La Bloga Magnifica

Grandparents.

2012-02-01T12:51:00.002-05:00

The other week at a school lunch function I was sitting with some ministerial students, and somehow I got talking about how my (maternal) grandmother loved to party, and even in her 70s, when she had moved in with my uncle because of aging reasons, she would stay out till all hours drinking and dancing and smoking at the local Polish Legion of American Veterans hall, and then go out for burgers at an all-night place with her friends, and then have to hurry home before my uncle got up for work, so he wouldn't know she was out partying...

She'd usually run in the door right before 6am, throw a bathrobe over her going-out clothes, spray Lysol on herself to disguise the smell of cigarette smoke, and put on coffee and sit at the kitchen table, like she had just gotten up before him and had decided to make some coffee. Then, as soon as he left, she would collapse in bed and sleep till after noon.

(My uncle didn't know she did this all the years till finally my mom told him years after my grandma was dead.)

When I shared this, one ministerial student told about how his grandfather was a hard-drinking jazz musician in Nebraska, and would travel around in small towns womanizing and playing the clarinet and drinking heavily, which contributed to an enlarged heart, from which he finally died.

Another ministerial student talked about how her husband's grandfather was a moonshiner in Florida, and used to hide stills in the Everglades. Eventually, he became a police officer.

Present for my one (black) (female) dean!

2012-01-31T12:47:00.002-05:00

I'm regifting to my one (black) (female) (disco-loving) dean the biography of Sylvester:

I was telling her about it before it got over the top with sex and drugs in pre-AIDS gay San Francisco, and she was interested, and then I brought it up to her again the other day about how she should read it, but I made sure to say that it contains lots of "70s excess" and I that I felt uncomfortable recommending it.

"But you know," she was like, "Watch any biography on VH1, and it's the same story. It's always sex and drugs that bring people down, especially the minor stars, since they don't have as much to fall back on."

Iowa Story! - From someone else.

2012-01-30T12:25:00.001-05:00

A story from a guy at my one Irish artist friend's potluck -

His friend was visiting his sister in Iowa, but before he gets there, he decides to stop off at a strip club on the way there, this cinder block building in the middle of the cornfields.

It's the middle of the day, and there's one guy on the opposite side of the room who's bundled up in this gray flannel suit, and other than that, there's no-one there for the show that's about to start.

After ordering a drink, he's waiting for the show to start, and this big old (white) stripper comes out wrapped up in an American flag, which she throws open to reveal her big titties, and he hears the guy in the gray flannel suit say in this weird and very loud high-pitched distinctive voice -

"OH WOW!".

So, right away he calls the waitress over and is like, "Hey, is that David Lynch?"

"Who?", she's like.

"David Lynch."

"I don't know, but I can ask him," she was like, and she walks over there, talks to the guy in the flannel suit, and comes back.

"He said yes if it's a woman, no if it's a man," she was like.

. . .

I WANT -

2012-01-29T12:22:00.002-05:00

I think I'm done with my anti-materialistic phase. I was thinking the other day it would be nice to have more money so I could have:

- a one-bedroom apartment.
- a new computer, to replace my one from 2001/2002 (erp).
- internet at home.
- a small flatscreen.
- a Playstation.
- a share in a "Community Supported Agriculture Farm", where I give them $20 a week in exchange for a big box of produce.
- a working CD player.
- dental insurance.
- some new clothes.
- the ability to take small trips. like to that apparition site up in Wisconsin, or New Orleans.

I remember my one Dutch said that at some point being a poor grad student stops being romantic, and just starts being tiresome. I think it just started being tiresome for me.

Another birthday...

2012-01-28T12:20:00.002-05:00

My one lawyer friend from Missouri was telling me about the security guard who runs the metal detector at the front of her building, this bigger (black) woman in her late 30s with heavy eye makeup and a cone of hair angling off to the left side of her head.

On my friend's birthday, she was going into work, and the security guard asked her how she was doing.

"Just okay," she was like. "It's my birthday today, and I don't like the thought of another birthday."

"Listen, girl," the guard was like, "You shouldn't complain. A lot of my friends from back in the neighborhood would love to have another birthday, but they can't have one, because they're dead."

Shitty (white) neighborhood.

2012-01-27T12:06:00.001-05:00

A few weekends ago (actually, on my birthday), I went to an Irish-American neighborhood with my one (white) friend from Mississippi, the Catalan, and a junior professor from the Spanish department.

The bars were shitty, full of (white) townies who stuck together from being raised together and weren't all that social.

Later, I texted a friend who had adjuncted in a school near there, and said I was disappointed by how clannish the bars were.

He texted back -

Clannish, or Klannish?

. . .

Photo shoot at my apt.!

2012-01-26T12:03:00.002-05:00

My one lawyer friend from Missouri was going to a store near my house, so the other weekday (she had the week off; she switched jobs at her workplace, and had a couple weeks lagtime) she texted to see if I wanted to hang out or grab coffee or take a study break, if I was home.

I told her to bring her camera, for a photo shoot!

The city's alternative newspaper had a redesign a few months ago, and they started this new feature where they have people send in photos of weird shit in their apartment.

So, my one lawyer friend from Missouri took a photo of my coffee can collection, which is now up to 102 cans, and 80 of which I have stacked in one window to block the view of the neighbors.

Before she left, I heated up a bit of my cabbage-parsnip soup (with vinegar, in the Romanian style), so she could try a spoonful to see if she wanted to take some home... I had made up a *huge* pot (w 2 heads of cabbage!) just the previous night, and there was a ton of it.

So, when I lugged the huge stewpot out of the fridge and plopped it on the stove and opened up the lid to reveal a huge pot of cabbage soup, she just laughed and was like, "I should take a picture of that," and she said that was the most soup she had ever seen in her life.

Winebars!

2012-01-25T12:23:00.003-05:00

The other weekend I was at a winebar with my one (light-skinned) (black) from Arkansas. It was this place with lots of glass and light wood and a huge display case of European-looking cheeses, and tons of couples there, with all the guys leaning in and putting their arms around the women's seats.

My friend wasn't sure what to order, so the wine guy was like, "Here, try this, it's rowdy on the nose," and pulled out a glass and poured it in and shoved it at her.

I started laughing so much it was all I could do to hold it in, and I flashed back to years ago going out to a winebar downtown with my one Dutch friend, and the short (Mexican) bartender saying some description like that, only having to do with trees and minerals and fruits, and my friend was like, "Eh, do you really believe what you say?", and at that the guy just darted his eyes to the side, grimaced sheepishly, and shrugged.

Called a woman a cunt before 7am.

2012-01-24T12:15:00.002-05:00

So the other morning I called a woman a cunt before 7am.

It was Fri. and I was late getting out the door and had to get to campus for my Hebrew quiz, and when I get to the subway turnstile (not the main entrance; it's the one on the south end of the platform, where you can only use cards to get in), two younger (white) women get there ahead of me, so I file in line as they swipe in and walk through the turnstile (actually one of those doors that rotate).

As I go through, I'm trapped in the door.

I don't know what's happening at first - my card went through! - and then I realize one of them must not have paid, so I call out, "Hey, did you not pay for your fare!", and this one stops as she's going up the stairs and turns around, and it's this well-dressed mid-20s girl looking like she's on her commute to work.

"My card didn't work yesterday and it's not working again today," she was like.

"Well, you took my fare," I was like.

"But my card's not working," she was like.

"Well, what am I supposed to do?", I was like. "I'm trapped here."

At that moment a (black) guy stepped up from the opposite side and said he could take my card and swipe me in, but I ignored him.

"Well, you can swipe again," she was like.

"That'll cost me another fare," I was like. "I'll do that, if you'll give me the money for the fare I paid for you."

She said something affirmative but snotty, and so I went back out through the turnstile, swiped my card again, and came back through, and we started walking up the steps together.

"So do you have my $2.25?", I was like.

"Yeah, wait," she was like, using a really snotty tone of voice, and she pulled out $2 to give to me. "Here it is, if it's so important to you."

"Okay," I was like, "But what about the twenty-five?"

"I don't have that on me," she was like. "Isn't that two dollars enough?"

At that point we had gotten to the top of the stairs, so I was like, "Ok, I guess that's enough. Have a good morning - *CUNT*."

At that, her face just changed and she had this total look of disgust, and backed away in shock.

It was 6:58am.

I'm glad I didn't call her a bitch; I think she might have taken pride in that word.

odd dream.

2012-01-23T12:59:00.002-05:00

I dreamt this the other night -

I was walking up a hill in sparsely wooded, late afternoon Michigan forest, and came upon a paved road. I was going to meet a professor who's on my committee and another student, since we were going to have a the first day of a private class together.

Just as I had passed over the road into a small adjoining half-circular meadow abutting the road, I saw 2 sun-bleached mountain lions padding by, going the opposite direction, and I went on to the forest on the opposite side.

At some point, I see 2 Bigfoots on the opposite side of the meadow, and they turn and look at me as they walk the opposite direction, and I don't know if I see them before or after the mountain lions.

In the forest there's a house, and I'm in there and I know that I have to wait there until the class starts, and I know the the prof and the other student will want to re-focus the class on the recent Bigfoot sightings, but that is a bad idea, and I shouldn't tell them about what I saw.

It's night, then, and there's a glass room at the end of the house, and I go there to practice double bass by the light of the moon. As I get ready to play, I see two smallish tyrannosaurus rexes creeping up the opposite hill in the moonlight, and I set down my bass quietly and creep away to hide.

