gay marriage - good for economy

Over this summer, Massachusetts and New York have made same sex marriage more accessible. NY governor Paterson ordered that same sex marriages be recognized in NY and the MA state legislature repealed an old law forbidding out of staters to be married in MA.

A Milestone for Gays, A Boon for Massachusetts
Nonresidents' Same-Sex Weddings Bring Economic Boost
By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Staff Writer
September 3, 2008
....
The two steps, taken independently by New York and Massachusetts within about two months, marked an unexpected summer milestone for proponents of same-sex marriage, even as more than 40 other states have enacted constitutional amendments or statutes limiting marriage to a man and a woman. California is the only other state that has legalized same-sex marriage, though that decision by the state's highest court will be subject to a statewide referendum in November.
...
The recent changes have prompted a flood of gay New Yorkers coming to Massachusetts to get married -- and that seems to have made same-sex marriage big business for the Bay State.

There are no firm figures on how many gays from New York have come here to marry in the few weeks since the law took effect. But anecdotal evidence suggests the numbers are huge and likely to grow. Hotel rooms are full, flower shops are doing a brisk business, and everywhere, it seems, pedicabs adorned with "Just Married" signs are hauling gay couples down the town's main strip.
...
Town Clerk Doug Johnstone said Provincetown has become "the premier destination for gay marriage." He said the town first saw a boom in same-sex weddings after they became legal here in 2004, even though out-of-state couples had to express an intent to reside in Massachusetts -- although how to define that intent was left vague and was often at the discretion of local officials. "Now, with the repeal of the 1913 law, we're seeing another little boomlet," Johnstone said.

For the town, that boomlet means an influx of cash at a time when the state is suffering from high unemployment and the effects of a sluggish national economy. "There's got to be some residual economic benefit," Johnstone said, considering the meals, the hotel rooms for family members and friends, and the rings -- a bonanza for local jewelry companies.
...
A report prepared for the Massachusetts economic development office estimated that 32,000 same-sex couples are likely to come to the state to marry over the next three years, pumping about $111 million into the economy. The report said the state stands to gain about $5 million of that from sales taxes and the cost of marriage licenses.

License, etc

A____ and I applied for our marriage license today. It's officially down on paper and stuff. A friend who is a justice of the peace is officiating and the venue? TBA (tbd, actually...gotta pick a wall of my apartment to get married in front of).

Also, did I mention I really need a job?! Still nothing. Man, this is starting to make me feel like a total loser...

Got dog(s)?

My sister recently alerted me to a dog toy recall from Four Paws. The recall is on a series of toys which have been reported to cause massive trauma for some dogs. The full recall alert can be found at the Four Paws website. I've put some info below also*.

The info above is in a jpeg format. My apologies for any inconvenience imaging the text makes for anyone who wants to pass the info on, which I encourage you to do. If you want text for copy/paste, go to the Four Paws recall site, or you're welcome to use this image if you want. My reason for doing this is that while sometimes I think it would be nice to have more visitors, I don't think I want the ones who will be brought in via searches run on phrases constructed from certain isolated words in the names of the various dog toys above.

Friday

See I can do that because I skipped Friday last week.

Many people talking politics, presidential politics that is. I follow politics, not so much as an enthusiast but as er, a citizen I guess. My level of interest never struck me as odd until I moved out of Massachusetts. How people in other places I've lived are during presidential campaigns is how most people around where I grew up are in general. At least in my personal experience. Possibly this has influenced my take on voter empowerment. See, I think that presidential campaigns (and elections) are to a truly democratic governmental process as Brittney Spears is to music.

This observation has ripened as I age. As I get older, I find the furor around presidential campaigns has become a bit more irritating. Of course the last eight years have amply demonstrated the kind of hell a president can bring down upon a nation. This shows up most especially with presidential appointments. Consider just Gonzalez and Ashcroft for some excellent cases in point. But with the exception of talk of supreme court nominations, we don't hear much about that in the mainstream big ticket item news. I.e., if not talk of specific picks, then what kind of climate and policies do the candidates believe will be appropriate and right in their FCC, their SEC, their FDA, their Justice Department, their Health and Human Services? How would Hilary Clinton's EEOC and Labor Relations Board picks have differed from Barack Obama's?
Etc.

Since I've been unemployed, I've been in a bit of a bubble. I don't get out much on account of my laying around and eating bon-bons, watching my "stories" and scouring job postings oh about 5 times a day. But today, I was on campus primarily to deal with an amazingly screwball fuckup from payroll (someone accidentally changed my name in a database that communicated with my insurance companies to reflect a mutated form of my (former) married name, the equivalent of which would be a change to PEG-S instead of just plain old legal PFG). For most of the day, I managed to not speak too much to anyone. I scared a grad student who stumbled into the lab where I was trying to troubleshoot a program for my former advisor. I bumped into a former co-worker and plied her for information about possible job leads. But no politics. And then, just when A___ and I were getting ready to leave, we ended up chatting with A___'s office mate R___. R____ was all atwitter about the campaign - specifically the news about McCain's choice of running mate.

"Well I read that she's got the Tina Fey vote tied up" he said. "Huh?" "Because she looks like her...you know?" he said. I think this was supposed to be ironic. "Oh, yeah I saw her. I kind of thought more Julia what's her name, the one from Seinfeld." R____ went on to discuss her record a bit too and give me his analysis on the reasons why McCain picked her. I said I felt McCain and Obama both choose people who seemed to have the aura of just the other side of the center. McCain picked a woman (to show he's a stand up guy who the ladies don't hate for having let rip a stray rape joke) and Obama picked Whitey McWhiterson. I know, I read Biden's bio. But when it comes to presidential elections, it's a show. And for democratic mainstream and a safe, nice, clean articulate white guy who makes the less than liberal center folks feel like everything is in "good hands", I think Biden is the man, so to speak. "Well, there's Dodd too. He's really fucking white." A___ quipped. Yes, Dodd. But Dodd's a dud. He's from CT (ew) and he's recently had some bad press, at least locally, involving special mortgage deals. Anyhow, I said all that and R___ told me that he likes Biden and then went on to say why. I feel like a jaded churl when I hear him discuss Biden as anything other than a PR device which panders to a low and likely racist electorate, but I can't help how I feel.

However, that is the point. It's how I FEEL, not how I think. How I think would reflect research on the potential Vice President picks and since I am just not that enchanted with presidential campaigns, I haven't brought myself to do that research. And without doing the digging, I'll never get real info. I'm certainly not going to get it from the tickerworthy news stories like this one, which was ambitiously titled "Obama says he'll 'fix broken politics'. "Oooh," I thought. "What's he gonna do?" because I really am a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington kind of gal. Term limits? Campaign finance reform? Ethics regulations? What might he be proposing to fix broken politics? I read on. And on. I got near the end still waiting for that crucial bit of information, but knowing who the entertainers were at the convention (Jennifer Hudson (who the fuck is she?) and will.i.am (?)).

Anyhow, because this is how I FEEL and not how I think, I've decided I am just not in the mood to engage in political bullshitting about this particular aspect of the upcoming election. I think instead my full attention would be better spent on the other races and issues that will be decided in the upcoming election. E.g.
The U.S. Senate...
Elections for the United States Senate will be held on November 4, 2008, with 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate being contested. Thirty-three seats are regular elections; the winners will be eligible to serve six-year terms from January 3, 2009 until January 3, 2015 as members of Senate Class II. There are also two special elections: one in Wyoming and another in Mississippi; the winners will serve the remainder of terms that expire on January 3, 2013, as members of Senate Class I.
And the U.S. House of Representatives...
The 2008 U.S. House of Representatives elections will be held on November 4, 2008, to elect members to the United States House of Representatives to serve in the 111th United States Congress from January 3, 2009 until January 3, 2011. All 435 seats are up for election. Democrats, who regained a majority in the 2006 elections hope to retain or expand their control of Congress.

