I want candy, or hypoglycemic blogging

Out of nowhere, I just got hit with a powerful craving for candy corn. I'm not a huge fan of candy corn, so this is odd. Seems like one or two would take care of my candy corn needs for about a decade. Unfortunately though they are only sold in 20 gazillion gallon bags and vats.

Right before the candy corn, I recall I had been thinking about potato chips but didn't feel like getting unscary enough to head up to the store. It wasn't just any potato chips. It was specifically the kind with the fake flavored shit like canker sore killing dill-ranch-pepperchip and super finger coating cheddarcheddarandcheddar(etc, it's like spam). Holy shit, someone has actually written a review of ruffles. It's so Ted Nancy!

• Ruffles are the top of the line in my book when it comes to potato chips. They are the thickest, crispest, least greasy potato chips out there. They are perfect for dips because unlike a lot of the thinner potato chip brands, they won't break off in the dip and leave crumbs in it. And typically with Ruffles, you don't end up with a lot of crunched up crumbs in the bottom of the bag like with thinner chips as well. Best of all, Ruffles is a very tasty potato chip with about the right amount of salt. Ruffles, to me, is a top of the line potato chip.

I settled on cold left over chicken penne. This is good as it is better for me and hopefully will take care of these strangely specific and sort of gross junk food stirrings (stirings?). It's not that I don't ever eat shit, not that I haven't enjoyed some of these items at different times in the past. It's just that in general, I don't usually crave shit that is quite that shitty. That kind of food is more of an in the moment sort of thing. You know?

Not preggers (I always want to add a "woo hoo" after that).
Maybe it's the grading that's doing it.
(cinnamon brown sugar poptart, with frosting)
I wish I had a glucose monitor. I'll bet my blood sugar's in the fucking basement. Guess I'll add a faster sugar to the chicken and pasta snack.

Fall

Fall is taunting me with it's prettiness. Pretty Fall days make me feel like Max looks

I had (have) so much work to do this weekend and it is utterly gorgeously Fall outside. I know I shouldn't have, but I couldn't resist blowing off a little work to make a stop at the herb farm. I took some pictures.

Herb farm

Aaron and Agate at the herb farm

Agate saying goodbye

no tragedy left unexploited

Bush's solution to the two recent attacks on girls at US schools - shamelessly use it as a means for promotion of GOP policy.

Apparently reauthorizing "No child left behind" will somehow help. This is as much Bush's stupidity as the mainstream media's gullibility (or complicity) for reporting on this as if it were a fucking coherent, relevant story. Is the idea that a would be shooter, upon attempting to enter the school with the intent to rape and kill girls, would become caught and hopelessly trapped in the web of red tape spun about our schools?

Real, responsible news story here?
"Desperate Bush uses tragedies in schools to promote failing "No Child Left Behind" law"
"Bush to lawmakers: (re)pass my law or the girls get it"

If it weren't so sick, Bush's having linked these two issues together would be silly.

President Bush on Saturday lamented recent "shocking acts of violence" in schools, and promised his administration will do what it can to keep centers of learning safe for students.

Bush also pushed for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law, which he says needs some changes. Under the law, schools that get federal poverty aid and fall short of their yearly progress goals for two straight years must offer transfers to students. After three years of failure, schools must offer low-income parents a choice of tutors....

The president outlined a series of ways in which the law could be improved, such as by expanding testing in high schools, an idea he has pitched to Congress for two years. He also said he wants the federal government to pay for 28,000 low-income students across the country to transfer to private schools, and has asked for $100 million to pay for the initiative.

"Thanks to this good law, we are leaving behind the days when schools just shuffled children from grade to grade, whether they learned anything or not," Bush said. "Yet we still have a lot of work to do."

you have chosen

I think it is possible that my having included a picture of Curious George about to be eaten by leopards in my powerpoint for today's lecture might have a WEE tiny bit to do with my shitty mood about the gendercidal fuckwads who've turned over a new leaf in fuckwaddery.

In my defense, I have to say that at 2:00 AM, it seemed like a fun graphic to illustrate the benefits of primates living in groups (as opposed to living alone).

If there were a "choose your destroyer" web game out there, I think I know who mine would be. The classic - Mr. StayPuft. He's big, fat, strangely childish, white, and male and he's storming around in a violent apocalyptic rage for really no apparent reason.

I'm so confused

Did Mark Foley want to fuck little boys because he was molested or because he is gay? The most recent "break" in this story really leaves that issue up to the reader.

Attorney David Roth said Foley was molested between ages 13 and 15...He also acknowledged for the first time that the former congressman is gay, saying the disclosure was part of his client's "recovery."