I don't want to sleep on the ground floor for fear of the dinosaurs, and I go up the stairs very quietly, afraid they'll burst through the open windows, and then I pass up the 2nd floor for fear it's still too vulnerable, so I go to the 3rd floor and find an empty bedroom, and I take the two mattresses on the floor and stack them together over me so I'm safe from the dinosaurs, and any mountain lions that may attack, and I go to sleep realizing they might get on top of the mattresses, but they couldn't get to me.

In the morning I wake up and I go down to the first floor to the kitchen, and there's a girl there making breakfast, and it turns out she lived there and had chosen to spend the night on the 3rd floor as well for fear of the dinosaurs, and I remembered that there had been a door across the hall that was closed, and I realized that that was where she must have been sleeping.

I was suddenly swept with this fear that the house was evil, and I go up the stairs and my luggage (?) is scattered out the door and into the hallway by Satanic forces.

I pack up and go down the stairs, and in the entryway the ceiling tiles are dropping off from this heavy heavy moisture condensing through the ceiling, and I know that the house is really evil, and the sightings of all the animals are connected, and I see a vision of my professor and the other student looking at a big footprint in bare earth between some moss and ferns, and I know that they shouldn't be obsessed with that.

I go out the door and leave.

3 bars (3 of 3): Sportsbar.

2012-01-22T12:16:00.002-05:00

The last bar I went to was a sportsbar down the street, that had a big front glass garagedoor instead of windows.

I had a beer at the back to kill time before my friend came to meet me there and we'd head out somewhere else, and I could help stare at this enormously fat (white) girl with a t-shirt that said:

WOMEN WILL NEVER BE SATISFIED, BECAUSE NO MAN HAS A VIBRATING CHOCOLATE PENIS THAT EJACULATES MONEY.

And more than that, she was talking with a guy who had this t-shirt...! -

I SHAVED MY BALLS FOR THIS?

The girl caught me reading her t-shirt again, and she cracked up and struck up a conversation with me, and pointed out that everyone in their group was wearing tacky t-shirts - it was a tacky t-shirt birthday party! She said the birthday girl had one last year, and it was so much fun, everyone keeps their eyes out for mega-tacky t-shirts all year long now.

She then introduced me to the birthday girl, who had a shirt that said -

IF YOUR DICK WAS AS BIG AS YOUR MOUTH, THEN I'D GIVE YOU A CHANCE.

. . .

3 bars (2 of 3): Bar I've never been.

2012-01-21T12:11:00.002-05:00

When I was leaving the bar, I was joking with the doorman about the huge ornate church just down the street, which is the city's Opus Dei church.

"Ever get any of them in here?", I was like.

"Nah," he was like.

"Well," I was like, "You should be glad, because they're scarier than ghosts, and real!"

I then changed the subject to where exactly this other bar was, where there was this older woman who had a heart of gold and was built like a trucker and would physically throw you out if she didn't like you.

"She actually passed away a year-and-a-half ago," he was like, after telling me that the bar was just up a block and a block over. "I went to her funeral, it was actually up there, she'd gone to that church all her life."

He then proceeded to tell me that she lived above her bar just like the WWII vet had lived above the bar he worked at, but the Opus Dei priest didn't like that, and so at her funeral just shit on her because she owned a bar and said we'd have to pray and there was always purgatory, if someone didn't get to heaven right away because of their earthly activities.

3 bars (1 of 3): Nice doorman.

2012-01-20T12:01:00.002-05:00

So the other weekend I went to hit up some bars before meeting up with a friend.

There was this packed-out hipster bar with a tin ceiling and nice woodwork I went into, and right away when I got inside and was trying to figure out how to get to the bar, the doorman was nice and was like, "So what was the last book you read?"

I went to get a beer - a couple women shared at my "I [HEART] [name of the I'm in] SEX WORKERS" shirt, then caught my eye - and then came back to talk to the guy, and he said that not everyone has a coat that can carry books so easily (I had a novel sticking out of my lefthand pocket).

"I'm a reader too," he was like, and we talked books for a while, since the bar was so packed out - 3 linked birthday parties were going on! - that that was far and away the best place to stand.

Somehow, we got on the subject of folklore and ghosts, and he said that the guy who founded the bar was a WWII veteran who had some issues and lived upstairs, since that's what all bar owners in the neighborhood did in the day. One year, the guy shot himself, and ever since then people claim that drinks sitting on the bar will just fall off and shatter for no reason, and ghost tour busses go by the bar every so often and point them out.

"Personally," he was like, "I think the bars are slightly off-level, and you get a wet bar, a full glass can easily slide off. But, whatever."

Memory forom an underground bar.

2012-01-19T12:50:00.002-05:00

I forgot -

Like a month ago during a night of barhopping - one bar was this aging frat bar, where there were beer pong tables and a mini-basketball court and a stripper-pole cage for the girls - I joined by my one Czech lit professor friend and a friend of hers, after they had just seen that sex addiction movie "Shame"...

Anyhow, like 3 bars in, we were in this one downstairs bar at like midnight on a Wednesday, and it was a big oval bar, and over on the other side and a little down from us there was this girl and a guy who looked like her fiance, and this older woman who kind of looked like her, and had big hair and a vacant expression like in "Twin Peaks", and there was this very young hot guy in a business suit leaning in toward her and talking to her for what seemed like ever, and making jokes and smiling at her (every once in while she would burst out in a smile and look up demurely at him).... He could have been a friend of the daughter's, but he was way too interested in the mom, which made us think he was either some random gerontophile, or an escort.

My one Czech lit professor friend kept buying us drinks to make us stay and see what would happen, and every once in a while we would turn to each other and start humming that slow building-up theme from "Twin Peaks" to each other.

Eventually, the group went to leave, and my friend had me go outside like I was going to smoke to see what went down.

All four of them got in a cab, and left.

That's the thing about bars, sometimes there is no resolution to the stories that begin there - if they were even stories to begin with.

Gay spirituality group.

2012-01-18T12:36:00.002-05:00

So a (gay) grad student friend of mine has been going through a spiritual phase, and got invited to some spiritual exploration group at some person's apartment downtown, though the Unity or Unitarian or whatever church he's been going to.

He went there, and he said it was mostly gay polyamorists, and instead of any sort of discussions or whatever, which was what he was expecting, they instead sat in a big long circle and did "heartweaving", where you stared intently into the guy opposite you's eyes for several minutes, then everyone shifted positions to the left, and you did that till everyone had looked into each other's eyes.

"Then what happened?", I was like.

"Oh," he was like, "I thought that was an icebreaker, and then we were going to do something really awesome, but then they were like, 'OK, potluck, everyone!'", and we just sat around and ate."

I also was telling him how I've been reading up on neopaganism and polyamory lately, and he said that everyone he's ever known who's done that has pretty much been a sex addict.

He also said he was in a coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon once when there was this old daddy guy interviewing a new "boy", and the daddy started quizzing him on that "Ethical Slut" book I'm reading (and which was recommended to me by the people at that sec doc series I go to as a classic polyamorist touchstone).

Kids are so cute: High-five.

2012-01-16T12:15:00.001-05:00

Kids are so cute.

The other day I ran into my one (Mormon) colleague as he was coming out of some doors pushing a stroller, so I held the door open for him and held my hand out so his two-and-a-half year old could high-five me as he went by, and the kid did, just holding his hand out and keeping the same serious expression.

As an older single man, though, I feel odd about commenting how cute kids are, like people will think I'm skeezy or something. But they really are a ton of fun.

ILL books.

2012-01-15T12:07:00.002-05:00

The other day at the main library on campus I went up to the circ desk to pick up an ILL (=inter-library loan) book.

"Can I pick up my AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL, please?", I asked the undergrad, grotesquely exaggerating the acronym.

They laughed nervously, and got it for me.

Poor Peter Lombard.

2012-01-14T12:57:00.002-05:00

I had to go consult the critical edition of Peter Lombard's "Sentences" the other day, and the 2nd vol. of the edition (which contained the 3rd and 4th vol. of his work, a full half of it) had unopened pages!

I feel so bad for him, everyone who was anyone academically used to read his books, and now no-one does.

Coffee shop - Library.

2012-01-13T12:18:00.002-05:00

One day when I was home my mom had to work at the county library, so I went in with her, hung out at the library a bit, and then went to the local coffee shop to read and do a bit of work.

(There's an ayurvedic shop that opened next door; South Asians have reached my hometown for the 1st time sometime within the past 2 years, it seems.)

There I ran into a stoner friend of a friend, and as he was leaving this older white balding guy with a short beard who knew him sat down with us, and he talked my ear off when he found out that I study religion.

He teaches English in Korea, but was home visiting family, and he spends a lot of time reading non-canonical works, and going through word-for-word translations of the Hebrew bible.

Most recently, he was researching the demon Azazel, and the race of giants as described in the apocryphal Book of Enoch.

He told me all of this in like a non-stop stream of words that took him 40 minutes, and when I tried to come in with some mildly-redirecting comment, he would get very defensive, at the suggestion that I knew more than him.

Finally I excused myself to go leave and pick up my mom from work, and she said she was busy and had to stay an extra 30 minutes, and I should have called and checked, since I could have stayed at the coffee shop longer.

"Heck no," I was like, and told her about the demon guy. "Gosh is there some odd shit around here," I added.

"People come in here looking for demon books all the time," my mom was then like, as she continued to shelve books.

"Really?", I was like. "Like who?".