Also, we have state legislative elections this year as well. How important are those? Consider same sex marriage in Massachusetts. An amendment to the Massachusetts' state constitution was proposed which would have defined marriage "only as the union of one man and one woman." The first vote by the state legislature involved a majority against it (yay), but still enough support (61 votes for) for the amendment to warrant another vote in the next legislative session (boo). The next vote resulted in only 45 for the amendment (yay). The required number of votes to pass it was 50 (yikes! just five votes from banning same sex marriage? Holy shit!).

So again, how important is your state legislative election? Rather, I'd say. And yet the news coverage is buried if present at all and the interest is low. My god, am I the only person who remembers Newt Gingrich?

So...(I say that a lot, how about "thus"?)
Thus, while I certainly do believe who the next president and vice president and presidential cabinet and federal executive appointments will be is terribly important, I can't help THINKING when I hear people around me all riled up and wanting to gab about the latest media mangled presidential campaign PR/news that they are sort of johnnie come latelies to the realities of their power as members of an electorate. And I am just not going to be a part of that bullshit. I care, I really do, but I'm not going to let that concern divert my attentions into what is a essentially side show extravaganza. I know the political icons are the elephant and donkey, but I THINK that perhaps at this point they should retire those fellows and replace them with the dog and pony.

work out

What, no leg warmers?

From CollegeHumor, via DevilDucky.

job posting of the day

Retail Sales Opportunities in Women's Lingerie at Nordstrom

Tuesdelightful

I'm taking a break from the job search bonanza that is my life these days. This morning's highlights included applying for one more low paying clerical position at a place which has already discarded two of my applications for being "overqualified" and "not best fit". Excellent. Also, I rearranged my resume so that the job titles appear before places of employment and modified descriptions and skills to fit HR jobs.

Wow. How's that for fun?

I opted to take a few moments away from this laugh-a-minute romp that is my job search to attend to the serious work of stream of consciousness internet surfing. Here's today's catch.
Addictionary, or more specifically The Political Addictionary.
What is The Addictionary? In their own words: The Addictionary is a site for word lovers and those who like to see our beloved English language grow in serious or humorous ways. We built the Addictionary to empower word-play and to help lovers of word-play showcase and market their cleverness and creativity to the world.

Discover new and exciting words like "suffragitis", "hibridicule", "preciselessness" or add your own.

Saturday

Well Thursday wasn't too bad. I was on campus, did what needed doing, and got my tooth filled. Turns out I have another filling due next week - gah. But hey, fillings and not root canals, so there's a bright side.

On the down side, I've been feeling like shit lately. I mean physically. I don't post too much about that stuff here anymore but weeks like this one make it impossible to write about me without this coming into it. I am in pain and feel sick every frikkin time I eat. Aside from losing weight again (yeah, this is why I dread buying expensive clothing...the yo-yoing weight issue), I'm feeling drained and angry. The anger come from exasperation, a lack of validation, and too many limitations. This anger is potent and it's in the form of a blank check, just waiting for some fool to stumble across it and write his or her name in the "Pay to the order of" line. Currently, I'm fighting to keep my primary care's office out of that line because I don't need to be any more surly with them if I want to maintain functionality of my relationships there. But it's not easy. I had an ultrasound on Thursday and was told by the tech they'd have results that day. No calls. No calls on Friday either. I had planned to give them most of Friday and then call around 4:00 but I forgot about it until about 20 minutes after I ate dinner Friday night.

Ok, enough of that. Thursday was good. I was energetic despite eating so little (no food for two hours after the filling and only being able to chew on one side of my mouth kept my food intake, and thus pain and nausea, down). One of the prof's whose house we were at offered for A___ and me to get married there. They have a nice place and it was a nice offer. But knowing him, I told him he should make sure that weekend works with his wife. Come to find out that no, it does not. So we're back to the justice of the peace at someplace pretty and then out for dinner/lunch somewhere plan. This isn't too bad, not just because it was what we had originally figured we'd do but because having it at the faculty home was starting to put it into the more formal category. I wanted to avoid that for some good reasons that will nonetheless sound jaundiced and jaded to some. Then again, most of that kind of person doesn't read my blog so fuck it. The reasons have to do with the fact that once you open that door, it's like you invite in all the expectations about "real weddings". E.g., my brother's reaction after I told him we might have this at the faculty house, which he's been to and knows is pretty and a slightly more formal venue.
"Do you have a theme?"
"Ah, a theme? Well we were thinking everyone could wear hats."
"..."
"You know, like I was going to get one of those ridiculous sun hats they sell at the drug stores in the summertime and A____ can wear this plastic party hat bowler thing because it will go with his tuxedo t-shirt."
"Oh no no no. He needs to wear a suit. We'll go shopping."
"We don't have money for that. Plus, A____'s wearing the tux T, we already bought it. He wanted to get one for you but I said you wouldn't wear it.
"I'm wearing my Calvin Klein suit."
"Go right ahead."
"What about cake? Are you doing cake?"
"I was thinking of asking our sister to make one."
"No. No no no. I'll go to my bakery (my brother has a bakery?). We'll get something, I won't say wedding but lots of flowers and a cake topper. You're having a cake topper."
"If you must put something on top, can it be a unicorn?"
"..."
"A___ would love a unicorn."
"A unicorn?"
"Yeah...oh and rainbows. Put a unicorn leaping over a rainbow on it."

Thursday

Just checked The Chronicle of Higher Ed job search pages. The postings include non-teaching positions, pretty much what I'm looking for or at least what I'll take. In case you missed it or forgot, I don't dislike teaching. I dislike teaching in a system which has so many institutional impediments to teaching and learning. Anyhow, no luck today. However, I did run across this pretty cool essay from the First Person feature in the Chronicle Careers section. It's a reflection on dealing with denial of tenure. So no jobs, but a nice essay which resonated well with me.

I'll be heading onto campus again today for more loose end tying up, then off to the dentist to make the most of the last few weeks of my dental insurance (cavities - yikes!), and then I'm scheduled to accompany my fella to the house of a faculty couple who routinely invite people over for drinking, hazing, and schmoozing. While I've been in the department and have spoken to a few people about my decision, if I go to this thing tonight, it will be the first time I'll be immerse in a high contact environment with my former faculty and peers since making my decision to leave official. By official I mean since having told staff and grad students who are integral to the departmental communication network (i.e. the gossipy people). I'd be a flat out liar if I said that the idea of going tonight hasn't given me some pause. But I'd also be lying if I denied the perverse impulse I have to not slink silently off the scene. I've had enough small scale, isolated interactions on this topic to know that some of the elements described by the author of the tenure essay seem uncannily like aspects of my own situation.

"For the time being, I have chosen the satisfaction that comes with confounding colleagues' expectations that I should be a cowering wreck. Dignity and forthrightness are easy to embody in my increasingly brief visits to the office because the bar is so low. Surprising people by merely walking upright offers both small victory and perverse amusement. I am always cordial, sometimes frank, but never ashamed.

A few people have praised my plucky stance. Being commended for how you handle tenure denial is a dubious honor, yet it also makes clear the absurdity of the logic that equates losing a tenure bid with losing dignity. I need my dignity not to prove something to my colleagues. Rather, I need it to prove to myself that I need not be helpless in this scenario. I have decisions to make."

Personal truths

Again, stealing from Bubblewench (whose blog has made me smile on more than one gloomy day). Here are some personal truths that make me smile and get me through my day.
- I have had an abundance of love in my life.
- Migraines suck, but if you can manage to rise to the occasion, migraine sex is amazing.
- Having all this time off (i.e. unemployed) means extra time with my fella and my kitty.
- We have three pounds of coffee in our fridge (sale!) and as my fella says, if you have three pounds of coffee on hand, things have gotta be at least moderately ok.
- I have a clean credit history.
- It is extremely easy to make me laugh.
- I'm pretty good at making other people laugh.
- My siblings are funny, smart, strong, and loyal.
- I know that I have made at least some aspects of a few people's lives easier or better.
- On any given day, someone somewhere is probably having the best day of their life.

in sickness and in health

To be realistic, it's likely to be more the former than the latter. Regardless, A___ and I have decided to seek government sanction for our union. Yep, that's right. Marriage.

