Pixie Dust and Bottle Rockets

NOOO!: Star Wars Edition

2011-09-05T13:59:00.000-06:00

It has come to my attention that George Lucas decided that Return of the Jedi needed to become a film in which someone yells, "NOOOOOO!" for the BluRay release:

Uncompelling Mysteries: Spousal Snooping Edition

2011-01-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

I am supposed to be writing my dissertation, which is big and scary and thus encourages procrastination. Today I engaged in level 4 procrastination, the levels of procrastination being as follows:

Level 1: Not even trying to do the thing that needs to be done, e.g. watching The X-Files on Netflix and knitting;
Level 2: Doing something that is useful, but has nothing to do with the thing that needs to be done, e.g. cleaning or paying bills;
Level 3: Doing something useless, but in physical proximity to the thing that needs to be done, e.g. using the computer to read DListed with the document dissertation.scriv open behind the browser;
Level 4: Doing something that ostensibly will help you to get more work done in the future, but ensures you get nothing at all done now, e.g. rearranging furniture in the office.

Accordingly, today I spent part of the afternoon moving four bookcases and a filing cabinet about the office. I found a bunch of things I had no idea were up there, including CDs I was supposed to list on Alibris, several presumably awesome books I ordered and had shipped to the house while I was overseas, and this little storage unit that I have dusted many times but never looked inside.

Today I did look inside, mostly because I'm nosy and the office was formerly my husband's dumping ground for weird items from his past, but also a little bit because I enjoy storing small items in receptacles, much like a raven or squirrel, and thought this might be something I could commandeer for my own use. Would it be empty or would it be full of things? An uncompelling mystery, indeed!

Q: What does my husband keep in that little two-drawer storage unit in the office, anyway?

A: Top drawer, shoe maintenance supplies; bottom drawer, ostrich egg, bangle carved with elephants, and South African antacid.

To be honest, the shoe polish was more of a surprise than the ostrich egg.

I Respond Well to Positive Reinforcement

2010-10-19T17:48:00.000-06:00

I went to the dentist last week. It's the first time I've been in a year, first because I was out of the country and then because I guess my dentist got super popular while I was gone so I couldn't get an appointment. I wasn't too concerned about it, because I hadn't gone to the dentist for like four years before that due to a lack of dental insurance and a related aversion to spending upwards of $75 to be lectured to about teeth when I know plenty of dental anthropologists who will do that for free, sometimes unasked. And my teeth hadn't dissolved or anything, so once a year seems pretty luxurious and responsible. And now I'm married to a dude with a real job that provides benefits like dental insurance, so I can be lectured about teeth twice a year for free. Also, he is currently advising on a project about dental microwear, so sometimes he lectures me about teeth too. My cup overfloweth.

Anyway. My hard-won appointment was only for the cleaning and x-rays, because the dentist was out on some unspecified business, presumably dental as I am unable to picture my dentist doing anything that doesn't involve pointing at x-rays while wearing blue nitrile gloves. The hygienist was unbelievably enthusiastic about my flossing choices ("Do you floss?" "Yes, I use one of those Reach flossers once a day?" "Oh, we love those!") and corrected the trout-like mouth gape I use while brushing, making it impossible to reach my molars. Then she complimented my admittedly excellent gums. I came home on a wave of congratulations and positive reinforcement, brushing (with mouth mostly closed) and flossing my heart out. Some days I even brushed morning AND night, because my good dental health is mostly luck but I felt I should try to live up to the hype. I clung irrationally to my free toothbrush, which I found in my purse when my husband realized he hadn't packed a toothbrush for our trip to Reno: "But I got it from the dentist!" I said, as though it were mystically bestowed upon me by the Dentist in the Lake and thus untransferable. I was a machine of both dental health and toothbrush hoarding.

And then I realized that dental hygienists are masters of the shit sandwich.

Intriguing.

2010-07-17T10:04:00.000-06:00

According to I Write Like, two of my favorite recent posts (this one and this one about my research) are similar to the writing of David Foster Wallace. I assume this means painful to read yet worthy of a MacArthur Fellowship? I guess they've got the first half right, anyway.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I Have Had It With Evolutionary Psychology

2010-07-03T08:01:00.000-06:00

So, this research is getting some press. Apparently, some evolutionary psychologists (the study of generating evolutionary justification for the status quo) found out that men found the faces of women with smaller feet, narrower hips, etc relative to their height more attractive than their larger-boned counterparts. And this obviously has something to do with our savannah ancestors and males spreading their seed rather than cultural constructs of femininity, even though clearly the first steps in making the argument that such a preference is evolved would be demonstrating that it is not dependent on culture, that we know what we think we do about, say, symmetry, evolutionary fitness and beauty, and also that their results are not some weird effect of averaging faces. Which I'm pretty sure that testing fewer than 100 undergraduate males does not do adequately. But who am I kidding? This is probably way more thought than the researchers put into designing the study, which I'm pretty sure consisted of this:

"You know what I can't stand? A big-footed woman."
"Me too, man. Me too."
"Well, it must be evolutionary. Otherwise we're just assholes."

Fear Me, Ordinary Mortals

2010-06-24T14:34:00.002-06:00

And also? I am psychic.

Exhibit A: What's Next? Footloose?!?

Exhibit B: Yes, Footloose, starring some dude called Kenny

Peril!

2010-06-24T14:28:00.001-06:00

Blast from the Past! This is an entry I guess I started but never posted about a million years ago. I found it when I was paging through my Edit Posts menu, thinking about adding tags to my earlier posts. I thought it was kind of funny, and I continue to hate the wind. It makes me immediately grumpy to walk out into it. Enjoy!

This morning, underinformed about the high winds outside, I made the tragic decision to wear a wrap dress, which resulted in my stepping outside and avoiding flashing the neighborhood only through lightening-fast skirt-clutching reflexes, honed by years of living in Boulder CO, where winds can reach hurricane force. Because I didn't have time to change, I am now damned to a whole day of blown-skirt peril, including biking to school one-handed while other hand holds skirt in place, miraculously holding onto bike and skirt and manipulating bike lock simultaneously, and traversing the 5th-story bridge that connects the building with my office to the one with the lab where I work. Freaking wind.

Maybe We'll Have an Imaginary Second Location Soon

2010-05-30T08:50:00.001-06:00

My husband and I are ridiculous book- and music-hoarders, to the point that when we moved in together we found we had a total of about 100 shelf-feet of books. If you stacked them and stood on top of them, it would look like this:

(Photo from Last Resort Fire Department, which restores antique fire trucks)

I freaked out a little bit and we started making more of an effort to actively manage them. So, we sell stuff (books, CDs, DVDs) on Alibris, which is a pretty sweet deal. You pay an annual seller fee, list your stuff and price it, then ship it out when it gets ordered. Alibris deposits the payments to your bank account, plus shipping and handling costs and minus a per-transaction sales fee. It's a good place to buy things, too. I'm not getting paid by Alibris for this. In fact, it's all just background information for the following marginally amusing (at best) anecdote:

When I have to interact with customers, I try to make us sound like a professional book-dealing outfit rather than a couple of yahoos operating out of the closet in the spare bedroom. I do this because I find people are suspicious of doing online business with the latter, and also because it entertains me. Thus, when someone inquires whether her order has shipped, as she would prefer to cancel it, I let her know that I will "check with shipping" (i.e., call my husband to ask whether he stopped by the post office yet and remind him to buy fish food), then follow up to say that I've been able to "pull the item from outgoing shipments" and cancel the order. I feel that it gives a pleasing, bustling air to our imaginary bookstore. I guess the ruse is working, because one customer e-mailed back addressing the message to my full name and commending me on my excellent customer service. Which I will be sure to pass along to management.

We're Shooting for 35% Next Year

2010-05-27T12:46:00.001-06:00

Seeing as how the exchange rate has been working more and more in my favor, my living situation has become approximately 25% cheaper (utilities and entertaining flatmates included in the rent!), and I have a marvelous brother-in-law who was pleased to harass the airline on my behalf, I am officially staying an extra month overseas, for a total of 10 months. This is great news for my dissertation, which will presumably be 11% more awesome as a result, but I realized on the phone with my mom (who requested a chart) that it means the following for me and my husband's first year of marriage:

Here's hoping the volcanoes pipe down, because if I'm delayed we may fall below the 20% mark.

So, yeah. How's married life? We wouldn't know. The main difference for me is that sometimes I check the "Mrs." box when I'm asked for my salutation on forms. The main difference for my husband is that he has to handle all my US obligations, including filing our first married tax returns with vague assistance from me ("That information may be in the pile near my desk.") and fun with motor vehicles.

Thank God for Skype and webcams, or I might not recognize the guy when he turns up to collect me at the airport in July.

The Problem is the Closet, not Who's Out of It

2010-05-08T05:40:00.000-06:00

Newsweek is an apologist for the closet; Kristin Chenoweth issues a stern STFU.

Ugh. Memo to Newsweek: gay and lesbian actors in straight roles "works" fine. It's no more of a technical issue than a monogamous actor playing a prostitute, or someone who's never sat for the bar playing a lawyer. It's called acting.

If you can't get past the actor's known sexuality to find him or her believable in a straight role -- and that is the issue here, given that the essayist is talking about actors known to be gay, whether out or outed -- either the problem is with you, or he or she is not a very good actor. If you watch Rock Hudson and snicker about seeing him in a bubble bath instead of appreciating that "straight" was a role he felt he had to play his entire working life, not just on screen, then you're part of the problem. If knowing Jonathan Groff is gay makes his Glee performance feel "off" ... well, again, that's on you, because I didn't know he was gay until you told me I should have found his sexuality so obvious as to be "distracting". Was Matthew Morrison or Cory Monteith "writhing to" Like a Virgin equally testament to their sexuality? Or did you only think it seemed gay when the openly gay man did it? Guess what: you might be part of the problem.

And if the author thinks the problem only goes one way -- "It's OK for straight actors to play gay ... it's rare for someone to pull off the trick in reverse" -- then he hasn't been paying attention. Both Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal faced massive speculation regarding their sexuality after they were cast in Brokeback Mountain, and Gyllenhaal continues to. The supposed "problem" with gay and lesbian actors in straight roles is the conception, illustrated amply by the Newsweek piece claiming to bemoan it, that homosexuality pervades every aspect of a person so thoroughly that he or she cannot realistically play straight. The source of wild speculation or wild adulation when straight actors are convincing in gay roles is a corrolary to this -- that somehow it's either extra-magical or suspicious when a straight actor convinces us that he or she is attracted to someone of the same sex. And yeah, that's kind of the author's point. So why is he combing through the performances of gay and lesbian actors for evidence of their supposedly essential gay-ness in order to make it?

Uncompelling Mysteries: Wild Kingdom

2010-04-18T05:14:00.000-06:00

Q: What does a tortoise say?

A: According to my two-year-old flatmate, a tortoise says, "Haaaaaach ... ptoo!" So I guess they have congestion. She also authoritatively stated that the noise a pirate makes is, "Arrrrrrrrr."

You Don't Know Me, Apple

2010-04-16T17:41:00.000-06:00

I am taking an insanely detailed feedback survey about how I use the MacBook I bought right before I came over here, because my old one got a terminal diagnosis like a week before I was scheduled to move overseas. Good times. The survey has just asked me how often I use my computer to view video "at home: on the couch" and then "at home: in bed". As I am currently taking the survey in bed, I suspect they are using the integrated webcam to spy on me.