"Oh, no-one I can remember at the moment," she was like, "But this summer there was a very pregnant teeny-bop who was asking me for books on witchcraft."

At that she rolled her eyes and laughed.

Story from my hometown: Trial.

2012-01-12T12:09:00.002-05:00

When I asked my mom about anything that had been happening lately in my hometown, she was like, "You'd like this, but you better shut up about it."

She then said that an older (of course white) gentleman who was a long-time member of the big evangelical church in my town had gotten in trouble for molesting impaired women through his social services job, and when he went to trial, the church packed the courtroom and people would sigh and make comments and it was hard for our neighbor the judge to keep order, and one of the jurors lied and said he *wasn't* a member of the church when he actually was, and our neighbor the judge found out and had to declare a mistrial.

"She is *pissed*," my mom was like, and said that she was considering bringing the juror up on perjury charges.

Later, I asked my one friend who runs the women's shelter's dad, who is retired from the county court system, if he had heard about that trial.

He had just heard there was a mistrial, but he said that the guy who was on trial didn't work in an impaired home, rather he worked in social services and would make "calls" on Saturdays and Sundays to single mothers, purportedly for work, but instead to try to get them to sleep with him... The guy had a wife and had been married for a long time, too.

"And that is CSC," he was like, talking about the guy's weekend visits to single moms.

"No that's not!" one of my friend's dads adult children was like, and they got into a big debate about what constitutes criminal sexual conduct...

You can tell they had a lot of conversations like this when everyone was growing up, it seems.

Tour of a women's shelter!

2012-01-11T12:03:00.002-05:00

So, the day after I got in, before we took the trip north to my parents', I asked my friend if I could see the shelter where she worked, since she just got the job and has been putting in 60-70 hour weeks and I've been hearing a lot about it.

She had to go there, so I went with her and her sister, and got a tour; it was a big operation, with 22 staff, a shitload of offsite properties, a $1 million a year budget, and rooms of supplies (food, bed things, clothes, etc.).

It's also on the 1st floor of a Masonic building, and she said that the 2nd floor which they keep locked, someone has a key to, and she's been there and said it's all velvet curtains and satanic-looking wood carvings.

Before we left, I told her athletic director husband, "I can't wait for a tour," and did an imitation of his wife, "'This is the phone where I make conference calls, and this is a woman with a black eye.'"

He laughed, and she never heard it. Before she took me and her sister into the shelter, though, she was like, "Ok, [my name], remember, no jokes."

An anecdote of college: Mexican restaurant after hours.

2012-01-10T12:57:00.002-05:00

On the drive back south after visiting my parents', I was talking about Mexican food and made a joke about chimichangas, and my one friend from high school who runs a women's shelter and has an athletic director husband couldn't stop thinking about chimichangas, and insisted we stop by a Mexican restaurant near their house ("La Senorita's").

As it turns out, it's on the outskirts of a big state school college town, and her husband had worked there when he did his undergrad years ago.

We were in the bar-restaurant part, not the dining room per se, and as we were finishing our meal he started to reminisce how one night him and one of his friends were closing, and they realized it was 2am and all the liquor stores would be closed, so they got a 3-gallon bucket and filled it with beer and put it between them in their truck when they left, and drove back to their apartment, where sat around it and scooped out of it in glasses and drank it all.

Addendum addendum.

2012-01-09T12:53:00.002-05:00

Also also -

My one other friend from high school's athletic director husband was saying that the teacher who sexted his student and lost his job was stupid.

"You just don't do that stuff," he was like.

"Do the situations arise a lot?", I was like.

"There's a lot of 17 year old girls out there who look pretty mature," he was like, "And they wear tight shirts and like to show everything they've got. You'd be surprised."

Addendum.

2012-01-08T12:49:00.002-05:00

And -

My one friend's wife said this story her mother tells always freaks her out.

Right after the movie "The Exorcist" came out, she was rushing around before a trip to get her (by far) oldest son ready, and everything was there, but when she looked, she couldn't find his shoes that had been right there, so she looked everywhere and couldn't find them, so she pulled another pair out of the closet and put them on him and took him out to the car to her husband, then she returned one more time just to double-check.

She had heard that the devil would steal objects and hide them from you, and then put them in impossibly obvious places, and -

She opens the door, and there in the middle of their living room off to the left are the shoes, sitting there as a pair perfectly aligned.

Caught up with a friend from high school and his wife over break.

2012-01-07T12:48:00.001-05:00

So over Christmas break I caught up with a friend from high school and his wife, who actually used to be a neighbor of mine growing up.

They had asked up when it was up with me, I mentioned taking Hebrew, because it's academically necessary, and it's a plus with the tough job market, etc., and then my friend's wife, who's a social worker and has a great sense of humor, was like, "That's so abstract! Most people I hear say stuff like, 'Tough job market, I should learn the latest version of Word,' and you're like, 'Tough job market, gotta learn Hebrew,'" and then she just laughed some more.

My friend also is switching jobs; he's a high school math teacher at the Catholic school where we went, but he got a job mid-year at public school since they didn't renew a teacher's contract last-minute in September, and had made do with subs till they could fill the vacancy... The guy had sexted a student, and was let go.

"He was a weird one anyways," my friend was like, and explained how the guy had lived in separate towns from his wife for over a decade and go visit her every once in a while, and how the guy lived near them, and during the late summer he'd have all these recent undergrads over and there'd be drunk 19 year olds walking around and speakers set up in the driveway booming bass till late at night.

"We called the cops on him a few times," my friend was like, "We didn't want to put up with that bullshit."

They then started saying how their youngest son is in kindergarten, and how it's tough for him, since he tells everyone he's good at math since his dad is a math teacher at the same school (it's all in one building, K-12), and how he goes in in the morning with his dad and sometimes run into him during the day and plays in his room afterschool, and all the seniors know him and give him high-fives when they see him.

"Did you try explaining the difference in benefits to him?", I joked.

"Actually, yes!", my friend's wife was like, and she said she told him everything on a very simple level, and how there were adult things like benefits that allowed you to go to the dentist, and how you don't think of them everyday, but they're important to take care of the family.

"How'd that work?", I was like.

"Oh," she was like, "He burst out crying, and was like, 'If I get all As on my next report card, can you buy dental insurance online?'"

They also said that their youngest son is like the Mad Hatter, where if you tell him to put on boots he won't, but then you tell him not to and he's like, "I want - To Put -ON MY BOOTS!".

With dinner, too, they said that he obviously hadn't eaten anything this one time, and they were like, "Honey, won't you have some of your dinner?", and he just looked at them and was like, "But I have... Can't you see, I've had - Seventeen bites."

They also filled me in how the Catholic school we went is getting "really Catholic". They converted a classroom into a chapel, make the kids go to Mass weekly rather than monthly, and say prayers several times a day.

"They made the kindergarteners memorize the Angelus," my friend was like. He said that he and his wife don't mind it, since it's memorization and they tell the kids how crazy and wrong some of the political stuff they hear at church is, but it is kind of weird since it's all this past stuff that's nostalgia, that's applied really without thinking whether it's appropriate.

He then said that there's a 28-y.o. priest who gave them a book about Fulton Sheen.

"How relevant would that even be?", he was like. "It's before Vatican II!".

He then said that the high school had a book club, and he thought they were reading the same stuff.

Too, once they caught their kids making a crucifix out of blocks, and then turning around a chair in front of it like a kneeler.

They also said their kids have a game where they play "Ghost Hunters" in the basement, where they go down and turn the lights off and their oldest son uses this little watch with a short tape recorder in it, where he tapes voices and then uses a notepad to 'jot down' what he hears.

"That's different!", I was like. "What do the ghosts say?"

"Oh," his mom was like, "Stuff like -

we are here

come with us

we are cold

we are angry..."

"Ummm," I was like, "Maybe you shouldn't have them play that game," and I told them about all the Catholic exorcism books I read, and how a lot of them were made up, but you shouldn't fuck around with that.

"You're right," she was like, "That game ends tonight."

Another Christmas vacation story: Basketball.

2012-01-06T12:01:00.002-05:00

So over vacation I caught up with my one friend's 2nd-wave feminist muu-muu-wearing mother, who is raising her other daughter's young children.

She was telling me how the 4th-grader is in basketball now, and how she went to the 1st practice with the girl's little brother who's in 2nd grade...

"I couldn't help it," she was like, "But with her red hair, it was like an I Love Lucy episode!"

She then told me how they taught her how to dribble a ball and not to look at it, but then you could see her eyes go over to the ball, which would then fly out of control and she'd go chasing after it, while her little brother grabbed his head and was like, "Grandma, she's so bad!"

Adulthood.

2012-01-05T12:26:00.002-05:00

Like last month, I suddenly realized that I feel like an adult, and that I can hold my own in any social situation and am looked to by people of all ages as a peer.

I think it's my professionalizing through becoming a tutor, and also an early 30s thing, where I know people in all walks of life and people like investment bankers and lawyers and doctors aren't something of older cohorts, but are my peers.

I also feel like I can handle most life situations responsibly and independently.

I don't know what it is, but I feel like I just walk around with confidence and no fear, every moment of every day.

I bet that makes me even more scary intense.

Gifts for my parents.

2012-01-04T12:05:00.002-05:00

They were last minute but I think good -

- A very very nice soup thermos, that's stainless steel and holds 18oz. and has a spoon built into a compartment in the lid.