Pragmatics, finances, and other whatnot dictate that the actual event will be sooner than later. We've spent a good deal of time talking about this decision. It's held up to many discussions, recastings, and even some arguments. And so we come to now, today, when we sat down to print out the marriage license application and talk actual real details. Pending a bit more information from the government about what is required and when (etc.) the event will be possibly as soon as within the next two weeks - although we are both leaning more toward the weekend of September 13th so we can indulge a romantic whim or two. Oh and families. Brothers and sisters, since they all are local.

The September date unfortunately puts our anniversary quite up near my birthday. To counter the bunching that would otherwise occur, we've decided we will celebrate an actual anniversary in May, which is when we finally stopped talking about this decision in hypotheticals and started discussing it as a future reality. Cinco di Maio looks like a good candidate for celebrating as our anniversary because, well, why not?

Personal lies

Bubblewench has asked "What are your personal lies?" That is, lies you tell yourself to get you through your day. Here are some of mine.
- People find me more charming than abrasive.
- My cat is going to live forever.
- Someday when I live near real doctors at real hospitals and I once again have good health insurance, I will be given a diagnosis of something which explains all my daily physical ailments, is readily treatable by eating something q.i.d. that tastes remarkably like candy, which has a 100% cure rate, and which has any or all of the following side effects: boundless energy, an unshakable sense of happiness and belonging, increased intellectual efficiency, and multiple orgasms.
- I do not have an autoimmune disease.
- The real reason I haven't found a job yet is that all of these jobs I've applied for are crap. The excellent, just right job for me is still out there waiting and will make itself known ANY DAY NOW, but certainly before I run out of health insurance and money.
- My fella is not getting fed up with my seemingly endless stream of illnesses.
- My family are not getting fed up with my seemingly endless stream illnesses.
- I'll feel better tomorrow.

Best hit yet

I was checking my site meter today and saw that someone happened upon my blog through a google search for tour de france shitting pants, which apparently yields this post as the top result. I'm so proud...

sign of the times

Last summer, I was at a crucial point in my decision process about whether or not to go forward with my PhD or to "cut and run". With most of the faculty from my own academic concentration rating somewhere between "clueless" and "douchebag" on the functionally useless scale, I had all but stopped trying to find academics in my department to talk out my problems with. And then I ran across this guy, this one junior professor from another academic unit in my department, and we had a really nice chat.

Well I stopped by his office again yesterday when I was on campus to officially drop out (i.e. meet with the dean and say "dude, I'm out of here...now how do I do this in a way that will not tax me in terms of me money, time, or my precious little tolerance for faculty based chicanery?"). Turns out this fellow was just up for tenure review this past year and didn't get it.

Oh. My. God.

He is an EXCELLENT faculty member. He has grant money. He has an active research program. He has great data. He's doing high impact research. His students LOVE him. He goes the extra mile for graduate and undergraduate students and for the department - the list of how would just be crazy long and it would sound like I was describing mother fucking theresa. But he didn't have enough first author publications. Thus, the department's finding was that if they could vote on the two separately, they would (a) give him tenure but (b) not promote him. This is the same deal which was given to a junior faculty member in my own academic unit this past year. The professor in my own unit is an unctuous bastard who routinely scoops the graduate student slave labor he employs, who runs a research sweat shop staffed by a gaggle of uninformed and undertrained undergraduates, and whose motto could quite reasonably be "Cramer can cram it!"

For some reason, which I do not fully understand possibly because I didn't want to pry for more information than this (outside my unit) professor was volunteering, this professor did NOT get the tenure without raise deal.

And so I left his office yesterday feeling more shaken than I had about actually officially dropping out a few hours before. On the, uh, bright (?) side, this embittering news only strengthens my conviction that I have made the right decision in leaving my program.

will it work?

A video of my cat making out with his catnip plant. The quality is bad because it's recorded on a cell phone. But what I'm wondering is will it even play? Go blogger - yay! The lovely audio is the downstairs neighbors remodeling. At least they have the decency to work on the condo during reasonable hours (not like my old landlord, who felt 10:00 PM was a perfectly reasonable time to begin stripping the floor on the apartment above me). When I get a chance to sneak into my (ex) lab next, I'll use the version of quicktime pro I bought those losers and add some nicer audio. Perhaps a love song, maybe some Isaac Hayes. For now, I give you my cat (with carpentry, allergro ma non troppo).

job posting of the day, or "girl 6"?

Actor/Actress
You could be working for the largest telecommunications company in the world! Do you have a charming voice? Do you love chit chat? If so, you may be the perfect candidate for telephone acting! You MUST have an open mind and a very charming voice!

It goes on, but really, by this point it's just about said it all. Or rather, it's said much more without explicitly saying it than much else in the job description ads to. A quick google of the company.com referred to in the posting* discloses that yes, indeed, it is phone sex. So how much does phone sex pay these days? "$15+ per hour. (hourly rate plus bonuses)" Man, I don't even WANT to know what the bonuses are for.

*It probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyhow because it's so important: For any job search, always, always google the company if a company name is given and if not, google what you can get from the posting.

terrible life choice

Grad School Musical

"Where is my P.I." is my favorite...

blah

The last few days have kind of sucked. Fortunately, the Kitty Cat Dance helps.

job posting of the day

Women's Health Breastfeeding Recruiter
The phrasing suggests a breastapo-like agenda. By the title, this sounds like a job where you'd be recruiting women to engage in breast feeding. But no. Turns out you'd be recruiting women to participate in a study on promoting breast feeding. A slightly different thing, although in practice I suspect both meanings are accurate.
This position is part of a grant funded, multi-year study designed to see if peer counseling, specialized for obese women, can be an effective strategy for promoting the World health Organization's recommendation to exclusively breastfeed for at least 6 months. ...This recruiter/interviewer will have the critical role of recruiting obese, low-income pregnant women from the Women's Ambulatory Health Services Clinic At HH to participate in the study.

bomb

Today is the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

"As the bomb fell over Hiroshima and exploded, we saw an entire city disappear. I wrote in my log the words: My God, what have we done?"
- Capt Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the U.S. Air Force bomber Enola Gay that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug 6, 1945. At least 117,000 people were killed. (Reuters)

perceptions of feminism

More from "I Was A Teenage Feminist", distributed by Women Make Movies.

Some issues with the voice over - although I realize that I haven't seen the whole movie and so I don't know the context these words were being said in. But the notion of worrying about whether or not to hide that you're a feminist on a date simply does not resonate with me. Trying to hide that I'm a feminist would be like trying to hide an elephant in a teacup. However, while I can imagine that lust-blindness or extreme wishful thinking could lead to such an incompatible pairing for a first date (do people date as a way to get to know each other still?), I don't understand why someone who identifies as a feminist would in fact want a second date with a person shows signs he thinks all feminists are...well, watch the clip and ask yourself if you'd want a first or second date with any of these characters (excepting Anthony in NY).

Are you a feminist?

Clips from "I Was A Teenage Feminist", distributed by Women Make Movies.


An added bonus - a link from Trixie Films (makers of I Was a Teenage Feminist) is to Women In Media and News, a site I am thinking will appeal to at least two of the people who read this blog (which is a considerable percentage of my readers).

Not necessarily

News or commentary?
Dems wield oversight cudgel on Bush administration
By Laurie Kellman, Associated Press Writer
July 30, 2008

WASHINGTON - Across Capitol Hill, Democratic-led committees are considering punishments for past and present Bush administration officials for a range of alleged misdeeds, from discriminating against liberals at the Justice Department to blowing off subpoenas and lying to Congress.