I'll know for sure if the next questions are, "Are you seriously eating peanuts at 11:45 pm?" "How concerned are you about choking on them, seeing as how you're 75% horizontal?" and "Is that one of the Little House books in German behind you?" (Answers: Yes, somewhat concerned, and yes, but for some reason On the Banks of Plum Creek is titled Laura und ihre Freunde instead of Laura am Pflaumenbach in the pattern of the rest of the series' translations. Oh, and Landwirtjunge has been left out entirely, which is too bad, because I like the bit where the pig gets its teeth stuck together with poorly-made candy.)

ODs A-Go-Go

2010-04-10T17:45:00.001-06:00

Funny story, or possibly tale of the macabre, depending on your point of view:

In the 1905 hospital records I'm reading, there are all of a sudden a rash of poisonings with (from? by? I'm not sure which is the proper preposition) a variety of substances, including but not limited to: lead, phosporus, alcohol, opium, and cocaine. Don't worry, that's not the funny part. There was also a "ptomaine poisoning," which is obviously not the same sort of poisoning but made me think about how my parents used to refer to any shady restaurant as a "ptomaine palace" and how I really should find more excuses to use that term, because alliteration is funny. Which is all beside the point.

I clearly had to include some of this poisoning outbreak in my research, as it is an unexpected trend in admissions, and also because earnest, bougie Edwardian doctors interacting with druggies is sure to produce hilarious results (but not sexy results, more's the pity), even though the doctors were probably all on laudanum themselves. And you know what? Hypothesis: proven. From the cocaine poisoning case: "he kept constantly grabbing at all pieces of paper his eyes fell on. He only wanted them to put them in the fire." Heeeeeee. It's the sniffy tone of it that kills me. You have to wonder how many pieces of paper were snatched, and how important they were, before the doctor thought, "I say, he only wants them to put them in the fire!" He is out of his everloving mind on cocaine (and whiskey, brandy, and beer, reportedly). Clearly, he doesn't want the paper for any useful purpose, such as jotting a quick missive to the local newspaper regarding the state of the roads, or origami. The ancient Japanese art of paper-folding being a second use to which the paper might be put, I mean, not a second subject upon which one might write to the newspaper. But I'm not here to judge. After all, the next day, "He said he wanted away as he had business to attend to."

Interesting side note: dude had injected the cocaine, as he had done for the past seven years. Only 45 years after the modern syringe and the drug itself were invented. But maybe he was just a Sherlock Holmes fan. Or had just purchased a handy kit from Parke-Davis for the purpose. Or appreciated Pope Leo XIII's endorsement of cocaine-laced wine. All this after some nutjob tried it out as a ophthalmic anaesthetic by instilling it into his own eye, which he then pricked with pins. A general thumbs-up from the medical community greeted the knowledge that a drug had been discovered that would allow one to painlessly poke one's own eyes with sharp objects. How could over-the-counter use not follow closely behind?

(Image via Wikipedia)

I Wish I Knew How to Quit "Glee"

2010-03-28T12:01:00.003-06:00

ETA: I originally called this post, "I Wish I Could Enjoy 'Glee' More Thoroughly", but then I realized that wasn't quite appropriate.

(Image: www.FOX.com/glee)

There's this show called Glee you may have heard about through the massive YOU MUST LOVE THIS EVERYONE ALREADY DOES EVEN THOUGH WE ONLY SHOWED ONE EPISODE SEVERAL MONTHS AGO kick-off campaign run by the network (which: well-played). It has just started playing over here, and I have been progressing apace through the Seven Stages of Grief/Hipster Co-optation of Pop Culture, to wit:

Shock or Disbelief: I refuse to even acknowledge it; if they're hyping it this much, it has to suck.
Denial: Based on the previews, which I have encountered purely by accident and certainly never YouTubed out of morbid curiosity, it looks like a rip off of something that was awesome and underappreciated (in this case, Freaks and Geeks). I will acknowledge it, but mainly because I enjoy excuses to bring up my attachment to the awesome and underappreciated comparison.
Bargaining: I will watch ONE episode (listen to one song if we're talking about a band), because people keep saying it's great and because it will give me further fodder for scorn if it's not great.
Guilt: I may need to watch TWO episodes. Because ... I don't have enough fodder for scorn yet. And I will need to download the early episodes from iTunes, because to really scorn it good and proper I need to know why Will's wife is faking her pregancy and how far I can get away with biting Miss Pillsbury's style while pretending I don't watch the show. (Or, you know, however this can be applied more generally to other popular things hipsters end up secretly liking, like Lady Gaga. Or cleaning houses.)
Anger: As I have gotten to know it better, I have begun enjoying it, but also learned that the hidden depths I'd hoped to find so I could say I appreciate it on a deeper level than you are tenuous at best. This provokes a backlash in which I bitch about it more loudly than ever, in much the same way homophobes are sometimes closet cases.
Depression: God damn it, I'm still going to watch the next episode, aren't I?
Acceptance and Hope: I forgot that I've always watched it with ironic detatchment and out of an academic curiosity about what the hoi polloi (note douchey italics) are doing these days, so it's OK to keep watching. Maybe the next season will be better. And if not, I'll be able to sniff at how far it's gone downhill since the early days!

So it's safe to say I've gotten suckered in, but I'm lodged pretty solidly in Stage 5. Y'all, I have some issues with the show, namely three, because I have just noticed that Blogger has a little button that inserts a numbered list: 1. A series of black people gags; 2. Half-assed multiculturalism; 3. Ambitious women are undesirable. Seriously, show?

In our introduction to Rachel's character, who is played by a Caucasian actress, she describes how she has two dads and both donated sperm, so isn't it cool that they don't know which one is her bio-dad? By way of a punchline, they cut to a family photo: one of her dads is stereotypically nebbishy Jewish, and one is African-American. Hilarious, right? Ahahaha! She's so sweet and clueless -- everyone knows what Black looks like! Ugh. This was even underscored when she's shown getting the side-eye from the rest of the Black Student Union while the point is made that she joins wildly inappropriate student groups to get more photos in the yearbook. Then, in the Very Special Episode in which we meet the competition for Sectionals (a girls' reform school and a school for the deaf), the first reform-school girl we meet is an African-American girl named "Aphasia" who steals Will's wallet. Ahahaha! Black parents who raise criminals think medical terms sound pretty but don't know what they mean! They don't choose appropriate names like "Rachel" and "Noah" (TV shorthand for Jewish) or "Quinn" and "Finn" (unusual enough to not be considered bland, but testament to the bearer's whiteness) or "Mercedes" ("ethnic" but on the ~~white~~, er, "right" side of the line, as opposed to "Aphasia" and "Shatonda")! Hilarious.
Okay, honestly, I do give the producers and writers credit for having major characters of a range of ethnicities and actually incorporating disability into storylines on a regular instead of "very special" basis, but they do undercut themselves quite a bit when the non-caucasians are pretty constantly relegated to the background. You know, to the point that the show makes a wink-wink reference to it by one character referring to another as "other Asian". And I won't get started on how the only major character who is overweight is the African-American girl.
And then there's the way the viewers are constantly reminded that the one female character to express specific goals and career ambitions beyond "getting out of here" or making her relationship work is annoying, grating, insufferable, etc. Hey ladies! Don't try too hard or care too much about having a successful career, because it makes people hate you! Fantastic.

But, you know how it goes for all that: God damn it, I'm still going to watch the next episode. I'm a sucker for musicals. Plus, Will just found out about the non-baby over here so what will happen? (Don't tell me.)

Haiku are for Slackers

2010-03-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

Door slammed on my way
Out the flat; heard the toddler
wake up. Bad flatmate.

My flatmates have a toddler and a new baby. I try not to set off any crying bombs in the mornings so everyone can sleep in a little. Didn't do so well this morning.

This is what passes for a blog post at the moment, as things have been a little wacky (in a super entertaining way) with the new little person around.

When You Put it That Way ...

2010-02-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

An episode of Antiques Roadshow is described in part in our TV on-screen directory, "Michael Aspel and the team marvel at an array of historic items."

I wonder if the powers that be who greenlighted the show see that, look at each other, and ask, "Did this always sound so bad on paper?" I mean, seriously: an hour of watching people say, "Oooh! It's a tiny silver pig, manufactured only between 1787 and 1789!" does not sound particularly riveting. But then you see an episode in which a cabinet housing a miniature Victorian parlor scene populated with anthropomorphized taxidermied squirrels is earnestly praised and valued at several thousand pounds, and you do indeed marvel along with Michael Aspel and the team.

FYI, a Google image search for "squirrels parlor scene taxidermy" yielded nothing close to the objet d'art in question to share with you. But I'm pretty sure it put me on some kind of government watch list.

Mind Warp: Complete

2010-02-13T08:04:00.005-07:00

My dissertation research involves reading 150-year-old hospital records, which means I spend 40 to 50 hours a week reading about people suffering from horrible diseases and receiving often-horrible treatments (heavy metals: good for what ails ya!). This has apparently warped my conception of "funny" into what most of my friends and relations would place squarely under "morbid". Such as the 6-year-old with a tapeworm whose own history of his illness was taken in his mother's absence, and earnestly entered by the doctor: "[a piece of tapeworm] was like a broad riband and as long as his finger ... he [the boy] is fond of sugar and butter." (LHB1/129/2/12) Cute, right? I mean, sad, obviously, but a little bit funny? ... Anyone?

I think it's the kid's irrepressible-by-tapeworm enthusiasm sneaking through that cracks me up.

This leads to, I imagine, a general dread when people ask about my research and I start by saying, "Oh, this was funny!" But you have to find some reason to laugh, or all your free time is taken up trying to cry quietly in a public restroom stall and/or plotting exactly which powers-that-be (Social Darwinists? Hospital administrators? Doctors? The power-drunk and paternalistic bourgeois? That hospital clerk who can't write an intake record less than four pages long?) you will slap in the face, and how hard, when you finally get your time machine. Which is kind of my philosophy on dealing with heavy shit in general, when you get down to it, so there you go.

ETA: And now I'm imagining the effect in Victorian Britain if I were to appear from the future in my denim trousers and short haircut to deal massive and richly-deserved roundhouse face slaps to, like, dudes saying disease decreases the surplus population, and then wink away back to the present. And it is hilarious. I say, "You just got slapped!" or, I don't know, "Slap justice!" to avoid copyright infringement on How I Met Your Mother and disappear, and they all stand around blinking and stunned for a while while one guy clutches his muttonchop whiskers. And then one dude finally says, "I say, that was taking the point a bit far, old chum; my mistress was diagnosed with consumption just a se'nnight past." I wish I could draw comics so you all could see it too.

Speaking of Gnomes

2010-02-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

It's vaguely related story hour!

I began agitating for a yard gnome soon after I moved in with my now-husband, what with having an actual house with an actual yard. Well, an actual house with a gravel-mulched xeriscaped plot surrounding it. Not that I dislike xeriscaping -- it can really be lovely, and God knows we can kill plants with the best of them -- but the builder's interpretation of it is sparse at best, and the neighborhood association was so taken with it that it's in the neighborhood covenants (do they keep them in a Neighborhood Ark?) that the front landscaping is not to be densely planted. For what it's worth, we've gone even sparser by killing our small tree and being scared to replace it lest we kill Tree 2.0.

(Photo from this Telegraph story about gnome discrimination)

Anyway. Imagine my surprise and delight (and shock and awe!) when my husband came home from Walgreen's bearing two yard gnomes. He saw them for like $5 each when he was picking up a prescription or something and took the plunge into gnome ownership, because he is awesome. Then the following conversation ensued:

Me: Yay! Where do you want to put them?
Him: Well, one's going in the garage. Which one do you want to put out?
Me: Garage?
Him: Some kid's going to steal our gnome, or break it! I got a spare!