- A Godfather-era paperback about Lucky Luciano that I found on my bookshelves (got it at a booksale this spring) after a conversation with my dad where he said he's always been fascinated by that gangster and wished he knew more about him!

The soup thermos was inspired by the party gift I got at the party I went to with my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend's sister.

Dream.

2012-01-03T12:56:00.002-05:00

I wear house sandals, and like four months ago I stumbled and the strap on the rightfoot of the pair I've had forever got pulled out, and I had to throw the pair away and pull out a new pair from the closet.

The old pair was black, the new white.

The other week I had a dream that I was looking at the white sandals from the back, and I saw that by the heels they were so worn down that they were almost worn through.

And then I woke up.

Christmas vacation of my friend's husband.

2012-01-02T12:24:00.003-05:00

vSo after my one friend from high school picked me up from the train station, I got to hang out with her and her husband, who's this laconic affable (white) guy who's an athletic director of a high school in a small town north of their house.

After I got in, we were hanging in the living room watching tv, and so he started telling me how the other week he was taking their golden retrievers out, and he noted something funny after one pissed, so he called the vet and the vet told him it was probably blood in the dog's urine and to get a sample in a jar he boiled and bring it in.

"That was fun," he was like. "Standing there holding the jar and having him piss all over my hand, while he looks back at me like, RRMMMMM?".

As it turns out, he said, nothing turned up in the urine, and the vet said that dogs can have blood in their urine sometimes since many breeds have sensitive penises, and if they get a boner and whack it on something, the blood vessels in their can rupture and blood temporarily comes out in the urine.

"So that was from his boner," my friend's husband was like.

Bar #s are slipping away from me.

2012-01-01T12:14:00.002-05:00

The impossibility of perfect knowledge continually amazes me.

For example, how many bars have I been to for my project? I have a number in my book, but it doesn't necessarily match to how many bars are continually open - and my ultimate goal is to at one time have been to every bar open in the city.

Right now, I know that I've been to at least 3 bars that have closed down:

- the pizza place with the Moldovan waitress (though it's re-opened under a different name, and looks to be largely the same bar; I'll have to re-visit it).

- this non-descript cavernous Irish place next to a movie theater I go to (walked by it the other day; it's closed down).

- this shitty gay place with an older crowd and go-go boys (walked by it the other day; it's closed down; I had read that there was some legal dispute over it and it was still open, but I guess it's not).

So, I might go to 500 bars within a year of starting my project, but I won't be certain how many bars I've chipped off of my goal, since some of those bars have closed down or been re-named and are thus deserving of another visit!

Subway ride.

2011-12-31T12:31:00.002-05:00

The other night I was coming home on the subway on a crowded train and was reading a (used) hardcover copy of "The Fabulous Sylvester", and I noticed this (black) woman sitting in front of me looking up at the book.

"Oh," I was like, "You a fan or something?"

"Oh no," she was like, "Just looking," and she totally continued to read the quotes and stuff on the back cover.

When it got to my stop, I opened up my overcoat and slid the book into this very convenient side pocket, where the book just fit but wasn't visible when you closed the coat.

"Isn't that great?", she was like. "They don't put pockets like that on coats anymore!"

And I agreed, and told her I loved it, and often wished all my coats had pockets like that.

Xmas swap!

2011-12-30T12:25:00.002-05:00

So, at this party I went to with the sister of my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend, she and a law school classmate of hers had brought a big sack of presents from regifting and the dollar store for a party game...

I ended up with this handy soup container with a screw-on lid and a portable spoon that you can tuck inside the lid, which was pretty amazing, since just earlier that week I was packing up a lunch for school and had thought that I wish I had something like that, so I could take some of my potato-leek soup to school for lunch.

Her one (black) law school classmate who also got the presents said they each spent less than $10 to put the presents together, and that she got the idea from her family; her grandma shops clearance all year round, and then Christmas she brings this sack of kick-ass presents that everyone fights over, and only cost her like $20 for the whole sack.

"I don't plan that far ahead, though", she laughed.

Memories of a (British) person: Christmas.

2011-12-29T12:16:00.001-05:00

So, the other day I was talking with the sister of my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend, about her plans for the holidays back in England (she's going back for a couple weeks).

I asked if her (British) mom had converted to Islam when she married her dad, but she said no, and in any case they always celebrated Christmas, even when they lived in the Sudan: they used to have this plastic Christmas tree they would pull out and set up, and they would give each other presents in the immediate family, and on Christmas day they would have their (Muslim) extended family over for a party and dancing.

Memory: British English.

2011-12-28T12:04:00.000-05:00

One time I was talking with my one British friend (I think this summer), and I mentioned something about "It's so hot", and he was like, "What's so difficult about it?"

He understood the way I said "hot" as "hard"! Honestly. I repeated the word for him, and his first reaction was always to hear it as "hard".

Gamblin'.

2011-12-27T12:43:00.002-05:00

The other day at my lesson with the lawyer who's learning Greek, in our chit-chat before the lesson the subject of slot machines somehow came up, and I told the story of how there's bars in the city where they have them "For Entertainment Purposes Only", but the regulars play them and the bartender marks what they get, and then every once in a while pays them out from a till behind the counter.

"Maybe I shouldn't tell you that because you're a lawyer who works for the city, though," I was like.

"Oh no, it's okay," he was like, and then told me how for years there was this one building you'd pass by on the elevated train, and if you looked in this one window just before downtown, you'd always see a group of people playing cards, no matter what time of day.

A bar story: Serbian restaurant, with jazz.

2011-12-26T12:32:00.002-05:00

The other Monday night I was out and I popped into this Serbian restaurant/bar, which had almost no-one at tables but a pretty packed bar, and I went down towards the end to an open seat, and asked this gaunt-looking older (white) guy if I could sit down, and he shrugged and gestured to sit.

Then, another older (white) guy came out of the bathroom and sat down by his half-finished beer on the other side of me, and the 2 started to talk across me.

Oddly, later it was jazz night at the Serbian restaurants - traditional jazz, no Serbian players - and the 2 guys were 2 aging jazz musicians from the city.

After talking about their colonoscopies coming up, they began talking about old jazz bars in the city that had closed down.

"Remember that one place near [one street] and [another street]?", the one was like. "The place with the tree?"

"Oh yeah, that place with the tree," the other was like, "I can't remember the name of that place for the life of me, though."

After a story from one about his brother subbing in from him once in the late 60s, and another about some drummer with cirrhosis (sp.?) of the liver, the one was like, "Man, doesn't that all seem just like yesterday."

"Yes, it certainly does," the other was like.

No more excerpts.

2011-12-25T12:32:00.001-05:00

Oops - mis-estimated the excerpts before I typed them out.

I love how 2nd-wave feminists speak their truth so clearly. And so much of it is true!

A Ship (4 of 5?): Normal.

2011-12-24T12:28:00.002-05:00

From the same, p. 174:

Though this last phase is also considered normal, society definitely neither advocates or condones it - in fact, scarcely acknowledges its existence. In this stage teh couple becomes disillusioned, bored, miserable, and ripe either for "breakup" or coma.

"Who said this progression is 'normal,' that this is the shape of love?" I asked myself. "And who decided what constitutes 'the real world'? The same guys who brought you Vietnam, Hustler, chicken factories, and an ozone layer that rivals swiss cheese," I replied...

. . .

A Ship (3 of 5?): Singleness.

2011-12-23T12:19:00.001-05:00

From the same, pp. 145-147:

It seemed to me that women were nearly apologizing when they described themselves this way, as if being one-whole instead of one-half were not legitimate or healthy, but instead something one hoped soon to recover from. It was as if they were not really living but simply on hold until they plugged into someone else, became one-half of a couple, and turned on their lives again. I knew they would never think to call themselves "single" if they didn't accept coupledom as the natural and therefore more desirable state - a state I now dubbed "coupledumb."

We are taught to accept the menstream assumption that one-half is better than one-whole because two is necessary for oppression...

I think men took our worthy and natural desires and, in a truly diabolical way, turned them against us - making us, under threat of death, do to one another in the name of love what most of us would be too merciful to do to someone we hated.

It is phallocracy that insures our obedience by lying, "When you have a wonderful moment with someone, you must quickly capture and own her so that you can be assured of having more such moments. If you don't get possession of her, someone else will, and you will be left with no one to touch and hold and love you." It is the fathers who continue to misname these feelings of powerlessness, scarcity, and desperation "love".

Realizing this, coupling began to look not merely dumb but deadly: CoupleDoom.

. . .

A Ship (2 of 5?): Marriages.

2011-12-22T12:13:00.000-05:00

From the same, p. 122:

When I think about the hooplah over longevity of unions, all I have to do is look at my parents, at parents of friends, at high-school friends now thirty-five years married, to discover couples who, though they have stayed together because of legal, socially-demanded commitment, have been wretched with one another or numbed out for entire lifetimes. It's pretty discouraging to watch Lesbian and straight friends struggling to emulate that ghastly example.

I don't think they do it because they have seen so many wonderful marriages that they can't wait to follow suit. Denial and irrationality are classic evidence of brainwashing. Few, if any, discerning people have seen at close range many wonderful marriages - or at least marriages that *stayed* wonderful. You and I agree that what all of us have seen most often is loss of identity, dependency, eventual boredom, misery, dysfunction on all levels, disillusionment, betrayal, heartbreak, violence, and/or a deep, deadening despair that passes for contentment.

. . .

A Ship (1 of 5?): Parthenogenesis.

