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November 11th, 2009
05:35 pm - Whimsical
Ever wonder why I hate the word "whimsical"?
Wow that makes a good macro.
This sort of thing doesn't help, either.
In conclusion, this shirt pretty much says it all. Please don't get it for me.
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November 2nd, 2009
11:56 pm - A reinterpretation
( Read more... )
Select one:
A. Wolf got Red.
B. Red got Wolf.
C. They are the same.
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October 31st, 2009
01:04 pm - Wish I could kick back like a sweatshop worker
After class yesterday my co-TA and I were discussing weekend plans. I said I had to finish up some stuff on my costume, and mentioned sewing stuff.
"That's a nice, relaxing activity," he murmured. I looked at him like he was high.
Really, it comes down to his knowing bupkis about sewing, and thinking it's like knitting or something. I have never known sewing to be a "relaxing" activity. For me it's more fraught with memories of fighting uncooperative machinery and thread, struggling to keep seams straight, fitting, puckering, trying to cut fabric that's fighting you. Realizing halfway through that you need some notion that you don't already own. My current project is going about five times more smoothly than anything else I've sewn to wear (i.e., not doll clothes or whatever), but it's still not relaxing, it's work. It's like cooking for company, building furniture, or cleaning. Satisfying, but soothing?
But maybe I'm way off on this, and people all over forgo cocktails by the pool to go home and sew.
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October 28th, 2009
01:44 pm - Would you attend class at 2 am?
I just read Community College Boom Plays Out in Dead of Night, a NYT article about the spike in CC enrollments as a result of unemployed people going back to school, and underfinanced HS seniors opting (or having) to continue their education somewhere less pricey. It's gotten so bad apparently that some schools are holding classes that run midnight to 2am, or start before 7 in the morning.
What jumps out at me from these stories is the sentiment often expressed by hopeful students that their education will qualify them for more lucrative and stable employment—"better jobs". I expect it usually does help. But it's undeniable that the huge increase in formal education over the last century or so (kicked off by the GI Bill) has led to rampant degree inflation: a BA is worth what a high school diploma was a generation ago, etc. College students walk out of their fourth years at even prestigious institutions – one faculty member described this happening to his UPenn class in the 80s – and wonder how they're going to make a living. And yet people continue to save up or compel their children to go to college, to improve their lot. Because what is the alternative?
It is mentioned in the article that Obama is pursuing a significant initiative to boost CC enrollment and graduates over the next ten years. Picture seven million more college graduates strolling into the workforce to compete for the jobs that barely exist now and have an uncertain schedule for return. Manufacturing and customer service jobs are moved offshore; even the faculty themselves are being replaced with adjuncts and "webinars". And real wages continue to fall, fall, fall. What are we educating this workforce to do? Where are we sending them to work?
I wonder whether it wouldn't be as valuable to guide people toward making their own jobs, rather than training them all for the shrinking fickle labor market we have. This country (or wait, is it capitalism?) is supposed to be built on entrepreneurship, but reasonable practices that would take the catastrophe (if not the risk) out of starting up a start-up are not in place. Elephant in the room: universal health care! How many potential artists and entrepreneurs cling to lousy jobs because they need the health benefits? How much vitality does our economy lose? (Or does it suit K Street to keep the competition down?)
Even (to come full circle) classes in enterpreneurship are a trick. The U has an amazing program for entrepreneurship, but some of the most dynamic classes practically demand an application and reference check.
Ah well. Here's to the midnight-oil-burners, the taxicab drivers and Dunkin Donut clerks, yearning to breathe free. I worry and wonder about their futures, much as I worry and wonder about my own.
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October 26th, 2009
08:14 pm - no.
I just found out people use cloth toilet paper.
These are avenues of simple living that even angels fear to tread.
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October 21st, 2009
09:35 am
This is what I woke up to a week and a half ago on my birthday.
I even tried to correct for the blueness. But where was the gold, October.
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September 25th, 2009
12:15 am - Terry Gross had the right idea
The guy handing out Mello Yello on campus today asked my name, when I told him I was off to get a burrito and would catch him on the flipside. He was being friendly which is his job so I told him my name, and he reciprocated. I did catch him on the flipside, he remembered my name, and I enjoyed my burrito and free soda in my office.
But thinking about it later this evening, the exchange started to bother me. Obviously a guy handing out pop on the street doesn't need to know my name, or anyone's, really; it's not even sharp customer service because he's not selling anything, it's not even his business, and there aren't even repeat customers. Rather, he asked my name because he could, and I told him because I felt obliged. To a stranger. Handing out Mello Yello.