I can't help noticing that it seems the former representative is being portrayed a strong gay child sexual abuse survivor, maybe one we should find some small sliver of admiration for because, according to his attorney, "As is so often the case with victims of abuse, Mark advises that he kept his shame to himself for almost 40 years."

As another survivor (who once tried to make out with a fourteen year old boy when I was fifteen but got completely turned off by the fact that, despite his being a cute funny smart little bad ass skate rat, I probably could have tossed him over my shoulder and run a 50 yard dash without breaking a sweat), I have to admire the former congressman's ability to have kept his SHAME to himself for so long. I am not even close to as strong as that, choosing instead to express my SHAME all the time and in numerous different ways.

Hey now, here's a thought. Maybe what former Congressman Boyfucker was ashamed of wasn't that he was abused. Maybe it was that he himself had some pedophile tendencies.

I guess we should all be thankful he didn't shoot a schoolroom full of little boys to take revenge for it.

Honestly, I am so sick of the media perpetuated ignorance when it comes to this shit. "The shame!" Fuck their shame. The only shame is the shame that is laid on us by a continuous flow of shit like this. Foley disclosing now that he was molested, what the fuck is that? A defense? The number of people who have been sexually abused as children far outweighs the projected numbers of pedophiles. Look it up, I'm busy and can't get you the references right now (I'm writing a lecture, presumably). But it's a convenient myth for Foley and his lawyer to use at the moment. Something to explain it, to make it all part of a larger crime in which Foley is the victim and not the nasty old fuck that he seems. And the media is happy, oh more than happy, to perpetuate this shit.

It's not just the mainstream media who are pushing my buttons these days though. A quick review of current news at some of the more prominent feminist resources (NOW and Feminist Majority Foundation) shows a complete and utter lack of awareness about the recent gendercide school shootings. Not even a friggin' mention on their news pages.

For example, at feminist.org you can find a link to The feminist perspective on U.S., global and campus news stories this week. In this page, they're on the Foley story too, just like the mainstream media. They have breaking reports about bride kidnapping and domestic abuse in Kyrgyzstan and underrepresentation of women writers at Harper's and Atlantic Monthly. But there is not even ONE single sentence of "feminist perspective" on the recent gender based attacks on girls in two different US schools this week. Nothing on how prior school shootings have had a tendency to have been boys hunting girls and women. Where's the feminist perspective? Or is two men planning to rape and kill little girls in one week not enough of a feminist issue for them? I'm guessing the PACs don't give much of a shit, because the elected officials that be (and that might be) don't give much of a shit. And major mainstream feminist groups are, these days, just packaging for their political fundraising committees. I get the need for them, I do. I worked for one briefly one summer. But what the fuck is the point in electing "pro feminist" officials if the feminism exists only in terms of token gestures, bumper stickers, and dangerous daily instances of misogyny represented only as a mythically far away and foreign event?

I know there's not much I can do alone. I'm working with my campus women's center to try to do something local in the next week. I also know that a candle light vigil or cleverly composed quarter sheet fliers will not change the world. However I simply refuse to be a part of the masses of people doing and saying absolutely NOTHING other than reading the dwindling mainstream media news reports of official handwringing over how to classify the apparently brand spanking new criminal concept of males violently attacking females.

war on women

The motive for the assault remains a mystery

I've tried to blog about this twice now. I am nearly unable to think I am so mad. Don't like angry women? Fuck off and get the hell out. No unmoderated comments on this post folks. I'm not providing a forum for any man egos I might hurt or for any women who want to prove just how liberated they are by siding with their oppressors.

Every time I think of this, I cry.

It occurs to me that there are two very clear levels of reflection here.

One is deeper and involves the frequent questions that eventually come to mind when any atrocity occurs. Reaction on this level manifest in forms like: "Why do people hate so much?" "What moves someone to hate another group of people so deeply they would commit such horrific violence?" In this context, it would be absurd to wonder what Hitler's personal motive was, for example. We know enough to identify it as racism, antisemitism, hatred of Jews. To even say "Pathological hatred of X", unless "X" is "women", is just insane at this level. That kind of hate is always pathological.

However, when it's violence against women, we see evidence of another level of response. It is so common it almost entirely overshadows the deeper one. It is predicated on too many people having bought the myth of equality between sexes in this country, the myth that allows intelligent educated people to talk and write and publish about things like the "war on boys". From this level of ignorance, which seems like it should properly be called stupidity given the immediate and unavoidable reality of the situaiton, come the questions of motive. These quesitons are being published and republished, perpetuating an active denial of the facts of the situation.
"No motive yet known"
"Still no motive"
"We don't know why"
"I don’t know why he wanted to do this"

The simple and straight forward answer to the question of motive is hatred of women. It's oppression of women which is so ingrained in our society that it is not just condoned but promoted. It gives tacit and sometimes explicit approval for desires to commit sexualized violence and brutality on women. Don't like it? Does that bother your god damned "liberated man" "I'm not a feminist I'm a humanist" pollyanna universe? Hey, here's a page out of your book - Get over it. It fucking exists.

