I've Got Something to Say!

Quick, Now, Quick! (or, 2 months later)

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:34:59 GMT

Ah, listen. You don't really want to know. We got issues -- hormones, fibroids, too many mood swings, too much chocolate (who'da thunk it possible?) ... too much death, too much work, and not quite enough light. This is aging, folks; I've heard it's not easy.

Which was my point: Starbuck's Madeleines. The idea is pretty much ridiculous, I know, but sometimes one just wants a nibble or two, not giant mouthfuls of carb (once again, hard to believe) ... so, the time I tried the traditional Madeleines, I was all very 'meh' about them. And I'd never have even considered the chocolate ones, despite my chocolate addiction, because I have these purist inclinations, and chocolate Madeleines seem kinda wrong. But, in a burst of what was, for me, astonishing spontaneity, I tossed some chocolate Madeleines onto the counter next to my grande Kimodo brew, and dared the cashier to look at me funny. Which she didn't. So I tried 'em, and you know what? there's a party in my mouth. A chocolate party. Not bad.

It's a gloomy day in the neighborhood, but we have some very nice assam, and a chocolate mouth party, and some delightful students. And we needn't see any Awful Colleagues until tomorrow late afternoon, by which point, one hopes, we'll have stopped referring to ourselves with the royal 'we'.

I'm wishing you light, and satisfying work, and chocolate mouth parties (should you want them.)

E.T.A. did NOT mean to create an advert for Starbuck's, but we must write what we know, my friends.

Still Here

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:45:29 GMT

Many thanks to so many of you, and I owe many emails and such.

Apologies, and thanks again.

I cannot quite explain what the last month has felt like, but we aim to persevere.

And we have turnip seedlings! The seedpack sez you can eat them raw, like an apple. Which is true, one supposes, but ... why do that when you could parboil them and then bake them in butter, I ask you?

Best wishes for good turnings toward the fall.

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:22:52 GMT

Where have I been? Just when I think I've got the hang of LJ presence, I flake out.

Well. The hated August has arrived. Erma Bombeck loved August, as it was the only month of the year that had no holiday needing observance (in the U.S.). So, trust my parents to get married in August (and in Minneapolis? that meant some serious sweating) to ruin it for their children. Plus, classes start again. Very annoying.

Anyhow, there's a proper post to make, regarding the New Dog, and one for 70s TV, and the backlash of the 80s, but first: sahiya tagged me, like, a year ago, for a meme -- random 20 questions, or suchlike, and I've finally got down to it.

I won't tag anyone, in strict and predictable defiance of The Rules, but I do beg anyone who'd like to answer to consider themselves tagged.

1. Who sleeps in bed next to you?
The Tall Man, natch, and now the new dog, Vinne, an Italian greyhound (with a Norwegian name!) who cannot sleep unless he us under the covers and glommed on to one or both of us. And Doggie, except it's summer, so often too hot.

2. Have you ever fancied a cartoon?
I'm guessing this is the British "fancy", which in the States we'd call "liked liked", in which case, I have (embarassingly) two: Simba, the white lion, and Speed Racer. (Please, no comments about bestiality. I was 4, okay?)

3. What are you reading right now?
Oh, you know, Bonanza fanfic, as you do. (OMG inner child let GO!)

But also Paula Giddings's massive Ida: A Sword Among Lions, her long awaited biography of Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Which is massive, but very engaging. And learny. And George Pelecanos's Hell to Pay, which might have been a bad choice for bedtime. Yeesh.

4. What's your occupation?
Philosophy professor. Don't laugh.

5. What do you hate right now?
August. Heat and humidity. Republicans. (Not you; I'm sure you're lovely. Other Republicans.)

6. Who is your celebrity crush?
Mmm. Tony Head. Hugh Laurie. Sonia Sohn. And some dead people.

7. What's your current fandom/obsession/addiction?
I like whatever gives me a good h/c buzz, sadly. "Starsky & Hutch" and "Alias Smith and Jones" for the win! Also, Bonanza. For a short time, only. Promise.

And L's Giles/Anya, when I'm a grown-up.

On current TV, there's "House"; we're also mainlining "The Wire" off of Netflix.

8. What are you listening to right now?
Indigo Girls "Poseidon and the Bitter Bug"; Los Lobos "Good Morning, Aztlan"; The Weepies "Say I Am You"; Duke Ellington, "Live at the Newport Jazz Festival 1956".

9. How do you feel about reincarnation?
My mathematician friends say that there are more beings alive right now than could be ensouled by all the living beings ever before in time. So it's not possible. And my Buddhist friend as agreed. I don't believe in math, though, so I keep an open mind. (I wish; no, I'm pretty much a believer that the "soul" is a product of electro-chemical processes ... gone when the body goes, each and everyone ... and all the more precious for that.)

10. What websites do you always visit when you go online?
Hm. ALWAYS? stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com and Pam's House Blend. Usually lj, including the "Starsky & Hutch" community, where I lurk, because there's some strangeness there, yo.

11. What are you going to do next year?
I dunno. Teach some classes. Write some stuff. Look around for better jobs. The usual.

12. What was the cutest thing you've seen today?
Doggie and New Doggie excited to be going for a ride with The Tall Man.

13. Does the weather affect your mood?
Uh huh. I hate hot. Gloomy w/no rain is also problematic.

14. What is your favourite type of cheese?
Wensleydale? Actually, it totally depends on what is happening with the cheese. I hardly ever just eat a hunk of cheese without a partner or other context -- bread, pizza, tomatoes, whatever.

