I canvassed for Obama today in northwest Indiana, and got mostly black neighborhoods to canvass.
Walking into the campaign headquarters, we were all greeted by all these other volunteers already there, a lot of them good-looking middle-aged black women. One asked me and a couple people I went with where we were from, and right after I was like, "...but I'm originally from Michigan," she was like, "Where, I love Michigan!", and then when I said the northern lower peninsula, she was like, "I love the vineyards there, I've taken a lot of vacations there. But, then again, I'm a slush."
The campaign was very organized - packets divided into odd/even sides of the street so teams could go out and quickly go door-to-door, and when early voting information changed (a county courthouse that was an early voting site had electricity problems in the morning from severe storms the previous night), the office managers made sure that the extended voting hours got distributed immediately to canvassers.
The campaign also had a lot of donated food, and a black guy grilling up burgers and chicken for everyone, who was 2/3 black. It was almost like a big black family barbecue.
In terms of canvassing, in one lower income mixed black-white neighborhood where almost no one was home, the girl from my apartment building I was canvassing with got this fifty-some year old white guy in dirty jeans and a dirty black t-shirt and a graying pony tail pulled back under a black baseball cap. Huge amounts of pot smoke just rolled out the door when it was opened, and, as it turned out, the guy was an Obama supporter, though he wouldn't early vote that day since he was in no shape to drive.
At another house in another neighborhood, that one a little more well-off and a little more black, the girl from my apartment building I was canvassing came up to one door at the same time as three young black guys, so she asked them and the guy who opened the door about Obama, and the guy at the door and one of the three young black guys who came up to the door with her were Obama supporters and said they had already voted, though two of the three young black guys who came up to the door with her said they didn't vote. Anyhow, as soon as she started going down the walk, she said the three young black guys started hitting the other guy and were like, "Where's the fucking pot, you motherfucker!?!!??!"
Walking between streets along a main road, too, I passed a strip of businesses that included a black barber shop that was filled with guys, so I popped in to see if they all knew about early voting. They hadn't, and one guy who was getting his haircut gave me a power-fist farewell on my way out.
In terms of general canvassing, I felt weird just assuming black people were all for Obama, so I after I asked if people had given any though to who they might be voting for in the primaries - I don't ask them straightaway who they support, since that's very definitive and doesn't provide any opportunity for conversation -- I would be like, "So, who are you leaning towards now?", and most black people would be like, "Obama!" or something like that. One older black woman, though, was for Clinton, so I'm glad I said everything like I did for every voter I came across, so I didn't come across to her like some stereotyping dick who assumes every black person votes Obama.
Later, back at the canvassing office, three older black women were sitting at a table and I overheard them talking about how they didn't know who Hilary was until this campaign got going. "And Bill showed his colors too," one said, and to that the second was like, "Hello," and the third just nodded and was like, "mmm-hmmmm."
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
2 language factoids.
"Curtsy" is related to "court" (so I heard today, haven't had time to check this out).
"Floyd" is the same name as "Lloyd", since Welsh devoices /l/ sometimes, and so when this happened, people heard the devoiced /l/ as an /f/.
(If you put your hand over your throat and say /z/ and /s/, feel how /z/ has your throat vibrate in a way that /s/ doesn't; now say an /l/ and try not to have your throat vibrate like /s/ as opposed to /z/, and if that happens, you'll likely hear the sound as something like an /f/.)
"Floyd" is the same name as "Lloyd", since Welsh devoices /l/ sometimes, and so when this happened, people heard the devoiced /l/ as an /f/.
(If you put your hand over your throat and say /z/ and /s/, feel how /z/ has your throat vibrate in a way that /s/ doesn't; now say an /l/ and try not to have your throat vibrate like /s/ as opposed to /z/, and if that happens, you'll likely hear the sound as something like an /f/.)
Apartment building.