In a less wrong world, we'd see news blurbs like these:
"Yet another instance of gender motivate violence rocked a small community today..."
"Today's shooting is a reminder of the epidemic of violence against women in this country..."
"Reaction to Colorado shooting: Why do sexually violent men blend in? Are we a country of rapists?"

Instead of people sitting down and saying "hey what the hell is going on here with all the rapes and shit?" we have people who want to use the phrase "war on boys" when even the smallest bit of reparation is made or even token amends are attempted for the criminal inquality between the sexes in our society. So when your boys are lined up at gunpoint, taken hostage and threatened, systematically terrorized, sexually assaulted, and killed by a woman who has no other reason than a pathology that is so common she has apparently not stood out as having dangerous criminal intent prior to this act, THEN you can talk about a war on boys. Until then, SHUT the FUCK up.

Lesson learned

This year, I have learned a valuable lesson. It's not something I didn't know before. I suppose what's different now is that this year I discovered a way to monitor and enforce adherence to it.

I refer to this lesson as the "Don't be like Doug" lesson. Doug is a boy who was in my program. He's a raging assbag too. Doug managed to piss off pretty much EVERYONE who dealt with him. Frequently, this was a one trial learning event. Some people, like me, took a little longer to learn he is seriously a dick. In my case, it was far from passive observation which served as the basis of my eventual conclusion. It was a direct conversation about principles and personal value systems. I blogged about it last year. It was a creepy experience, talking to a sociopath.

Doug seemed to just do exactly the wrong thing, said something in exactly the wrong way to piss people off. He came across as imperious to a ridiculous degree and as promoting an unfounded sense of self-righteous self appointed authority. He was not shy about telling people they were doing thing "wrong".

So what's the lesson? The lesson is that I can be a little like that too. I know I am not at Doug level, I also know I'm just a nicer person with a more realistic sense of, oh, whaddyacallit, interpersonal relativity. But this year I learned to stop and ask myself "What would Doug do?" E.g., would Doug write to the owner of a student government list he was on to suggest to the owner that he should spend more time on content and on checking his grammar and spelling than on trying to sound cute? Would Doug feel a compulsion to tell this guy that the cute is contrived and stale while the lack of attention to grammar and spelling in a business related email on a list which is mandatory for senators (yeah, color me a big dork) irritates the shit out of him? Probably. And so I stop.

This isn't to say I won't address the issue. I fully plan to ask the moron who is writing this shit to grow the hell up or take cleverness lessons. However, I'm not going to go all Doug on his ass.

This is, I believe, a sign of development.

And it's about fucking time since...

I'm 35!!!!!!

My debatable status as a libra

The year I was born, it was a late Libra year. The sun was not even 24 hours into Libra when I came on the scene. So am I a Virgo or a Libra? Not to sound like "a flippin' astro-star-gazin' tripped princess-pot-head" (to quote Daniela, who has a tendency to put it exactly right) but here I go (sounding like a FASGTPPH, complete with chart and mugs!)


As a kid, I'd get those astrology gifts...you know, mugs and shit that have the "you're a libra!" announcement written in scrolly gold letters over a list of traits (always good of course) that erode quickly even in the days before dishwashers. It was the 70s, remember?

And I'd read them looking for some sense of self definition, you know, like a kid does. Or is that just me? Anyhow, I was chronically disappointed, left thinking I wasn't a very good Libra. Diplomatic? Ah, no. Charming? Definitely not. Unreasonably attractive? No. Possibly still, but definitely then, I was one of those kind of odd looking people who had too long a face, pale skin, sunken eyes with dark circles under them, no or strange at best fashion sense, and a tendency to openly visually inspect people in a way that was disconcerting and uncomfortable. I thought of myself as a sullen peevish person prone to fits of unreasonable outbursts of anger. Combine that with my pallid unsmiley and slightly creepy countenance and you get something that is far from the coffee mug's insistence that I be a curvacious, cuddly, and cute being who need only smile and twirl her fashionably coiffed locks to have people falling all over themselves to please her.

Rather than question the authority of dimestore coffee mugs and key chains, instead I developed this theory that I was a Libra imposter.