A similar exchange happened on the commuter bus last week; that dude I think was more likely hitting on me but even so I shared my name and felt weird about it. It's not as bad as the "give us a smile" line, but even so. They don't need my name. It's a way of forcing contact.
It's the old bitcheroo conundrum: make a fuss over something stupid and seem like an uptight bitch, or go along and feel like you're subtly reinforcing a screwed-up social power imbalance.
While brushing my teeth, I racked my brain for alternatives. "You don't need to know that" will effectively shut down the whole interaction. "Why do you need to know that?" and variations come across as coy and coquettish ("What's your mother's name? So's mine!" appeals to me for its transparent bullshit-factor, but sounds really coy, of course). The idea of coming up with a consistent lie ("Pam") appeals to me on the same level, though for different reasons, that lying to strangers about my rats' names did (strangers are perfectly welcome to pull rank over my pet rats; the lie was more intended to skip over a lengthy and utterly unnecessary explanation). Lying affords me personal satisfaction, but leaves the stranger feeling as though he did in fact get what he was after.
On some level, I want that confrontation. I don't want to shut down a harmless, if clueless stranger, but neither do I want to flirt with him, or passively hand over my identity like a compliant child. I want him to pause, if even for a second, and think about the sort of interaction he's imposing on a complete stranger. The most constructive way I can think to manage that is to answer a question with a question: "Now why in the world would you ask a thing like that?"
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September 20th, 2009
September 14th, 2009
11:45 am
Yoop!
I got a dog!
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September 9th, 2009
02:15 pm - Plastic Recycling FYI
A few months ago I wrote about local nonstandard plastic recycling, and several of you pointed me to the Eastside Co-op, but with varying versions of the dates/times.
Well, I called Eastside and got the full specs and schedule, and thought I'd share with you here; some may find it useful.
Address: 2551 Central Ave NE
Days/times: Thursday, 3:30 - 7:30; Saturday 10 - 2.
What they take: Collects plastics numbered 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.
Yes, curbside pickup takes 1 and 2, but curbside does NOT take non-bottle shapes, so deli clamshell containers etc. would need to come here. All plastics must be clean. The Co-op does NOT collect styrofoam, regardless of numbering. They don't take container lids that are not themselves marked with a number. Also, sadly, they don't collect pill bottles.
What it's like: They have a little tent set up in the corner of the parking lot. At the assigned time, a guy goes out there and opens the tent up; inside are 2 rows of trash bins marked with the plastics they take. People walk down the row dumping their stuff. They encourage you to do your sorting beforehand for that reason.
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August 27th, 2009
01:44 am - Apropos of nothing!
Yo Soy Linda. Stumbled on this one while searching for something else entirely, and while it seems sporadically maintained, she's... pretty funny. She had me at the tagline: "By the way, Linda is my mom's name and she is a total slut." -Cheryl
Kind of made me wish I knew somebody named Mandy. Or rather somebody who goes by Mandy that I don't already hate.
Kiss My Assets: The Body Image Resource Blog. I'm still sort of fascinated with the body-issue discourse, like all the ink spilled over in the fat acceptance arenas. This blog is more general-interest, and the blogger apparently even popped up in an interview for my hometown NPR station.
Roger Ebert's Journal, linked by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) malcubed. That a professional journalist is a good writer should probably come as no surprise. I see myself keeping an eye on it on account of the writing and the media-ness.
And a fourth thing... the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. I always sort of liked Geena Davis for being like six feet tall. Then I find out she does archery (and with both breasts!)... total Amazon. And now this. Conveniently it dovetails with my discipline. I'd like to say that it's clear what they do beyond counting characters-of-gender, but it's enough for now to know it exists.
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August 17th, 2009
02:08 pm
I want to create another new little world again. Anyone else?
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August 14th, 2009
11:32 am - Gender and Geekery
Sociological Images did a disjointed but interesting post (and ensuing discussion) the other day on gender and geekery. It's a topic near to a lot of your hearts, so I thought I'd share.
Topics come up which I've heard about from a number of you, like trying to define "geek" in a useful way, or the tension between appearance and geekery: women get to choose between not being taken seriously as a geek (too pretty) or not being taken seriously as a woman (too frumpy).