The proceedings on Wednesday are the latest congressional review of the White House, a constitutionally mandated power that majority Democrats relish. But three months out from Election Day, a lame-duck Congress conducting oversight of a lame-duck White House produces mostly talk. There's little time and less willingness to spend the remaining five weeks of the congressional session doing more than holding televised hearings to try to convince voters that President Bush has abused the powers of his office.
...
The story goes on with no support, whether in the form of quotes or even analysis of conduct and practices, for Kellman's claim that congressional review of the White House was being conducted with "relish" or that such practices amount to wielding a cudgel.
Nice "reporting", Ms. Kellman.

OMG - my cell phone is cooking my brain!

I just heard about the cell phone/popcorn thing this weekend. The person who told me about it was not telling it in a "funny" way. He was telling it in a "omg think about what it's doing to your brain!?" way. I have a strong streak of skepticism and so I googled it. Apparently it was a "stealth marketing" campaign which was supposed to be "funny". On the CNN video clip below, the announcer asks "and what about the idea that videos try to scare people who hold cell phones close to their heads?" The response to this or a similar question from the CEO of the headset company behind the hoax is "we really never meant to eh ehm insinuate any of that ehm...the truth is that it was funny..." The jerk goes on to chuckle about stealth marketing. The news guy obliges him with a giggle, which was to me entirely creepy.

kitty

Who wants a kitten? Anyone? Vengicar perhaps? C'mon....you know you want another kitty.
8 week old grey female who was rescued but who can't be kept by her rescuer. I'm told she's very sweet. More details as I get them. For now, here's a not very high quality picture of the kitty.
Email me if you're local to CT or MA and interested.

this just isn't me...

I took this from Bubblewench's blog. Clearly a flawed blog-thing, at least when it came to my name.

What PFG's Real World Name Means

You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are a very lucky person. Things just always seem to go your way. And because you're so lucky, you don't really have a lot of worries. You just hope for the best in life. You're sometimes a little guilty of being greedy. Spread your luck around a little to people who need it. You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something. You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense. You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Here comes the rain

Again.

It just started, after several days of blistering hot. The last time it rained I got all excited, thinking the heat would break. Nope. It just got humid. I still do like the rain though. The windows are open, it's dark, and I can hear the rain just starting up like distant applause. Too much to hope it means a break in the heat? Probably. So I'll just enjoy it for what it is for now.

A____ and I have been total couch potatoes this weekend which has for me extended into Tuesday. I occasionally get up to apply to a job or run an errand but mostly I've been low key. I was looking around Monday thinking "Man, I should clean this place up. Why haven't I cleaned? I've been off work...." then I walked out of the one air conditioned room in the apartment and into the suffocatingly hot hall and remembered, right - because I could clean one room or pass out from heat stroke. For now, I'll just look at this as a bit of a vacation, my unemployed state and the heat conspiring to keep me in and lazy. Something like being in the tea room except my life's ok. Yeah, I'm looking for work and yeah, it sometimes keeps me up at night worrying about money, but I've got some savings, family, a cat who is super pleased that his people are around so much, and of course A___ - who is all sorts of wonderful.

job posting of the day

"RN, Will Train, Get off the floor and into Dialysis!!!"
So is kidney failure a job requirement, or would one be getting into dialysis just for fun?

new word

Out of total desperation, A___ and I have watched some episodes of Lost. I know, I'm like 4 years late.

Now that I've watched it, I can say with authority that yes, it is crap. At least season one is. Things I've learned from this show.
- Gender stereotypes, they aren't just for women anymore!
- The "take my child, please!" genre has finally jumped from the big screen to the little screen. I suspect Lifetime movies facilitated this leap.
- A whole style of delivery can be categorized in one word, "cryalogue"*. This is what happens when you have a volley of lines which are delivered with throaty sobs and frantic, indistinguishable diction. I'm not sure the writers are to blame for this. It could be the actors, but ultimately I blame the director and whoever s/he is working for who said "oh yeah, that's perfect". I sometimes pretend to be the director during these moments. That is, I yell directions to the actors from my couch. "You're upset! Be more upset! More crying! More sniffling! Scrunch up your face and say it again, but louder and less articulately!"

* = Can't take credit for the word. I googled it after using it and found this entry.

temp to perm

back around

One of the faculty members in my department has Lyme. While this is not the faculty member I most wished a nasty case of Lyme on - yes, I admit that I have often harbored such wishes regarding at least three faculty members from the program I am leaving - this is the faculty member who most overtly and vocally supports hazing of grad students.

summer cold?

Last day of work and the first student I met with had the sniffles. I didn't think much of it, until this morning when I woke up with my ears crackling and my head feeling stuffed full of achy tightness.

Bright side? Um....my current boss invited me to lunch sometime this or next week. This is nice although possibly only that. The issue is I need a job, they have an opening (it just opened up), but I don't think lunch means anything more than lunch. I have a few reasons for thinking this. One is that I've dropped several rather pointed hints (her: "Let me know if there's anything I can do for you", me: "Ok. You can give me a job") and she's not picked 'em up. The other came yesterday, when the topic of job searching came up a few times (several of my co-workers are looking for jobs or looking to change jobs right now). In response to hearing about two positions I'd applied to most recently, my boss said that I probably wouldn't get a call. She said this about each job and it made me feel this big.

cool job

(posted at Feminist Career Center, Feminist Majority Foundation site)
June 20, 2008
Job Title: Publicity and Publications Manager
Organization: Women Make Movies
Region: East Coast
Description: Founded in 1972, Women Make Movies (WMM) is a non-profit feminist, media arts organization dedicated to the distribution and exhibition of films by and about women. With a collection of more than 500 titles, WMM is the largest distributor of films by and about women in the world. WMM also facilitates the production of feminist media through a Production Assistance Program, which includes a workshop series and a fiscal sponsorship program. WMM is an equal opportunity employer and encourages women of color, lesbians and older women to apply.

Women Make Movies is seeking an energetic, dedicated and highly motivated full-time Publicity and Publications Manager to promote and publicize WMM, the Production Assistance Program and its collection of films to our customers, potential customers, filmmakers and the media. The Publicity and Publications Manager will be responsible for copy development, branding and production management for all promotional and publicity materials and marketing collateral, including website, emails, catalog, flyers, posters, brochures, DVD covers and press kits. This is a great opportunity for someone with exceptional writing and public relations skills to serve as a team leader and work collaboratively with a management team to develop the potential of a highly regarded, internationally recognized distributor.

Qualifications:
-3-5 years professional experience in copywriting, public relations, branding and editorial. Excellent writing skills a must.
-Enthusiasm and passion for Women Make Movies. Experience in film industry desired.
-Strong computer skills and knowledge of graphic design programs.
-Ability to juggle multiple tasks under deadlines and work both independently and as a team.
-Flexibility, professionalism and a positive attitude.
-Sense of humor appreciated.

Salary and Benefits:

-Competitive salary based upon experience.
-Excellent benefits package including medical and dental insurance, long term disability, retirement plan, vacation and paid holidays.

To apply: Send, fax or email cover letter and resume describing your relevant experience, where you saw this job posting listed and salary requirements (please do not say negotiable; though you may give us a range) to:

Women Make Movies
ATTN: Publicity and Publications Manager Search
462 Broadway, Suite 500
New York, NY 10013
fax: 212.925.2052
email: jobs@wmm.com (with subject line: Publicity and Publications Manager)

NO PHONE CALLS, PLEASE!
Contact:
Phone:
E-Mail: jobs@wmm.com
Website: http://www.wmm.com
Closing Date: August 7, 2008

woo-hoo

Hey, I just got a call to set up an interview for a job! Whoopie!
Whether I get it or not, at least I feel a little less like a loser who's just spinning her wheels here sending out all these resumes and shit. Also, apparently the header/contact info is not a problem for everyone.

que sara

A first.
I just sent out a cover letter, resume, and reference list for a position a local college. Within an hour, I get a reply that my contact information is not on them.
Um, no. It's in the header. It's taking a bit of restraint for me to not write back saying this and include "dumbass".