When I got older, I actually looked things up....got an emphemeris and shit. Turns out I am barely a Libra sunsign-wise. To further muddy the water, it turns out that by one account, I am a Libra with Libra rising. Given the excessive cuspiness of my time and day of birth, I have tended to assume (when such assumptions are motivated) that I am either a Virgo with Libra rising or a Virgo flavored Libra with Scorpio rising (my rising sign is also on an edge, given the time of day I was born).

Of course, there is the whole astrology is a load of shit theory too. I realize that I am a skeptic, really I am. But I am also a pragmatist and I find any one way of categorizing and describing personality about as useful and "true" as another. So whether it's a coffee mug, a key chain, any of the various "type" surveys, or the DSM whatever, there will always be stuff like illusory cause kicking around the edges. Therefore, to me, they all have about as much functionality and applicability as the proverbial (and enormous) grain of salt allows. Which isn't to say none, but it certainly isn't something I'd set my watch by (how d'you like that mix of metaphors? Perhaps we should add lack of rhetorical skill to the "not a Libra" list).

And without further ado, here are a few of my Virgo traits that are completely not in accordance with the coffee mug prescriptive astrological characteristics of a Libra:
- I compulsively clean, we're talking mops and dust rags and shit. The night before my wedding, my friends had to stage an intervention to get me to stop cleaning the bathroom (which I had innocently started doing while washing up for bed).
- I can't abide squishily made plans. I don't need an iron clad itinerary but I need structure.
- I think the phrase "it's all good" when used to explain someone's flakiness and carelessness with my time is damned near criminal and on a bad day it makes me want to smack (the shit out of) the person who uttered it.
- I have a tendency to think that if I do something well, it should be simple enough for everyone to just do it that way....because that way is so obviously the best way of doing it for the situation.
- A quick wit is incredibly attractive to me. Much more so than a dazzling intellect that cannot be articulated or a moron wrapped in a pretty package. In high school, when the boy I had lusted after from afar for three years finally asked me out, he was just so fucking stupid I couldn't bring myself to actually fuck him. His discourse on the matter turned me off so thoroughly that I couldn't even make out with him afterwards and I ended up calling it an early night. That evening should have been, by all accounts, my total dream date. Valentine's day, we went to a dance club on an all ages night, I looked good (in a 1980s kind of way), I got to be seen in public by lots of people with this cute guy, and he had even asked me (in advance) to the junior prom. But he was such a fucking IDIOT that I lost it. (btw, a dollar to whoever can come up with a good term for this...something like whiskey dick but, well, as it applies to losing all semblance of sexual arousal based on the realization that the person with whom you are tangled in a steamy teenaged lust level embrace is a fool of the most stunning and unappealing proportions).

Good news, bad news II

I think I had a post of a similar title at a similar time a year ago. I'll have to go check that. I don't recommend any of you do, it's likely to be rambling shit about the ex and big fat breakup shit.
This year's pre-birthday good news/bad news for me is as follows.

The good news is I think I'm getting a sense of prepping for teaching in terms of what I can reasonably expect to cover, how to leave room for discussion and questions, shit like that. I'm not saying I've got it down, just that I finally have a fucking clue.

The bad news is tomorrow was not a prep intensive day and I only just now finished.

Good news: After several rounds of PT and playing "pull my leg" (literally) with my very nice and very preggers therapist twice a week at the strange circus-like clinic, after a month of religiously doing my exercises, my hip was finally not hurting most of the time for over a week.
Bad news: Migraine sex fucked it up again. I think that was what did it, not sure but it's been screwy since (hey, you should see the other guy).

Good news: My birthday is in 3 days.
Bad news: I SWEAR I saw a whole bushel more lines under my eyes tonight when I was washing my face than I saw yesterday. I'm not aging (look wise) fast enough to be super freaked about looking very old yet. That's coming, I can feel it, but it's not here yet. What I am freaked (a little) about is the getting and being old part. My body's already acting quite a bit past the prime. I think none of us looks forward to an aged existence (who would? we treat our old people worse than we treat our young people). But generally it seems that's a sense of dread based on what we've seen happening to others. I know, I used to have that objectivity. To have my own sneak preview in Feel-A-Round sucks on a very subjective, personal, and sucky level. So the eye lines are visible evidence that I really am as old as I feel.

cliche

I went out, got coffee - well, not coffee. I got hot tasty beverage that was not coffee because coffee after 3:00 PM makes me a little bit nutty in the not at all pleasant sense. A___ and I went for a walk which was more a sit on a bench watching horses trot around, a stray cat defiling the tires of the few cars parked in the stable parking lot, and undergraduate girls who were practicing what looked like cheers or gymnastic routines in the middle of the not at all busy street.