15. Do you want to learn another language?
Ha! I want to improve my Spanish and learn to write Arabic.

16. 5 things you can't live without.
My heart, my lungs ... what, that wasn't the call of the question?

17. If you could meet anyone now, who would you meet?
Jeez. I'm too shy. I am not worthy. I'd make me a jackass of mineself and regret it for weeks afterward.

18. What's something you'd like to say to someone right now?
How did you get so mean?

19. What are you looking forward to?
Theatre with friends on Wednesday night. Also the next ep of "The Wire". And next summer, when I'll be an entirely different and productive person, okay?

Oh! and a stove that works.

20. What did you dream last night?
Ha! What *didn't* I dream last night? This summer it's been all family, all the time.

Running with the Hounds

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:27:07 GMT

We're near the end of a long weekend of family visiting/obligations, first of the Tall Man variety, and then with extended chosen family, who live in the Pacific Northwest and run a small breeding operation including Italian greyhounds, Ibizan hounds, and occasionally something else that catches their eye or the eye of one of their clients.

In short, it's been a good, if sometimes stressful, few days for us. Because just how sad could one be in Seattle/Gig Harbor/environs?

But today will be a near perfect day. The morning has been a lazy time of reading (the Tall Man is grading) while the family takes care of some doggie business; soon we will head off for Burgerville -- the only fast food joint in the nation that I know of that serves locally grown food, including veggie burgers and the best milkshakes anywhere.

Then it's into Portland for POWELL'S BOOKS OMG! One can order from powells.com any time -- but going to their brick & mortar CITY OF BOOKS is like spending some hours in the heaven you dreamed of, but couldn't believe really existed.

Then it's to the airport to return to the hot, sacred South.

So, I'll return to commenting any day now. When I'm back to earth.

::hugs:: to all, and I'm disabling comments because I don't need to feel your envious vitriol. :-)

Life in the Garden

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:00:04 GMT

Here's to my most successful gardening year evah! It's not what you'd call an impressive garden, but we've been eating cucumbers, squash, lettuce, tomatoes (mostly not ripe yet) and arugala, all good! Doggie loves cucumbers. She's trying to break down the chickenwire fence to get more -- she wanders around the yard, muttering "Nothing to see here, just taking a nice turn around the yard," and then sidles up to the encaged vines and begins the assault. It's ... cute.

Also? My first morning glories. This is the second year I've gotten seedlings, but the first year I've gotten blossoms. I'm sure it's not quite the right climate, but I miss them from my years in central California, climbing around everyone's chain link and picket fences, so ...

Our next-door-but-one neighbor, Nancy, is getting older, and can't really leave the house because she's on oxygen. Since winter I've been carrying her daily paper to her front porch when I run doggie, and the last few weeks I've been getting her some tomatoes, corn, peaches at the farmer's market, when we go. I'm not from around here, so I can't quite get a fix on what she's really like, if you know what I mean. She seems to have a lot in common with my grandmother and my mother (as in, she sits in one chair most of the day, reading paperback mysteries), but there's a lot of Southern there that makes me mistrustful -- like the awful "Aunt Jemima" caricatures that adorn her front room. I'm not brave/stupid/impolite/brave enough to say anything about them; I asked instead about the pictures of her grandkids and great-grandkids that crowed around the awful figurines. IMHO, her family doesn't visit her often enough, but I'm sure my grandmother's neighbors thought that about us. Anyhow, I'm sure there's a lot of mommy stuff going on there. Best not to think about it too much, right?

Oh, Sarah Palin! You card! She knows how to keep us on tenterhooks, doesn't she? I guess the big money is now on a criminal indictment against her husband?

Meanwhile, though, unemployment just hit 9.4%, nationally; Mr. President? It's time to stop being nice to the bankers and the Republican senators from Big Windy states. Maybe instead of giving more money to the Big Bankers who broke everything, he should take pitches for federal funds from social entrepreneurs -- the return is bound to be better than what we're getting on the dollars we're blowing in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and lower Manhattan.

That's life in this garden, for now; deeper thoughts may yet follow, but for now I'll let Frederick Douglass be the deep guy. Dude -- why didn't we read *this* every year in grade school?

"Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me by asking me to speak today?"

--Frederick Douglass
"What to the Slave is the 4th of July?"

::hugs:: to all, and may righteous rejoicing one day be ours!

I Can Haz Spam Now?

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:09:03 GMT

No, seriously, it's on. Someone's really trying to put the icing on my midlife crisis cake!

Karl Malden. I wanted *him* to be my dad. It's nice that nice guys sometimes get long and happy lives, anyhow ... even if he did have to do TV crap for a long time, he seemed well-reconciled to it.

NY Times is running a lovely long obit -- but they keep calling him an "Everyman" actor. No way, pals. If Everyman were that great, the world would be a lot less f'd up. Just sayin'.

I have no Karl Malden icon, but I bet he watched Cagney & Lacey. So there.

Things and Stuff

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:10:14 GMT

I think it's time for me to stop playing with Fall syllabi and see if I can get anything written this summer. (My sister, on hearing that I'm not teaching this summer, asked me what I'm doing with all my free time. Ow.)

I guess if I actually managed to finish and publish something, she might get it. Sigh.

Ovens, ovens. My sister has a bun in hers -- now it can be told! She's expecting, in August. I've held off a long time believing in it, since she's ... old, for a first-time mother. But things seem to be going well, and I'm really happy for her. Dubious that she's decided to perpetuate the gene pool that is our family, but also certain she'll be a better mother than -- anyone else in our family, really.