Yesterday I was cleaning my house, and it was hot out - like 70 outside, and humid - so I was just doing that in my dirty grey wifebeater and my Halloween boxer shorts with candycorn on them, so when it came time to take the trash out, I decided to just go take my trash out to the back of the building in my wifebeater and boxers, since I think my building needs more atmosphere like that.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Went for martinis last night.
I went for martinis again last night. There were these four middle-aged lesbians sitting at the bar next to me and my friend, one from Antigua, one from Ireland, one from Mexico, and one from the U.S., and they were all excited since they had stand-by tickets for Ellen. They were there for quite a while, and all got pretty hammered. When the bar-people turned Idol on so everyone could watch results, the Mexican woman was on her third martini, and when Brooke got voted off and started crying and was started singing a deep, smoky version of "I Am I Said" as her farewell song, the Mexican woman's face was just stricken, and you could see tears welling up in her eyes, and she was like "But I love Brooke" out loud to no one in particular.
When on her second martini, my friend who I went out with was like, "Is it just me, or is Ryan Seacrest the biggest tool in America?"
Also, the American lesbian introduced me to their friend who's a tarot card reader, and she comes in Tuesdays/Thursdays/Sundays and gets a small private table in this alcove near the door and does readings all night for patrons.
I thought that was interesting, since the last time I went for martinis me and my friend met at the bar these two bleached blonde, tanned women in their 30s who were decently hammered, and after I told them about my Iowa trip, the one started telling me about how once when she was in college she couldn't breathe and had this huge pressure on her heart as well this overwhelming compulsion to drive home (she lived like an hour away from home) and check on her dad even though he should be at work, even though she could have just pulled over and easily called from a phone booth or something, and when she got there, he was in his easy chair with his hand on his heart and he started crying when he saw her and all he could do was say her name over and over and thank her for coming because he was so weak he couldn't get out of the chair, and she called the ambulance and went to the hospital with him, and at some point during all that she could breathe again and no longer had the pain in her chest, since it disappeared once she got in contact with her dad right then.
As it turned out, too, her dad had a large tumor over his heart and died within the year, but she considers that experience of hers as a gift to her from somewhere before he died, since that brought them closer in a way that even knowing he would die wouldn't have, since from the moment she showed up when he was in the chair he knew that someone had brought her to him.
When on her second martini, my friend who I went out with was like, "Is it just me, or is Ryan Seacrest the biggest tool in America?"
Also, the American lesbian introduced me to their friend who's a tarot card reader, and she comes in Tuesdays/Thursdays/Sundays and gets a small private table in this alcove near the door and does readings all night for patrons.
I thought that was interesting, since the last time I went for martinis me and my friend met at the bar these two bleached blonde, tanned women in their 30s who were decently hammered, and after I told them about my Iowa trip, the one started telling me about how once when she was in college she couldn't breathe and had this huge pressure on her heart as well this overwhelming compulsion to drive home (she lived like an hour away from home) and check on her dad even though he should be at work, even though she could have just pulled over and easily called from a phone booth or something, and when she got there, he was in his easy chair with his hand on his heart and he started crying when he saw her and all he could do was say her name over and over and thank her for coming because he was so weak he couldn't get out of the chair, and she called the ambulance and went to the hospital with him, and at some point during all that she could breathe again and no longer had the pain in her chest, since it disappeared once she got in contact with her dad right then.
As it turned out, too, her dad had a large tumor over his heart and died within the year, but she considers that experience of hers as a gift to her from somewhere before he died, since that brought them closer in a way that even knowing he would die wouldn't have, since from the moment she showed up when he was in the chair he knew that someone had brought her to him.
Incense.
I was in line at the dollar store yesterday that I live above to get some foam shoe inserts, and while I was in line at the counter, next to the knock-off perfumes they had these really cheap packs of incense to sell, marked "PATCHOULI" and "INDIANFRUIT" and "PUSSY".
I pointed the last one out to this kind of on-the-edge 40-ish black guy ahead of me, and he was like, "Maybe they meant it smells like cat."
"Or," I was like, "like a willow, but it's a bad translation?"