This gnome-paranoia shouldn't have been a surprise, as he's been muttering dire warnings about how terrible things happen to yard gnomes ever since I first mentioned wanting one. He takes a dim view of the goodness of mankind. But, take heart! It's been over a year, and our gnome is mostly unmolested. We had to set him upright again after a cat rubbed up against him once, but that's all. It may be time to bring the second gnome into play.

Ooh, and we totally need this from Toscano next:

Perfect for Gnomes

2010-01-31T12:44:00.000-07:00

I made a lovely Estonian lace shawl during my first few months here in Glasgow. It knit up amazingly quickly -- largely because I knew a total of zero people in town and had no internet at home, so spent all my free time knitting -- and I was epically pleased with it. Unfortunately, I finished it up to and including knitting and attaching the border before I could no longer delude myself that it was in no way possible it would block out to an appropriate size for an adult, unless that adult desired a knitted neckerchief:

Those are a tape measure and a copy of Charlotte Brontë's Villette, a trade-paperback sized book which incidentally is fantastic, shown for size. As well as my toes, shown because I couldn't be arsed to crop the photo before I posted this.

The tragic irony is that I actually DID knit a gauge swatch for it, which I often don't do for lace projects like shawls, where blocking can cover a multitude of ills and the specific size isn't all that important. Too bad there was a misprint in the swatch instructions, as far as I can tell, because there's essentially no correlation between the stitches and size as printed for the swatch and for the finished project.

The good news is that it provided another several evenings' worth of entertainment to rip the whole thing out, then steam and re-wind the yarn. Now I'm working on a different variation of the pattern. I enjoy Sisyphean make-work.

I Shall Call my Show, "The Human Mumbler"

2010-01-23T07:42:00.001-07:00

This Fall, I was watching a lot of The Dog Whisperer -- it came on while I was generally eating dinner in an empty flat, is oddly hypnotic, and I like dogs better than reruns of Friends -- and I found that Cesar's Way can be applied to dealing with other humans. To wit:

1. Project calm, assertive energy, because projecting "doormat" makes people treat you like one; and
2. If all else fails, get people on the ground with a knee on their chest.

You heard it here first. Feel free to direct book and TV show offers on this philosophy to the comments.

Christianity: You're Doing it Wrong

2010-01-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."

I'm sorry, what was that you said? I couldn't hear you; I was busy smashing up Christian-owned businesses and burning churches.

Pat Robertson: Feel free to read up on Nazi Germany, slavery, pogroms, colonialism, reservations, segregation, crusades, tenant-farm clearances, and hate crimes. And STFU.

While you work on that, I'll be over here, thinking about Pat Benatar in an effort to avoid flying into a knee-jerk berzerker rage upon hearing the word "Pat."

Uncompelling Mysteries: Pound Foolish Edition

2010-01-15T06:39:00.001-07:00

Q: Why doesn't everyone buy nine Christmas Crackers for one pound at the everything-costs-a-pound store?

(Click to Enlarge)

A: Because they saved money in production by only using one riddle. Also, the tissue-paper crowns (not shown) were toddler-sized.

The Tag Cloud Cometh

2009-09-17T13:55:00.000-06:00

Hi "all" (i.e., "one"),

If you get notifications that this blog has updated, you may have been inundated with them today and for the next day or so -- I started adding labels (see nifty tag cloud to the right), so have been going back and adding them to old posts. Bear with me.

xo
Maim

There Goes the Bride

2009-09-15T17:48:00.005-06:00

For anyone who didn't know, I got married a couple of weeks ago. It was pretty awesome. Pros: lifetime commitment, friends and family, fantastic dress and shoes, confetti cannon shocker at send off. Cons: passing out. And no, not in the manner of a drunk-assed bride or frat partier, but in a Victorian lady, smelling-salts kind of way.

It happened thusly: I had a super time getting ready, then did the whole walk-down-the-aisle, lifetime-pledge bit, then balanced in pointy heels on a sunny, grassy slope for awhile while the photographer tried to get all four children involved in the ceremony both standing upright and looking pleasant simultaneously (not possible). Then I shooed my family, including my bridal-emergency-kit bearing sister away to the reception to take couple portraits. Then after a bit of that, I felt really dizzy, reportedly murmured, "I feel like I might pass out," and then kind of keeled over, dropped the water bottle the photographer had donated to the cause, and my new husband had to catch me to keep several hundred dollars' worth of dress (and my skull) off the UNM campus pavement. There was only one casualty:

I had a nice little dream about my alarm clock going off, then came to in the midst of drama, with the photographer running to get the limo, the limo driver and husband (mine, not the limo driver's) stowing me, somewhat like a mob corpse, in the backseat, and the photographer asking what I'd eaten that day (answer: clearly not enough and not recently enough for a hypoglycemic). We pealed off to the reception, and I pulled my sister's cell phone number out of the depths of pre-cell phone memory so the limo driver could call ahead for emergency snacks and hair assistance -- you know, to avoid making our entrance to the reception in a style less triumphant/joyous and more staggering/bedraggled, in much the same way a long-thought-dead foiler of plans totters into some early-20th-century murderer's party celebrating said murderer's ill-gotten inheritance. Not the tone in which one wants to kick off a lifetime together.

Where was my cell phone, you might ask, if you hadn't gotten distracted by that long digression? In my little wedding purse. Sitting next to the photographers bag 'o' expensive cameras and camera bits. Right in the middle of campus all by themselves, because in the midst of lady-catching/limo-moving/corpse-stowing, everyone forgot the bags. Which were missing by the time the photographer (the excellent Ginger Russell, by the way) realized they were gone and rushed back to get them.

Not to worry, though: after a charming wedding night of getting a friend to loan me her asthma inhaler, calling credit card companies and sending missed calls/texts to my missing phone (sample: "Do you have my stuff? I want it back."), some hotel and spa in Santa Fe called to say they had my purse, and after some shuffling around in the luggage room, found the photographer's bag, too. Apparently another limo driver picked them up -- possibly noticing they were left sitting there after the unconscious bride drama -- and unloaded them with his wedding's luggage in Santa Fe. So we took a little road trip to the fancy spa, found the limo company had collected it to bring back to Albuquerque, and I finally got everything back from the limo office on Monday ("It's a VERY cute purse," the limo company's desk people assured me). Yay!

(You Know How Mike Is)

2009-08-11T09:54:00.003-06:00

I just came across this Thanksgiving OCD/passive-aggressive gem at the gift to the universe that is Awkward Family Photos -- now with awkward family stories!

The link to it is my gift to you. I think my favorite is Lisa, who as a married woman is required to contribute to Thanksgiving at an adult level.

Breaking News

2009-08-08T20:47:00.012-06:00

Have you heard that Obama's health plan will confiscate all puppies and bake them into a pie?

And that pie will be served a la mode.

Psycho Phone, Qu'est-ce que c'est?

2009-08-08T19:31:00.004-06:00

Imagine, if you will: you are sitting in a conference session next to one of your mentors, who happens to be the president of the organization holding the conference. Your phone is dutifully turned to silent. Then, out of nowhere, it ... rings. Loudly. Your ringtone. Which happens to be the Danny Elfman-composed theme to "Tales From the Crypt".

What do you do? What DO you do?

Here's what I did:
1. Picked up the phone
2. Dropped it on the floor

(UNH UNH was all I heard
Are we going to let the elevator bring us down
Oh no
Let's go crazy!)

3. Prince reenactment over, muttered "Jesus", and possibly also "Shit"
4. Turned volume down and noted it was already set to "sounds off"
5. Finally fumbled the phone off

Smooth.

My only saving grace is that my parents had the psychic impulse to call right between two talks. But that doesn't mean I didn't feel like an asshole. The mentor, fortunately, laughed and muttered, "Good timing." She rocks.

I preferred the psycho behavior of last week, when it was turning itself off and back on for no reason. Can't we go back to playing that game, phone? Please?

And don't think I didn't notice that you ate like three tweets today.

Tooth in Advertising

2009-06-20T11:20:00.005-06:00

To be perfectly frank, blog ad, it would seem you only cured one yellow tooth.

Films in Which Someone Yells, "Inappropriate Tank Top!"

2009-06-07T18:05:00.007-06:00

...namely, me.

We saw the Wolverine movie this weekend, because I have an abiding affection for the X-Men, the fiancé has an abiding affection for comic book action movies, and the fiancé's father has an abiding affection for any movie, ever. And it was pretty good; even though no one yelled, "NOOO!", someone did yell, "Arrrghiiughhhhahhhhh!" which is animalistically comparable. I was glad the studio finally just knuckled under, cut the fat, and gave the people what they want from an X-Men movie, i.e., two hours of Wolverine, i.e., one hour of Hugh Jackman shirtless. Kudos to the wardrobe department for successfully walking the thin line between super-tight jeans and jeans the actor can still walk in at least somewhat normally, BTW.

But seriously, wardrobe department? The Canadian everyman/reluctant hero/misanthrope/lumberjack has a neverending supply of fashion-y wide-rib tanks? Compare and contrast:

A standard-issue undershirt:

Wolverine's undershirt:

Here's another look, in case you're not convinced yet.

SERIOUSLY? That is not a tank top you obtain while on the run, nude, from a secret government experimental superweapons program (spoiler!). That is not a tank top you wear to your lumberjacking job in the Canadian Rockies while trying to escape your mercenary past (spoiler!!!). That is not a tank top of which one has an endless supply wherever one happens to find oneself shirtless (which apparently happens A LOT if you are Wolverine) (SPOILER!!!!1!!1!). That is a $77 Swiss tank top.

I mean, I guess if you're a super-fancy lumberjack who is secretly 100 years old, you might have spent like 50 of those years squirrelling away $77 Swiss tank tops in various remote locations, you know, JUST IN CASE you find yourself on the run from a secret government experimental superweapons program, or whatever. And maybe his mutant accelerated healing power is somehow powerless in the face of minor fabric irritation, in which case he had plenty of time to find just the tank top that he could wear in his various mercenary-lumberjacking-fighting Sabretooth occupations without the heartbreak of chafing. But for those of us who don't choose to fanwank that kind of thing, but do choose to fixate on minor details of movies? It was SUPER DISTRACTING, producers.

But thanks for the elevator gag -- those never get old.

Nephews are Pretty Awesome; David's Bridal is Not

2009-05-19T21:38:00.005-06:00

The fiancé and I (oh, yeah, we're engaged) hosted my parents, sister, and nephew for an impromptu family reunion/wedding planning blitz last week, which was generally pretty cool. I'm gradually getting over my tendency to hyperventilate every time "wedding" and "planning" are mentioned in the same sentence, and have been vastly entertained by the wedding industry's infomarketing barrage and inability to design bridesmaid dresses without empire waists, as well as my inability to get the saleslady at David's Bridal to show me any wedding dress without an empire waist. As I am not pregnant, nor do I wish to look so at my wedding, I will not be buying my dress there.

But super fun was seeing my two-year-old nephew, who, as an excellent mimic, will validate all of your opinions for you, if you phrase your inquiry properly: "Wasn't the puppy cute?" "Puppy cute!" "Should we feed the goldfish?" "Feed goldfish!" "Isn't it tricky to walk in this gravel?" "Tricky!" As not my child, he was very fun to play with, too: we spent an enjoyable five minutes standing in front of the garden spout turning it on and off before returning him with soaked clothes to my fantastic sister. Later in the visit I took a turn "watching" him at a family party, which consisted of keeping track of him following the dogs around, making sure he didn't have a confrontation with the puppy, and occasionally setting down my drink to extract him feet-first from end tables the dogs could crawl through but he couldn't. I consider it a great childrearing success.