Also? Our 40-year-old cooktop died last week (and we'll never be able to find an avocado green replacement! a double-edged sword, to be sure). I was looking at those glass-top ones, that are so easy to clean, but they seem to be too large for our 28-inch space. More stupid coils it is, then! Til we muster up the courage to buy one, it's all baking, all the time. (Turns out that dried beans *can* be cooked in the oven, to good effect.) Thank goodness for the electric kettle.

Thirdly, oven, as in "hot as an". Dayum. But it just shouldn't surprise one anymore.

Unrelatedly, I've never grown cucumbers before (and probably won't be baking any), but they are growing like gangbusters this year. (OK, last year I *tried* to grow them, but horrid bugs ate every one of the baby things til the plants gave up and died.) Turns out, Doggie loves her some cucumbers! She's started trying to sabotage the chicken-wire fence just to get at them. She digs under, she stands up to bend it down ... and she pretends she needs to pee just to be let out back to cause some mayhem. She is a fiend. She'll be after the tomatoes, next. Kale stalks and carrots are her favorite, though. I guess ex-street dogs pick up some weird tastes.

In re: the passing of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, someone on the internet (you know, that guy) said he felt that the 80's were dying, but for me, it's the 70s -- esp. if you add Ed McMahon (and the avocado-green cooktop, see above). And mostly, the 70s are dying young, but it's not so surprising, given the age of excess that it was. [Somewhat creepily -- long story short -- the Tall Man and I were moved to borrow "The Wiz" from Netflix last week and set up to watch it *the very day that MJ died*). We could only make it halfway through that night -- omg, MJ was great in that. (Sidney Lumet, you are a brill director, but musical cinema is not your forte. You blew that one, baby. The talent was great, the songs were great ... but you? Bleah.) We finished it the next night.

Really? I think Stephen Fry's tweet on MJ said it best -- "Oh, dear. Poor old soul. Oh, dear."

Indeed.

Now that July has begun, perhaps we could have some happy things? Here's hoping.

::uses slightest pretext for Starsky & Hutch icon::

Leaves of Three, Let It Be ...

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:22:58 GMT

Unless it is climbing around in your back yard, behind the shed and up the fence, etc. Then you must kill the fuck out of it. Take it out by the roots. Extirpate! And I seem to have figured out how to do it without breaking out in itchy killer blisters, so, go me.

I was meant to be trimming back the hydrangeas, because I've been neglecting them and now they are all bowed down by the cares of the world ... but when I went around back of the shed to get at some of the vines that were strangling them? I got a bit distracted.

Next:
I had a strange film festival over the weekend, when The Tall Man was away with his boys, kickin' it Rock Band style.

1) "They Live" -- John Carpenter's 1988 classic of alien mind controllers and the ex-pro-wrestlers who hate them. It was very cool; a low-budget Matrix with a much more political twist. I'm having TTM watch it w/me, and told him that if 80s horror films contain homeless drifters debating the merits of a free market sort of democracy, then I need to see me more 80s horror films. In spite of the soundtracks. (Synthesizers, brrrrr.)

2) "Watermelon Man" -- Melvin van Peebles's pre-"Sweetback" look at "liberal racism". Godfrey Cambridge in whiteface for the first 20 minutes puts one in mind of Martin Short and Will Ferrell -- like what if they had a baby, sort of. His range is tremendous, plus it features a (relatively) young Estelle Parsons who I totally dig, now. Also, a *very* young Erin Moran, soon to become Joanie Cunningham on Happy Days, and later to Love Chachi. Wow.

3) "Putney Swope" -- Robert Downey's skewering of Madison Avenue and, sort of racism, but the absurdism takes over and it's not anvilly enough for me to draw easy morals from. However, it's got pre-Starsky & Hutch Antonio Fargas playing a sort of Greek chorus, but Muslim. omg.

Once you start down that Amazon road of recommendations, you never come back.

Not surprisingly, in addition to all of the things the films wanted me to think about (which was a real lot), I couldn't help but think about Patriarchy. Cuz there were two muscle-bound guys fighting mind-controlling aliens -- during one extended faux-faux-wrestling fight I actually said out loud, "Men!". And in the other two films, despite Estelle Parson's amazingness, the women were there to be in relation to men, support them, be used by them, fail them, whatever.

This is the summer of poison ivy and patriarchy.

Next week, I'll discuss the giant underground mulberry bush that is holding the suburban southern U.S. together. I know: it's hard to be patient.

Still Not my Patriarchy Rant, but Hollywood is a Harsh Mistress, & Stuff

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:11:46 GMT

O, Friends, I have some things to say about fandom and 70s TV and stuff, but for now I'll just say I've been getting verklempt all over again about the 1971 suicide (possibly accidental, but no one appears to really think that) of Pete Duel, who was always my preferred "Smith" from Alias Smith and Jones [and I always liked Dick York's "Darren" better than Dick Sargent's, too, but that shit was sad in an entirely different way].

I grew up in Orange County, CA -- then just hiding in the shadow cast by Los Angeles, and the only industry I ever thought mattered was showbiz. TV and movies. I thought if I didn't get on TV, my life would be a waste. (On the odd family trip north, I'd slouch down in the back seat of our '73 Mercury Brougham and put my shades on, pretending I didn't want folks to notice me as we took the Santa Ana freeway through downtown L.A. and parts of Hollywood.)

But seriously. 3 days after Pete Duel's death, the showrunners are herding cast and crew back onto the set with a "new" "Smith", even *re-shooting scenes* that had been in the can when Duel died. Even in academia, they usually don't make you go right back to work three days after your friend shoots himself. Ow.

