alternatively...

There's the advice that my Dad has oft delivered in my times of need: "Fuck the fucking fuckers."

I mean, do these look like people who give a fuck?

Here's an update on that sweet potato.

Remember when Jess and I got a sweet potato but then never ate it. I'm sure you all remember. (That "you all" thing is a joke. The only person reading this is Jessica because I told her I was going to post this.) Well, it was about two years ago, give or take a few weeks. Here's what it looks like now:


I happen to think that, in its antique form, it's sort of an edgy addition to the decor of our lovely little home.

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On my absence from this blog: Yeah, I just don't really have that much to say. But I'm going to make an effort to write up in here again because I realized just now while perusing old posts with Jess, that if it wasn't for this ol' thing, I wouldn't remember about the time when Jordan rested his hand on the waiter's stomach. Also, it hosts our intern want ad. (We're still hiring! Apply now!) So for posterity's sake.

(The problem is, I'm not completely convinced that it's necessary for anyone to blog anymore since Tavi already blogs, and she does so in such a completely perfect way.)

highlights of my week:

1. Moe visited! And the highlight of this highlight was probably our pregaming Apples to Apples. That game. So dumb and yet so fun at the same time.

2. I went to see the school play and chatted during the intermission with an older man behind me who has as his goal to attend five plays a week. Holy shnikees, right? He strongly suggested that I see a play, the title of which escapes me, in which a man dies and then comes back to tell his wife how much he loves her. He also suggested that I think seriously about the impending danger of "that satellite" colliding with "something up there," thereby knocking out every computer in the country including cars. It would set our society back eighty years he guessed. According to his estimation, the cause of this doom is the terrible direction our country is taking what with the removal of religion from so many things.

3. So many of my students are now using textual proof to support their theses and are using correct MLA style when they do it. And they're doing it quite well.

4. Jess made red pesto ravioli for dinner last night.

Mmm hmmm Mmmm hmmmmm

I had to go to school early this morning to drop off lesson plans for my sub. As I was walking back home, the crossing guards for the local elementary school were just getting to their posts. I was saying good morning to one as another pulled up, parked, and opened the door so that we could hear her BLASTING "A Woman's Worth" by Alicia Keys. The woman who'd just said hello to me started laughing and said, "You'll have to excuse my mother. She's old." I thought she was kidding, making a joke about how loud this person's stereo was at seven-thirty in the morning. But when I walked past the car, there really was a super old woman getting out of it. Like, really old. How cool.

less than 20 more than 10 of my friends are retired

Am I more cool or less cool for having my Facebook friendship request denied by this man?


Can we be friends, I wonder, at The Esquire? How about at High Dive?

feeling very adult

This piece of mail arrived in my mailbox this weekend:

apartment tour

It's still a work in progress, but with an emphasis on the progress.

Caution: Motion sickness ahead. Prepare accordingly.

(special thanks to Ben Harper and Neil Young)

why is this not a more popular song

and why, when I dance like that now, do people think I look stupid? I look good.

This is a good song because it's a break-up song, and it's like, "Eh, ain't no thing." And I like that. No remorse.

jackpot

Although I stand by all of my complaints about moving, I will say that finding a four-inch thick stack of emails I printed off (pre-gmail, obviously) from freshman year was AWESOME. And by awesome, I mean excrutiatingly embarassing.

And since I've also saved every note I ever took in any English or education class, I'm now enjoying a nice little review session of all of my knowledge. Reification.


I've found a few things good enough to be scanned in to the blog, so if I get a chance to get over to the computer lab, I'll share.

crazy hat day

I just came across this slideshow of photos from the Royal Ascot. These two are my favorites:

funny things I heard people say this weekend

old man to guy working in gas station:
"Are you old enough to remember when you guys wouldn't take 50 or 100 dollar bills?"

preacher at Beverly Unitarian Church:
"And then God said, 'You people with your racism and your sexism and your classism are urinating me off!'"

Parents On Parade

At Commencement a few weeks ago, I introduced my parents to a couple of my profs and thought it was so weird. Teachers are trained to welcome their students' parents into communication about their children, but I noticed that none of my professors in college sent home a letter with me: "Dear parent(s)/guardian(s), My name is BlahBlahBlah and I am your child's ENGL 402 professor..." I found it a little strange to imagine some of my professors even knowing I had parents, let alone meeting them, if that makes sense.