The guy shrugged at that and was like, "But, if they have the c-word on there, you know they have a problem somewhere there."
At that moment, though, the cashier became available, and the black guy tried for like five mintues to convince him to crack open a pack of cigarettes and sell him one.
I pointed the last one out to this kind of on-the-edge 40-ish black guy ahead of me, and he was like, "Maybe they meant it smells like cat."
"Or," I was like, "like a willow, but it's a bad translation?"
The guy shrugged at that and was like, "But, if they have the c-word on there, you know they have a problem somewhere there."
At that moment, though, the cashier became available, and the black guy tried for like five mintues to convince him to crack open a pack of cigarettes and sell him one.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Community lunch today.
My department has this lunch lecture series on Wednesdays, where a prof or someone gives an informal talk on some random interesting subject, and this crew of students make an all-vegetarian meal (always new recipes!) that's $4 if you're a student and $5 for everyone else.
Anyhow, there's been this new head student chef this year, and she's been big on buying local goods to incoporate into meals, and since they had this really good dried-fruit-and-nut bread today, everyone was complimenting her on it, and she was saying that it was actually bought fresh today from this one local monk who has a great vocation for baking, and has pursued it despite having one arm.
"Oh, like Moonstruck," I was like, and when everyone was like, "What?", I had to be like, "You know, Moonstruck, Nicholas Cage, he's a one-armed baker and it's a love story, and Cher's in there too, she one an Oscar for that bullshit," which only made everyone more confused, since no one there (both students and profs and university people in their 40s and 50s) had somehow never heard of the movie.
Also, the talk was on the role of food in mainline Protestantism, and the lecturer passed around a book published from a church in Florida in the 1930s with ideas for 52 parties and events for kids in your parish, one for every week in the year. The 52nd and last party was for a Minstrel Show event, and my favorite part of the minstrel show script included in the book was this dialogue between the show's emcee and one of the kids in blackface:
Introducer: How are you today, Sambo?
Sambo: I feel like a pretzel.
Introducer: A pretzel!?! How is that?
Sambo: Like a cracker with the cramps.
Also, the book said the show was always a good fundraiser for the author's own church, bringing in over three thousand dollars every time they put it on.
Anyhow, there's been this new head student chef this year, and she's been big on buying local goods to incoporate into meals, and since they had this really good dried-fruit-and-nut bread today, everyone was complimenting her on it, and she was saying that it was actually bought fresh today from this one local monk who has a great vocation for baking, and has pursued it despite having one arm.
"Oh, like Moonstruck," I was like, and when everyone was like, "What?", I had to be like, "You know, Moonstruck, Nicholas Cage, he's a one-armed baker and it's a love story, and Cher's in there too, she one an Oscar for that bullshit," which only made everyone more confused, since no one there (both students and profs and university people in their 40s and 50s) had somehow never heard of the movie.
Also, the talk was on the role of food in mainline Protestantism, and the lecturer passed around a book published from a church in Florida in the 1930s with ideas for 52 parties and events for kids in your parish, one for every week in the year. The 52nd and last party was for a Minstrel Show event, and my favorite part of the minstrel show script included in the book was this dialogue between the show's emcee and one of the kids in blackface:
Introducer: How are you today, Sambo?
Sambo: I feel like a pretzel.
Introducer: A pretzel!?! How is that?
Sambo: Like a cracker with the cramps.
Also, the book said the show was always a good fundraiser for the author's own church, bringing in over three thousand dollars every time they put it on.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Shoe-rack.
Yesterday, I assembled my new shoe-rack and put it in the closet. Now, all my shoes are neatly racked, and my closet looks much neater.
I also shit three times in the morning, oddly.
I also shit three times in the morning, oddly.
Monday, April 28, 2008
2 Dreams.
Like two nights ago I dreamt I was in my bathroom looking in the mirror, and there was this giant boil underneath my right sideburn, and it was so big - actually, not that big, just the size of a large marble - that it strained the skin underneath and hurt my cheek.