But what I really wanted to say was that I only just now happened to find out, quite accidentally, that one of my academic heroes has died; Ron Takaki grew up a Hawaiian surfer dude, then went off to college and found himself at UC Berkeley in grad school in the 60s. He taught the first Black Studies course at UCLA, encouraging those radical kids to see critical thinking and clear writing as revolutionary weapons. When he didn't get early tenure, he got a job at Berkeley, and has been kicking ass up there ever since. He went on to write some of the most impressive (and accessible) books on American history.

I didn't know this, but apparently he was diagnosed with MS 15 or 20 years ago, and finally reached a point where he could not live with it anymore; he killed himself in his Berkeley home in late May.

http://amleft.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_amleft_archive.html

A pioneer, in every sense.

So, who are some people you never knew, but miss anyway?

::hugs:: to all.

The Tuesday Morning Whine, with Pancakes!

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:24:24 GMT

I've been having some interesting thoughts (imho) about pairings and slash and the Patriarchy, but that's not what I'm here to post about. Instead, POISON IVY. Not the comic book character, either.

I grew up in Southern California, in the pre-O.C. O.C., where there was poison oak a-plenty, and it looked all malicious, and I only ever had a reaction one time, when I'd spent all day playing cowboy in the foothills. (Tomboy? Moi?)

I've known for ten years that I was in poison ivy land, but have been dang lucky; I think the near-drought conditions out here in NC probably discouraged the horrible thing, but this year we've had loads of rain over the spring, and so my gardening on Wednesday resulted in some life-destroying itch. Yow. It's ugly, too. And for some reason, my attempts to learn to identify it through online photos have been bouncing off my eyeballs. It just doesn't *look* like an evil weed, and there are so many creepy, creepy vines out here. I may never try to clear the undergrowth again. Luckily, there is Prednisone: once it was a last-ditch powerhouse drug prescribed mainly to the dying, but now it is my friend.

I want to say something profound and valuable about the murder of Dr. George Tiller (I want to give you a link, I do, but I tech-suck), but I'm too sad and angry about it.

So here's the good news: I've made cornmeal strawberry pancakes for a late breakfast with the Tall Man. And now the Tall Man is flipping my second helping. And soon I'll go into the office, where I will finally, thanks to Prednisone, be able to concentrate on administrative details.

Unless I start reading slash, that is. Because it's summer, and apparently I can.

::hugs:: to all, and good energies toward those who need them most. You know who you are.

What Happened in Vegas

Mon, 25 May 2009 18:32:38 GMT

So, my younger brother is now successfully hitched. Turned out that an actual minister had to perform the ceremony, but Elvis (thebestelvis.com) was there to sing songs and liven things up. I was a bit worried, never having met Elvis before, that he might take himself a bit seriously, but he was in fact very good-natured, and looked remarkably good, considering -- well, you know. My brother and his wife seem well-suited to each other; it was great to see him finally happy.

Vegas is all of the awful one might expect; I had told my brother we wouldn't be staying long, because Vegas would make me itchy, but I didn't reckon on literally being allergic to the place -- I have several spots of itchy rash on my arms and legs. Luckily, not terribly itchy, or disfiguring (I am all about the aesthetic), but, still.

On Thursday, we discovered that there is an actual "natural preserve" in the town, so we decided to walk 5 miles in 95 degree heat to see it. The "Springs Preserve" is really beautiful, and has several air-conditioned museumy spaces in which one learns more about the train wreck that is the history of Las Vegas (short on organized crime and long on water usage facts). There are also acres of gardens and trails; had we not walked there, we probably would've enjoyed them immensely. Instead, we stayed mostly indoors and learned about water usage, desert flora and fauna, and southern Paiute homelife.

Vegas is a town of copycats; there is a fake Paris resort, a fake Egyptian pyramid resort, a fake New York resort, a fake Roman 'palace' resort, and old Vegas was all about fake Arabia. Then there are the fake Elvises, Marilyns, Sinatras, Neil Diamonds(!), Streisands, and magicians. A comment about fake boobs here would just be too predictable, wouldn't it? What's real is the heat, the poverty of the service-workers, and the frantic pursuit of excess.

We spent some hours poolside with the International Barry Manilow Fan Club; they seem quite genuine, as well. If we weren't exactly thrilled with the soundtrack (you haven't lived til you've heard Barry's cover of "My Heart Will Go On"), they were a refreshing change from the boobs, butts, and perfectly sculpted abs that taunted us from vertical surface in that city.

Everyone in Vegas is from somewhere else, everything is imported. The Vegas Springs were tapped out by 1910, but there's water everywhere. Lots of it in the bar drinks, e.g.

How grateful one is to be home.

Just Thinking -- Mostly Trekky

Sun, 17 May 2009 16:31:37 GMT

You know, it occurs to me that the 'title' of my eljay is just ... ironic? I mean, maybe I do have something to say, but if it never gets said, did it really fall in the forest?

Nevertheless ...

I think the squee over the new Trek is mostly justified -- I may have some spoilery thoughts later, although I've got nothing that hasn't been said (mostly about sexism in franchise) before, and better. Meantime, I have these non-spoilery ridiculous notes:

I do want to point out my jawdrop when I realized that this cool new James T Kirk was last seen (by me) doing a long-haired-hippie-vintner thingy in Bottle Shock. What? That guy was tall and skinny and laid back and kinda sexy. This guy seems short and solid and wired and kinda sexy. I guess that's called "acting".

