New Years plans.

I'm stoked for New Year's Eve. I usually hate it since I dislike all holidays and special occasions, and in addition to that because I usually have no plans, but this year is great...

The other day when I stopped through the African goods store where I used to buy Obama buttons during the campaign to say hi to the owner ("Sister Rose", this short little lady who wears earthtoned burlap-looking robes with designs in black on them, and a big frumpy hat kind of like the mad hatters, and who is originally from Tanzania and speaks with an accent, which is esp. noticeable because she turns her /r/s into /w/s), she invited me to her end-of-the-year thank-you party for her customers and friends, which will have free African food and drinks and dancing.

"Pwecious," she was like - she always calls me 'Pwecious' -- "Get weady to meet the Afwicans."

Yet more on Ayn Rand - her sister!

From Anne C. Heller's "Ayn Rand and the World She Made", pp. 395-7 - when in 1973 her little sister turns out to be alive and Ayn sponsors her and her husband to come over to the U.S., hopefully to defect:

If Rand hadn't fundamentally changed, Nora had... Now she appeared to be an average, aging Russian woman, satisfied to be cared for by the state. She and Fedor were childless, and they lived in a one-room apartment that was regarded as luxurious in a period when many Russian families had to double or triple up... Although they were not communists, they thought of themselves as loyal Soviet citizens, attended shul, and were proud of their relatively comfortable position. When Rand or one of her circle argued against Soviet totalitarianism and in favor of individual liberties, Nora responded, "What good is political freedom to me? I'm not an activist." She quarreled with her sister over the benefits of capitalism and the evils of altruism, about which she later said, "It was the altruism of our entire family that enable Alyssa [=Ayn] to get out to the United States in the first place."

Worse, perhaps, Nora didn't approve of America. She disliked American conveniences, which left her with nothing to do all day; she preferred her old routine of waiting in food lines and gossiping with her friends...

Worst of all, Nora did not admire Rand's novels. On the Drobyrshevs' first evening in New York, Rand had proudly presented Nora with copies of all four... But she gained no recognition from Nora. With the exception of part of 'We the Living', she later said that the little she read was offensive and contrived... Nora borrowed or bought a volume by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose more subversive works were unavailable in Russia... Rand hated Solzhenitsyn for his outspoken anti-Western views and his religiosity, and when she discovered that Nora preferred his writing to her own, she demanded that Nora return her books. Nora complied. All told, the little sister pronounced her older sister's writing to be "fake" and "lacking in talent," and she paid no more attention to it...

She did not see them off. She did contact her lawyer, Eugene Winick, to assure herself that Nora would not automatically inherit any of her money when she died...

Even after Nora's return to Russia, Rand avoided speaking of her sister... Although childhood had been the time "when I liked everything about [my sister]," Nora recalled in 1997, "I was [merely] her shadow and yes-man... She always wanted adoring fans." Nora died in St. Petersburn in 1999, at the age of eighty-eight, without ever speaking again to Rand.

. . .

More on Ayn Rand.

From Anne C. Heller's "Ayn Rand and the World She Made", p. 264:

Long after learning the facts of the affair, one follower explained it, in part, by saying, "Ayn wasn't very clean. I couldn't picture Nathan in her bed.

. . .

Forgot.

I forgot -

At krunk karaoke, Lady Red stopped at one point to recognize the 25-year old birthday girl.

"Hey, birthday girl," she was like, "I remember when I was twenty-five..." - and she paused and mugged all of a sudden - "...LAST YEAR!", since Lady Red seems to be in her early or maybe even mid-30s (and if it's mid-30s, she looks good for her age).

Then, she turned to the birthday girl and was like, "Come on, Takeesha, come on up here!", and then she started playing some music and having Takeesha dance, and while Lady Red was chanting "Go Takeesha/ it's your birthday", some younger (black) guys came up and started pulling out dollar bills and throwing them at Takeesha like she was a stripper or something.

Later, it turned out, too, that there was another birthday girl in the house, so Lady Red had the girl do the same birthday dance thing, and against she chanted while some younger (black) guys threw dollar bills at the girl and onto the floor around her.

Addendum / Idea.

Maybe I should try "Try a Little Tenderness" at krunk karaoke someday.

Otis Redding.

Back growing up when I used to listen to nothing but oldies, I didn't like Otis Redding, because all I knew of his majors songs was "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay", because that was all the oldies station played.

Now that I'm older, though, I realize that "Try a Little Tenderness" is more representative of his work, and is a *great* song... It's made me a total fan of him, now.

Oops, skipped this excerpt...

from (the Puerto Rican) Irene Vilar's "Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict" (p. 15):

I busied myself fetching land crabs and memorizing songs I would sing to my father at bedtime. I sorted the laundry for him when he washed our clothes and held the bottle of starch while he ironed my school uniforms. I sat in the hallway and sobbed when he cleaned the diarrhea-soiled path from my bedroom to the bathroom, all while telling me I was his baby girl and humming his favorite song about an old horse that can outrun his young. I had chronic diarrhea until I got my period at eleven. I remember because I sprang to the toilet after messing the bathroom floor at boarding school to find my underwear soiled red. I don't recall any more accidents after that.