2011-12-21T12:09:00.002-05:00

From (2nd-wave feminist) Sonia Johnson's "The Ship That Sailed Into the Living Room: Sex and Intimacy Reconsidered" (p. 97):

We [=women] not only have the unique power to create new human beings, but we have the power to create them ourselves without the assistance of men. Although knowledge that this is true is lost to conscious memory, I think that parthenogenesis still happens on occasion - by choice as well as by accident - and that we bore children parthenogenetically for hundreds of thousands of years at the beginning of human history... Men have always known that women do not need them for anything, and women have always known that men need them for everything.

. . .

Bracelet story (new details).

2011-12-20T12:05:00.002-05:00

So, at the sex doc a few Tuesdays ago, the shortish bearded (white) guy who's a sub into BDSM went off on swingers again and how heteronormative they are, and he re-told his bracelet story:

At the swinger house party, people had different-colored bracelets, and the host was pressuring pretty much every woman to wear the color that signalled that they were bisexual.

Only, the BDSM guy went to ask, and no matter how much he pled, the host wouldn't give him one.

"I knew that no other guys would have one," he said, "But I wanted to wear one, as a statement."

An idea from a Latin student...

2011-12-19T12:55:00.001-05:00

The lawyer who's learning Latin (who's a conservative Catholic) had an idea because of the discussion about the revision of the English translation of the Roman missal:

Each week in addition to what we're reading, he brings in a missal section and we work through it and produce a translation, and *then* after that look at the old and new translations.

How fun!

I told my mom and she loves the idea.

I might have a new Latin student!!!

2011-12-18T12:49:00.002-05:00

I got contacted through the online ad that I post -

The (white) guy is younger and works in an office on campus, and has always wanted to learn Latin.

It looks like after Christmas, I'll meet with him once a week for 30min. to correct his homework and answer any questions he might have.

The money isn't great (he can't pay my asking price), but it's fair and easy!

My one (Dutch) friend on Hebrew.

2011-12-17T12:18:00.002-05:00

My one (Dutch) friend has an Israeli wife who he makes horribly incorrect jokes with, so when I was studying for my Hebrew exam, I texted him that I not only resented his wife for killing Christ, but also for the difficult language of her ancestors.

He texted back -

This is the trick that they don't tell the gentiles. Read it from the right to the left.

. . .

(black) postman.

2011-12-16T12:30:00.001-05:00

The other Saturday afternoon I was coming through the foyer in my apartment building and there was a (black) postman putting mail in the boxes.

He asked me how I was, and I said great, since I had been out till late the night before and had just gotten up like an hour or two before.

"That's nice," he was like. "Sometimes you need that."

Then he said that he would love to go out and party, it had been 3 or 4 months, but he was saving money for his daughter's wedding.

"But if you go to the right places," I was like, "You can drink cheap and get fucked up for less than $20."

"Hell," he was like, "I'd take that!"

2 more (black) folk on the subway.

2011-12-15T12:27:00.000-05:00

1) Going home the other week this old (black) man in jogging pants gets on, and out of nowhere he turns to me from across the aisle in the half-empty car and is like, "Your ears are dirty."

"What?", I was like.

"Your ears are dirty," he said. "There's a lot of wax in the back, they're brown."

Then, after a pause, he was like, "I'm not trying to insult you, I'm trying to help you."

I thanked him, and after 3 or 4 minutes, to no-one in particular, he shouted out,

"JOE BIDEN IS A [garbled]-ASS N-GG-R FROM ANDOVER DELAWARE!"

2) A few days after that, going in to school at like 8:30am, a middle-aged black guy was clipping his nails on the half-empty train.

Addendum.

2011-12-14T12:24:00.002-05:00

I forgot -

The entire time I was getting a drink with the South African, his cell phone kept going off... It was a new phone and he had bought out the contract and # of some black woman, and he keeps getting at least 5 calls a day, including from her mother.

The one text that was confusing he said was about a birthday party for some "dead twins"...

He had gotten 2 texts in a row, one about a birthday party for the twins and stopping by for a cooler for ice, and then the next one was like -

The ones that their Dad got killed -

Which he had interpreted to mean that the twins were dead (and not the twinses' dad).

Food technologist!

2011-12-13T12:38:00.002-05:00

The other day I had a drink with a South African who works on my campus, and it turns out that his mother is a food technologist!

Basically, she has this lab and can whip up any candy on contract.

For example, she made three different types of Kit Kat (including a Black Forest cake one) when the company commissioned her, and she brought home samples to try.

She also made this drink that replicates the taste of the South African hairy peach, which feels all dry when you bite it from its long hairs but then is all juicy from the peach flesh; the drink makes your mouth dry first, and then the peach flavor hits you.

Standardized tests.

2011-12-12T12:34:00.002-05:00

My 16/17-year-old homeschooler when I was going through a practice Latin SAT II exam with her and none of the answers seemed right:

"Don't overthink it, you get into trouble if you do that. These tests don't want you to think too much."

She then told me about a friend of hers who got a 4 instead of a 5 on an AP Chem exam because he overthought a couple crucial questions and none of the answers seemed right (and they technically weren't).

3 (black) people (3 of 3): Breakfast.

2011-12-11T12:25:00.002-05:00

That same train ride, there was a young (black) kid like 6 or 7 years old with has dad...

It was 7:30am, and he had a little bag of Cheetos (sp.?) open that he was eating.

3 (black) people (2 of 3): Losing Weight.

2011-12-10T12:21:00.002-05:00

The other morning I was going in on the subway and there was this *huge* (young 20s) (light-skinned black) guy in a security outfit going in to work at 7:30am...

He was with someone (black) he knew, and was talking about how he had signed up for a personal trainer and was going to buy a swimsuit, because he was working up to losing weight and once he stopped being out of breath he would start swimming.

Later, he picked up his lunch to get off the train, and there was a 2-liter bottle of grape soda in it.

His bag brushed against something and grains like sugar started pouring out, and someone pointed that out to him, and he said it was salt.

3 (black) people (1 of 3): Starbucks.

2011-12-09T12:16:00.003-05:00

The weekend of Thanksgiving I popped into the Starbucks on Sunday to use internet, and the (black) woman (late 30s, chunky) who I always chit-chat with refilled my thermos of coffee for free, and was like, "Happy Thanksgiving," so I put my dollar in the tip jar.

And that's despite the fact that we don't have an exceptional conversational vibe, I think.

Variations.

2011-12-08T12:22:00.000-05:00

The one thing that gets me about Hebrew is how many variations you have to remember for each paradigm. They're endless and discouraging!

I think the trick is to memorize them and keep revisiting them and then see them at use in texts when you read, so you don't forget them.

All-American Muslims.

2011-12-07T12:39:00.003-05:00

I sent the link for the new TLC reality show "All-American Muslims" (which follows 5 families in Dearborn, Michigan) to my one (Muslim) British friend and several other people with this message:

I hear that some of the Muslims on the show are so all-American, they even beat up other Muslims!

. . .

Bar #s.

2011-12-06T12:32:00.001-05:00

I'm not very good at math, and I don't have a calculator at home.

Sometimes, I total up the bars I've been to (luckily my notebook fits 25 on a page, so it's easy to count), and then think about how many days I have left till it's a whole year, and if I can hit 500 bars by then.

If I do the long-division on days left and then figure out bars per day and times it by 7, I have to go to like 12 a week, which is impossible.

If I think ahead to the end of February, though, and think about "10 bars per 7 day period", it seems like I'll make it and then some.

Somehow I'm doing the math wrong, I think with the 1st figures, but I don't quite know how.

A memory of San Francisco: Pigeons.

2011-12-05T12:27:00.000-05:00

Coming back from Golden Gate Park and the ocean, I hopped off the bus like a 10-minute walk from my hotel, so I could walk through a different part of the city.

As it turns out, it was a very run-down area full of mentally-ill and homeless people, right around the UC-Hastings School of Law campus.

As I was walking around a corner, there was this huge flock of pigeons, and this old homeless (white) woman shuffling around in a circle muttering to herself "my children, my children..."

Then, as I walk by, the pigeons start flying up and I can't see anything, and suddenly this Rottweiler being walked by a (black) dude in a leather jacket leaps out at me and gets to the end of his leash and is pulled back in mid-air, like 2 feet from my hip.

Before I realize what's going on, the dog pivots and lunges again in the opposite direction, and picks a pigeon out of the air in mid-flight, and gets it down on the ground between its paws and starts crunching it as it spasms.

At that, the (white) homeless woman stops, and this other (white) homeless guy walks up fast to the (black) guy and starts shouting, "YOU CAN'T DO THAT HERE, YOU CAN'T DO THAT HERE, THAT IS ILLEGAL IN THIS CITY, YOU CAN'T DO THAT HERE...!!!"

And at that, I just picked up my pace and kept walking away as fast as I could.

Fun with Latin!

2011-12-04T12:19:00.000-05:00

My home-schooled high schooler has been studying like heck for the SAT II subject test.

So, to reward her for the first day after the test, we are going to have a "fun" session where we translate a Latin chant from "Evita", and different verses of the Christmas carol "Adeste fideles".

She told me many months ago that she likes Broadway and would like to read that Latin Chant from "Evita"! The Christmas carol is my idea.

Working hard on Hebrew.

2011-12-03T12:21:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while I pull down my Hebrew bible and just try to sound out a paragraph as carefully as quickly as a I can.

If I recognize a word, sometimes it comes quick.