Valentine's Day Massacre

2009-02-22T14:45:00.008-07:00

I work at a bakery to pay the bills while I'm in graduate school, which is usually pretty chill. Last week, however, all Hell broke loose due to everyone in Albuquerque deciding on February 13 that they wanted to get cupcakes for their significant others without having preordered them. We spent the day heaving new cupcakes into the gaping, sprinkle-strewn maw of the almost-empty display case and staring grimly at the acres of stuff still to be decorated. It was sort of like this:

only, you know, more tense.

Open Letter to Everyone Wasting Money on Ziploc Zip 'n' Steam Bags

2009-02-03T19:11:00.005-07:00

Dear Everyone Wasting Money on Ziploc Zip 'n' Steam Bags:

Get a damn casserole dish with a lid. Or, you know, a microwave-safe bowl with a plate on top of it. One-time investment, no waste.

Sincerely,
Auntie Maim

Tag, I'm It!

2008-12-02T15:26:00.005-07:00

I've been tagged! Thanks, Lisa!

The rules:

Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write six random things about yourself.
Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Here are six random things about me, in the order in which they occurred to me:

1. I adore really, really bad versions of Christmas carols. I blame a cassette tape my parents owned (or, indeed, probably still own), which we listened to endlessly on van trips to Steamboat Springs during the ski/Christmas season. It featured an instrumental version of, I think, "Oh Holy Night" apparently recorded by the Tinny Wavering Strings Ensemble, as well as a musical rendering of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" in which each phrase describing Santa Claus was rendered in a different US regional accent. The real show-stopper was the over-enthusiastic, fakey, corn-pone accent on "His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow!" As our mother has a beautiful and authentic Alabama accent, all three of us kids found it unbearably hilarious. This also relates to a van-borne trip as adults to see the city's best Christmas decorations -- frustrated by simultaneously attempting to drive, decipher a whimsically-scaled map printed by the newspaper, and discuss the route over the dulcet tones of the van's 1980s-era FM radio half-tuned to a station playing (terrible) Christmas music, my dad barked, to the rest of the family's hysterical amusement, "Will you turn that shit off? It just adds to the general irritation!"

2. The first concert I went to was Michael Jackson's Thriller tour in Denver. I think I was in fourth grade. The awesomeness began when my dad hopped the verge between the interstate and its frontage road in our van (for some reason, there's a lot about the van in this list so far) in order to get out of the traffic on I-25, and did not end until after first recess at school the next day, when I recounted the set list to my assembled friends. For a brief moment, I was ... kind of popular. Plus, it set off a show-going career that averaged one a week in my mid-twenties.

3. Two of my most prized possessions are black-and-white photos taken by my dad in the neighborhood of Princeton, NJ. I pulled them out of a collection of art pieces in my parents' basement because my it was my dad who first got me interested in photography, and we both went to Princeton. When I turned them over to put them into frames, I read the notes on date, exposure, and processing he had jotted on the back -- and found he had printed both on my birthdate, but three years before I was born! Spooky.

4. Every time I start a new knitting project, I think of my grandmother, who taught me how to cast on and do the basic stitches. During her final hospitalization, when she was drifting in and out of awareness, my mom showed her a pair of socks I'd made; a few days later, she reported to my aunt with perfect clarity, "Amy made socks on number one needles!" I didn't realize until then how much it meant to her that I had picked up her hobby.

5. My pet peeve surpassing all others is whistling. You will never see me fly into a seething rage faster than if someone is whistling in my vicinity. I have no idea why, but I can tell you that even typing about people whistling is putting me on edge.

6. I am kind of obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. Because of her looks, and the drugs, and the death, and the marriages, and the rumored affairs, and the media's (and public's) desire to fit her into a preconceived slot (dumb sexy blonde No. 357), a lot of people don't know how smart and talented she really was. For example: she wrote to her stepson with Arthur Miller about meeting Robert Kennedy for the first time, and said she asked him what his department was going to do for civil rights.

Tag, you're it (there are only three, because I don't know all that many blogs): Cari at Implosion Explosion, Stephanie at Dogs in the Moonlight (who probably won't respond, as she is in Madagascar), Maughta at Judge a Book by its Cover, and Stephanie at Natural/Artificial.

I'm Thankful for Flying J Travel Plaza

2008-11-18T22:41:00.004-07:00

Imagine my surprise and delight when I noted the following two items on my gas station receipt this morning:
Yes, that's right, my neighborhood travel plaza has gas at $1.94 AND holiday pies available for preorder. This really solves our dilemma of what to bring as a secondary dessert to Thanksgiving this year. And, if we can only find a spare gas can, what to bring for a hostess gift.

Babies: "That High-Contrast Shit is Giving Us Headaches"

2008-11-02T13:08:00.005-07:00

So, I recently found this awesome baby blanket pattern at Knitty that I would like to make, although I'm not sure for whom, since my fantastic nephew is over a year old now and my only friend with a new baby is an amazing knitter herself:

I especially like that it isn't annoyingly twee, and that it can be really high-contrast, since babies are supposed to like that. Which makes me wonder: how exactly do we know that babies love contrast? What if they don't, and only stare fixedly at it (or whatever makes us think they like it) because they're wondering how something so eye-poppingly fugly came to be? Or they're really gaping in horror? That would be kind of funny.

You May Take our Yard Signs, but You'll Never Take our Freedom!

2008-10-25T11:57:00.003-06:00

Like many people, I feel very strongly about the upcoming election -- so strongly that the awesome boyfriend and I have taken the unprecedented (for us) step of purchasing a modest yard sign for our favored candidate and placing it in the front yard -- or should I say gravel -- right between the one frowsy plant and that other frowsy plant. Actually, when we bought the sign, the campaign office was out of yard brackets, so we first had it taped in the front window, and then after my stint harassing voters door-to-door on Saturday, I obtained a sought-after bracket and stuck it in the yard.

And then, two days later, the sign was gone. Awesome. Way to uphold the values upon which our nation was founded by interfering with free speech. Also, way to cost me another $5 and the minor irritation of voyaging to the campaign office for another yard sign. Douchebags. My very creative friend Cari recommended that I buy 20 new yard signs and spork* the whole yard with them, croquet-course style.

Of course, it is possible that the sign was not removed by some vast right-wing conspiracy, but by A) someone over this whole election thing in general (as a swing state, we enjoy a 24-hour blanket of campaigning via all media channels -- it's only a matter of time before low-flying planes begin dropping informative propaganda pamplets WWII-style), B) bored teenagers, or C) bored 30-year-old married ladies -- one of my coworkers told me that she and a friend recently spent an enjoyable evening switching Democratic and Republican candidates' signs throughout their neighborhood.

In a related note, I am highly entertained by the frequency of radio campaign ads focused on stem cell research -- apparently, this was thought to be a HUGE issue for the upcoming election at some point before our entire economy collapsed. Whoops!

*For those of you not familiar with sporking, it is a time-honored act of minor teen vandalism performed as follows (look for it soon at wikiHow!):
Step 1: Obtain box of sporks from local Taco Bell. If desired, this can be made easier by Step 0: Befriend a disgruntled Taco Bell employee.
Step 2: Silently approach victim's house in dark of night. It is helpful to approach on foot, leaving loud vehicles down the block.
Step 3: Arrange sporks upright throughout victim's front yard in desired pattern.

Problem Solved: Keep Children in Boxes, Feed with IVs

2008-10-11T12:55:00.003-06:00

The Telegraph recently reported on a study finding that swimming frequently in chlorinated outdoor pools is associated with development of allergic asthma in children.

Combine this with widespread peanut panic, and I'm pretty sure parents will start casting a favorable eye on the Skinner Air Crib:

It's an idea whose time has come. With asthma and severe allergies myself, I kind of wish I had one. They could stick my laptop and Heroes DVDs in there instead of that little trapeze-toy thing.

P.S. I'm pretty link-happy today. This is what happens when the Fulbright application is finally in.

Uncompelling Mysteries: Olympics Edition

2008-08-11T20:55:00.003-06:00

NBC has solved perhaps the least compelling mystery of all!

Q: Why was American Olympic beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh so concerned about her lost wedding ring?!?
A: Thanks to NBC's stomach-churningly high ratio of coverage to actually interesting things to report on, we now know that it was because it was her effing wedding ring. Nice catch, color commentary guy!

I am in Need of a Good Taxidermist

2008-06-29T14:21:00.004-06:00

Receiving one of those "Yes, we're still maintaining the illusion that your generation will benefit from Social Security" pamphlets in which one learns how much the monthly payout will be if one becomes disabled now, retires at age 67, or holds out until 70 recently prompted my awesome, if dour, boyfriend to comment, "I'll probably be dead by then anyway," after which I asked, dismayed, "Well, what am I supposed to do after that?" His immediate and enthusiastic reply:

"Have me stuffed!"

Later we had a whole discussion of what attitude I should choose to have him preserved in, me favoring a tasteful full-body display in the corner of the living room, possibly in dynamic pose (hilariously disconcerting to the beaus of my widowhood), him favoring a wall-mounted trophy torso with jazz hands (he wins).

Related only in that the boyfriend suspects this guy, like him, is secretly Canadian, I invite you to listen to this specimen of hosebaggery, courtesy of the public service Hot Chicks With Douchebags:

A Picker-Up Who Clearly Does Know What Passive-Aggressive Means

Actually, dude, there IS something wrong with you.

UPDATE: It would seem he is Canadian.

Uncompelling Mysteries: Solved!

2008-06-16T11:45:00.010-06:00

Q: How does the Incredible Hulk keep his pants on?!?
A: Thanks to the good people at Marvel Studios, we now know that Bruce Banner wears outsized pants.

It's worth noting that The Incredible Hulk did satisfy a salient criterion for enjoyable films, in that it is a film in which someone yells, "NOOOO!"

Films in Which Someone Yells, "NOOO!"

2008-06-16T11:30:00.016-06:00

For some reason, I am infinitely tickled by characters in movies yelling, "NOOO!" at dramatic moments, preferably whilst falling despairingly to their knees and/or shaking their fists at cruel fate. I think it's because someone yelling, "NOOO!" often takes the film from overblown action would-be blockbuster to campy hilarity. In addition, I am pretty sure that no one has reacted this way in earnest to adverse events in the real world ever. Thus, another ongoing blog post, this one cataloguing films in which someone yells, "NOOO!"

UPDATE 17 Jun 2008: I am informed by a reliable source that "NOOO!" is yelled in earnest in response to adverse events in the real world. And she would know, being an international corporate disaster survivor -- although notably NOT a diabolical creature of one's own creation survivor. Or if she is, she keeps it pretty quiet.

Movie: The Incredible Hulk, 2008

"NOOO!" Yelled By: William Hurt as Gen. Ross

Circumstances: Daughter in peril

Movie: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, 2005

"NOOO!" Yelled By: Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker

Circumstances: Encased in natty black life support system; believes he killed love of life

Movie: Spiderman 2, 2004

"NOOO!" Yelled By: Alfred Molina as Doc Ock

Circumstances: Technological know-how, hubris cause imprisonment by diabolical creation

Well, Obviously

2008-03-19T22:07:00.004-06:00

I came across the following figure in a research paper I recently read, and after reading the accompanying text from beginning to end, I still have little idea what it signifies:

Seriously, researchers: do not generate figures for publication under any of the following conditions:
1. Using a Spirograph
2. Immediately following the faculty Christmas party
3. While aboard a plane encountering turbulence
4. While under the influence of any controlled substance
5. While under the influence of postmodernism

I Have Solved a Vexing Storage Problem

2008-02-12T16:58:00.002-07:00

Excellent.

I've been looking for a place to keep my dangerous diseases upright, so they don't wrinkle.