I'm going to file this under "job I might not want to have". Why? Because if it were me who was in charge of receiving resumes, I'd actually open the files I got and view them in a normal window. Or I'd have put in the post that files must be plain text format or plain text compatible. I see today's experience as a hint that the person in charge or people I'd work with have less attention to detail than I do and have minimal problem solving skills, which to me is not an ideal work situation.

But ultimately, this experience is informative. I now know that people will not reliably know to view a document in Word, even when the applicant has stated that the files are formatted for Word 97-2003 in the email to files are attached to. Apparently, depending on how the recipient chooses to view the file, header information may not show up.
Live and learn.

not-bot

In a comment on another post*, AM asked where a recent ad commentary I had posted went. It was up for a few days, and then I took it down. It's back up, but will be down again in the future. The reason for all this is that the post got a hit from a corporate data miner. Here's some info about the program that hit my blog:
"...through the monitoring of blogs and other online public forums, we have the most information about online consumer sentiment and behavior, allowing our clients to make more informed business decisions." Yes, one of those "business decisions" could be whether or not to sue someone who is commenting on how the business is conducted if that commentary includes examples of images or other proprietary elements. Think I'm paranoid? Consider the following, from the data mining program's website:
"Organizations are...realizing that monitoring and protecting brand and copyright usage has become....harder with the rise of the Internet. Phishing, spoofing sites, phony links, misleading photos – there are literally thousands of ways a brand or copyrighted images can be misused. The rise of blogging and recent amendments to fair-use laws in the United States that allow journalistic use of copyrighted material without permission, have made it even more challenging."

Thus, this commentary may move around.

*I deleted the comment since it included a word which would greatly enable future searches.

cozy

I'm at home after the post-last official day of work semi-mandatory work party at the house of my boss. She's fun, but it was an outdoor event and the outdoors in the backwoods of CT scare the hell out of me since I caught Lyme in 2002. Lest I forget how much that sucked and how much the physical symptoms I have had since contracting Lyme continue to suck, my left ankle's been hurting a lot the last two days. (I blame the wacky weather. It's been overcast, warm, and humid all week. Today's nice weather comes courtesy of a front that moved in yesterday, hence more joint pain.) It was fairly throbbing earlier. I thought about wrapping it but then remembered my bad luck with such things and bagged it, opting instead for medication.

I went to the party today covered in DEET and spent most of the few hours I was there sitting away from the grass, trees, ornamental shrubs, and other tick-havens. While my choice of seating left me a bit removed from the rest of my co-workers, I did have fun chatting with another woman who wouldn't come out onto the grass either. "Holy shit, so basically we're going to a fucking Tick-nic!?" she had asked last week when told about the location of this get together.
On the way home from the party, I started feeling really gross, probably on account of being drenched in DEET for going on four hours. I got home to find A____ making food - some kind of mexican beef thing which smells great now that I've had a shower and a blueberry muffin and shook off some of the ick feeling.

It's nice and quiet here right now, just the sound of the fan, some birds, and a faint but comfortingly familiar, specifically non-rural traffic hum from the highway about 1 mile to the south.

Like the sore ankle, my anxiety over not having a job yet is still lurking around the edges but it's such a pretty day and I'm so happy to be home early and to be able to have some down time with my fella later this evening that I'm determined not to let either of these bring me down right now.

job posting of the day

Assistant to the Vice President of Institutional Advancement
institutional advancement is one of those terms that makes my skin crawl.

cranky

The cat woke me up at 5:30 (a half hour before my alarm was set to go off) for food. He's been crying on and off throughout the night most nights these days. So up I got, and stumbled out to the kitchen. I bent down to get a can of cat food from a low shelf and smacked my head off the corner of the counter.

My day followed in a similar vein at work. No injuries, but it was not a good day. Lots of fuckery, some preventable and some not. The latter I can accept with some grace. The former however, tends to push my buttons, especially on a day that started out as unpleasantly as this one did.

Today was my last official day at work, and I don't have a job or even an interview.

My siblings, who were both just down for my sister's birthday, are both cranky right now too. And my fella's in some kind of semi-depressed or possibly sick state so he's sleeping a lot and feeling like shit.

On the plus side, I've never been a fan of July. Aside from my sister's birthday, the month generally is one of my less favorites. Too hot and lots of stagnation. So this July sucking already, well, it's not like it's wrecking a month I love and that's a little sliver of a bright side.

birthdays

It's the fourth of July. For me this means two things. There's the whole holiday, fireworks, barbecue, etc thing but more importantly, it means my sister's birthday.

Yes, my sister is a yankee doodle child, but only by an accident of biology. If you imagine the kind of person who would love the idea of being born on July fourth, someone who would wear red, white, and blue, who would want a cake dripping with patriotic frosting buntings, who would jump around doing a sparkler dance in the evening while singing patriotic tunes and wearing a straw hat decked with stars and stripes, then you are imagining someone who is largely the opposite of my sister.

Aside from AM's not terribly patriotastic disposition, there was also the fact that our dad was firmly against allowing us to attend any parades or fireworks. Thus, for me the fourth of July has a weaker association with the national holiday than it does with AM's birthday and AM's birthday tastes. So here's what I think of as we near July fourth.

AM liked chinese restaurants, especially the kinds with ornately carved dragons and red fringed laterns. I say "liked" but I think actually this still applies. (My use of past tense is simply because I am speaking of the conditions of our childhood, the ones which shaped my associations with this date.) And indeed, this year I was thinking we could order chinese food. Or maybe I should make some kind of sweet and sour dish with rice. Or a sesame noodle thing. Chinese food and such dishes have featured prominently in my plans for her birthday since becoming an adult. When we were kids, AM's birthday celebrations often included going to a pond or lake with a group of kids. We should find somewhere to swim, I find myself thinking when considering how to celebrate her birthday. Other memorable AM birthdays included the sundae party and a tie-dye party (clearly this was in the late 70s or very early 80s). These condition my up to now unexamined belief that I must get ice cream and perhaps plan some crafts on her birthday.

My brother was born late in November. His birthday usually falls within a week of Thanksgiving, sometimes on the actual day. Needless to say, T____ has had many a turkey birthday cake. Other than a turkey shaped cake, T's birthday wasn't necessarily associated with any food in particular, probably because there is so much cooking going on around it that we just didn't establish a set meal or type of meal for the birthday proper. When his birthday comes around, I (usually) suppress the perverse desire to order him a turkey cake since as an adult, T has forbidden turkey birthday cakes, opting instead for a standard birthday cake decorated with frosting flowers in "autumn colors".

My own birthday is near a set of Jewish holidays. My family's not Jewish, which is good for my birthday I think because of the two holidays my birthday falls near or on, one involves a fast and the other involves gefilte fish.

So it's my sister's birthday and my sibs are both coming down tomorrow so we can celebrate. I'm off to go plan meals and order unpatriotic cake and whatnot. Assuming one can order any cake, let alone an unpatriotic one, on the fourth of July.

tgiao?

My job is not that hard. There are some organizational issues which end up making more work for everyone, but providing it gets shared fully among the people whose slack caused the extra work, it's not so bad. There have been I think two days that I've been annoyed by this, and on both days I was feeling shitty enough physically to have it impact my mood and general outlook.

Our boss is kind of hands off, assuming we'll all self organize into a more or less efficient system. What makes for problems is that the system which academics naturally self organize into when confronted with tasks like those at this job (e.g. filing, organizing paperwork, tracking down administrative details) is not a more or less efficient one. For that goal to be achieved, someone has to take on the job of herding, coaching, cajoling, or whatever. It's a largely thankless, rarely respected, and much maligned job and so I can't blame my boss for avoiding it somewhat. And perhaps it has worked out in the past, however I think a few factors conspired against a more efficient outcome this year. One is that we had a shitload of students accept admission this year. Another is that the office was down a program assistant. That would be one of the people who would at least peripherally herd. And a final factor is that the staff consists of a lot of new people who didn't come in with a good idea of what needed doing or the best way to do it.