The flap over the Ruby On Rails presentation that bloodredrosev has addressed comes up, along with the rebuttal SmutOnRails. I've read a number of reaction posts, and the ensuing comment threads, to this particular presentation on the web, but this post is interesting for being a reaction to the reaction, and why the community response was inadequate: "The issue is no longer the presentation, but the reaction of the community to this event."
It is interesting to me that this response comes from a man, not because I don't believe a man can be a feminist, but because it makes me wonder whether his voice carries extra validity for not coming from a member of the marginalized group itself. Which would be itself a phenomenon of sexism. Marginalized and oppressed groups pretty much always need the consent of the non-oppressed group to alter the system, so nothing new there. But if it is true, it would manifest the point he is trying to illustrate.
Another conversation comes up about the Penny Arcade discussion about the seduction community. One of you pointed me to this a few days ago, and the discussion has evolved in interesting ways since then. My feelings on the topic have resolved back to where they were in January, which is to say resolved "tensely" and "not at all."
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July 31st, 2009
01:17 pm - Tell me
Why do people watch cooking shows?
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July 30th, 2009
10:58 am - Today's Special
Talking about the movie Mannequin last night brought to mind the children's show Today's Special, a favorite when I was small. The two principals were a black clerk lady and a white male mannequin; alongside these were a security guard and a mouse, both puppets. Looking backward it seemed remarkable that the store dummy character was male; most mannequins, I think, are female-shaped, and the child-proxy in shows are not infrequently female (e.g., Sarah in Doctor Who ).
Of course, watching the intro on YouTube, the idea of a woman toting around a semi-animate male mannequin after store hours seemed a little sketch, and the idea of a dude toting around a female mannequin in the same manner could've seemed a little gross. For a children's show. I mean, some men do that already.
All the same, objectifying the male and putting in a black female lead seemed remarkably progressive? These were conscious decisions, not accidents.
Figures it was CBC.
N.B.: The clerk was played by a woman named Nerene Virgin, who is a pretty interesting person in her own right. Apart from doing this show, she's been a news anchor, served on the board of a women's shelter, taught ESL in Inner Mongolia, and run for office. Her family's pretty remarkable too.
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July 25th, 2009
06:28 pm - Dramatic Love
Just had a bit of a revelation. Love stories are shite. Or rather, the relationships most love stories describe are shite.
It goes back to a point my prof made about storytelling. He has two young daughters; when the oldest became verbal, he coaxed her into telling a basic story. First she established a premise: setting, protagonist. As she got into it, the professor prompted her: "...but then...". BAM, conflict. And they were off to the races.
Decent relationships don't tend to be conflicty. In every life a little rain and all, but it happens in fleeting moments, or big things in odd spots buried six or fifteen years into a relationship, after infatuation has long passed. On occasion that something big happens early in a relationship, the parties, one would hope, would have the maturity and wellbeing to communicate effectively and resolve matters (stay, work, leave?) in a mature and understanding fashion.
Which of these plots seem familiar:
- Protagonist chases quiet ingenue, who is captivating yet mysterious?
- Couple falls in love, but a simple misunderstanding upsets things, fueled by a refusal to discuss?
- Gruff/wounded lost-puppy gets rehabilitated with motherly love?
- Protagonist pulls object-of-affection away from another partner who is a total jerk?
Whatever, they're all the same; tales of pursuit built on poor communication—infatuations with blank slates, or conflations of personality defects with charisma.
This post is brought to you in part by a stroll through Heartless Bitches Int'l, one rant from which seems to have been anonymously sent to a FB acquaintance of mine, who seems to have appreciated it. For me, the website was a reminder that people fall in love with crummy people. No wonder we keep doing it, when texts keep romanticizing flawed romances on account of their dramatic potential. May god save us all from dramatic love.
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July 23rd, 2009
12:37 pm - Susie Homemaker
Proportionally, life and Livejournal are out of whack; the former has been busy, the latter, quiescent.
Posts about the parade and other picture-type things must wait while my computer comes to acknowledge its ownership of a fan.
Instead, I will post about my failure at a couple of domestic tasks of late.
The first was altering a dress: taking it in, and tacking in a lining. The moral of the story was that old machines (e.g. MY machine) don't control stitch length; rather, YOU do, by the pace you feed the fabric through. The damn thing has one speed—fast—which made the learning curve rather steep. The upside is that I DID learn some of the fundamentals of sewing and of the machine; the downside is that it came at the cost of about 4 hours of picking out incredibly tiny stitches. My mother's response to my "The More You Know" spin of optimism on the project was: "I'm bringing you a different machine." Which also works.