This came right after the previously-quoted paragraph about how her obsessive desire for constant action.

Yet another excerpt...

...from Irene Vilar's "Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict" (p. 18):

Blanquita [my father's live-in lover] said it was dangerous for me to be exposed to [my brother] Miguel[, who was into drugs and ran away, but would periodically show up at the house, unexpectedly]. Every day after school I would go into my brother's room and look at his things. I missed him. I would sit on the bathroom floor smelling the half-smoked joints and tiny roaches piled up in a Coca Cola ashtray by the tub. I would sing the Christmas carols I'd memorized from a booklet he gave me. Between songs, I would stuff my mouth with toilet paper, a habit that would last until I left home for boarding school a few months short of my tenth birthday.

. . .

. . .

(. . .).

Another excerpt...

...from Irene Vilar's "Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict" (p. 15):

My mother's absence [after her suicide when I was eight years old] made little difference to the house, except that she herself was no longer in it. I often roamed the quiet rooms with a blinding, almost obsessive desire for constant action: sleep-overs with my cousins, hunting for seashells, best grades in the classroom, collecting comic books, memorizing Christmas carols, flamenco dancing, masturbating, anything that kept me from feeling a thing.

(She's Puerto Rican, by the way.)

Excerpt from Memoirs of an Abortion Addict.

From Irene Vilar's "Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict", as featured in the Washington Post -- the first paragraph of the book (p. 1) --

My life could be summed up by the extreme human experience of abortion. For years, reading or hearing about an abortion turned the words into a maelstrom of emotions. Every time I came upon the song by America "A Horse with No Name" or the book 'The Lust of the Just', which accompanied me during a shameful decade of my life, I was deeply upset.

I couldn't find a link for that book she read, which makes me want to read it even more

Black neighborhood bar visit.

So, the other day, after being at the student bar, which was pleasantly packed, I headed over to the black neighborhood bar to have a drink with my one (white) friend who hangs out there, only the place was dead when I got there.

"What's up with that?", when I asked the (black) bartender who usually works nights ("Ray").

"We waiting for you to come start the party," he was like.

Later, after my friend got there and we were talking -- before she got there, I got out and was reading a book I had checked out of the library on historical methodology -- I was telling her about krunk karaoke, and how me and the people I went with were the only non-(black) people in the entire place.

"Oh, like that never happens to us!", she was like.

Even later, after the pizza place next door closed down, this younger Mexican guy slunk in with a carry-out box and gave it to Ray. It was the leftover pizza, and there was like six slices in there, and since there were like six people in the bar, he let everyone have one -- I got pepperoni (sp.?), and my friend got sausage.

Addendum.

When I was singing Taste of Honey's "Boogie Oogie Oogie" at krunk karaoke, Lady Red pulled out a tambourine from somewhere and did this really bad-ass rhythm on it to accompany me during part of the song.

Krunk karaoke (II of II): Again.

So, since exams and classes and shit are done, me and my one (white) friend from Mississippi who I got hooked on karaoke went back to krunk karaoke again.

This time, he said he was looking at the hostess's facebook page, and under the pictures of the time his one (white) student sang Prince's "Let's Go Crazy", there were like 5 comments, including -

Who was that white guy? He could sing!

- or something to that effect.

When I got there, an early 40s (black) guy from the bar was opening the door for a lady walking in right in front of me, and I saw it was Lady Red, so when the guy kept the door open for me and was like, "How you doing?", I was like, "Good, you know, just doing that 'walk three steps behind royalty' thing," and he laughed and was like, "I hear you, I hear you!"

The bar was incredibly, incredibly packed with (black) people, as well as one midde-aged (white) guy who left soon after we got there, so we ended up standing up against a wall near this mid- to late-20s (black) couple ("Tanya" and "Dre"), who were saying that they love karaoke, esp. her, and she sings, but he doesn't, though he promised he'd try before the wedding, and they were thinking of getting it at their reception, and if they do, he's going to persuade the groomsmen to do it.

She had a ring on too and she kept moving it around on her finger, and they said the wedding would be more than a year out, so they looked recently engaged... She was very nice and asking me and my friend if we were going to sing and if so what, and then when I said yes but I didn't know yet, she was like, "What's your range?", and I was like, "I have one, I think, but I try to not let it hold me back," which she laughed at.

Other then them, there was this group of self-important very young 20s (black) women with 2 (black) (gay) guys around their same age, and then over on one side of the room there was six tables pushed together and someone was having a 25th birthday party, since there were big balloons floating up, a "2" and a "5", and they were tied to the chair of a 20-something (black) woman, who was there with like 6-8 of her women friends, and 2 (black) guys.

Sometimes, the birthday women would dance in their chairs to the music, and that was just the music from the loudspeakers.