Anyhow, aside from the extra work we sometimes make for ourselves due to our tendency to self organize into a mini-goat screw, it's a decent job. I like it ok and I thought my coworkers did too. It has nice hours aside from being up early but I thought lots of people were early risers. Several of my coworkers have told me they are up and out by 7 most days even when they are not working here. There are reasonably decent people to work with, e.g., there is not a single person who is chronically tweeking or zombified, who is angry all the time, or who is all up in your face with whatever ("let's have a birthday party!!!"). Everyone says "good morning" and usually talks to one another if they are in the same room.

My coworkers are not disgruntled or maltreated workers. Our work is not physically or emotionally draining. It is not terribly cognitively demanding and while there are challenges and some problems to be solved, we have at our disposal the tools to meet and solve them. Many of us leave quite early most days because we think that although we were hired to work until 4:00, if we are done by 2:30 with whatever routine work we were doing in the afternoon, then 2:30 or very shortly after is quitting time. Sometimes this is true. Either way, we are actually underworking and getting paid for lots of time we aren't even there. Generally, no one gets too uptight about that either. Sometimes something slips through the cracks and it sets of a flurry of catching up and running around later but it's not like anyone gets viciously chastised or ostracized for having ditched out.

And finally, the students we work with (who do tend to make up the larger topic of complaint when any specific complaint is made) rotate through so fast that if there are some not so great ones in the bunch, they are out of your hair quite soon after they start getting on your nerves.

Thus, by all accounts, I'd say this job is a pretty sweet gig. Therefore, it strikes me as odd that over the last week or so, a lot of people have been making statements like "Thank god it's almost over!" While I consistently question what the motivation for this attitude is, I have different overt responses to these statements. Sometimes I try to look and sound agreeable because I know they assume we all share this sense of relief and to indicate otherwise would mean touching on a disclosure moment I'm fairly certain is not considered terribly polite. I sometimes ask "why?" And sometimes, when I'm feeling a little tetchy, I can't stop myself from saying I'm having a hard time feeling psyched about being unemployed. Yeah, gotta work on that.

Anyhow, I've decided that this "thank god it's almost over" attitude is similar to the "you don't have to be crazy to work here... but it helps!" type of comment/attitude which is repeated without much thought about whether a job or place of work really is all that nutty/rough/busy/hard/etc. This line of thought naturally called to mind Maria Bamford's "Crazy Office" routine, which I present below for your viewing pleasure.

Good vid

Can ya tell A____'s been busy? Ok, one last thing and then I'm off to bed. Thanks to Winterwheat for the link.


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

yum?

Another radio commercial, this time for The 99 Restaurant featuring their new spicy cha-cha corn on the cob! Spicy cha-cha? I couldn't wait to get home. I whipped out my headset to call my brother to share. "Do you get it? Cha-cha?!" I spluttered into the phone as I drove down one of the more charming (i.e. deadly) rural CT roads.

I'm glad my brother has the same stupid sense of humor I do.

Out of the tower

I've spent the last few months doing a good deal of repackaging as I try to make a less than rocky transition out of an academic, teaching/research career path. There are several challenges in this, some unique to me and my situations and some I believe shared. Given my health status, any direct consideration of career involves evoking that anxiety producing question "what CAN I do?" I'm not talking what kinds of jobs will I be happy with or what kinds of work do I have the skills to do. I'm talking at a basic level - what do I reliably have the energy, physical fortitude, and emotional and cognitive resources to do? But that's me and my health, which is an issue I do try to save the in depth discussion of for a different blog these days.

Shared among myself and anyone who is at or considering approaching such a boundary are the more general questions like "how does all this experience I've racked up in the traditional academic track translate into a less traditional or completely non-academic career?" "Do I need to start at entry level in a new job (say, in human resources) or can I reasonably expect to be attractive to employers seeking experienced, mid to upper level workers?"

Probably this is a topic I will return to as I am in the throws of another job search. My current job ends in about two weeks and so far I've sent out resumes but haven't heard back from any prospects. My brother assures me this is in no small part due to both the crappy economy plus the post-graduation resume flood - and he says that as summer wears on and hiring managers work their way through the stacks of replies to job postings, I will probably hear something. Of course, that doesn't address the economic problems and the tight job market. Still, I have no choice but to try to be an optimist, to keep going and to keep looking as much as the process sucks. While I wait, and keep searching, and keep sending resumes and cover letters, I intend to post here about some of it. Well, what I can stand to anyway. For now, I present a nice article on translating your CV into a resume, again from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Why can't we all just get along?

Below are some excerpts from an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education. I will have to think about the author's final analysis on the function of dysfunction. As it stands, I came into this essay more properly on the side of the author's friend, although I don't usually put it into exactly those words. I am more sympathetic to the kid who retreated from the social scene of primary and secondary school than this phrasing (below) seems to be, although the sympathy has some rigid limits. One is that we are not children anymore. We're grown ups and should be reasonably expected to at least TRY to have a perspective which incorporates that fact and which is wider than our own shoulders. The author seems concerned with exonerating the shitty behavior of his cohort, but then I suppose I would be too if I were to stay in academia. It's the other extreme of the spectrum, the opposite of the bitter pill/sour grapes phenomena.

The Function of Dysfunction
An associate professor ponders the cause and effect of academic infighting
...
As I was describing our latest departmental dust-up to a friend who is not an academic, he interrupted with an observation. "The problem with professors," he said, "is that they never learned to get along with others." According to my friend, your typical professor is the socially awkward kid from high school who didn't fit in anywhere outside of the library. Unable to cut it in the real world, we just opted to stay in school. Eventually we ran out of classes to take, so we had to start teaching them. But at no point did we acquire basic social skills.

One of my faculty colleagues (who actually has pretty good social skills) offered another perspective. He pointed out that academics, especially humanists, are wholly invested in the idea of intellectual exchange. "Look at our classes," he reasoned. "What do we do? We circle a bunch of people around a table and talk. What we want more than anything is to create and participate in intellectual communities."

job posting of the day

package handler

job posting of the day

Non-Destructive Inspection Project Manager
I could and did parse this in ways not intended by the HR rep who posted it. Here's what kind of thing came to my mind.

Wedding album

I finished (I think) the wedding mix I'm making for my friend. Here's the playlist and cover art.
The Taco Bell Canon (artist unknown, CD lost)
Spam Song - Monty Python
Heart of Glass - The Bad Plus
Willimantic USA - (artist unknown, recorded before 1950 I think)
Connecticut's for Fucking - Jesus H Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse
My Generation rx - rx
Big Balls - Hayseed Dixie
Seasons in the Sun/Hustle - The Squirrels
Flower Girl - Joe Henry
Herbs, Good Hygiene and Socks - Lovage
Love You Madly - Cake
Gopher Mambo - Yma Sumac
A Hard Day's Night - Peggy Lee
You Oughta Know - Richard Cheese
Always on my Mind - Lewinski
St. Paul's Mix - me (sort of - I mixed it. The artists are Eddie Izzard, clips from Airplane, the Simpsons, the Marx Brothers, Pat Boone, and an anonymous MIDI composer who made a version of Mama Told Me (not to come)).











Now, I just need to hope I still have a date for the wedding Saturday. A____'s family stuff is looking grim.

Dump day

As you can perhaps surmise from the title of this post, today was not a good day. The list is just sort of depressing crap, some trivial and some not trivial. While I'm a fan of venting, putting it all down here isn't going to help right now. I know because I just started to and realized it was only winding me up more. So here's the abridged version.