The World Sometime

2008-01-29T23:52:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted for awhile. Things always go pear-shaped at the end of the semester (leaving unclear what exactly is my excuse for posting every 2 months all the rest of the year), although this semester was better than most: I got a big thing turned in before my advisor had to yell at me for procrastinating (major breakthrough), and one of my professors revised the final assignment to be like half the work that it was originally. Here's a summary of what you missed to catch you up:

Things that have happened since 23 October 27
Holidays: 4 (including Halloween, which I missed because of combined back spasm/paper due)
Blog Posts: 0
Fellowship Applications Effed by FedEx: 1

Yeeeah. I advise against FedEx, y'all. Short version: ill-informed counter person shipped my application such that it was guaranteed to arrive a week after the due date. The call center employees worked their asses off to try to fix it (I think they were concerned for my mental health, as I burst into indecipherable blubbering as soon as I got on the line with a live person there), but it was already too late, so I ended up spending several weeks and over $100 to ship a box of scrap paper overseas. I hope they at least recycle it.

Hilariously, a hapless lad from some polling company contracted by FedEx to listen to their customers bitch about their service for them called several days after all of this went down for feedback on my recent experience with the FedEx call center. Since my experience with the call center specifically was fine, I gave them high marks until the questions, "How would you rate your overall experience with FedEx?" "Would you recommend FedEx to your friends or family?" and "Do you plan to use FedEx in the future?" to which the responses were 1, no, and emphatically no. Unfortunately, this limits my shipping choices to the postal service and DHL, as UPS has already displeased me.

The New American Triage System is Sponsored by Sports Drinks

2007-10-23T15:42:00.001-06:00

You may recall from this post that I enjoy the heightened beaureaucracy that has come with ASU President Michael Crow's efforts to create the "New American University", that is, reimagining higher education along the lines of business and pimping out the student body to any major corporation that presents itself at his door with a moderately-sized bucket of cash. But that's another post entirely.

I was struck with a mystery virus recently (it wasn't the flu, because I gleefully accept any vaccine any medical-type person offers me, and so took the allergy nurse up on her offer to flu-shot me the week they received it) and decided to consult the University physicians, not so much because I thought they'd be able to do anything to help me, but because I became dizzy on the way to my car to go to campus (note: campus is only four blocks away, so the mere fact that I needed my car to get there was a bad sign) and so figured that a note excusing my absence from class later that afternoon would be pretty useful.

As it turned out, the entire campus must have had the same thing, because there were semi-conscious coeds slumped all over the sign-in lobby when I arrived, causing me to wonder briefly if I'd accidentally walked in on closing time at a Mill Avenue bar. But that was nothing compared to the waiting room for urgent care, which strongly resembled the Atlanta train depot in Gone With the Wind, with etiolated students slumped in every available chair and spilling out into the lab waiting area across the hall. As it turned out, my self-diagnosis of a virus was right, I got some prescription strength Sudafed (whee!) and a note excusing me from class, and sloped off, only to return for muscle relaxant and painkiller (WHEE!) two days later when all my couch-lying caused a back spasm. Awesome.

But at the time, I proceeded to wait for two hours to be seen, during which I passed the time by frantically e-mailing my professor to alert her to the situation, reading informational pamphlets ("there's little to be accomplished by going to the doctor if you have a cold or the flu": a. no kidding; b. except for a note saying I can go home and lie in bed instead of saying smart things about French History) and sipping a free bottle of Powerade, a basket of which some be-scrubsed and white-tennis-shoed angel had brought through the waiting area, presumably to keep us all from expiring on the spot. Did you know Powerade contains coconut oil? I didn't. Also: the official Powerade web site is an inspiring example of how to maximize content while minimizing information provided. Come to think of it, why does an energy drink have such an involved web site? Is there a Powerade community out there of which I, as an avid non-consumer of sports and soft drinks, am completely unaware? Weird.

I Enjoy Depending on Others

2007-09-04T00:52:00.001-06:00

It's amazing how fast one's (or my, not to generalize) ability to do things or solve problems oneself deteriorates when other people are around to do the doing/solving for you.

This phenomenon had been limited to my visits to family, where I become accustomed to eating healthy and gourmet meals to which my contributions are 1. setting the table, and 2. sitting on a spinny stool at the kitchen island drinking margaritas, so that I go through a readjustment period when I get back to my apartment of sullen and half-assed meal-planning and grocery shopping (i.e., buying three different varieties of turkey cold cuts and no bread, necessitating "chef's salad" lunches that involve a lot of chopping and remembering to pack or scavenging for a fork). Or, visiting my brother and his partner, being fed an excellent dinner, then dropped off at and picked up after a rock show, or having an awesomely intellectual Spring Break Miami at foreign films and art installations, none of which I had to find out about on my own and during which (the Spring Break, not the art installations) they insist on my taking the only bed. Or, in the case of my sister and brother-in-law, going camping, where "going camping" translates roughly into "pointing at various items in the garage while they're efficiently loading the car and asking, 'Do we need this?', then being bundled in outdoor gear and driven to the campsite, where I fiddle around with the box that food stays in and bears can't open while they (my sister and her husband, not the bears) set up the tent. Before you read further, I urge you to note from that last link that BearSaver.com is "Your first choice in quality Bear-Resistant Commercial Containers & Bear-Resistant Dumpsters." And whimsical capitalization, it would seem.

Back to the issue at hand, however: now, my simple problem-solving skills are declining to an alarming and possibly irrecoverable degree, for which I blame my fabulous friend Shamsi and my excellent boyfriend.

Shamsi and I travel together to a conference every year (you may recall that I contracted Legionnaires' disease or similar there in 2006), and at the most recent, she solved my problems so seamlessly that I almost didn't have time to moan about them before they were fixed. I whined about my shoes hurting and being too hungry and sleepy to walk back to the hotel and change them; she handed me some turkey jerky to gnaw on, then presented me with the choice of A. sitting on the conference patio, after which I would still be sleepy until the afternoon coffee break and my feet would still hurt, or B. taking a pleasant 10-minute walk that will take us to both a cafe and the hotel. She even anticipated my next complaint by suggesting I put my fancy shoes in the free conference bag for carrying. She also let me pretend her very cute purse was mine all week, because I perennially forget to shop for a moderately-sized, professional-looking bag to bring to conferences (but since then I've bought one).

My excellent boyfriend, in addition to making unflattering finger-puppets of people I dislike, showering me with toy otters and gummy candy, and proving a successful convert to both Rome and Veronica Mars, has conversations with me that go something like this:
Him: Can I get you anything?
Me: No, I'm fine.
Him: Are you sure? I'm getting up anyway. Do you want another beer?
Me: No, thanks.
Him: Did you get some stuff to eat?
Me: I had some of the snacks -- I'm waiting for the burgers to be ready.
Him: Do you want some water?
Me: Ooh, yes, actually!
But because of treatment like this, I once got my hands sticky after negotiating a breakfast buffet line and was ruefully preoccupied with it for a full ten minutes before noticing that spare napkins, which could be dipped in water and used to remove the syrup without even looking for the bathroom, were available slightly beyond and to the right of my plate. I only noticed the napkin dispenser was at the table when I mentioned the problem and he cast about briefly for a solution before pulling out a napkin and handing it to me.

It's questionable whether they do this because they're super-nice, caring people, or because it's super annoying to listen to me cursing the darkness. Either way, it's pretty awesome.

The Data is In

2007-07-22T13:21:00.001-06:00

Did you know that it is acceptable to use "data" as either plural or singular?

As I understand it, as a singular, it functions as a collective noun, the same way you would say, "The herd is...." This is explicit at dictionary.com, and implicit at Oxford English Dictionary Online (which you may not be able to access without a subscription), where multiple usage examples treat "data" as singular.

This is highly gratifying, as I often encounter smarter-than-thou types who feel compelled to interrupt presentations or discussions by shouting corrections when someone uses "data" as singular. When you assume, you may make an ass out of you and me, but when you hypercorrect, you just make an ass out of you.

I am Breaking Up With Target

2007-07-05T23:17:00.001-06:00

Dear Target,

We've had some good times -- remember the cute china I got from you a couple of years ago? And the mirror with the little birds painted on it that was awesome for my kitchen and I was so sad when I dropped and broke it (partly because reconstruction revealed that there was a piece of glass approximately one inch square lurking somewhere on my kitchen floor, but also because it looked so nice with my thrift-shop paintings of fruit) that I biked to the store (not you -- one that's closer) especially for superglue to repair it? And that time you had patio furniture at such a good price that I bought it right away and carried it home on the bus?

But the thing is, those were a long time ago now. Now, I can't even get the what I need from you; just today, I came looking for some simple things, and what happened?

What I Needed (and Why)
*Eucerin anti-redness night cream (allergic freak; pathological aversion to color in complexion)
*Dove eye cream (aging; prodigious eye-bags)
*Anti-allergy mattress pad, size full (allergic freak; thin spots in old mattress pad cause unseemly resemblance to linens in skid row boarding house)
*Clothes drying rack (global warming; also, landlord jacked up price on dryer)
*Microwave egg poacher (hankering for poached eggs; lack patience and motor skills to poach in pan of water first thing in the morning)
*Washcloths (old ones all mascara-stained)
*Silver polishing cloth (heartbreak of tarnish)
*Tapers (impulse-bought orange and yellow glass candlesticks last week)

What I Found
*Anti-allergy mattress pad in all sizes except full
*Twee, Michael Graves-designed clothes drying rack that holds no more clothing than my current system (laying out items on old beach towel behind the couch), which you would not part with for less than $20; weighty metal variation on collapsible wood-dowel drying rack, also $20
*Empty space on shelf teasingly bearing tag, "Micro Double Cavity Egg Poacher $3.99"
*Washcloths (10 for $2.99), admittedly acceptable but left behind in snit

Some of this, I know now, was not your fault, Target -- Dove has apparently discontinued my eye cream (in a panic, I chose a Neutrogena substitute at CVS that contains AHAs, which the label tells me increase sun sensitivity: am thrilled at the prospect of sunburned/eventually malignant eyelids) and you surely had tapers -- but really, this has happened the last several times I've come to see you. You've changed.

You used to be all about fulfilling my list of random crap I needed without going to the grocery, drugstore, and mall, plus delighting me with random crap I didn't need priced just low enough that I didn't have to choose between a toss pillow and dinner. Now you're all about hypnotic, mod commercials and ill-fitting $40 dresses. But the thing is, if I wanted to spend $40 on a dress, I could get a well-fitting one off the sale rack at any given ladies' clothing store. I don't need you for that.

I've had it with you, Target. I guess I'll see you around, but don't call me anymore, OK?

I'm Not Giving You Any More Coconuts

2007-03-18T21:46:00.001-06:00

So, my friend Cari came up with quite a brilliant metaphor or simile today about relating to difficult people, which I thought I would share with all of you:

These relationships are like the relationships of fictional native Polynesians with their volcanoes: You can offer all the pineapples and virgins you want, but it's still going to go off when it wants to. You can't say, "Dang, next time I won't burn so much taro," or "I really made the wrong call; I'd better bring an extra virgin next week." Similarly, when the volcano is dormant, you might be tempted to think, "Hey, those coconuts we threw in last week are really doing the trick -- we must be doing something right!" But really, it's just timing.

Cari is a genius. I totally need to start treating my volcanoes as natural phenomena, not mysterious supernatural entities. Although I do think they kind of like all the pineapples and burnt offerings. Even if they do wreaking havoc on the carpet.

OMG, Where did he get the Cane?