Also? Brent Spiner wore contact lenses for what, seven years? to play an android. Did anyone suggest to anyone that Chris Pine and Karl Urban might could try it for a coupla months? I know eye color shouldn't make that much difference, but, McCoy had the bluest eyes in the galaxy. In contrast -- Chekhov is so puppy! Sorry Walter K., but this guy? Yay.

And, John Cho! If they can get Kal Penn a role in the sequel, I will be ecstatic. Because there will be a sequel -- I don't think that counts as a spoiler. In fact, there may be several.

In conclusion? I miss DS9.

Carry on. Soon, there will be peaches.

What Shall I Complain About Today?

Sat, 02 May 2009 20:44:46 GMT

Lots of grading ... too much admin ... I want to put the arugula in my garden. and the squash and the cherry tomatoes.

The weather is weird. Hot and dry and then cloudy but not humid. HAS NO ONE NOTICED THAT THIS IS NORTH CAROLINA????!!?!?!? WHERE IS THE HUMID, PEOPLE????

(See what I did there? I am complaining loudly about a Very Good Thing.)

In other news, my intarwebs travels this past month have mainly centered around Gen Ed Assessment (shoot me, now) and crappy fanfic, so I've miss a lot of y'all's goings-on. And I'm sorry.

And I'm v. thanks for all y'all's good thoughts during the last month; the Tall Man is on the emotional mend.

Finally? It has happened. My little (41-year-old) brother is getting married. For the first time. In Vegas. By Elvis.

Carry on.

Life is Skittles, and Life is Beer

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:04:25 GMT

I'm guessing that the skittles 'n' beer kind of skittles are not the awful little fruit-flavored Skittles with which you can 'taste the rainbow'. Cause, eiuw.

Nevertheless, after weeks of rollercoaster weather (I don't think 80 degrees and 6-inch snowfall should live in the same week, do you?), life is settling into brisk, sunshiney days and COLD nights. The time of year when my worklife seems to take on an unrelenting sloggy pace, and I will feel buffeted and overcome for the last 7 weeks of the term.

But then there's summer.

This past weekend was uncommonly sociable for the Tall Man and me; we went to have fondue (Fondue Date Night!) at our good friends' house Saturday evening, and then had 3 couples over for dinner last night. Then I spent today in my jammies, til a 3 o'clock run (yay this weather) and then a dog walk.

In other news, Garret Keizer is so my new Unmet Boyfriend. He edits and writes for Harper's, and I very much appreciate his cultural ethic. I'm sure he's got lots of horrible secrets -- he's mean to dogs, or cheats on his taxes or his spouse, and when it all comes out people will heap scorn and derision upon me. "How could you love him?? How???"

But ours is an uncontrollable love. Because, here he is in the April 09 Harper's talking about the complementarity of the imperatives of self-reliance and social responsibility:

"Neither value makes sense without the other, nor can it be fulfilled without the other. The trick is to get them to kiss. The trick is to create a society in which the privilege of disposable income is not contingent on the existence of disposable people -- to say nothing of disposable tigers, ice caps, and arable land."

So long as national politicians are more beholden to Big Corporation than to anyone or anything else, real democracy will take a back seat. Wall Street, Main Street, blah blah blah. But seriously, our real and imagined dependencies on those bankers are getting me down; AIG bonuses are just the tip of a huge iceberg.

When I start thinking that way, it's time for a poem.

"The Encounter"
by Czeslaw Milosz

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive,
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

Take care, and hugs to everybody.

Many Happy, If Belated, Returns!

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:06:00 GMT

I'm informed (or, rather, I've inferred) that I'm a bit late to wish the most bewitching tx_cronopio a very happy birthday.

P, did you know that Texas is #1 among states in which people who are born, tend to stay? 'Twas on NPR this morning. The Tall Man and I surmised that it was because it was such a long drive in any direction to get out.

Here's hoping you had some wonderful moments, and some cake!!!

They all want cake.

::hugs::

::sends margaritas and salsa::

In Like a Lion

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:14:37 GMT

An excellent day to get back on the LJ-horse; StupidCollege has closed and Sillytown is v. quiet due to 6 inches of snow. Neighborhoods all around us have lost power, but after two blinks last night, our house kept humming. Yay for that.

Today, whilst eating my granola and soy milk and watch snow blow around the front yard, it occurred to me that I need to be reincarnated as a grazing animal -- a deer, perhaps. I'd be so happy to spend my life wandering about and nibbling on whatever sweet blades of new grass came to hand. Mouth, I mean. Really, some days there's just nothing else I'd rather do. Only, there should be cake instead of grass.

There should be no bad here -- sitting in jammies, doing some reading, thinking about what I need to do before the snow melts, but I find myself now at the mercy of a sense of Impending Doom. Not unusual, but it used to leave me alone on snow days ... Even as I tell myself that I don't have to give other people such power over me, I feel myself flinching at what might be coming down the road. Tunnel? Train? Shiny Cake? Train?

An extra-long yoga practice yesterday means I'm a little sore today ... and it's also the day for my long run, but ... snow. I'm just not that dedicated.