- A____'s parents can't afford their house and are moving under less than exhaustively planned circumstances next week. Everyone's sick, so A____'s doing a very large amount of the work. Just what he wanted, another move. He's so damned busy and stressed over this (understandably) that he probably can't go to the wedding this weekend with me, which makes for the not super pleasant prospect of going alone. I tried calling some pals, but no one is up for it, or more to the point, everyone's out of town, chronically unreliable, or sick.

- Along the everyone's sick theme, my cat Max is sick. The only thing that was odd in his bloodwork from last week was an elevated calcium level. The vet told me today that this can be a sign of a particular kind of cancer that attacks or affects the intestine, which his symptoms are consistent with. We were really hoping it was thyroid, not because that would be great but because it would be less bad.

-In about two weeks, I will be unemployed and nothing (zero) has come of all the applying I've been doing. Last night, between the cat and the prospect of joblessness, I couldn't get to sleep. This hasn't helped my mood. Not one bit.

So it's officially Dump Day here in Connecticant.
I'm hoping tomorrow is better.

8 dirty words

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advise

So the job search continues. Yes, I am currently employed but this job ends in mid July, which means unless I want to go on unemployment I need to get my ass in gear and get me some job prospects. Bad market for someone looking to change career paths, right? Yeah, well that's me. A master of timing. There are two recent postings which look decent. One is an academic advising position and the other is an office coordinator position. Pros and cons? Of course, for both. My pros and cons even have pros and cons. I am Libra, hear me deliberate!

Advising is what I'm doing now and I like it, a lot. This is what I've always done. Whether or not it was warranted or desired, I give advice quite freely. On the up side, I've learned to avoid speculation when giving advice. Short of gagging myself in the presence of someone discussing a problem or challenge, this seems to be the best strategy to accommodate my need to let loose with a stream of "helpful" suggestions while (hopefully) avoiding the pitfall of spewing a load of crap. Speculating is what I call it when someone doesn't have any hard empirical evidence or explicit knowledge of a thing but continues speaking as if he or she does. To me, this is a cardinal sin, and really damned annoying. The speaker who finds him or herself in such a context should at least have the good grace to say "Well I don't know for sure but based on A (b, and c), I think X", where A (b, and c) are spelling out at least minimally. This allows the listener to know how to rank the particular advice being given. I've given this much thought. How much? Most of my late twenties in fact. I went through this big communication crisis in my late twenties, which I chalk up rather superstitiously to being part of my Saturn return, and which made me a very difficult person to talk to during the time. But I'm clear of it now and I do believe I've learned some useful lessons so in the final accounting, including how to temper my need to advise with some acknowledgment of the limits of my experience, so this is a good thing I suppose.

But back to the jobs and deliberating about which one I should pin my hopes and wishes to, at least until the next round of searching comes along. The one job is advising. It's full time and if it is not flexible time then I'm screwed. Moreover, it is at an institution with a religious affiliation. Not great. However, it's my sense that religiously affiliated institutions may have more respect for needs like caring for family (i.e. my brother) and an institutional understanding that, well, shit happens in life. I am hopeful that I'll be less likely to encounter that wretched secular Calvinism which marks so many professional cultures in the U.S. if I work for a catholic institution, but my distrust of organized religion is so strong that even typing that last phrase gives me a small internal shudder.

The other job is office coordinating. This one is a part time, 35 hour a week position. Pros? Less committed time for work, less responsibility (hopefully). Cons? Less money, less responsibility (yes, it's a pro and a con), and more of that low man on the totem pole shit. There's a tendency in academic culture to treat administrative support staff like crap, which can manifest as explicitly shitty behavior or as seemingly benevolent but ultimately condescending attitude, and god knows I don't deal gracefully with either.

The list of pro and con goes on, but I don't feel the need to put all two of my blog readers through the full, winding process - especially since with this job market it could end up I don't even get an interview for either position. I'll be sending resumes for both today, so wish me luck.

weddings

Well only one I'm going to, so properly that should read "wedding", however it is wedding season and thus the plural. Maybe it should be a mass noun, like oatmeal or brick. I'm going to a wedding at the end of the month. Unlike many joyous unions I hear of, this is one I approve of. The participants, that is the blessed couple, are both fully self-aware adults for starters. Moreover, the bride (B___) and hubby (R____) to be have wonderful senses of humor which I'm sure will influence the ceremony. E.g., they have titled the wedding "The Motorcycle Marriage of the Martians" and sent B-movie themed invites. Excellent. They also requested no presents unless they are d.i.y. and out of sentiment, like a pair of knit socks - no seriously, this was in their invite. They're very cool people. So I made a special Letters to the Corinthians mix for them since B____ and I have a running joke about this being a necessary part of ANY wedding ceremony. As in "so how was the wedding?" "Oh you know, Letter from Paul, dyeable shoes, chicken polka, oh yeah and Pachelbel's Canon."

While the Letter from Paul mix (called "Love is Patient" and featuring Pat Boone, Eddie Izzard, Airplane quotes, and the Marx Brothers) is hand made, I have a prefab but still totally excellent version of Pachelbel called "the Taco Bell Canon". I have it somewhere. Somewhere in the boxes. I hope to unearth in it time to burn to the cd for B___ and R_____. Time's a ticking though, and speaking of, it's bed time for pfg, so I leave you with this google gem I found while leaning how to spell "pachelbel".

jobs

If you've used online job sites like Career Builder or Monster lately, this isn't news to you. For me, it's news. It seems no matter what I'm searching for, apparently the US military offers me employment opportunities which are an excellent match. E.g., are you looking for work as an entry level professional hummel duster in Duluth, Minnesota? Well apparently the United States Navy Reserve is the place for you. Cat washer in Sweetwater, Texas? You'll want to try the Army. And just wait 'til you see what you get after 6 months of active duty...

hicks

Below is an excerpt from a news story from Vernon, CT. I don't live in Vernon CT, but I've lived near it on and off since living in CT.

Vernon is a combination of the backwoodsy ruralities - the hallmark of the Northeastern section of CT - and a few miles of traffic filled, stripmall lined roads. They have a Price Chopper. There are some diners in Vernon. I feel this makes it distinct from other more truly rural places like Coventry or Ashford. The town of Vernon boasts one lane roads over covered bridges, a paucity of street lights, no sidewalks, and other elements which the residents of this foul state apparently consider quaint. Adding to the quaintness factor are the locals in Vernon, who do what they can to preserve that good old country feel. What makes a CT local? In part, it seems to be many generations of careful breeding, often among just a couple of families who can be traced back to some of the earliest settlers of the area. This results in as little brains as teeth among the lot of them and news items like this one from the Hartford Courant.

VERNON - — Armed with tin snips and fortified by an evening of drinking, a Vernon man led an assault on an electronic speed sign mounted to a utility pole near his South Street home early Sunday.

After noticing the sign missing, police launched a search and soon found its charred remains in a fire pit behind the home of Ben Gardiner.

Gardiner, 22, of 291 South St., admitted, police said, to taking out his anger on the sign after it flashed his speed as he arrived home about 1 a.m. Sunday.
...
Gardiner and friends took the sign to Gardiner's backyard and took turns running toward it to measure their speed. This apparently caused much delight, police said.

The fun lasted until a woman in the group suggested that the sign might have a tracking device or camera on it that could lead police to them. That caused the group to "to freak out," witnesses said. They decided to burn the sign in the fire pit.

work

Yesterday at work my boss announced "Tomorrow afternoon we are having ice cream with mental health..."
I asked "Is ice cream with mental health like ice cream with sprinkles?"

When I got home, I told A____ about ice cream with mental health tomorrow. "Is that like sprinkles?" he said, beating me to the punchline.

Work is going well. The early mornings are dealable, not great but mostly ok. I can tell I need to find a more local job or a later start date before the year swings around into dark, snow, and ice. But it's a good thing to know, a learning experience in a relatively low risk environment.

