categories: Uncategorized

Truth in Advertising

August 12, 2013 by E. Rowan

I‘ve started noticing more than the usual egregious amount of photoshopping going on in my consumer experience. And so, since most of my consuming is done online, I decided I would begin capturing it. Pointing it out. This is a series of completely unaltered screen-grabs is from the Maidenform website (not even the whole website, just one page). The first two appear exactly as they did on the Maidenform website (i.e. side by side, and in the same row), and […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: advertising, body image, feminism, killing us softly, lingerie advertising, photoshop, women's bodies

Overheard 1

June 14, 2013 by E. Rowan

Overheard, at a cafe, while a young (maybe black, but definitely not white) couple with infant was interviewing a potential (white) nanny. Mother: How comfortable are you being out with a black child? Nanny: Excuse me? Mother: How comfortable are you being out with a black… Nanny: Oh, very comfortable. I’m really into the whole culture, and I’m sad that you even have to ask that… Mother: It’s just that… Nanny: Oh, I know, I understand, I’m white, obviously, and… […]