The Tall Man is on leave this term; long story, but he'll actually be on leave all next year, as well. This one is a special "vengeance"-leave that we decided on after he was turned down -- under suspicious circumstances -- for a study leave last year. Means he's not getting paid this term, which means ... we need to budget. Srsly. I'm a big baby -- when it gets down to it, I don't like to acknowledge that money matters. Or maybe I just want someone else to deal with such mundane details. We're lucky that we were in a position to make this decision, given how burnt out the TM was at the end of December, and so far we are strangely okay with the whole thing. That is, he's not 'getting underfoot' or going stir-crazy (yet) ... but some part of me has concluded that my own teaching this semester is pretend. Somehow, these aren't "real" classes, and I'm just marking time til summer -- even though the senior seminar is going really well. Relatively speaking. There's only so much of Kant's moral theory a kid can take. Me? It's so cool -- it's like, this is what I got my Ph.D. for, really. Poor students; they sit quietly and watch the deranged but enthusiastic woman wave her arms and draw strange diagrams on the whiteboard and use words like "noumenal" and "synthetic a priori" (which, I've finally decided -- in a blow to real Kantians everywhere -- basically is what you call "a conclusion you had to think a lot about).

My life, and welcome to it.

Delusions of Frustrated Grandeur

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:38:55 GMT

So, sometimes I comfort myself: however unfun my worklife is, at least I'm not Robert Culp in late 1968. Hit series over, Bobby Kennedy and MLK Jr. assassinated. Smarter than almost everyone who had power over his future success. And saddled with the reputation of being a snobby auteur-type with all kinds of social justice pretensions, making him an unattractive prospect, at best. Also, and here I'm guessing, but probably one of his marriages was falling messily apart at the time.

At least I'm not in *those* shoes, right?

But here I am, walking this tightrope at Stupid College; do I pour my energies into this place and try to help make it a healthy and vibrant community for the junior faculty? Or do I retreat into my hermitage of a remodeled corner office, and, like Joe Mitchell at The New Yorker, spend the next 30 years doing Not Very Much? (Except, without Joe Mitchell's laurels to rest on. Cuz, really.) For lo, I just met with a job candidate, and feel I may have overwhelmed her with my strangely frenetic ambivalence.

What you really need to know is: last night's sunset was stunning. Lasted half an hour -- bright, fireburst oranges, reds so brilliant as to be painful in patches of sky tucked between purple-grey ponderous clouds ... and today, for the first time in a week, brilliant, brisk sunshine. My office is now flooded with creamy late afternoon light slanting through shades, throwing bright parallelograms on my walls and all of those books over there that I'm meant to be reading.

I'm really lucky.

Are you feeling lucky?

Well, are you?

All Avoidy, As Usual; Now with the Ravages of Time(TM)

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 22:31:11 GMT

Oh, friends, I want to be wrapped in cotton batting, like a Victorian heroine (no, really -- was there really a Victorian heroine who got saved pain and confrontation? I guess I need to read more) ... safe from decisions, confrontations, accountability.

But look! My childhood is dying! I mean, I know every generation goes through this, but I wonder if "we" are discovering the downside of having our childhoods peopled so extravagantly -- knowing *so many* people, if only from a distance, through TV (natch); now we watch them age and die, and yet they don't "really" die? Because we can go back and know them just as we always did (thanks to DVDs).

Well, you know, it has to do something to one's sense of time.

So fer instance, I finally got to see "Hickey and Boggs" a coupla weeks back. Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, the greatest TV duo ever (okay, in the top 10) from "I Spy" got to make a film together in 1972, or thereabouts -- a few years after they'd hung up their spy guns. Let me be clear -- they were still younger than I am now -- but you can still see the damage time had done to those two brilliant and gorgeous humans. I mean, yes, their characters are meant to be depressive burnouts (and, you know, that's not what folks wanted out of those two, so the film didn't do at all well, despite Culp's *masterful* direction and a murderous script by Walter Hill).

Some part of my brain/heart is trying to wrap itself around regretting what time took away from those guys ... and now, 35 years later, how much more it's taken away ... and one day soon, it will take them away entirely. Except it won't. I'll still have everything I ever had of them except the knowledge that they are still out there possibly doing something cool. Which, plus 2 bucks, will buy me a cup of coffee.

Anyhow, "Hickey and Boggs" itself had a terrible transfer to DVD, so I was happy to borrow it from Netflix, but I'm not sure I want to buy it (somehow I missed its initial release, and available copies are now going for $100+) ... but I could write some cool stuff about race, and gender, and cynicism, and stuff, if I could stop being so avoidy.

But the thing about time, and the ravages thereof, and the death of childhood ... Well, consider: Ricardo Montalban, Patrick McGoohan, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Bernie Hamilton, DeForest Kelley, et al.

At some point in human history, I'm sure most living humans didn't *know* (like, weren't even very aware of, let alone get acquainted with) more than 100 people in the course of their lives. TV, film, and the intarwebs give us this sense that our lives are peopled by thousands, no? Thousands, who come and go, but in some weird sense *don't* change, even though we know they do.

Someone should deal with this!

Meantime, I have to decide whether my favourite Hutch has a mustache or not. Discuss.

Hugs to all, candles lit, good vibes sent. For lo, we journey through the heart of winter and are yet warm.

Christmas: I'm Not Doing It Right

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 17:22:18 GMT

It's not news that The Holidays can be fraught with ... fraughtness. Around here, it's also fraught with ambivalence, which leads to less jolly or holly than is generally expected.

Around 1990, when I was Street Activist Lawyer, and many of my friends were Not Christian, and I lived a couple miles from Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, the whole weight of American/Christian/Capitalist hegemony seemed to crash down on me, and I wanted nothing to do with the whole business. Also, in my family, the increasing reliance of gift certificates -- replacing *minutely* detailed Christmas wish lists -- only highlighted how very little my parents actually knew any of us. (That didn't stop me from gleefully redeeming those gift certificates, naturally).