Oh Connecticut, you are so bucolic (cheerleaders and all).

It was nice to get out, even if it was only for a very short non-walk and chai. Then it was time to head back home, back to the dark apartment and the cat wanting dinner. As I was driving, the sun was setting in fit of drama. It was down below the trees that line the road from campus to my apartment, casting long shadows in fast fading pink light. I tuned the radio looking for something appropriate for the the air and the light, pausing to listen if I didn't immediately hear something which would break the mood. As I was coming up on a clearing in the trees just off the road, I got to one station that was quiet. I turned it up, still watching the road and admiring the sunset. The clearing opened up and I saw a field covered in mist. "That's sort of pretty" I thought. In the center of the mist covered field, I noticed a dark figure. This warranted a second look which revealed several figures shrouded in pink mist. What could they be? A refrigerator and stove on cinderblocks? A stack of mattresses? An antique tractor with a mutant shirtless landlord? No, wrong proportions and they were moving.

Slowly my brain put together that it was three little deer all grazing and rural like. At that instant (the entire scene had only taken about 3 seconds), the music swelled and the moment came together. The deer, the mist, the sunset, and now BLASTING out of my shitty car radio with the broken back speaker was Morning Mood by Grieg.

I shit you not.

swan lake

(is what is playing in my head* Probably because I watched Top Secret recently and there's that whole ballet scene, although what triggered my recall of this now is a complete fucking mystery to me)

It is BEAUTIFUL out today. Unfortunately, my yesterday got derailed, leaving me with too much to do today. I desperately want to go out and enjoy September. I can see orange and pinkish peach leaves in the distance, beyond the clump of summer which remains in the field immediately outside my window. Out there, Fall is happening and I really want to be part of it.

I'll have to find a reason to not sit in here all day preparing the week's lecture notes. See, I know if I fuck off today, I will seriously regret it Monday and Tuesday if not all week. So I can't just give myself permission to get out there for getting out there's sake. I need a good, solid reason. Anyone thinking I'm an uptight rule oriented freak? Yep. Sometimes. It would just be so easy....to take off, eat apples, find a porch or otherwise unleafy, nongrass covered shadey area to sit in while I watch the light change.

It's hard to be disciplined about this since yesterday's derailment wasn't due to fucking off but rather to a big fat somewhat unexpected migraine. I guess the vertigo on Thursday and Friday was a harbinger...I blew it off, took meds, whatever. And then early yesterday afternoon, just as I was about to leave to meet the white van landlord, SMACK, a big fat fucking sparkly twisty edged hole in my vision. If I hadn't felt so damned bad already, I'd have put a hole in the wall. Unless your body routinely betrays you like this, my guess is you won't fully understand just how extremely frustrating this can be. What makes it worse is that I was finally feeling like I was getting the swing of the lecture prep (a little), working out a rhythm. I had already lost some time this week with the vertigo but thought I was still doing well. Lost some more time being mopey about the worsening leaks Friday night (I came home to a flooded filing cabinet), but figured I put in a good chunk of time Saturday and today and still be ahead of the game on Monday. Now I'll be lucky if I get the minimum done - which is why I really (really) should stay in and work. And why I really really feel fucking robbed.

On the plus side, there is migraine sex which was quite good (coudn't really do much else so why not?) So my yesterday was disjointed mix of lying about in dark rooms trying to borrow into the pillows and synesthetic migraine sex, which did seem to help a bit. I didn't get much productive done until after 5:00PM when the photosensitivity was reduced enough that I could work providing I wore my sunglasses. I made a good start at an outline of the upcoming section of the course by working late into the night, but if I don't work most of today and tonight, I'll have some seriously disorganized lectures this week.

The migraine meant I (sadly) missed the visit to the "rental". The ambiguity of the term "rental" is fully appropriate here. It wasn't an apartment but the units sure weren't houses. What would you call them? Cottages? Cabins? Shacks? From the pictures A____ took, they look as if they could be considered cute if you were staying in them on a camping vacation. They'd make a somewhat civilized alternative to a tent or leanto or whatever the fuck camping sporty people sleep in when they go commune with bugs and and nature and shit. But living in? Hell no.

When I look at the picture (top right), I start thinking of the theme to Little House on the Prairie (the closing credits theme, which is a bit more up tempo and frolicksome than the opening). It's not that this place is remotely musical or inspiring (although what inspiration underlies 70s family TV show closing credits music is questionable). * Lately my brain is a near constant soundtrack of made up and/or existent melodies. And not always or even usually ones I'd like to hear much less get stuck humming for HOURS. It's sort of fun sometimes but mostly it's fucking annoying. I think this phenomenon is an artifact of me being stressed out.