Overall, it doesn't, though. The other day in class the instructor wrote a verse from Jeremiah up on the board to have us sightread, and I was only 1/3 of the way through when someone pronounced it thoroughly and gave an accurate translation...

A shitty meal in San Francisco.

2011-12-02T12:23:00.000-05:00

So, one day during a break from the conference, I took a walk since it was nice out, and came across this price-y soup restaurant downtown that had signs outfront for being one of the "Ten Best Sandwich Places" etc. from local free newspapers, and they had all these signs up for how they use organic and locally-sourced ingredients.

So, I ordered "soup and sandwich" special, getting a steak sandwich on baguette and a bowl of fresh mushroom soup.

Honest to G-d, both the soup and the sandwich were so bland and underspiced it was unbelievable. I don't know what it was, but though both looked appetizing, they had very little natural taste, and almost no spicing. I almost went to return them, but I didn't, because then the people would have to throw them out.

Instead, I just put a lot of salt and pepper on them and made the best of it.

But, the entire time I was thinking, "This place is good?", and, "So you use locally-sourced ingredients, but shouldn't you at least know how to prepare them?:

What a *huge* disappointment. All the greasy spoon restaurants I went to (burgers, kebabs) were very ho-hum too.

Uplifting sight.

2011-12-01T12:21:00.001-05:00

Yesterday morning I was commuting into school and waiting to get the bus, and the bus came up all jam-packed with (black) passengers, and I got really really pissed thinking of how (white) people in other parts of the city didn't have to deal with chronically over-crowded busses like that.

As the people poured out of the bus, this (short) (mid-30s) (black) woman with an apple bottom waddles out with a big black hoodie with a picture of a large pink ribbon and the slogan -

SAVE THE TA-TAS

- and I just brightened up and realized that nothing could ever keep her down.

My verdict on San Francisco.

2011-11-30T12:41:00.002-05:00

San Francisco is beautiful, with the hills and the water and everything, and all the great houses in the wealthy parts of town.

It's also amazingly compact, and reminds me of Manhattan-like pedestrian densities in a lot of town, which is unbelievable for a town with a 700,000 or so population.

But, I hated having to admire the rich, and felt weird going around and staring at all those houses and liking them, and thus indirectly having to gawk at their wealth and feed their egos.

Also, no-one seems to be able to live there anymore, which automatically reduces a city's coolness quotient by 300%.

Also also, in terms of patios, cool coffee shops, and delicious locally-sourced food, as well as cheap eats, Milwaukee is a much much superior city!

Insight (2 of 2): Tarot.

2011-11-29T12:09:00.002-05:00

One of my other colleagues who I ran into heard that story, and so she told her story -

She grew up in West Virginia, and even though she looked like a punk with a shaved head and long mohawk and stuff, she was a good kid, but didn't know where she belonged, so she went to go see this regionally famous tarot card reader, a woman named Betty and lived in a trailer, and on Sat. nights like 12-15 cars would line up on the road outside her property, each waiting in turn to see her for their half-hour session (! - people waited a long time).

So, my colleague who had the punk haircut finally got in there, and she was terribly unimpressed by the reading. She doesn't remember too much, except that the woman assumed she had problems with her parents and drugs, and she didn't.

"And don't keep sleeping with those black boys," Betty told her, too.

Insight (1 of 2): My one Dutch friend's wife.

2011-11-28T12:05:00.002-05:00

So, when I was at a recent conference, I got to catch up with a lot of people, including my one Dutch friend.

His wife, who is a pensive Israeli hippie who ended up in banking, has astounding insight, he says; she just kind of sits around being tense and not interacting much, but then she comes up with very accurate judgments.

For example, one of his colleagues is a psychologist and my one Dutch friend liked him because he was outgoing, funny, etc., but then when he and his wife went to the guy's house for a party, she didn't interact with him, but when they got home, she was like, "There's something wrong with him, he has done something evil to people."

So, they googled him and found out that he had been in trouble for getting with his therapy patients, oftentimes by withholding medications.

Another time, after she briefly met someone else, she was like, "He is not well," and only later did my one Dutch friend find out that that guy had serious health problems.

Lost a student.

2011-11-27T12:30:00.000-05:00

I think I lost my 2nd high school student.

He didn't want to study Latin, but has to take 4 years for his high school.

I admitted that could suck and that the poetry they were assigning was hard, but that he had a knack for converting forms as if it was a spoken language, and he just had to get on a twice-daily study schedule for endings and then maybe vocab.

He did that for a week and got results, but then quit and said he would never get an "A" no matter how hard he tried.

I tutored again but he just wouldn't get back on the study schedule, and the parents said they'd let me know if they needed my help again.

I guess the problem is that maybe I didn't encourage much, and that you can't motivate a person, they have to motivate themselves.

Helping the world economy.

2011-11-26T12:36:00.001-05:00

Whenever I'm in a store and I have a choice of products, I think to myself, "Which place needs my money the most?"

Thus, I buy Michigan apples instead of Washington, for example.

The other day I was at a wine store and chose Spanish and Greek wines.

Hebrew.

2011-11-25T12:34:00.001-05:00

In all the languages I've studied, I can look at a word and read it all at once.

If I look at a page of Greek, for example, the words jump out at me.

Hebrew I can't, though. I really have to look letter by letter and at all the dots, and it takes me *forever* to read it. I don't really have a facility!

Changed Thanksgiving plans.

2011-11-24T12:45:00.002-05:00

So, I had checked with my one (light-skinned black) friend from Arkansas about Thanksgiving plans, and since she wasn't going home - that was unclear at one point, whether she was - she invited me over to have Thanksgiving with her and her roommates.

Since my one lawyer friend from Missouri is also in town and has wanted to hang out with her more, too, she asked for an invitation, so I got one, and everything was set to go.

Then, my one (light-skinned black) friend from Arkansas made up with her boyfriend and is now going to his parents' for a long weekend! But she texted that we could still have Thanksgiving with her roommates.

She is notoriously flaky, so I just roll with it, and laugh... It's still unclear what's happening.

Addendum.

2011-11-23T12:28:00.002-05:00

I forgot -

The other day at lunch with a graduate student, (fat) people came up, and the one graduate student was like, "Okay, so there's a genetic argument for obesity, I understand that, so why weren't there so many fat people in the past?"

He then said that (fat) people should get more exercise or stop eating so much crap.

Bus stop thoughts.

2011-11-22T12:26:00.001-05:00

The bus route to the subway goes through some poorer (black) neighborhoods, and since there's bus-stops pretty much every half block, the bus can stop a *lot*, and get caught at lights a *lot*.

Some of these women who get on are pretty big, too, and I always think of what my mom says, "How can people let themselves get that big?" They take up 2 seats, whether on the bus or on the subway, and no one can sit next to them!!!

Anyhow, I just think the city transportation authority should take out every other bus stop. The bus would be faster, and these (fat) women would get more exercise, and everyone would win.

I told that thought to my one lawyer friend from Missouri, and she said that she's always thought they should charge (fat) people more for health insurance plans.

Woman on subway platform.

2011-11-21T12:20:00.002-05:00

The other evening I was going home and after getting off the bus was waiting on the subway platform, when this frantic looking (black) woman who was kind of squat with a wide ass gets off, and from looking at her I just knew she was African.

So, I ask her if she's okay, and it turns out that she had slept through downtown, and missed her connection to get out to the airport, and now had to go northbound to get it.

She had planned to get to the airport 45-60 minutes beforehand...

I asked her where she was from, and she was from Benin.

I then started to say something, and she said that her English wasn't good, so I switched to French to try to explain to her that she would definitely miss her flight but there might be a cheap late-night train that could maybe take her to the city, and I realized I couldn't.

My French is gone! Or, as they say, it is -

FINI!!!!

2 morning anecdotes.

2011-11-20T12:18:00.001-05:00

1) The other morning I got on the subway, and this older hippie-looking black man with sunglasses who I sat down next to had this sheet of paper out in front of him, and there were insane squiggles all over it. I looked more closely, and they were Egyptian hieroglyphics that he was practicing writing.

2) The other morning I got out of class and was walking across campus, and this adminstrator I know was walking into work, and enthusiastically was like, "Isn't this a great morning, it's salty!", and she said how the brisk fog made her feel like it was an autumn morning on the Atlantic coast.

Gone, all gone.

2011-11-19T12:16:00.002-05:00

My hair is changing colors, I think.

For years I've had brown creep up the sides, and I get blonde highlights easily.

Lately, people have been telling me I'm blonde, so I asked the people at the hairplace I go to if I was a redhead.

They actually said I was more strawberry blonde, but if they had to say either blonde or redhead or brunette, they'd say blonde.

The Japanese owner actually pulled out a book of fake hair swatches of different colors and pointed out which color my hair was.

It wasn't in the redhead column. :/

Sex work and male modelling.

2011-11-18T12:11:00.002-05:00

So, the other week I got to hear a male model speak.

During the Q&A, I asked about what type of sex work that models engage in, and how it breaks down male/female gay/straight.

First, a lot of people have sidelines, and are students, bartenders, etc.

Second, women tend not to do it, since they get paid so much more then men.

Third, a lot's informal, where people are hired by socialites as personal assistants, instructors for sports, etc., and then propositioned into it; the guy I talked to had been a swimmer for years, and gave swim lessons for example, and was propositioned for more and had to lay down the law that he was only hired to give swim lessons.