Christmas *had* been the only time that my family really, really all tried to get along and do things together, and we had some scripted traditions to fall back on (hey, you haven't lived till you've had a meatball & gravy burrito wrapped in lefse) to make things easier. But creeping adulthood made my siblings and I aware of how forced the whole thing really was, and we perversely managed our adolescent rebellions just about the time we should've been having families of our own and welcoming our parents into our own houses.

Now, as a childless sin-living couple with dysfunctional and diverse relatives very, very far-flung, we send a card or two, make the holiday Tofurkey (TM), and do whatever we feel like, which usually isn't much. This year I flew into a frenzy of baking, because actual baking is an excellent diversion from whatever one might be thinking about, although it does tend to nudge at those memories of Christmas Past that are shiny on the outside but all tangled up in misery and dread. Like, I dunno, trinkets from a sweatshop, or something.

Harold Pinter and Eartha Kitt ... I would never, ever have considered the two alongside had we not been faced with their nearly simultaneous obituaries. But they were both complicated, brilliant, larger-than-life beings who made my life that much more rich and worthwhile, and I'm grateful.

Finally, a pee-smell update: The crawlspace under the house is dusty and dry and stink-free. Our best hypothesis to date is that mean old diabetic cat, who is a peripatetic peer, has done so much peeing on the vinyl floor of the bathroom that some has seeped into the grate and down the heating duct ... but this is better than it could be; I started peeling back the vinyl with awful visions of a pee-soaked plywood floor, but it seems to be quite localized. Which means patching some drywall, cutting away part of the awful vinyl floor and putting in some equally awful self-stick vinyl 'tiles', and living with this halfway step til we decide what cool thing to do with the bathroom. (You'll notice I'm not dealing with the ductwork. The smell will go away, won't it? Won't it??)

Thanks, MeanCat, for spurring us into home renovation. Also to leak in roof for same. Dead oven, no thanks to you! You've spurred us into nothing except a new oven! Not an exciting Christmas present by any means, but it did help with the baking.

It's been that kind of winter so far. ...

::hugs to all::

::hopes 09 is better, don't you?::

Reports of my Demise, etc.

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:15:51 GMT

OK, nobody probably thinks I'm dead ... midlife is just a time to try new things, like, letting social anxiety creep into cyberspace. No big, right?

Out here, we're done with grading, and now we're into the "omigod how can i make best use of the semester break?" portion of the angst. But his time, we have Imposed Direction:

Friends, there is a pee stink coming up from under the house.

I could get behind this fact if we had a charming old Craftsman style or a Victorian -- you just light the incense and bask in the character -- but we have a post-war cotranch, or ranchage, or something. It's got its charms, sure, but nothing worth a pee stink that seems to be focused under our one tiny bathroom and *intensify* whenever the heat comes on.

It's really upsetting the cats. Because it's their job to make the house smell like pee, donchaknow.

We've been hypothesizing that it's a cat using our crawlspace for ... that. But maybe it's rodents in the ducts? Or a homeless guy -- you've read those stories or seen them on TV, about people who live in other people's houses without getting spotted? (I remember a clip of one young woman who'd made herself a bunk in the upper shelf of a well-to-do couple's bedroom closet.) I mean, I don't think anyone could get away with that in our tiny house (of course, that's what they all say), but someone could totally live under our house without our knowing it.

I just wish they'd come in to use the toilet.

Also? I'm one of the dreadful who have discovered David Foster Wallace only since his death. The short story "Mr. Squishy" from the collection Oblivion is making me LOL, as did "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature", but I have the feeling I may not be laughing when it's over. and I'm reading Sara Paretsky's memoir, so you can prepare yourself for lengthy quotage.

It's feast or famine around here, I'll tell you that.

::hugs:: and holiday cheer to everyone.

Wishing, and Hoping, and Hiding ....

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:48:34 GMT

I think it's fair to say that my little trip down memory lane with the Mpls/St. Paul relatives stirred up some shit.

For the last month, I've been barely hanging on by my fingernails in the classroom, and have completed approximately 1.3 of the 28 "urgent" administrative tasks on my plate.

Ever feel like, sometimes, you yourself are the only person you can really stand? and then other times, you realise that *that* feeling is actually a deep self-loathing that makes you tired, fragile, and most of all, afraid to actually engage with others, for fear they will see what you truly are?

Ah, self-awareness! You are not all that you are cracked up to be.

In other news, Old Diabetic Mean Cat is getting all clingy. A bit worrisome. She still has her limits, though, and she defends them fiercely.

Today, the Tall Man and I are headed to Capital City for a small gathering of friends to celebrate the 15th anniversary of our friends' partnership. Apparently, were they allowed to marry, they would destroy the institution. Funny, they seem so nice to their cats... Ironically (perhaps), the date had been reserved since long before the passage of CA's Prop 8 and the National Day of Protest. So we'll do our part by sipping wine with the lesbians and the cats and hoping for even better days to come.

Here's to better days for all of us.

Er, How is the Chicken Cooked?

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:39:00 GMT

Perhaps you have read David Sedaris's essay on the Undecided American Voter ... the one who is asked by the flight attendant whether they would like the chicken, or the plate of shit with pieces of broken glass in it. And they pause. And then they ask, "Well, how is the chicken cooked?"

The U.S. *is* having an historic election, and there are so many ways it could get buggered: the conclusion that our last two elections were actually rigged/stolen seems to have found its way out of the tinfoil-hat-wearing crowd makes many of us worried that this election, too, could be stolen. And the theft will be blamed on the racist "undecided" voters, who don't want to say in public that they can't vote for a Black man.