But I digress.

A___ described the rental property thusly (very close paraphrasing):
The first thing I noticed was lots of grass, more grass than you would be ok with, a long dirt driveway, and a child playing in a puddle. There were several small brown houses all back behind one big white house.
(Me: What's the set up? I mean, why do you think they were built?)
Probably, they might have been farm hand housing, converted bunkhouses maybe. They went way back, down a dirt trail. It would be horrible to shovel. The guy was over in a side field, shirtless, working on something like an antique tractor. The entry lights on the units were all extension corded and looked pretty rigged up.

There's more. A___ mentioned something about a pile of mattresses outside. They are not shown in a picture, but that sounds perfect. I wonder if Martha Stewart could be persuaded to do a feature on the quaint rural charm of Northeastern CT ("the quiet corner!") where she can talk about the proper arrangement of bedding, appliances, and electronic equipment to give your property that old yankee junk yard feel.

I think one of the selling points of this place would be the light fixtures. I mean, look at that sconce! Isn't it adorable!?










Is it me or does that look like FIRE damage?











And then there's the kitchen. Arguably, one of the most important rooms for me. I like to cook, A___ likes to cook. This is what I call the "walk through" kitchen, it's sort of more of a hallway than a kitchen. The arrangment of everything in a nice row against the one wall enhances the all important intimacy of food preparation. Also, again note the lovely fixture. This time its the classic brass and plastic candle chandelier. Nothing says "welcome home" like that familiar, brassy smack on your head.

Off

I guess I'm about to plunge into another apartment search. In about a half hour, I'm going to meet the guy with the white van. And then I have way too many essays to grade (yeah because I thought I'd be smart and give them a writing assignment) and at least one and a half lecture notes to write up. No cleaning for me this weekend. I'll be happy if I have laundry and washed outfits to wear next week.

This week we're doing conversational interaction in my class. Got some stuff on women and men and turn taking. By the time I am done with this section, my goal is to have instilled in at least some of them an unshakable increased awareness of discourse bullshit and shennanigans. It's a good skill to have in life. I did not put that on my syllabus, although I did make mention of "critical thinking skills".

Off to get semicleaned to meet the guy and look at the apartment. Mutant landlord pictures are possibly forthcoming.

Tonight's forecast

Periods of rain with the occasional shower of ceiling chunks. Growing mold stains and a rotten mood will overspread the region by 2 a.m.

I hope the man who is going to show me a different apartment tomorrow is not as creepy as he sounded on the phone tonight.

"I will have a white van" he said. Will he stay waiting in it until I show up, I wonder. Is the van the most salient feature about him? I doubt it. Something in his voice - "what you wanna know?" he had asked when I first said I was calling about the rental - makes me think there are far more marked aspects of this man. I envision a wooden leg or otherwise modified limb, possibly an illfitting cummerbund over a ripped filthy short sleeved oxford peeking out from under a saggy cardigan. There is dandruff involved in this image, and huge tufts of ear hair.

I've learned to call these places "rentals" since I said "apartment" in a message to the last potential landlord (Bob) and he corrected me about eight thousand times "see, it's a house. It's a charming little one room schoolhouse that someone (perhaps me) cleverly converted into a two bedroom rental."

Ok Bob didn't say that exactly and he didn't say it more than three times but three was plenty and there was definitely ATTITUDE. He also seemed, well, like a mutant. So far, every landlord I've had here in CT is a mutant. Must be something in the air. First was the psycho landlady who rented me the tiny third floor of her multifamily house. She acted like my bestest buddy for about a week, wanting to bond with me about all the stupidity in the world. Everyone was an asshole to this woman, everyone. I lived there for three short months until my sex life marked me as an undesirable. She was celibate by choice (other people's mostly I think).

Then there were The Jims. Jim1 was a history lecturer in NY and an optometrist in NJ. Very chatty, a little hyper, and far too fond of things German. He liked me because I swept leaves off my step. Jim2 was a fat man who drank and sweat a lot. He chronically pissed off Jim1, who never tired of bitching about Jim2. Together they owned and managed property. I'm realizing this could have been an 80s sitcom - except Jim2 would need to be a recent immigrant, preferably from an eastern european country we ignorant americans (including Jim1) could simply refer to as "Russia", humorously raising the drunken ire of Jim2, causing him to rant in a heavy accent about how he miss his country maybe he go back and leave stupid Jim1 to answer to foolish american girl who sweep steps (always she is sweeping the leafs ...who wants to marry leaf sweeping woman?! (insert laugh track here)) .