Here are some other things I've learned.
- I still have a visceral dislike of men. I knew this and experienced it very strongly in my early 20s but being a student masked it for a number of reasons which I invite you to ponder if you're inclined.
- Despite having some physical shortcomings, I am a good worker. E.g., I believe if something needs doing and those present and aware can do it, they should. I believe there is no point rushing through a job if the only goal is to finish fast (and leave earlier) and if rushing is likely to make far more work for you or someone else later on. My beliefs guide my actions.
- I can't take phone calls after 9:00 PM if I want to get to bed on time.
-I can't hit snooze more than once in the morning or I'll be late.
- I need more work clothes.
- I am good at counseling and training and should probably be looking for human resources jobs.
- I still have a hard time working through irritation or impatience (usually at blithering incompetency, likely coupled with an attitude which strikes me as indicating a lack of even minimal age appropriate social and identity awareness) without it showing. I'm planning on using the rest of this temp job to work on that. I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunities.

Glut

I'm a radio listener. Regular old radio, not satellite HD pay per whatever radio. Want commercial free? Listen to public radio. Even if NPR and their various elitist programs sets your teeth on edge, if you live in or near civilization, a little walk through the lower end of the band will find some public radio stations which play interesting and varied community based shows.

Unfortunately, today I was on my way to work during Democracy Now and I wanted to hear music. The other public radio stations were playing polka-jazz-bluegrass fest or something, so I wandered up the dial until I found some music I could stand. And sing along to. Yes, I am a car singer. As "I Will Survive" ended, the station segued into an ad blitz leading with an Applebee's ad. I was busy merging and got stuck listening to it rather than scanning on to avoid it. I tuned out most of it but I caught this punchline... "Applebees. So much food, so little time."

Holy shit.

I understand that a long work day can create meal planning and executing issues but that is not the gist of this closer. I doubt that too many of us truly find ourselves thinking "That was yummy but I sure could use more time so I could stuff even more food into my face.", and if we do, this is a sign of either an unhealthy relationship with food or a life completely out of balance. Given the upbeat, snappy FUN tone of the ad and the delivery of the line, it's clear the advertisers assume the message of glorified gluttony will resonate and that it will resonate not just with some of us but with many of us.

I spent the rest of the way to work with thoughts of gluttony percolating in the back of my head, thinking of the many forms gluttony can take. SUVs in particular spring to mind.

Here's a short list -
Carpet plush lawns and domestic landscaping involving non-native plants, especially those maintained during droughts.
Super sized anything.
Professional pedicures.
Throwing away all the spare stuff and furniture you don't want to or can't move with you rather than finding someone or somewhere to give it away for re-use (every time someone moves out, take a peek at the dumpster if you live in a complex).

I was also wondering what in my own life counts as gluttony. I am a participant in this culture. It is unreasonable to expect that I don't also have habits which reflect this aspect. Is my air conditioned car gluttony? Does my plethora of office supplies count as gluttonous? (something I discovered in the move is that I have a shit load of office supplies).

And on that note, I am signing off. Thunder outside and there have been a lot of lightning strikes with these daily heat wave induced storms here in CT.

R.I.C.E.

Stands for
Rest
Ice
Compression and
Elevation

Why this snappy acronym today you ask? Because we finished moving. We ended our move on the hottest day(s) of the year, although this is not a record high for PFG moves since my move in 2005 was also on the hottest day of that year as well - both with temperatures around 92°F and fairly dripping with humidity. Last weekend we moved the bulk of the stuff. I say "we" but I mean my fella and two extremely excellent people. That was the end of the help. We were expecting more but this move was whatever the opposite of serendipitous is. Thus we struck out early yesterday intending to push through and get all the stray bits out of the old place and then clean. It's a big place to clean.

I learned some new things about my body and what it now affords me. E.g., I discovered that dusting 3 very large rooms with a long and flexible duster followed by sweeping and mopping said rooms is quite bad for the wrist (literally "unwieldy"), hence my cleaning came to an abrupt end late yesterday afternoon and it was R.I.C.E. for me last evening. A____ went back over while I RICEd, before the monsoon started. He managed to finish an embarrassingly large amount of cleaning by himself. I iced and elevated and then put an ace bandage on my wrist. It felt so much better that I started doing stuff around the new apartment - mostly unpacking kitchen stuff, discarding the "R" part of the equation. After some time, I thought "wow, my hand feels way better. I bet I can take this bandage off now..." and I gave a test wiggle of a finger. Numb. I quickly removed the bandage.

So when you are doing R.I.C.E., remember ice only for 15 to 20 minute intervals and don't try bandaging your own right hand because odds are you won't be able to wrap it properly and it will either be too loose or too tight. Too tight and you're numb (which happens to rhyme with "dumb"), resulting in either
Dumb
Ice
Compression and
Elevation
...or if you're a real winner like me and you go and use your too tightly wrapped hand as a lever to heave up heavy kitchen items for over an hour, D.I.C.K.

I am sincerely hoping that the next move we make, we can afford to pay people to help. It's done and I'm happy for that, but this was not a great move. Not the worst (which was 2002 - I caught lyme disease right at the start of it, had to deal with Tom's evil family who were pointedly not helping, had to help a friend re-claim a cat she had given away in the middle of the move, and then at the end went up Amherst way to look at apartments with my sister who was starting college out there that Fall - all of which was just plausibly tiring and ache inducing enough to have masked the start of the lyme symptoms), but definitely not something I want to repeat.

May

What happened to my May? What the hell?

School ended, work started, we found a new apartment (have to move from the lovely place we're in now because the landlord is becoming a slum lord), and life life life.

Work's good. It's necessitated a change in schedule though - I've gone from being an evening person in all ways to needing to be at work (over 15 mostly country miles from my place) at 8:30 AM. Ugh! But I'm proud to say I managed to do it, mostly. I overslept a bit today but made it in on time with some rushing about. I had been expecting this to be just a short term summer job but I guess they like me because my boss mentioned that she was looking into hiring me "during the semester". I need to follow up on that. At the time, I was on my way off to do something (work related) and so all I had time for was a quick "Oh that'd be great....especially since I am in need of employment".

I like and am good at what I do, which is also a relief.

The down side - there's always a down side. The temporary negative right now is that we're moving, like NOW. My fella's been awesome, as usual, and so he's taken care of much of the move stuff. His diligence, as wonderful as it is, happens to be taxing my "gimp-guilt" as I call it, which relates to potentially more enduring down side of my post-graduate school, employed life my new smaller life on account of having less than stellar health. I swear to god my warranty ran out at 31. Since then I've had more health shit than you can shake a stethoscope at, none of it fully resolvable (by which I mean "curable"), and some of it only marginally treatable. I hate giving the full list of ailments but the highlights includee the endometriosis/adenomyosis and the shitty immune system which is better at attacking me than it is at doing its job on viruses, bacteria, or even (as I've recently learned) fungi. Now that I've put this miserable body to work for normal work hours and something approaching a full work week (so far it's been more like a 30 hour than 40 hour work week), I am confronting the question which was hinted at by my soon to be former advisor when she asked so casually "are you healthy enough to have even a regular job?" I found this question to be rather insulting for a number of reasons but I knew even then that while the context was fucked up, the content is in many ways legitimate. And the answer is...it's hard to know. Perhaps this is just denial, but for now I'm going to say the jury's still out. What I tell myself is that I need to give it more time to know for certain whether the massive fatigue I feel throughout the day even after plenty of sleep and no strenuous activity is just a by product of changing my schedule or if this is a permanent and fixed aspect of my life post 31. If it turns out to be the latter, then yeah, I'm kind of fucked.

For now, there won't be lots of posts here because I'm either at work, asleep, moving, unpacking, or sick and exhausted. The moving and unpacking should be done by mid June and hopefully, the daily sick and exhausted will let up as I adjust. If not, well, there could be lots more posts later while I chronicle the apparently wretched process of filing for disability.

graddeled

It's like addled, but with grades. Or grads. Or grads grading. Fortunately, there are people out there who make things like this for times like these.