Like three nights ago I dreamt I was wading in a wide, long river with my one friend's mom who's new age-y and smokes a lot and wears muu-muus, and we would wade here and there, and float on our backs, and at a point or two we would wade underneath a highway bridge going across the river, but at some point we were floating and wading and she was saying how no one acts like she's a person anymore, she's just someone's mom and all she is is a mother, and the next thing I knew I was waking up washed somewhere on the shore, and I knew we had ended up in this huge torrent of rapids like I had seen at the base of this one dam's water outlet I had seen when I was on spring break in Iowa and our bodies had gotten twisted around in the water and pounded against the bottom and we had both lost consciousness before being flung up and flaoted downriver, and the next thing I know I look at my cell phone and there were five text messages on it, all from my one friend whose mom it was, the first being about how they had just found her mom's body and then next how the body was cold and her mom must have lived but died overnight from the cold since she wasn't found for so long, and a couple I can't remember, and then another one on how not to worry, she didn't blame me for anything, but in my heart I felt awful for letting me and her mom both keep wading when the water was getting deeper and I should have guessed that the river wasn't safe coming up.
Like three nights ago I dreamt I was wading in a wide, long river with my one friend's mom who's new age-y and smokes a lot and wears muu-muus, and we would wade here and there, and float on our backs, and at a point or two we would wade underneath a highway bridge going across the river, but at some point we were floating and wading and she was saying how no one acts like she's a person anymore, she's just someone's mom and all she is is a mother, and the next thing I knew I was waking up washed somewhere on the shore, and I knew we had ended up in this huge torrent of rapids like I had seen at the base of this one dam's water outlet I had seen when I was on spring break in Iowa and our bodies had gotten twisted around in the water and pounded against the bottom and we had both lost consciousness before being flung up and flaoted downriver, and the next thing I know I look at my cell phone and there were five text messages on it, all from my one friend whose mom it was, the first being about how they had just found her mom's body and then next how the body was cold and her mom must have lived but died overnight from the cold since she wasn't found for so long, and a couple I can't remember, and then another one on how not to worry, she didn't blame me for anything, but in my heart I felt awful for letting me and her mom both keep wading when the water was getting deeper and I should have guessed that the river wasn't safe coming up.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
On a home improvement kick.
Ever since my toaster broke and I got my clear shower curtains, I've been frying bread in olive oil every morning, and enjoying the natural light in my bathroom!
That said, the minerals in the water leave little specks on the curtains when they dry. And, I was inspired today to go to Target and get a shoerack and a radio and a bag to store my winter clothes in up in top shelf of the built-in bureau of my closet.
I also had some coupons to get some quality colored t-shirts at another store - one was for $10 off any purchase of $10 or more; the other was for $15 off of any $30 purchase -- but, when I went to the store, the t-shirts were 3 for $29.50, and it turns out that the $30 purchase meant $30 pretax.
"Is there any way you can just mark it up fifty cents?", I asked the one black cashier woman, who was in her mid-30s and had a noticeable moustache.
"You so funny," she was like. "Tell you what, I'll ring you up here, don't go to the other cashiers, they won't help you out," and somehow she just took my coupon and threw it away and gave me a generic $15 off the t-shirts by pushing some special buttons on the register.
Also, the "MENU" button on my cell is broke, and it's not fixable, so I can't access text messages or do anything requiring the menu without disassembling the entire phone casing and taking off the keypad and then using a pen to poke the hole leading to the contact pad of the "MENU" button. It kind of sucks, but it's also kind of fun, since the little light in the cell phone actually is overwhelmingly bright once you take the phone casing off.
Somehow, though, I don't think I'll be sending many text messages now because of this; I kind of enjoy the eccentricity of having to disassemble my phone to use it, and it's fun to try to wean myself from a technology I've come to depend on, to show myself I don't really need it after all. It's always good to remind ourselves that what we think are our necessities really aren't necessities at all.