In between psychonosex lady and The Jims, I had Dave. Dave had a toupee, bad teeth for a rich man, and had inherited anything of value in his life, including the apartment complex and a car dealership. Dave and I and Dave's woman (in that order) got into a screaming match over, um, I think it was the overflowing dumpster but it turned into the neighbor's cat. "That fucking cat ruined that apartment" Dave yelled. Dave was depressed and when he did come close to smiling, he looked unpleasantly deranged. It made everyone uncomfortable and it showed his teeth so thankfully he didn't do it much. Dave also had heart disease, which made the yelling match by the dumpster sort of extra fun.

My latest and current landlord looks like a pilgrim. He talks like a pilgrim too. He's got this slow manner, not laidback, not deliberate, just slow. And he also has a bad toupee. I have pictures of him "fixing" the roof with silicone gel last year. I enjoyed that. Stood outside with my coffee taking pictures and thinking about how I'd feel if he fell off the roof right there in front of me. He recently paid lots and lots of money to have the roof professionally fixed. A roofer came, he brought several young men with him, and they stood around leaning on stuff. Later that day and all of the next they sprayed paint on the roof. "It's got FIBERS in it!" the manager (Herb, another mutant) told me when I said "So paint's going to fix the roof?" Today when I called Herb the mutant to tell him the rain was coming in my leaks harder than ever, I mentioned that probably the fibers didn't work so good on the huge buckling holes.

After seeing Bob's rental, I suspect the two rooms he was calling bedrooms were originally closets they locked bad children in as punishment. Either that or Bob coined the word not so much to refer to the compound which we (nonmutants) all interpret as "a room for a bed and other personal beddy type stuff" but rather to indicate uniquely a room which is big enough for just a bed - like a shoe box is a box for just the pair of shoes (and nothing else unless you count the little packet of desiccant, tissue, and other compressible shit).

I've decided to start taking a camera with me for these ventures into rental properties of NE Connecticut. I'll tell them it's so I can show the pictures to my man, without whose crucial input I am incapable of making a decision. I wonder how many of these freaks would let me get a shot of them. It could be like a nature show. The slumlord in his natural habitat: With the true slumlord, it is sometimes difficult to determine if the white markings are plaster bits or dandruff. Biologists have speculated that evolution has favored them with excessively dry scalps to help mask the pieces of fallen ceiling plaster which, if immediately identifiable, could drive off would be prey. Let's try to take a closer look, quietly now, we don't want him to jump in his white van and drive away...

Man control?

You know what? It's true - guns don't kill people.
Men do.


From CNN:
Hate-filled Web postings by the Montreal college gunman show bitterness but no real motive for the shooting rampage that killed one woman and injured 19 other people.
....
Montreal was the scene of another college shooting almost 17 years ago. Marc Lepine opened fire at Ecole Polytechnique on December 6, 1989, killing 14 female students and wounding 13 other people before killing himself. Lepine left behind a three-page letter blaming feminists for his not being able to get into the school.

PWD or AWD?

My sister told me tonight that it was "asshole whiteguy day" in Boston this sunday. I asked her "Didn't you have a similar experience a few weeks ago, where there were asshole guys all around one weekend? Maybe this coincides with a ballgame."

She clarified that the events a few weeks ago were part of Pervert Whiteguy Day. This Sunday was definitely asshole day.

AWD began with a 9 AM T ride featuring a beer soaked "wookie in a Patriots' shirt" (our brother says this is redundant) harassing a woman who was wearing a head scarf. The yuppies on the train said the wookie should be arrested for "disturbing the peace". This was whispered between them after the wookie fled the car.

Following this, my sister witnessed a man fighting his way up the middle of the staircase at Park St. Station like a salmon swimming upstream to spawn. "Where the fuck did all these fucking people come from?!" this man was screaming at all the fucking people.

And finally, there were the sounds of a man in an eyeglasses store in Cambridge having a total shit fit. I can't remember what she said he was saying but it was loud enough to be heard from the street.

There may have been others, I can't remember. I went straight from the phone call about AWD and gender terrorism to working on my lecture and now my brain is a little .... ...... .. . ....Strained. Sorry, word finding problems.

Also, in that vein, I just had a confusing email interaction with an associate, Mr. Sock. It had to do with parsing, syntax, shakespeare quotes, and throwing typewriters or not. I am disatisfied with the response, but really, how do you write back to someone and say "hey no really, why do you think no one says 'eat me' anymore?"

I've felt less capable of normal communication since I started lecturing three days a week. I can talk if I'm on my feet, but put me down someplace and I'm a fucking mess, speaking or typing it seems.