This morning I was enjoying a cup of coffee with my aforementioned vampire book (which by the way, is un-put-down-able) at the cafe in the Union. There are lots of first year students here everyday for orientation, and there are lots of parents around to accompany them. I'm not that much older than them, but for a second I found myself thinking, "Oh, of course. They needed a ride here." Um, no they didn't, first year students are eighteen and mostly have drivers' licenses. They're not little kids. They can vote, smoke, and buy porn. But I saw one dad standing behind the registration table taking a picture of his son receiving his nametag sticker as if his little boy was getting ready for his first day of kindergarten. Hilarious! And also a little embarrassing.

College, in my experience, is largely a parent-free zone, physically at least. In no way do I mean to discredit the emotional and financial support I received from my parents during college. No doubt my parents played a more important role than they realize in my degree-earning process. Nor do I mean to look snobbily down on these new first years who I know can and will figure things out on their own. No way.

But as I type this post there is a pretty intense scene going on at the computer next to me involving a heavily frustrated mother-daughter-older-brother combo trying to figure out if the daughter should take PSYCH or SOC or ANTHRO or FSHN. ("Hhhhh! GOD, Mom! I don't want to take that! That's so boring!" "Hunny, PSYCH 100 is a good class. What's wrong with that class?") I guess I'm just finding it amusing because deciding which classes to take was never really something I included my parents in.

I'm being a stereotypical young adult right now, pathetically marveling at my own relative independence, I know. But come on, freshman are funny. Being new at something is goofy. Man, I am not looking forward to being the new person again.

crazy liberals...

This post over at The Carpetbagger Report addresses a goofy chain email that I vaguely remember receiving from my Grandma a while ago that takes on the task of informing voters that Barack Obama is a Muslim who doesn't put his hand over his heart for the Pledge! Imagine!

Oddly enough, Benen mostly insists, No, he's not! He's Christian! And he does!

Um, so what if he was Muslim? One of the commenters borrows from Seinfield to remind readers, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

My favorite commenter though, before s/he digresses into a borderline kids-these-days-suck rant, writes

"I don’t understand why human beings are so ritualistic and ceremonial. I’ve got a codicil in my will that says I won’t attend my own funeral because I can’t stand ceremonies.

Form over substance, every time, it seems. Even with religion. As if you could fool this god that nearly everyone believes in by praying out loud and talking a good game and browning him up.

I stopped saying the Pledge when I was seventeen. Aside from objecting to compulsory and public attestations of loyalty and faith, I found the first phrase, “I pledge allegiance to the FLAG,” to be ridiculous. Why would anyone pledge allegiance to a symbol? And the “under God” thing I found to be abhorrent, and unconstitutional. But as a matter of courtesy, I stand when it’s repeated at public events.

As for the national anthem, I also stand out of respect for others, but don’t place my hand over my heart, and I don’t sing, partly because I can’t sing, and partly because I can’t stand this thing - I’ve heard it a billion times in my 66 years. Enough is enough.

I just don’t understand why this empty symbolism is so important to so many people."

I'm not going to my funeral either! Fuck that.

consciousness

I've had to spend a lot of time at the doctor's office in the past few days because I need to get an extensive physical done as part of my application to the Peace Corps.

I really love my doctor.

I've been finding it really interesting to think so directly about my body and the way it works. Since I typically spend my time thinking about what I do with my body (teaching, writing, reading, talking, hanging out), but usually take for granted that I have a body that has all kinds of automatic and voluntary processes going on, it's been really fun to raise my awareness of what's going on with me in the physical sense.

I do realize how ridiculous I'm sounding right now. But I also realize that I have a heart rate, an immune system, a blood pressure, and all kinds of other cool things like that.

It's the little things in life, you know?

Today as I was leaving the grocery store, there was a man coming in, in his fifties I'd say, and wearing a vintage teal B.U.M. Equipment sweatshirt. He had longish gray hair and just as he was stepping into the sensored zone of the automatic door, he kicked his leg forward, did this karate chop thing, and yelled, "Hiyah!" He was by himself, no kids with him or anything. But after he did it he looked so happy. He looked at me with no shame and said, "I've always wanted to do that." Yeah, man.