The second task was making banana bread. FVR had two aged bananas, along with about six fresh ones, together with a trace quantity of fruit flies, which send me absolutely orbital. Rather than pitch out the brown bananas (sensible but wasteful) or peel and freeze them (sensible but didn't occur to me), I decided to make banana bread (delicious but less sensible for reasons detailed as follows).
The banana part, obviously, was under control, as were vanilla and butter. We didn't have eggs, but I've left egg out of stuff before, and there's a loaf pan to help hold things together. Flour? Well shit, we're out of that too. I did the best I could under the circumstances, which is to say, Bisquick topped off with some Lefse mix.
An hour later, I had a concave banana pudding, which in its defense is quite rich and delicious.
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July 1st, 2009
07:11 pm - May-December Romances
When is May? When is December?
Assume for the moment that we can expect to live to... 90. That makes every month 8½ years long.
Three months into the year—January, February, March—brings us to 25½ years old. 25½ through 34 years puts us in the April of our lives.
Quite young!
Starting the year in the dead of winter might be a deceptive analogy, though - we tend to conceive of our winter years as representing the end of our life. So perhaps we push the starting-time into March. I'd rather February, though - the first 8 years of life aren't exactly "productive" years in the labor/agrarian sense (and oh god, they're not fertile years). So, February 1st = the day of your birth. That has me (and most of you, I think) pushing through the May of our lives, which seems appropriate.
Bully.
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June 13th, 2009
02:50 pm
I called around last Friday to price out the cost of euthanizing a rat. It's hard not to feel churlish when you dial up a stranger and ask what they'd charge you to kill your pet. I'm glad I did it though - got numbers back ranging from $10 to $100. For some reason the chain places charged significantly more, to the point that I wondered if they'd misheard me, and I took the Lord's name in vain before I hung up the phone.
It's a weird exercise. I got recommendations when I took this girl in for surgery a few years ago, and was satisfied with the treatment and follow-up we got. Euthanasia seems a little different: a screwed-up surgery can result in death, but what can a screwed-up euthanasia result in? Pain, I guess. I tend to suspect that people who work in vet clinics don't enjoy causing suffering anymore than I do, though, so I trust them not to be cavalier. It should be easy to O.D. such a small animal.
Putting down a pet stirs up enough uncomfortable feelings without that pet being, in another context, vermin. I mean, I already know people who kill rats. My parents have done it; friends do it in labs. There's a whole section of the phonebook dedicated to exterminating these creatures. The hardware store a few blocks over markets products that I could buy and take home to kill a rat. But I pay someone to do it for me.
Culturally, we've become disconnected with death. 150 years ago, people laid out bodies of relatives on the kitchen table to prepare them for burial. 50 years ago, farm families slaughtered their own animals, and "butcher" was a real profession.
Nowadays, American meat markets don't hang carcasses for display, but wrap lumps of pink in plastic, to be taken home and digested. Nobody cooks with marrow or sweetbreads. Few of us are ever present while an animal is getting slaughtered; even fewer have taken responsibility for ending a life we helped propagate. Almost nobody wants to know what's in the sausage, but we still eat it - a willful disconnect I find hard to take. In games and movies we see more carnage than ever before - bodies split open, heads shattered - but few of us experience life in a way that lets us viscerally understand that people too are just meat, that pigs heave and die the way we do, or that the capacity to kill and dress the one is little different from the power to kill and dress the other.
God knows I don't want to do it, either (witness, I hired a vet). I deal with my own distance from death by not eating the sausage - to do so would seem disingenuous. But I wonder about that distance sometimes... do we understand more, or less, about cruelty and suffering if we never strike the blow ourselves?
In the end, I went with the same clinic I used in 2006. ($15, $5 extra to dispose of the body. I paid the extra.) Like before, everything was business until I handed over the cage. They don't let you walk it back. I understand some places don't want you to see your pet in the throes, but it's still hard not to wonder how, or even if, it happened when they come back to hand you the empty cage. I drove it home and emptied the bedding directly into the Dumpster behind my building.
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June 1st, 2009
02:35 pm - Tiller
Today I am a little depressed by America's tolerance for terrorism perpetuated by terrorists who look and talk like us.
Truly. We've spent the last decade ostensibly fighting those who strong-arm and murder Americans into "surrendering our freedom" and changing the values and way of life we've built as a nation. So just because it's domestic, we cluck our tongues and move on? Not good enough.
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