2007-02-21T18:06:00.000-07:00

I just learned that my fantastic sister and brother-in-law are having a baby, which is excellent news because babies are super-fun, at least when they're in a good mood. I even received a scan of the sonogram, which I have enhanced using the magic of Photoshop so that you, dear reader, can get a better sense of what the baby looks like:

I mean, you have to admit that at this point the baby looks more like a peanut than anything else.

Also, a big thank you to my brother-in-law, who gave me the go ahead to post a picture of the inside of his wife's uterus on the internet, and to my sister, who may not realize yet that said picture has been published on the web.

Glam-arrrrrgh Magazine

2007-02-14T18:35:00.000-07:00

I thought I looked pretty cute on Monday, until I got halfway to school and realized I had inadvertently dressed like a pirate.

Exhibit A: My outfit

Exhibit B: An outfit a pirate would wear

I Just Really Like Toast

2007-01-23T23:33:00.000-07:00

So, two of the many fantastic things I got for Christmas are a digital camera and a Hello Kitty toaster, which together make possible the post you are reading right now: a photo-essay about my breakfast. The world is a better place.

The old toaster: Toastmaster? Sure, I used to think so.

The new toaster is clearly more attractive.

Plain bread is lame.

My God! The image of Hello Kitty has miraculously appeared during the toasting process! Come on, that's just awesome.

If Hello Kitty were a religious icon, my house would be loaded with the devout right now. Luckily, it's just full of me. Eating cute toast with eggs.

Coming soon: I Swear I Had Some Marmalade in Here: An Apartment Recovers From the Dry Toast Incident

You Win This Round, Roadrunner

2007-01-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

I went to Albuquerque over the long weekend to see my lovely friends there, including but not limited to Cari and Shamsi, and to get one more day of snowboarding in before resigning myself to four months in the desert buried in books, a.k.a. the Spring semester. The trip was fantastic. I have no pictures to post, because the lady with the hard case for her camera was designated photographer, and she has been somewhat indisposed. I think she's fallen into a decline because I left.

The expectation was set high before I even got on the plane in Phoenix, because as I was waiting on line for security screening, I noticed a series of placards next to the carry-on baggage x-rays indicating you should not board with guns, knives, cans with flames coming out of them, or bombs.

Much to my delight, they were rendered approximately like so (I didn't take a picture, because I'm pretty sure there are few quicker routes to the little airport jail than using a camera near security installations):

Fortunately, I am neither Boris Badenov nor Wile E. Coyote, and so had no cartoon bombs in my luggage.

You Don't Get a Picture of the Costume

2007-01-14T00:47:00.000-07:00

A conversation about ElfQuest this week led to a fit of nostalgia -- my college roommates and I loved these graphic novels our sophomore year, even each dressing as a character for Halloween -- which led to this quiz:

You are Nightfall; the strong one!

Coincidentally, this is also the ElfQuest character I dressed as.

Not coincidentally, I am a huge geek.

Law & Order: Drunk Tank

2006-11-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

I had to call 911 last night for the first time in my life. At about midnight or 1, I was on the computer when someone tried to get into my front door, not just turning the knob and going, "Oops, it's locked," but shaking it and banging against it really hard. I had just about convinced myself that I had imagined it or it must have been someone having trouble with his lock at a neighboring apartment when I heard someone rattling the doors on our storage sheds in the alley.

I freaked out for a second, then went to check out the front door situation and found that it was my door the person was trying to open, because the door was being held closed by the deadbolt but not the doorknob latch, if that makes sense, so then I freaked out for a little bit longer and hid behind my desk and finally decided even though I couldn't hear anything at the moment to 1) creep into the kitchen for a knife (bizarrely rejecting the 10" chef's knife because it was dirty and choosing a 3" paring knife instead -- apparently, in my moral code, cutting intruders is OK, but cutting them with an oniony knife is just not done) and 2) call 911, because if you're freaked out enough to be hiding in your own house with a knife, you should probably get the police involved.

I was all prepared to be the best. emergency caller. EVER! and collected my thoughts before I called, but then totally puddled up as soon as the nice lady answered the emergency response line. I gave her all the information, and she asked a series of questions including, "Are you hearing the noises now?" and "Are you at home alone?" and, hilariously, "Are you expecting anyone?" which suggests that a not-insignificant number of people call 911 to report the attempted intrusion of, like, their roommates.

Then I hid with my knife some more, passing the time by gauging the likelihood of my being able to leap over the patio wall, should I have to escape out the back door (conclusion: likely to flub wall-vault and become trapped in patio like rat armed with paring knife; should instead attempt to flee through front door). Then I heard the police cruiser pull up and a minor scuffle outside, and one of Tempe's finest came to my door and told me that they had apprehended the guy, who was blind drunk and thought he was trying to get into his house several blocks away, but settled for passing out with his head in one of the water heater closets off the alley. I thanked the nice cop for coming out, and he said, "No problem -- you can call us anytime you need anything," which prompted the excellent mental image of my calling 911 for a magazine or quart of milk.

After the police left, I became strangely paranoid that the drunk would be angry with me for having him carted off to the drunk tank and turn up at my house again, so I could not sleep until I had closed the bedroom door (only a passing nod to added security, as it doesn't lock) and placed a hammer (not knife, for fear I would grab the blade in the middle of the night and find myself fighting off an attacker with hilt of knife held in badly injured hand) and both phones within easy reach of the bed. Needless to say, the drunk did not show up looking for revenge, so everything's fine now.

I was Really Looking Forward to Writing my Manifesto

2006-09-18T21:19:00.000-06:00

So, we were reading Hegel in one of my classes last week, and I guess I didn't know that slogging through 200 pages of 19th-century German philosophy could somehow be made worse, but it can be: by slogging through 200 pages of the wrong book of 19th-century German philosophy. Yeah, the bookstore somehow managed to order Hegel's Introduction to the Lectures on the History of Philosophy instead of Introduction to the Philosophy of History. Which is awesome, because I love wasting my time. I would have read it just for fun anyway.

But actually, it was a little bit awesome, because the book we got was part from Hegel's own notes, and part reconstructed from his students' notes taken during his lectures. That being the case, I read it totally looking forward to the book's seemingly inevitable descent into:
-"thoughts are not the thing itself"?! WTF? -- check on this during office hours.
-OMG 'Geist' again can U explain I missed class Weds...?
-Dude I don't know what he's on abt 1/2 the time!!! Mid-term better be mult choice.
-I know right?!? Hey want to grab a beer tonite?
-Yeah awesome but how about Heckels, I jilted barmaid at Die Fledermaus can't deal w that scene now
-Buxom one? NICE.
-ha ha yeah but thought we were betrothed or something, might have to duel w her brother now
-Whoa bummer
[Drawings of clear boxes of various sizes (reproduced in Fig 1, below)]

Unfortunately, the German students were apparently a lot more attentive than I would have been in that class, because it was just a lot of droning about World-Spirit, and randomly capitalized nouns.

I can't say I didn't get anything out of it, though, because now I can finally put my finger on what makes me different from Marx: he reads Hegel and is inspired to craft an insightful and revolutionary social theory; I read Hegel and am inspired to blow off the last 50 pages and watch Project Runway instead.

I am Being Punished for my Horticultural Hubris

2006-09-13T19:29:00.000-06:00

I thought I was starting to do pretty well taking care of houseplants -- I had five that were attractive and growing, needing new pots every once in awhile and stuff -- but ever since I moved last year they have been slowly dying. This sucks for several reasons, not least of which is how it's super depressing to be surrounded by dying lifeforms. And I feel terrible throwing out a plant just because it's dropping leaves and looks sickly, so I keep them around until they're just a few brown sticks. Sometimes I keep them around after that, because I'm a terrible housekeeper.

But also, two of my plants were my grandmother's, and my grandfather gave them to me to take care of after she died two years ago because he was worried that he would kill them. No pressure, right? Well, one of them was a Christmas cactus, and I knew it wasn't long for the world when I came home from school one day to find a branch amounting to about two thirds of the plant lying on my desk, no longer attached -- but I was able to root about five babies from the part that fell off, and distributed them to various people I know who can be trusted with plants, including my mom, who is so good with plants that my parents last year got about a half-bushel of peaches from a tree that sprouted from a seed in their yard. From a seed. That shit is like magic to me.

Anyway, I still have the second plant from my grandmother, one that my grandfather got when a florist dropped the ball on delivering an order for the memorial service (side note: they called to ask if he still wanted the arrangement, or if he'd prefer a live plant. Yes, please do send me a funeral arrangement to display in my home. That will really take the edge off the loss of my spouse of 60 years), and said, "Now, take good care of that one -- that's your grandmother's memorial plant." NO PRESSURE. Cut to today:
I am terrible granddaughter, unworthy of memorial plants.

Now, you might be thinking from the picture that it is not depressing because of the dying plant, but because my apartment is apparently a barracks. It isn't really -- there just happens to be a cinderblock wall here and there. But because my two super-low-light plants are doing OK, I decided that maybe the others are dying because I get no sun in my house except for one big window, and I moved the saddest plant over there, and I will open the blinds for it during the day. I had to make a klassy dining chair/cinderblock wall/dying plant decorating element because I don't have any occasional tables lying around. I think maybe it's perking up after just being there for today -- I'm almost positive only one leaf was up when I left this morning. I hope so.

Panic! At the Altar

2006-08-31T20:45:00.000-06:00

Despite my friend Greg D's best efforts to start a rumor to the contrary, I actually have not dropped out of grad school to live in a remote cabin and write anti-academic screeds, although screed-writing is on my list of things to do more of. My time since coming back from the wedding has been spent as follows:

Week 1: Curse heat.
Week 2: Train new students; pretend not to be anti-social at department welcome functions.
Week 3: Wage successful campaign to take class in another department, which garners the longed-for prize of reading 300 pages and writing 10 within 48 hours.
Week 4: Catch plague or similar; recall fondly the days when standing or even sitting upright did not cause dizziness and colorful spots before eyes; enjoy subtly energizing effects of prescription-strength Sudafed, approximately 400% of maximum recommended over-the-counter dosage.

Which is all kind of a bummer, because I was introduced to a wonderful invention during the trip, and have not been able to tell my readership about it until now. Except that I have approximately one (1) reader, and I'm pretty sure I told her about it on the phone. Anyway.

The invention is the Bridal Emergency Kit, which induced much eye-rolling when my sister called at 10:30pm while I was trying to pack to ask me to make one and list all the items that go into it, my feeling being pretty much that I generally make it through a five-hour party--even days at a time--without Band-Aids, crackers, or a needle and thread, so what about a wedding requires that these things be available? Well, as it turns out, we used almost every damn thing we put in there. Here is what my dad (who ended up building the kit after I rebelled) put into it, and what we ended up using the items for:

Needle and thread (matching bridesmaids' and bride's dresses): the only thing we didn't use
Safety pins: to secure incorrectly altered rehearsal dress
Band-aids: to cover my open wounds resulting from several days of insensible shoes, also to tape notes to door
Pocket knife: to cut Band-Aids used to tape notes to door
Tampons: self-explanatory
Oyster crackers: to correct low-blood-sugar-related bridal-party snappishness
Flashlight: to check radiator fluid of our car, which overheated en route to wedding site
Tide stain-removal pen: red sauce incident
Mini-bottles of vodka (added as joke): to correct stress-related mother-of-the-bride meltdown

We also joked about adding a safety whistle and compass, and we could have totally used the whistle to keep the rehearsal on track. I am now fully endorsing this kit as an excellent bridal shower gift--but not at showers I'll be at too, because I have dibs.