Relatedly, I think that "eat me" is the appropriate response to use on AWD. You just need to be sure it isn't PWD or this could exacerbate the problems.

unlikely finds

If you put this into a google search [chicago "film school" "elvis impersonator" 1998 memphis] you will find this site. On this site are synopses of screenplays (wanted and available). Let's take a look. One of these could become a box office smash.

In Love Chemist, Sharron becomes the love desire of an evil spirit, a negative force in her life. It tries to remove anyone that tries to prove its existence and also those that try to take its love away. She must succumb to or overcome what can't exist: by 2017, science has proven twice that spirits don't exist.

What's My Name Suspense/Thriller WGAw# 1148620. After a forced abortion at 17, Erin Spencer, now mid- late 20's, contends with a nightmarish past, guilt, and the deeds of her father. When her 6 year old son begins playing with an imaginary friend, Erin thinks it is simply a phase of childhood. Reassured by her psychiatrist, Erin believes the things she is seeing and the voices she hears are a figment of her own imagination. Is she going crazy, or has her past come back to haunt her. . . with a vengeance.

Sci-fi/action/comedy. Earth is in peril. Aliens threaten to conquer the planet, and its up to the greatest heroes of all time to stop them in this live-action, blockbuster adaptation of the most popular video-games ever made. Script blends characters and elements from Pac-man, Galaga, Space Invaders, Mario Bros, Asteroids, Frogger and Donkey Kong, who must work together to stop the advancing alien armada and save the human race. Part popcorn flick, part tribute those great games we all grew up with.

bunnies and pirates and pimps oh my!

This morning, while the roofers made noise and sprayed things outside my window (spray on roof. Who knew?), I was looking at a list from yahoo of "top 20 halloween costumes" (below).

There is no explanation of how this set was derived. I'd guess not from the neighborhood kids (if not for the playboy bunny and pimp costumes, definitely the Wizard of Oz). Let's see. I've been 1 (twice because it's easy seeing as I'm half pirate anyhow), 2 (but not for halloween, for fair(e) work), 5, and 6 (dorothy of course). I've also done greek monsters (medusa although my friend Kathy said I looked like Cher), killer prom queen, statue of liberty, devil bride, um...other stuff. Never been a cat, never been a fucking playboy bunny. Good god.

I notice lots of duplications on this list, i.e., pirate, pirates of the caribbean costume, and Jack Sparrow costume all seem to suffer from an excess of entailment.

This year, I am not sure. I usually have an idea in May. However, since I stopped having a house which meant I stopped having halloween parties, I haven't found much of a venue here in the woods of CT for halloween revelry. Been to some but they sucked LOTS and really weren't worth going out for, let alone going out as the cold miser for. E.g., the english department party. Overcrowded, overlit, and undertuned.

So what will you be this year? Bunny, pirate, pimp, or something more original?
1. Pirate Costumes
2. Renaissance Costumes
3. Star Wars Costumes
4. Belly Dance Costumes
5. Fairy Costumes
6. Wizard of Oz Costumes
7. Tinkerbell Costumes
8. Jack Sparrow Costumes
9. Toga Costumes
10. Mermaid Costumes
11. Medieval Costumes
12. Playboy Bunny Costumes
13. Power Ranger Costumes
14. Superman Costumes
15. Batman Costumes
16. Pirates of the Caribbean Costumes
17. Alice in Wonderland Costumes
18. Pimp Costumes
19. Princess Costumes
20. Cinderella Costumes

Purgatory

I've been to purgatory, back in 1999. It was pretty. Here's a picture.

Dick Armitage is...

...CRUSHING YOUR HEAD!!!!

"I crush your tiny little heads!" Mr. Armitage told reporters after confirming that he had inadvertently disclosed the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame in conversations with two reporters in 2003.
"Crush-crush-crush!!!!" he added.

Busy

The semester has started and the usual swamping has occurred. This time it's extra heavy for me because I'm teaching. Which is fun, but which is a whole lot of work. Usually when a grad student teaches a class as the instructor, the faculty who have taught it provide that student with material, resources, notes, slides, syllabus, and a variety of things they themselves have generated in the past while teaching that course. You hope they give you stuff that is sort of "tried and true", although that is not always the case. This material does not absolve you of construct your own course, but it at least provides even some temporary or intermittent structure here and there.

I do not have this material. The two guys who have taught this course over the last 5 or more years are, well, not content oriented. One is "chalk and talk" and the other lectures straight from the book. This makes my job monumentally more, um, challenging. It is in fact possibly worse than challenging, although that sort of depends on whether my advisor and division head understand the nature of what I need to do in the absence of real mentoring in this course.

So not a lot of posts lately. I'm not officially taking a break from blogging. I intend to blog when I can. But today and until I get a little more momentum in this course, I can't.