Sad details about my family.

The other day I was talking with my mom, and she had ordered me a book a few days prior, and so she told me to wait on the phone while she Googled it to see where it was, delivery-wise.

That made me feel like she was so old, that that's all she had to do.

Then, when I mentioned having seen the new Star Wars with a colleague that week, she said that her and my brother had gone to a Tuesday matinee a few weeks ago to go see it.

That made me feel bad for my brother, that he was home and out of work and going to see matinees with a retired person on a Tuesday (though I'd probably go do the same to bond with my parents as well, if I was home).

State political polling: Thrills and chills.

The other week I got a telephone poll on the U.S. Senate race for my state, about the 3 Democratic primary candidates.

I had fun with it since I never get those calls, but halfway through it started asking my feelings in response to certain one-sentence "facts" about an unnamed candidate (e.g. that someone didn't pay their workers, that someone lived in my city, etc.).

At that point, I realized that the poll must be testing out smear messages on behalf of 1 of the 3 candidates, though I wasn't sure who.

So, at the end, I asked the Indian-accented guy who was giving me the poll who was sponsoring the poll, and he said that it was for research purposes only, and that they didn't know and couldn't say it if they knew anyway, since that would bias respondents.

I hung up feeling very disturbed, that a candidate had roped me in to honing their message, when I wasn't even sure if it was the candidate I support.

A dream of the swingers:

The other week I dreamt that I was hanging out with the swingers, and that all of a sudden I realized I'd been calling the husband by the wrong name ever since I've known him (his name is a male name beginning with "K", and I discovered in the dream that his name was actually another male name beginning with "K").

. . .

(In real life, I really do know his name, it was just in the dream that I was wrong.)

Twitter is marvelous...

Twitter is marvelous for connecting with random people - including high-profile journalists.

Twice now I've twittered out a complimentary Tweet linking to an article by a journalist for a very high-profile legendary music mag, and in each case the author twittered back the equivalent of "Thanks!".

I had mentioned their Twitter account name in the tweets, but never expected they'd notice; it was more of a mention for hyperlinked-in accuracy, and not some attempt to curry favor or anything like that.

I guess it makes sense, though, b/c my hunch is that they don't hear back from people all that much, let alone hear back positive things where people are out talking about what they've done.

Scrabble with the British.

So, the other week I hung out with my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend (the brother of the 2 siblings I'm good friends with), and we played Scrabble.

I tried a new professional Scrabble strategy that I read about, where you take a temporary hit on points and save consonants or vowels and play excess consonants or vowels, in order to maximize the chance of a more well-balanced rack on the next draw.

You know what?

It didn't work at first, and then it did.

After my friend played "AXES", I used my better rack that I had acquired to top that off with a "W" to make "WAXES" as part of the word "GLOW" extending onto a triple word score, and racked up the point.

Similarly, I used some vowels and sat on my Q and U, and then you know what, it opened up where I could play "QUIET" and the Q was on a triple letter score and the entire word was on a double word score.

I really mopped up that game, and it's funny to think about that up until 2 games ago, I sucked at Scrabble.

Then, I learned that strategy where you add on a beginning or an end to a word and score with both new words (I had always done intersection and just scored off one word; that was very stupid now, in retrospect, but I guess I just didn't think that much about it, or care).

Now, I have my new strategy.

Next, if I was serious, I'd memorize all the possible 2-letter words, which is also what I hear professional players do.

Anyhow, the greatest moment of levity in the game was when my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend turned to me and was like, "Is there such a word as AUK?".

At that, I was like, "Yes, A - U - K," but as soon as he heard "Yes," he started looking intently at his rack again and tuning me out.

"You're sure AUK is a word?", he was like, "O - R- C?", and at that he pulled out tiles and laid out "ORC" on the board.

At first I was confused at what was happening, but then I realized that he pretty much pronounces the words "AUK" and "ORC" the same, and I misheard him at first!!!!!!!

British people are ridiculous.

My one sci-fi colleague: Movie, Checking In...

So, I went to see the new Star Wars with my one colleague who does sci-fi.

After it was over, she turns to me and was like, "This series is so edible!".

And, I thought she was just being expressive, and meant that it was a good popcorn movie but not much else.

Like a day later, I realized she must have meant "Oedipal".

She was also undergoing dental surgery that same day, so I wrote to tell her the story and to check in, and she wrote back:


Hi [my first name]. Thanks for your concern. The surgery went well (I'm a good patient, if there are drugs involved).  My face looks a little strange today from swelling, sort of like a pixie...

What a fun colleague.

Like my one friend who teaches modern Czech lit says, in academia, people are either awful, or absolutely the best.

Another odd dream: Stroll with a student.

A few days before that, I dreamt that for some reason I was with another student from freshman writing:

Then, I dreamt that I went to show her a park in the city that she didn't know about, and we walked to the shore and there was a gash in the lake and we turned to walk down there, and there were giant walls of water on each side of us as we walked down below the waterline, and at the edge of where we were walking the water washed and rolled a bit, and there were these tiny discs strung out all along the downward-sloping path like little dots edging the walk way.

Pointing, I explained to her that they were 12,000 consecrated hosts, and through their power they kept back the water, and that over time a few here and there became soggy, but workers would come and replace them.

After like 40-50 feet, we turned right into a cavern and entered a room and began walking down an aisle where on the left was a raised dais with seats facing us, and on the right were chairs on the level, also facing us.

A committee meeting was going on, and a decent amount of important people were on the dais and a guy had a long list of items, and he was crossing out the next item on the list like a third down the page, and called out to someone that they were next.

At that, on the right in the audience, where there was hardly any people at all, a (young) (scruffy) (brown-haired) (white) guy on drums began playing a slow beat and softly singing to a(n old) (white) woman standing kind of in front of him, and as he began the song, he forgot some line, said a repeating line, forgot some line and mugged the beats, said the repeating line again, and then drifted off from playing, since it was obvious that he was blanking on the song.

At that, the guy with the list very tactfully said that he understood that that happens, but next time he should come better prepared with his song...

AND THEN MY ALARM RANG AND I WAS REALLY PISSED.

I wanted to find out what the next items on the agenda were!!!!