Giving the People What They Want

2006-08-02T11:48:00.002-06:00

As I post, I am at the airport, waiting to board a flight home to Colorado for my sister's wedding. Because I never get it together enough in advance to check in online, I am in the dreaded "C" class for Southwest Airlines' seating cattle call, and am eagerly anticipating my middle seat and having to shove both messenger bag and laptop under the seat in front of me. I can only hope that this will be as positive an experience as my last flight, during which I fell asleep, then woke up to find my shirt askew, part of my bra exposed, and the 50-year-old man next to me staring at it intently. You'll be relieved to hear that I had the forethought to avoid a repeat experience by wearing a prettier bra this time.

The Commute to Canada is Killing Me

2006-07-13T18:28:00.000-06:00

Perhaps you've seen those interweb ads for Monster.com that have an alarm clock and read, "get more sleep -- work closer to [your location, which we creepily obtained from your computer]"?

Well, something must be wrong with their stalking software, because I just got one that urged me to "get more sleep -- work closer to United States".

Heeeeee.

We Don't Need no Water...

2006-06-25T13:17:00.000-06:00

My family has been aflutter with planning my fantastic older sister's wedding, especially during the last few weeks, when she took an extended trip home to make crucial decisions (What color tablecloths? What color?!?) and stuff guest welcome bags in the manner of the political prisoner of a dictatorship fiercly dedicated to the cause of ribbon, tulle, and the color blue.

At one point, finding themselves with time to kill between appointments with the caterer and cake dude (and he really is a dude -- a classic mountain-town burnout who happens to be a genius with pastry), she and our parents decided to drive by the cabin her also-fantastic fiancé had reserved for the wedding night, and found ... a smoking ruin. The rental agency just hadn't bothered to notify the couple that the unit had burned to the ground and their reservation had been transferred to a different one.

Now, this was kind of a shock to my sister and our parents, and, as my sister the attorney possesses truly masterful angry-phone-call skills, I imagine it was also a shock to the unfortunate CSR at the rental agency who had to explain the situation, and yet I have been giggling about it ever since I found out.

Age-Inappropriate

2006-06-22T12:58:00.000-06:00

(from threadbared.com)

Is it weird that I would be totally tempted to make one of these dresses for myself?

I'll Take the Stairs, Thanks

2006-06-13T17:04:00.000-06:00

The facilities maintenance people on campus have a standard flier that they post when they will be doing construction work, filling in the appropriate location on the form to alert people with offices in that area that things are about to be extremely unpleasant.

Because I am easily entertained, I was delighted to come across such a sign posted outside the department office earlier today, reading:

"Attention: Occupants and visitors to stairwells and elevator cab ..."

Heeeee.
"What're you up to?" "Not much, just popping in to see the stairwell for lunch."
"Hey, where's your office these days?" "I'm in the elevator cab."

I'm not sure what they're doing to the stairs, or why they have the stairs and elevator torn up simultaneously, but presumably, this means that they are fixing the elevator so that the door opens not only to let you board the elevator, but also to let you out on the appropriate floor. I kid you not, getting stuck in an elevator is such a common occurrence in our buildings that my officemate always uses the bathroom and has a drink of water before taking the elevator, just in case.

Subject: Condolences

2006-06-11T15:41:00.000-06:00

My primary boss's cat had to be put to sleep this week, which led to a surprisingly complex workplace etiquette dilemma: clearly, I didn't want to be all business-as-usual, but at the same time, she and I are not what you'd call confidantes, so I didn't want to be intrusive, all, "Hi! It's possible that you would prefer to mourn privately, but I will nonetheless bring up your recent loss in a professional setting! I heard your cat died! That really blows!". I thought a minimally intrusive sympathy card would probably be best, but that would take awhile to get to her (she's out of town), which would leave the business-as-usual e-mail I'd sent 30 minutes before hearing about the cat (but about two hours after the cat actually went) just hanging out there making me look like a callous asshole for several days. Emergency action was required, i.e.:

1. Frantic composition of sympathy e-mail; that the subject line was "Condolences" really tells you everything you need to know about how hilariously awkward and inadequate it was.

2. Hasty excursion in search of a reasonably sympathetic, yet professional card; no reflection on the fantastic Changing Hands Bookstore -- I think the range of available sympathy cards is just uniformly bad -- but it took me about 45 minutes to decide among some really deplorable choices:
a. Outside: Watercolor cat on cloud with halo and wings. Inside: Some kind of tear-jerking sentimental poem about loss. Sure, if my goal was to make her cry more.
b. Outside: Night sky with cat-shaped constellation. Inside: "Heaven is a little bit brighter now". Sweet dancing Christ.
c. Blank card with pen-and-ink drawings of frolicking cats. Relatively inoffensive, but will depiction of happy cats make her feel worse?
d. Blank card with black-and-white photo of sleeping cat. But does sleeping cat have unpleasant visual associations with dead cat?

... and so on. I ended up with a pretty good one with a simple non-cat design and a positive message about having a good life, but it was a tightrope ... a fucking tightrope.

Strange Things are Afoot at the Circle K

2006-06-09T23:23:00.000-06:00

Dear Keanu Reeves,

Your newfound desire for a family and a stable life are very endearing, and I have had a soft spot for you ever since Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. As a result, it is with great regret that I inform you that, while I agree that beards are pretty sweet, if yours is still patchy when you are 41, you should accept that you will never achieve full coverage. Please consider a different facial hair conformation. Perhaps a moustache; that, at least, is looking pretty solid, and I understand from their sudden presence on random hipster dudes-about-town that they're totally happening right now.

Hearts & rainbows,
Me

P.S. The internet has failed to yield a link directly related to The State sketch "The Bearded Men of Space Station 11". I'm not angry with you, interweb -- just very, very disappointed.

The Extreme Have no Need for Spellcheck

2006-06-05T20:28:00.000-06:00

Nearby Fort McDowell Casino is advertising "Rage in the Cage"--an "Xtreme!" fight championship, naturally--as "closed fist", among other details that didn't really register with me, not being a big fight aficionado. But not being a big fight aficionado, the closed fist thing raised a question: why do they need to specify this? Are there really prize fights that are open fist? Wouldn't that just be a slap fight? Ooh, is the fact that it's not a slap fight what makes it "Xtreme!"?

Man, just so you know, there are no good pictures of slap fights on the internet. Google images has failed me. My world is all ahoo.

Monument to Inefficiency

2006-06-01T16:20:00.000-06:00

It's good to see that although they lack the wherewithal to provide prescription coverage for students, ASU is committed to making minor bureaucracies as labyrinthe as possible.

Today I received notification that a book I'd requested from Interlibrary Loan for my ultimate boss had arrived. Fantastic! When I went to collect the book, ILL guy told me that I had a $10 charge for a previous overdue ILL item that would need to be paid before I could check this one out, and sent me to billing. Billing lady told me that I could only pay cash for the fine, and sent me to the library ATM. Library ATM told me I could not withdraw any money. I told billing lady that I would get cash at the student union. Student union ATM gave me cash, and Starbucks barista gave me a refreshing coffee beverage. Back at the library, billing lady told me I would need exact change to pay my $10, and sent me to the copy center. Copy center guy could only give me fives and ones as change. I foisted off the ones on billing lady and got my receipt showing that I was back in the library's good graces. Back at ILL, ILL guy couldn't check out my book because my patron record was still open over in billing, so he had to pop over and ask them to close it. Then I finally got to walk out of the place with my book.

To recap: ILL, billing, ATM, billing, student union, billing, copy center, billing, ILL. I can hardly believe that they hate overdue-book-hoarders that much. Is this what the library employees do to entertain themselves on slow days? Seriously, is this some kind of joke?

Oh, Not You, Sir

2006-05-29T21:32:00.000-06:00

In an unfortunate coincidence, when my super-conscientious landlord came over to poison my ants and also give me like eight spare air filters (because of my allergies, he wants me to be able to change them whenever I want), I was listening to the Dead Kennedys' Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. Which happened to be on track 4. Which is "Let's Lynch the Landlord".

Awkward.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Insect Overlords

2006-05-23T00:20:00.000-06:00

For no apparent reason (except perhaps that it's ungodly hot outside), ants started coming into my living room this weekend. Now, I've always been kind of fond of ants--even going so far as to follow them around during recess periods in elementary school, and to yell, "How would YOU like it if a giant ant stepped on your house?!?" at the boys who liked to kick anthills on the way home from school (I was a weird kid)--but all bets were off when I was bitten by one while eating popcorn in my living room, blithely unaware of the invasion in progress. Cursory inspection on tiptoe from behind the couch revealed that there was not just one, but easily a dozen ants marching in through a corner of the front door; I vacuumed them up, flapping all the while, put down a cotton ball soaked with a weak detergent solution to block their pheromone trail, and congratulated myself when there were no ants to be seen an hour later.

Cut to Monday morning, when stumbling around barefoot in my robe, I went to open the living room blinds and found a bunch of ants simply detouring around my ingenious cotton ball blockade. As is customary for girls in such situations, I flailed, squeaked, and pranced away into the ant-free kitchen, eating my cereal with my feet up on my chair while looking askance at the far end of the living room. It then took me like three hours to get ready for work, because I was so creeped out that I couldn't just ignore them; I ended up searching on the internet for ways to deter them with stuff I might have around the house already, and then kept leaving off getting dressed in favor of stalking crazily around the living room with vacuum, ground cinnamon, and cleanser with orange oil. I finally got it together and almost left, only to come back in and move the vacuum to the back patio, lest any ants crawl back out. Luckily, my landlord was right outside pruning the cacti, so I told him about the ants but not about the cinnamon in the carpet, and he's going to put some ant granules out to get rid of them.

And, in answer to your question, I would not like it at all if a giant ant imprisoned me in a vacuum bag, nor if he strewed poison around my house, but until I bite them on the ankles in the privacy of their own home, the ants can suck it.

This is my Zen

2006-05-11T13:38:00.000-06:00

I fell in love with a new song this week. It's called "I Hear the Bells", from Mike Doughty's solo release Haughty Melodic, and also from the Veronica Mars Soundtrack (Shut up! The show is awesome, OK?), and last night when I was feeling tense and strange and unhappy I lay on the living room floor with the lights off and just listened to it on repeat for probably 45 minutes, watching the shadows on the blinds from the bougainvillea outside my apartment and feeling the floor shiver when freight trains went by. And I felt calm, and my head was clear of all the things that crowd in and keep me from...functioning, sometimes. I don't think I would go as far as the Murder City Devils--"I would've slit my wrists if it wasn't for rock and roll"--but I don't know where I would be without power chords and four-track recordings and songs so heart-stoppingly beautiful that you have to drop everything and just listen, because for that four and a half minutes, nothing else matters.

But Watch Yourself: I've Still Got the Eggs

2006-05-04T12:12:00.001-06:00

Well, I haven't posted for awhile, due to my regularly scheduled end-of-semester breakdown (TM Cari), involving the deliberate and violent destruction by the Powers That Be and my own lack of foresight of all my self-confidence, mental and physical faculties, and faith in humanity. To wit:

1. My goldfish up and died right in front of me during an all-nighter. No apparent reason or previous illness, it just started acting sick and then died, presumably because I'd been wondering if I could possibly be more miserable during finals.

2. I ran out of normal, healthy food with no time to go to the grocery store for several days, and thus had to survive on a diet of coffee, Luna Bars and Ramen noodles (mmmm, starchy!). I swear I'm still dehydrated. And I think I may have a vitamin deficiency.

3. I carved out an hour to see my hair stylist about my mullet, only to have her proudly replace it with a bouffant bubble of hair suitable for a Fundamentalist mother of six, leading to a crisis of hipness: Does something about my look tell people I should have middle-aged hair? Obviously, it's not like I lost a leg or something, but I was really not up to dealing with it at the time.