Fourth, the higher-ups tend to be (gay) men and (straight) women, so especially for men there's a casting room couch, and no matter how they identify they'll sleep with the sex they're not attracted to if getting a campaign is at stake.

Overall, he said that esp. in New York, there's these old socialites with money who are known to hover around "the industry".

I asked him if there was a slang name for them, and he said no, that the whole thing was known about by everyone but not ever really discussed.

Addendum.

2011-11-17T12:15:00.000-05:00

I forgot -

For the 2nd half of the exercise, I switched the scenario around, and said to envision an expensive restaurant downtown where the 1% eat food that's flown in from all over the world and served up by minimum-wage workers.

"So imagine there's this obese girl," I began, "And there's some crocodile meat that's flown in from Africa..."

Later, I said that the construction "the must-be-eaten crocodile" would imply something like that it was so tasty that the girl had to eat it, or perhaps the waitstaff disliked the obese girl because she was obnoxious, and so they made sure she ate it because they could mark up her bill 5000% in revenge.

"She sounds a lot like Kim Kardashian," my tutoree was like.

Stories of Latin Instruction: The Future Passive Participle.

2011-11-16T12:06:00.000-05:00

To teach Latin participle forms (2 of which are roughly equivalent to English, one of which is not), I set up an exercise with my students where I say a girl is swimming in a river full of crocodiles, and you hear screams and run up to the river, and you could see one of three things:

- the crocodile ate the girl.
- the crocodile is eating the girl.
- the crocodile will eat the girl.

Then, I ask them which nouns and participles they could use in each of those three situations, beginning a statement "I see.." (answer - "the eaten girl", "the eating crocodile", "the will-be-eating crocodile").

As a closer, I point out that what is in some textbooks called "the future passive participle" actually doesn't have that meaning (i.e., "the will-be-eaten girl"), but actually means necessity - e.g. "the girl who has to/must/should be eaten").

As I told my homeschooled 17 year-old student, "It's like when Edward first smells Bella, and thinks, 'I need to eat that girl'; she's the girl who you just have to eat!"

"Or," my homeschooler was like, "it's necessary to eat her, because she whines a lot."

Moldy bread.

2011-11-15T12:07:00.002-05:00

Like I always do, I put some bread I got from the corner store in my freezer, and just take out slices when I need it for toast.

One day, I was eating toast, and one bite of the upper part of the crust tasted moldy, but then I looked at the rest of it and it was fine.

The next time I had a piece of toasted bread, I looked and it was fine, but then before eating it I decided to sniff the crust, and I smelled mold at one part, and I looked very very carefully, and I noticed very small strings of mold by a pine nut sticking out of the multi-grain crust.

So, I ripped that off, threw it away, and then ate the rest.

The rest of the bread in the bag was fine.

GIFT!!!

2011-11-14T16:47:00.003-05:00

This past Friday my coat check number was "666".

So, I saved it, and today I'm giving it to a friend who's presenting a paper on the Book of Revelation!

I can't wait to hear what she thinks of it... At the club, when I was in line for the coat check, I noticed the number and asked the (hipster) kid by me if I should save it or if that would be spooky and weird, and he said it was spooky and weird and not to save it.

Movies.

2011-11-14T12:07:00.000-05:00

It's so funny, I can go months without seeing a movie in a theater, then if there's a lot out that I want to see, I can see four within the space of a week.

Catalan narratives.

2011-11-13T12:01:00.002-05:00

So my one lawyer friend from Missouri is writing a children's book about how her dog wanders all over the city and solves a mystery; she's been doing photo shoots all summer, and wants to publish it as a book for parents to buy for their kids to get them acquainted with major sites before visiting the city.

So, the other week I was having drinks at the student bar and was talking with the Catalan, and he asked how my one lawyer friend from Missouri was doing, and I told him she was working a lot on her children's book.

"Does it have a sad or ambiguous ending?", he was like. "Does [the dog's name] die at the end?"

"No", I was like, "It's a children's book. The dog solves the mystery."

"That is too bad, man," he was like, "Children remember sad or ambiguous endings. The dog should be raped. Then, he should die. In that way, the children are sad, because the dog was raped. Then, they are unsure how to feel, because perhaps the dog is better to die, to keep from pain and save money on psychological bills."

Night in the City (2 of 2): Earlier.

2011-11-12T12:05:00.002-05:00

During the discussion part of the sex doc series, this (white) goateed computer programmer who I know from there who's around my age and has previously talked about his involvement with BDSM offhandedly mentioned his involvement leading a Roundtable Discussion Group of submissive males.

He said a lot of abuse goes on, that they never tell the woman if their lines were crossed, since it's so hard to find female doms and they're afraid they'll never find another one.

This morning...

2011-11-11T14:33:00.001-05:00

...I had a great busdriver, an older (black) lady in a cardigan.

We had been stopped at a light, and a bus pulled up on the cross street just as the light changed, and a guy got off the other bus and started running toward us, but the busdriver just gestured to him to stay where he was, she'd open the door and pick him up.

Right when we were stopped at a light before my stop, too, I asked her if she could let me out.

"I have an 8am quiz!", I was like.

She just turned to me and smiled and opened the door. She had big sunglasses on too.

Night in the City (1 of 2): Backwards forwards.

2011-11-11T12:03:00.000-05:00

So Tues. was that sex documentary series, and afterwards I walked a bit in the city, since it was a pleasant night, even though it was rainy on and off.

I walked by the "Occupy Wall Street" protests and there was one person there. One. A late 30s white in a flannel shirt and with a straggly beard.

An Eastern European bartender's stories about stealing crap (2 of 3): Short-lived job.

2011-11-10T12:26:00.000-05:00

The Eastern European bartender lady also was telling me about this bar she worked at for like 2 days. It was this dirty rundown bar run by this eccentric old (white) woman who was fat and would shuffle around the bar.

She said the very first day, right after the woman finished showing her all the beer prices, including all the cans for $1, the bar started getting flooded by all these nicely-dressed college age kids and their families.

It was the graduation exercises of some nearby university, and the old woman hadn't known it.

Soon, she shuffled over after helping people at table and was like, "No more one dollar, two dollars, two dollars, all the beer is two dollars!", and the Eastern European bartender said she had said that she felt weird asking the people who just paid one dollar to pay two dollars, but she was the boss, and she'd do it.

And, the old woman during all the madness would shuffle over the register every once in a while, take a handful of the bigger bills, and stuff them down her bra, since she didn't know the Eastern European bartender and didn't trust her around the cash drawer.

The next day, the Eastern European bartender showed up, and the old woman kept her around for an hour and then sent her home since she said it wasn't busy enough and she didn't want to pay her, she'd have her son bartend instead.

"And he was a weird forty year-old loner," the Eastern European bartender said. "So I say, 'Why did you hire me in the first place?', and I leave."

An Eastern European bartender's stories about stealing crap (2 of 3): Alcoholic.

2011-11-09T12:17:00.000-05:00

At this other bar she used to work at, this sweet old alcoholic used to always come in and get one drink - she would limit herself to one drink at one place, as a measure to try to keep herself from drinking too much.

One time, the other (male) bartender was working, and he poured her a white zinfidel (sp.?) and set the bottle on the counter, put her $5 in the register, and turned around to see her holding the bottle up and chugging out of it.

Then, she wiped her mouth and walked out.

A few weeks later, they were changing shifts and the woman was there.

"See, that's the woman I told you about!", the other bartender said, "Charge her for that bottle!"

So, the Eastern European bartender did, and the old alcoholic woman was nice about it and got her new drink and paid for the old bottle and apologized and everything.

An Eastern European bartender's stories about stealing crap (1 of 3): Takeout.

2011-11-08T12:07:00.000-05:00

Now that I've been to 341 bars in 241 days, I find myself getting jaded about certain things, like Euro cafes with espresso machines and liquor; they have to be damn good for me to take notice.

A good one the other day had this wonderful Eastern European blonde bartender (not sure what ethnicity; I don't ask anymore, I'm fine with the mystery; she had bleached blonde stringy hair with brown showing underneath, and was mildly tan, and had high cheekbones and soft eyes), and we somehow got on the topic of stories about stealing shit.

She was telling me about how her bike was stolen from right in front of the 24-hour restaurant where she worked after it was locked out there three days, even though it had a u-bolt and everything.

She also said that once this woman parked outside, came to the counter to pay and pick up her takeout, and even though she had exact change and wasn't in there more than 30 seconds - the counter was right by the restaurant door entrance! - her car was gone from right outfront when she turned around...

She had left her keys in it.

Luckily, her boyfriend's relative was in the police department, so they got 5-6 cars to the area right away, though the bartender said she never did find out if she got her car back.

Bread vs. Popcorn.

2011-11-07T12:02:00.000-05:00

The other morning I wasn't hungry so I didn't toast the bread in my toaster and when I looked at it the next day, it had become dried out and hard.

Oddly, I made popcorn a few nights later, and the next morning I found a popped kernel on my stove - but this was soggy, not crisp at all.

My question for a scientist: why would bread left out overnight become hard and stale, but popcorn soft and soggy?

3 Black Women on Occupy Wall Street (3 of 3): Office assistant.

2011-11-06T12:59:00.000-05:00

The other day I was talking politics with a couple office assistants, and the one (Latina) one who used to be involved in city politics was saying how she wishes the Occupy Wall Street protests had more specific demands, and then we segued into talking about deportation of illegals (she knows someone in his early 20s who came over illegally with his parents when he was 10 and just got deported back to Mexico from Michigan), when the one (black) office assistant came up and I made a joke about how I was waking everyone up without coffee by talking protests and politics...