That said, the minerals in the water leave little specks on the curtains when they dry. And, I was inspired today to go to Target and get a shoerack and a radio and a bag to store my winter clothes in up in top shelf of the built-in bureau of my closet.
I also had some coupons to get some quality colored t-shirts at another store - one was for $10 off any purchase of $10 or more; the other was for $15 off of any $30 purchase -- but, when I went to the store, the t-shirts were 3 for $29.50, and it turns out that the $30 purchase meant $30 pretax.
"Is there any way you can just mark it up fifty cents?", I asked the one black cashier woman, who was in her mid-30s and had a noticeable moustache.
"You so funny," she was like. "Tell you what, I'll ring you up here, don't go to the other cashiers, they won't help you out," and somehow she just took my coupon and threw it away and gave me a generic $15 off the t-shirts by pushing some special buttons on the register.
Also, the "MENU" button on my cell is broke, and it's not fixable, so I can't access text messages or do anything requiring the menu without disassembling the entire phone casing and taking off the keypad and then using a pen to poke the hole leading to the contact pad of the "MENU" button. It kind of sucks, but it's also kind of fun, since the little light in the cell phone actually is overwhelmingly bright once you take the phone casing off.
Somehow, though, I don't think I'll be sending many text messages now because of this; I kind of enjoy the eccentricity of having to disassemble my phone to use it, and it's fun to try to wean myself from a technology I've come to depend on, to show myself I don't really need it after all. It's always good to remind ourselves that what we think are our necessities really aren't necessities at all.
Karaoke Addendum.
I forgot --
Both the highpoint and the lowpoint of the evening was this short, shaved-head hipster guy with thick black nerd-hip glasses singing Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust" -- the highpoint because it was an inspired song choice and he delivered it in an understated way most of the time, but the lowpoint because you could see him smirking at some parts in a really self-satisfied way like "look what a funky song I'm doing at karaoke", which kind of ruined the rest, and totally destroyed his second song (an uninspired choice delivered totally jack-assily, can't even remember what it was).
Also, when I was right at the end of talking those two hipster chicks I inadvertently insulted, I let out a moist fart since the conversation wasn't going to get better no matter what, so I figured I might as well drop one, but then the rest of the night I felt like there was a small piece of shit between my ass-cheeks, though not so moist or big that I felt compelled to go to the bathroom and wipe and check, I actually thought it was just a really wet fart and that what I though was shit was actually just the fart-residue that had clung to my ass-cheeks when I farted.
Anyhow, that night when I was taking a shower, I wiped my ass with a washcloth, and some little pieces of shit came out on the washcloth, and I was like, "Damn, that was shit!" I felt so embarrassed then for walking around all night with shit in my ass, but I was kind of relieved that it hadn't rubbed its way out from between my ass and onto my boxers.
Both the highpoint and the lowpoint of the evening was this short, shaved-head hipster guy with thick black nerd-hip glasses singing Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust" -- the highpoint because it was an inspired song choice and he delivered it in an understated way most of the time, but the lowpoint because you could see him smirking at some parts in a really self-satisfied way like "look what a funky song I'm doing at karaoke", which kind of ruined the rest, and totally destroyed his second song (an uninspired choice delivered totally jack-assily, can't even remember what it was).
Also, when I was right at the end of talking those two hipster chicks I inadvertently insulted, I let out a moist fart since the conversation wasn't going to get better no matter what, so I figured I might as well drop one, but then the rest of the night I felt like there was a small piece of shit between my ass-cheeks, though not so moist or big that I felt compelled to go to the bathroom and wipe and check, I actually thought it was just a really wet fart and that what I though was shit was actually just the fart-residue that had clung to my ass-cheeks when I farted.
Anyhow, that night when I was taking a shower, I wiped my ass with a washcloth, and some little pieces of shit came out on the washcloth, and I was like, "Damn, that was shit!" I felt so embarrassed then for walking around all night with shit in my ass, but I was kind of relieved that it hadn't rubbed its way out from between my ass and onto my boxers.
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