Anyway, things have settled down now--I had a good meeting with my advisor about my draft, I finally bought some real food, and my hair improved quite a bit when I styled it myself. I'm celebrating the end of the semester by ordering Veronica Mars DVDs and going to get some new fish tonight, which I think is a big improvement over being tempted last week to celebrate the end of the semester by mainlining vodka and egging my professors' cars.

Gift With Purchase

2006-04-15T17:07:00.000-06:00

Hilariously, Apple has just e-mailed me to offer, as a thank-you for spending $1.08 at the iTunes Music Store, $30 off my next Apple Store purchase!

...of $300 or more.

Because having one dollar to download the new Built to Spill single clearly indicates that I have another 270 lying around to invest in electronics. And because nothing shows your appreciation more than offering your customers the rare opportunity to give your company even more money.

Dawning Horror

2006-04-11T00:33:00.000-06:00

I changed my hairstyle recently, to a shorter cut that's kind of a short shag (hee hee heeee) or long pixie and that I have been immensely pleased with, despite its unfortunate tendency to stick up exuberantly in the mornings (much to the amusement of my friend Shamsi, who got to see this clown-hair up close every morning we were in Alaska). It was ultra-cute and easy to fix almost every day. And then, without warning, precisely four weeks after the cut:

MULLET!

Seriously, on Thursday: normal hair. On Friday? Rakishly long in back while short on sides. It took me several minutes to put my finger on exactly what was off. Parted wrong? Flat on top? Too much product? No. With dawning horror, I realized that my look apparently evolved (or was it intelligently designed?!?) overnight from "rocking" to "business up front, party in the rear". Sure, I can take comfort that it's more of a glam-rock mullet than a NASCAR mullet, but it's still worrisome to find a mullet in the mirror before you've finished caffeinating. Adding to the eeriness is the dream my sister had several weeks ago in which she was me and I/she was sporting just such a mullet. And yea, it has come to pass.

Luckily, Creepy Art Cheers Me Up

2006-03-30T21:30:00.000-07:00

Three things I hate today:

1. Overly helpful people. I don't need you to give me a dissertation on the procedure I'm about to do--I just need to know where a reagent is. I don't need you to clean up and organize my stuff--that just makes me unable to find anything. I know that you're eager to be helpful, but when you do more than I ask you for, you are not being double-plus helpful, you are being patronizing and counter-productive. Please dial it back.

2. Being behind on sleep. I keep doing this thing where I start doing something for school early in the week, say Sunday or Monday night, and end up staying up until like 4:30am because I don't notice the time when I'm actually working on something. Well, then I have to turn around and get up at 8:00am (I know, ungodly early, right?), and I swear I'll go to bed early the next night, but then I have to prep for class or I get all alert at like 11:00pm, and then by Wednesday and Thursday I don't get anything done because I'm exhausted. My dad suggests I set an alarm for bedtime, which I actually might do.

3. Stamp machines. I don't even want to talk about it.

Two things I love today:

1. My new creepy painting that was free. As I biked out of my alleyway/parking lot yesterday morning, there was this awesome painting just hanging out, propped up at the end of the parking spaces, facing the street. When I came home again, it had blown over and been driven over a couple of times (overlapping tire tracks, don't you know), so I propped it up again, but now so it was less visible from the street, to buy some more time to figure out what was going on with it. This began Possibly Free Painting-Watch 2006, when I checked on it like six times while I was talking with my friends on the phone. It hadn't moved or anything by 1:00am, so with their advice, I finally decided to take it (protective custody so it wouldn't get trashed, if nothing else), but keep an eye out for lost-and-found notices for it. So if you are in Tempe and are minus one painting that is somewhat reminscent of the work of Jhonen Vasquez, please let me know at mercurial_girl@bust.com.

2. Teddy Thompson's Separate Ways. I'm obsessed with the title song. Too bad my connection is dial-up (What? It's free!) and I don't have like an hour to upload it for you. Buy the album, you cheap bastards.

I Have a Cult Following

2006-03-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from the video store, where I charmed all the clerks in the place by my innate talent for simultaneously wearing a Star Wars-themed shirt and owing late fees on Serenity. Before I left, one had introduced himself and told me all about Star Wars Trivial Pursuit and The Simpsons drinking game, and the other accidentally ripped my receipt in half, giggled awkwardly, then forgot to hand me my DVDs. It was like Scarlett O'Hara at the Twelve Oaks barbeque. If Twelve Oaks were an engineering school.

I correctly predicted when I bought the shirt that it would make an excellent geek detector, as only major Star Wars geeks recognize it for what it is. I should have known it would be too much for the video store guys to handle, though, because seriously? Video store guys love me. I guess this is because I am girl-shaped, yet say comfortingly geeky things like, "Is Sid and Nancy checked out?" and "Do you have the original release of Donnie Darko? I hate the director's cut." and "I just hope [Batman Begins] is truer to the books." Still, those things have caused unusually attentive customer service--perhaps a tour of about 18 other movies I should rent next time--or the mysterious disappearance of a late fee, but only from isolated clerks at a time. I've never single-handedly caused the normal store operations to grind to a halt. Er, more of a halt. The Star Wars t-shirt would be dangerous in the wrong hands, people.

Also, in looking for the link for my geek detection shirt, I just learned that these exist. I can't believe I've survived this long without them.

Excellent.

2006-03-23T18:11:00.000-07:00

Which Trainspotting Character Are You?

What's Next? Footloose?!?

2006-03-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

My cheesy gossip magazine of choice has just cheerily informed me that production has just begun on a big-screen adaptation of the Broadway smash Hairspray, to be released in 2007. Ah yes, interesting. Do you mean, the Broadway smash based on the 1988 movie of the same name by the brilliant John Waters?!? You know, the one you completely failed to mention in your blurb?

Does anyone else find alarming the emergence of the less than 20-year movie to Broadway to movie remake cycle? Alarming, or completely balls-out insane?

Night of the Living Dead Anthropologists

2006-03-14T17:17:00.001-07:00

I am now back in sunny, yet flooded Tempe (we had a day of rain while I was in the frozen North and everyone's yard is holding an inch of water), and have so far spent my Spring Break feebly sipping Emergen-C mixed with juice while lying in bed reading Patrick O'Brian novels or lying on the fold-out couch watching Lord of the Rings, although the latter is pretty unfulfilling because I only have the first two and I find The Two Towers a bit of a downer to end on. I apparently caught some kind of respiratory virus in Anchorage, which made the last several days of the conference I attended there both miserable (attending sessions with head propped against wall, attempting to blow nose unobtrusively, yet necessarily every two minutes) and hilarious (see above, RE: attending conference as walking dead; also, swapping over-the-counter remedies with fellow zombie-anthropologists because about one-third of the conference appeared to have the same disease). But the following unmitigated great things happened in Anchorage besides my catching the plague:

1. I got to see my lovely friend Mikie, and meet her fantastic new husband and their adorable huskies--the uncle of one husky is the star dog of "Eight Below", I am told. Since she lives so far away, we only get to see each other every two years or so, so this really meant a lot to me.

2. I reached a new extreme in caffeine addiction early in the week, when I had a double mocha with lunch, then ordered a large drip coffee to go before we left the restaurant. In my defense, I was only maintaining consciousness through chemistry that day, as I had been up late completing my computer simulation homework (very nearly the best program EVER! thank you very much).

3. I did my first conference presentation ("Nutrition and the Paleopathology of Infectious Disease", if anyone cares). My advisor told me several times how happy she was with it, and several people came up to me later in the conference to tell me it was "brilliant" (in the spirit of full disclosure, this was meant in the British sense of "great", not the American sense of "extraordinarily smart") and ask more about it. One spoke to me about it and asked for the written version while I was en route to the coffee cart, and when I finished trading information with him and turned to order my coffee, the lady working there commented in a nudge-nudge, wink-wink way that "he was pretty good-looking--for an Australian". Are they not normally a good-looking people? I did not think that was the case.

Escape from Tempe

2006-03-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

I am in freaking Alaska right now, and it is wintery and awesome.

That is all.

The Wombat's Revenge

2006-02-28T17:54:00.001-07:00

I had my computer simulation class today, the professor for which told me two weeks ago that he expected the anthropology students in the course to find the programming assignments to be a struggle. It came as a surprise, though, that my partner for the final project, a computer science student who has before now conversed with me normally, has suddenly adopted the view that my aptitude for programming is similar to that of a sleep-deprived wombat. Before class, I was asking him about our next programming assignment, which he had kindly offered to help me with, and I explained the first of several steps I had done (making half the cells green), then paused. He apparently thought I was done explaining what I had done so far, because in the pause, he exclaimed, "GOOoooOOood!" as you would to an exceptionally slow three-year-old.

Suffice it to say that it is so on. But because my righteous indignation unfortunately exceeds my actual programming ability, my revenge is unlikely to take the form of the best program EVER! I may have to resort to gum on chairs.

We Demand to be Taken Seriously

2006-02-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

Judging from the large number of frighteningly professional campaign signs that have suddenly appeared on campus, ASU's undergraduate student government elections are coming up soon. While it's entertaining enough that most of the president/vice president tickets are taking this so seriously that they have had real signs designed, what I really love is that one ticket, Underwood/Smith, hilariously seems to have joined the race just to take the piss. Where Sales and Zoebisch have put up a 5' by 3' plastic sign promising, "We'll raise the standards for PARKING", Underwood and Smith have put up a sign, hand-scrawled on plain white posterboard, reading, "Underwood/Smith: Underlining random WORDS!" Next to a sign promising to lower costs of attendance, they promise "Arbitrary tuition hikes! No textbook resales!" But best of all is the one I saw on my way home from the lab today: "Underwood/Smith: We demand to be taken seriously".

Fricking genius.

Open Letter to an Anonymous Asshole

2006-02-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

Dear Person Who Threw His/Her Empty Soda Cup Into my Bike Basket While it was Parked on Campus Only 10 Feet Away From the Nearest Trashcan,

Kudos on finding a way to simultaneously spare yourself the hideous effort of having to walk an extra 10 feet and ruin my afternoon. Few bring such creativity to finding subtle ways to make the world a little worse. Congrats! You're an asshole!

Love, Amy

Choke! Choke! Choke!

2006-02-21T19:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I ended up crashing & burning in a major way on my background statement...you see, no matter how it starts, schoolwork somehow always ends up turning into a cage-match between crippling academic performance anxiety and the looming deadline. In an historic upset, the deadline lost this round. I slogged through eight pages (or, if you count the typing, then panicking and deleting, approximately 87 pages) by last night, then totally choked. Then I called my awesome friend, who very patiently listened to me freak out for like an hour and had the revolutionary idea that I talk to my advisor about feeling overwhelmed and not having enough time to do everything. Then I IM'ed my other awesome friend, who agreed that I could sleep on her futon and get a job with her company if I ended up getting kicked out of school. But because we are both a. slobs and b. firebugs, it would probably end badly. Or quite well, if you enjoy a good blaze.

Because of all that, today I had to have a scary meeting with my advisor, who turned out to be very supportive and nice about my lack of a draft, which was excellent. I'm not sure what I'll do with my time if I actually start communicating with my advisor and stop panicking about my work for her, though. Maybe take up macrame?

Some Things You Should Probably Know About Me

2006-02-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

I have a background statement for my PhD dissertation due in fewer than 72 hours, and have chosen to sit down and create a blog. This comes on the heels of such incredibly misguided, procrastination-based decisions as: "My MA thesis is due in less than a week -- I should probably start writing it" "I will write my PhD admission essay between sets at the Burning Brides show" and "I will convince my department to let me take my comprehensive exam a year early, then begin studying in earnest only two weeks before". Those all worked out great in the end -- I'll let you know about this one on Tuesday.