"Protests?", she was like. "I am so happy that they are protesting on Wall Street," she said, talking about the high student loan burdens people have, and no hope of jobs.

3 Black Women on Occupy Wall Street (2 of 3): At my local chain coffee shop.

2011-11-05T12:51:00.000-05:00

The other Sunday the weekend after the local mayor busted the Occupy Wall Street protestors in my city for a 2nd time and arrested over 100, I stopped through the local chain coffee shop to get some coffee and enjoy the late afternoon out on their patio, and asked the upper 30s (black) woman who's a barista if she heard how many people exactly got arrested.

"I didn't hear that that happened again," she was like, "But I am happy people are doing something," and she started talking about how people are drowning in student loans and how banks only think of shareholders and keep doing crazy ATM fees and deceptive loans etc., to make money off people who have nothing and funnel it to the top.

She also said she the mayor better be careful busting the protestors like this, because people will start getting pissed at him - a sentiment a late 30s well-dressed (white) professional woman agreed with, saying she was already getting angry.

3 Black Women on Occupy Wall Street (1 of 3): On the subway.

2011-11-04T12:49:00.000-05:00

The other week I was on the subway going downtown after school and I happened to sit next to this mid-40s (black) woman, and we ended up chatting after the train was stopped at one station a while and we started bitching about when it would start up again.

Then, I told her I was going with a friend to see the Occupy Wall Street protests (or at least my city's version of it) downtown.

"Are you going to see it, or are you going to join it?", she said, looking at me questioningly.

"Actually, to join it for a bit," I said.

"Good!", she was like, then she said she totally gets it and would go if she could, but she can't with work and kids. She then said she lost her house over 2 years ago and has had to take out payday loans to make ends meet sometimes, and it's criminal what the banks do to people.

We also started talking about GOP presidential candidates.

"Mormon has nothing to do with it!", she was like, "An asshole is an asshole!"

Met a Syrian (2 of 2): Church.

2011-11-03T12:12:00.002-05:00

So, the (Syrian) guy I met was Catholic (he says 10% of Syria is), and still goes to church here.

He says church here is more atomized, because back in Syria it was a chance to see family members and friends you hadn't seen in a while and catch up, whereas here people don't live near their extended families like that.

He also said that it's quite obvious that people are age have fallen away from the Catholic church; very few people go, and he's met so many people who have gone through the sacraments, but just don't attend. He said that that drop-off in #s seems huge and is just shocking.

That is actually the same thing the Latin priest was saying 2 summers ago! He said that's the major unrecognized problem in the Church right now.

Met a Syrian (1 of 2): Facebook.

2011-11-02T12:11:00.002-05:00

So I met a(n early 30s) Syrian doctor the other day.

I was asking him about the Arab spring, and he said a friend of his who's a physician wrote something on Facebook that the government interpreted as anti-government, so they showed up in the middle of the night and took him away.

That was six months ago, and his parents received word last week that his location is still unknown.

My parents on the Koch Bros. etc.

2011-11-01T12:09:00.002-05:00

So I sent my dad that one Mother Jones expose "inside the political action rally of the Koch Bros.".

He read it, and was even more disturbed than he had been.

When I asked him about vote suppression, he said he's been watching for that in the news, and is really disturbed, and he just doesn't know what this country is coming to.

As for my mom, she hadn't read the article, but said she would.

As for vote suppression, she thought it was unfair, but she said, "Just you watch, there'll be lawsuits about this," trying to comfort me that everything would turn out all right - which I do think she believes will happen.

Friday night on the subway, Halloween weekend.

2011-10-31T12:18:00.002-05:00

So Friday after class I stuck around to work all day and then go to the gym, then I met friends at the student bar, and since I stuck around to say hi to the Catalan (he didn't show up till 11pm), I set out for home very late.

Just as we were getting to downtown, the only people on the subway car was this (fat) (tired-looking) (middle-aged) (black) woman and two young (black) guys, and when we pull up to this station and the subway doors opened, there was just this shrieking coming in, and we all look out to see like 10-12 (early 20s) (white) girls dressed up in very skimpy outfits and all drunk off their ass and one crying and shouting at the top of her lungs while the makeup from her face ran because of her tears, "WAIT, WE CAN'T GET ON NOW, WE HAVE TO TAKE THE NEXT TRAIN, WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR..."

At that, the (black) woman just lifted up her fat arm and shook her finger and looked off nowhere in particular and said loudly and firmly, "Aww, hell no."

And, the guys started shouting out, "Yeah, that's right, take the next train!"

Fortunately, the doors did close, and that huge group had to wait for the next train.

Halloween weekend post: (white) (American) girl costumes.

2011-10-30T12:24:00.002-05:00

So the (half British) (half Sudanese) sister of my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend lives in this same city since her husband is here, and she started up law school here.

The other week she was telling me about all the parties they have at her law school, and how a lot of them are dress-up and it's an excuse for the (white) girls to get raging drunk and then dress up in as little as possible.

"And the next day you're in class and all in the lecture hall," she was like, "And we're supposed to sit as if everything is normal, as if I hadn't seen them in their underwear the previous night."

You know what blows my mind?

2011-10-29T12:00:00.001-05:00

The latest game sweeping fraternities: "Gay Chicken".

The more you can make out with your bro, the more macho you are. To balk is to be a pussy.

My bowels.

2011-10-28T14:34:00.001-05:00

For some reason I've had the worst gas the past 3 days. I feel all bloaty like I need to shit, but when I sit on the toilet, I fart forever and then finally a few small pieces of shit fly out.

Alternatively, a few times I've gone to let a fart out, but then I feel like shit's going to come out, so I go to the toilet, and there I only fart.

Also, a few times when I've shit it's all been very thick liquidy and brown, like an Ensure shake with a little more texture.

The cultural studies of karaoke.

2011-10-28T12:54:00.002-05:00

There's this one cultural studies prof in the English Dept. who has frizzy hair and high energy and is always at events around campus, and she had a panel with a filmmaker that I went to go see, and as part of that panel she talked about karaoke scenes in working class movies, and how there's a desire to realize authenticity by performing a song like the way it was originally performed and thus becoming the object of the gaze etc.

I didn't quite get her, so I asked her at the reception afterwards to clarify, and I disagreed and told her my theory of karaoke, where there's karaoke jackasses who get up and sing in a group to be obnoxious and bond, and then there's karaoke where people think they're on Star Search and get up and belt something out, but then there's good and very moving karaoke, where people have a song they like and they sing it to share it, or they even change up the song to make it interesting, like the time my friend who can sing funk sang Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" in funk style (and I added to the prof that the best karaoke performances often involved men singing women's songs or vice-versa).

She politely pointed out that we were talking about the same thing, and that my definition of good karaoke took place against groups of people who were striving for normativity - some people to be part of the group, and some people to be like the singers they see and know.

"Never underestimate people's desire for normativity," she said.

And then I realized that all the stuff she had been saying that I was confused at wasn't jargon, but was actually incredibly precise analytical terms that had gone right over my head the first time.

La Bloga Magnifica

Grandparents.

Present for my one (black) (female) dean!

Iowa Story! - From someone else.

I WANT -

Another birthday...

Shitty (white) neighborhood.

Photo shoot at my apt.!

Winebars!

Called a woman a cunt before 7am.

odd dream.

3 bars (3 of 3): Sportsbar.

3 bars (2 of 3): Bar I've never been.

3 bars (1 of 3): Nice doorman.

Memory forom an underground bar.

Gay spirituality group.

More tutoring.

Kids are so cute: High-five.

ILL books.

Poor Peter Lombard.

Coffee shop - Library.

Story from my hometown: Trial.

Tour of a women's shelter!

An anecdote of college: Mexican restaurant after hours.

Addendum addendum.

Addendum.

Caught up with a friend from high school and his wife over break.

Another Christmas vacation story: Basketball.

Adulthood.

Gifts for my parents.

Dream.

Christmas vacation of my friend's husband.

Bar #s are slipping away from me.

Subway ride.

Xmas swap!

Memories of a (British) person: Christmas.

Memory: British English.

Gamblin'.

A bar story: Serbian restaurant, with jazz.

No more excerpts.

A Ship (4 of 5?): Normal.

A Ship (3 of 5?): Singleness.

A Ship (2 of 5?): Marriages.

A Ship (1 of 5?): Parthenogenesis.

Bracelet story (new details).

An idea from a Latin student...

I might have a new Latin student!!!

My one (Dutch) friend on Hebrew.

(black) postman.

2 more (black) folk on the subway.

Addendum.

Food technologist!

Standardized tests.

3 (black) people (3 of 3): Breakfast.

3 (black) people (2 of 3): Losing Weight.

3 (black) people (1 of 3): Starbucks.

Variations.

All-American Muslims.

Bar #s.

A memory of San Francisco: Pigeons.

Fun with Latin!

Working hard on Hebrew.

A shitty meal in San Francisco.

Uplifting sight.

My verdict on San Francisco.

Insight (2 of 2): Tarot.

Insight (1 of 2): My one Dutch friend's wife.

Lost a student.

Helping the world economy.

Hebrew.

Changed Thanksgiving plans.

Addendum.

Bus stop thoughts.

Woman on subway platform.

2 morning anecdotes.

Gone, all gone.

Sex work and male modelling.

Addendum.

Stories of Latin Instruction: The Future Passive Participle.

Moldy bread.