Then there are those who seem clearly to be voting for McCain just because they *don't* want to vote for a Black man. Oh, wait, it's not because he's Black, it's because he's "scary". Jeez, people, do you even *hear* yourselves?

If you caught Palin and McCain on SNL over the last two weeks ... or even if you didn't, WTF? OK, Nixon went on Laugh-In, and we all want to know that our politicians are down-to-earth, sense of humour-having types, but golly, even I found McCain charming on the QVC bit last night, and I am convinced that he is one scary fuck.

The Tall Man and I voted early, and I'm cancelling some classes on Tuesday because I have working students, and students who will work the polls, and now maybe I will work the polls, because my backwards state has become a Swing State, and I've seen the excitement for Obama & Biden here ... my hope is that I can make a Schadenfreude pie (thanks to tx_cronopio for the link) and have a few friends over Tuesday night and not have it turn into Bitter Mourning over What Might Have Been pie. We shall see.

In other news, Seane Corn is my new yoga goddess; she gives good prana vinyasa -- my Efficient-self sometimes strains over beginning each session with interminable breathing and finding of the center, but when I can make myself do it, it never steers me wrong.

And in other news, Billy freakin' Bragg is playing up in Mountain Town tonight, and I can so feel how sweet it would be to just GO. But jeez, I've got a job and a house to deal with, here, as well as the ongoing and very boring midlife crisis to work through. (But wouldn't a road trip to see Mr. Love and Justice be a great salve to the aforementioned MLC? Sigh.)

Here, we are having a warm and golden day, with fluttering leaves and the smell of honeysuckle and woodsmoke somehow braiding together. I send you this moment of cozy peace and many hugs.

Telegraphic Thanks. And Stuff.

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:23:15 GMT

Your birthday wishes v. gratefully received stop

Visit with relatives success stop

Worries were stupid and your advice great of course stop

Also am not receiving notifications of responses to comments sorry if missed sparkling wit of yours stop

Am thinking of y'all and will respond more appropriately when not behind stop

Strike that am never not behind will respond soon stop

Hugs stop

Thanks again stop

Politics, Religion, Sex .... what else? Behold the Small-hearted Grouch!

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:32:08 GMT

Stupid College is on fall break this week, so the Tall Man and I took the opportunity (?) to switch our study into the sunroom and the TV/guest futon into the back bedroom. We now have a guest bedroom ... Cronopios take note! (Although, we still only have 1 bathroom. We're down-to-earth like that.) Further, our department just this past weekend got to pack up our temporary cubicles because we are on our way back to our elderly building, now remodeled and LEED-certified and actually really nice-looking, but it was still a hassle. And will continue to be one, when I have to deal with going back to classes and unpacking next week.

So, you know, few other jobs got done, and now, tomorrow, I fly up to Minneapolis to visit Remaining Aged Aunt, the widow of my mother's brother. For me, it's mainly a chance to spend more time in the town, but my younger sister is meeting me there, to have a last visit with RAA, and see some sites.

RAA's daughter, my cousin, must be 60-ish now, and we'll be having dinner on Saturday evening at her house, with RAA in attendance. Also, cousin's hubby, and their early-20s daughter.

Um, I haven't see any of these folks for ... 30 years? maybe 25. They will have little in common with this humble Heron Pose -- an in-sin-living, college-teaching, childless, vegetarian, feminist, far-left-leaning philosopher who does, right, have one almost foster kid who's an FTM transsexual raising dogs and teaching science in the Pacific Northwest.

(Chip on my shoulder? Moi?)

So, Flist, I once again need some advice: WTF can we talk about?

I wonder if they watched Starsky & Hutch? Pretty sure Buffy is right out.

Even grouchy, I begrudge no one the hugs they need. So, hugs to all wot need 'em.

Report to follow.

My Mid-Life Crisis, Which Is Mine

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:39:31 GMT

I'm serious -- I think this is it. I'm eyeing convertible Beemers and beautiful young men (and some women) and just, you know, having a hard time moving forward.

Just fer instance, didja know that when Starsky & Hutch were my age, they'd already been off the air for nearly a decade? (Apologies to Tom Lehrer.)

In other news, it turns out that even after one's parents have both died, one can still have gut-wrenching, brutally self-revealing and ugly conversations with ... one's siblings? Had no idea. Good thing I only talk to 33% of mine.

Finally, friends, I need your advice on this:

I was grading papers and exams this weekend, and left a short stack on the corner of the dining table. Later in the day, I found that old, diabetic, angry cat decided to nap up there, strictly against regs. No matter, I thought, she's old, etc. But she decided to have a petit seizure up there, the kind where she pees where she lies. A nuisance, but easy to clean up -- oh. Four, just four, could've been worse, student papers now soaked in cat pee. Well, the edges are soaked, in fairly dilute cat pee (diabetes is great!), but still...

The papers were rinsed, spritzed with anti-cat smell enzymes, and are now hanging to dry. They are, unsurprisingly, all crinkly in the way of once-wet paper. Question is, do I

a) Tell the truth, with an apologetic chuckle?
b) Concoct a fib, concerning the cat and a vase of flowers? (I like this one -- kinda Grace Kelly-ish), or
c) Say nothing, and if they ask, mutter about tea?

Phones are open now.

What, you thought I was going to figure out how to construct an LJ-poll during a mid-life crisis? Me thank not. (Apologies to David Sedaris.)