Anyhow, my one friend from Mississippi had decided before he showed up not even to sing, since his repertoire doesn't match the crowd, and "anything else from the book I can sing they know better than I do, and can sing better than I can, too".

But, he likes the talent and the atmosphere and thinks Lady Red is hot, so he came.

Anyhow, when karaoke started up, Lady Red set out her ground rules:

You have to clap, either because you like the song or you're glad the singer is done, but you clap no matter what, there's no booing or anything like that when she runs the show.

Then, she gave a shout-out to a table of 5 younger (black) women in the back who were her friends visiting from Atlanta, and did some really bad-ass rap / hip-hop song about how they party in Chicago till 8 in the morning to welcome them back to town, and to kick off the night.

Then, some older (black) guy got up and sang some song that got the 5 women from Atlanta doing like this line-dancing on the floor in front of him, only it was some kind of (black) line-dancing, and so much more bad-ass than the (white) country line-dancing you see on tv.


In terms of singing, some people were good, like this one younger (fatter) black girl who sang the Whitney Houston version of "I Will Always Love You", while some weren't, like this middle-aged (black) woman with dreads who tried to sing Tina Turner's "Proud Mary"...

That was a revelation for me, that some (black) people just sing o.k.

Also, for whatever reason, one of the young (black) girls who was there with the bunch of gay guys would say the name of some website before and after each time she sang a song, and the second time she did this, after she finished her second song, Lady Red took her mike and was like, "You know what you can do with that plug?, you can plug it right here," and she lifted up her leg and pointed to her asshole.

Anyhow, I put in to sing Taste of Honey's "Boogie Oogie Oogie", and as soon as I did that, I had this awful sense of dread that the song wouldn't be recent enough, though I had no doubts it was (black)er than a lot of the stuff I sing (even the 60s [black] stuff, that doesn't have enough edge).

Anyhow, they eventually called me up, and I did manage to sing it... As soon as the song began and the bassline broke in, the (black) women from the birthday party were up in their seats dancing, and some (black) people came forward to dance too, and some (black) women at the bar held their arms up and swayed side to side...

I guess what I learned from the song is that you have to have authority to sing it, esp the first verse -

If you're thinkin' you're too cool to boogie
Boy oh boy have I got news for you
Everybody here tonight must boogie
Let me tell ya' you are no exception to the rule

- since it's kind of a no-nonsense telling-it-like-it-is smack-down to people who are too good for disco.

Also, you have to know what the fuck you're doing when you get done explaining those consequences and break into the chorus -

So get on up on the floor
Cuz we're gonna boogie oogie oogie
Till you just can't boogie no more

- because the voice leads, and then the accompaniment follows, when the chorus starts off.

The ending is nice with the "get down/ boogie oogie oogie" parts, but unfortunately the very last words are saying "boogie" in a really high voice after a bass bit, and that sucks.

Also also, I realized that it must have been bad-ass for the one bass-playing woman from Taste of Honey to say "listen to my bass" now to end the 2nd repetition of the chorus, and slide into some bass-playing. It made me realize why my one dean idolized them in her youth.

Anyhow, after I was done, I got mild applause, and Lady Red reminded everyone of her clapping rule.

(To be fair, it was no worse and no better than some of the people got who followed or preceded me, but I think she was trying to be welcoming to me and my (white) friends... She made sure to take a picture of all of us for our website, just like she was doing for (black) people, and when I went to say good night when I was leaving - something I always do with karaoke hosts - she was like, "I hope you had fun!", really nicely.)

When I went to sit down near my friend from Mississippi, we were sharing our table with two (black) girls, and he was like, "Good job on the song," and when I said that I didn't think I did that good a job, it was a little too high for me, he was like, "No, you nailed it," and then he turned to the (black) girls and was like, "Don't you think he nailed that song?", and the one was like, affably, "Yes, he nailed it," and my friend was like, "That's right, he nailed," and she laughed and was like, "To the cross."

Also, when I was leaving, a (black) girl up at the bar that one of the people I came with was flirting with told me I did a good job and she liked the song when I came up to them to say goodbye, and when I was leaving, some random young (black) guy was like, "Good job", as I passed him in the doorway, and when I was like, "Thanks, but where were you?, I didn't see you up there!", he was like, "Oh no, brother, I was leaving all of that shine for you."

Also also, as I was leaving, there were like three jack ass-y younger (black) guys who had left ahead of me, and they were being dicks a little bit, I think, and were like, "Good job!, you rocked it up there," and since I knew I didn't, I tried to neutralize their dickishness by being like, "Thanks, I like the song and I did my best." That made them a little ashamed, I could see from their faces, and they were like, "Good job anyhow, Shimmy Dave," referring to, I think, the way I shimmied when I sang the song.

Krunk karaoke (part I of II): Before.

So, I've been a flaky blogger and haven't blogged about the best things happening in my life, since they take so damn long to blog about.

For example, I went to krunk karaoke the other month with my one (white) friend from Mississippi who I got hooked on karaoke - he had been there before with some (white) students from his class who invited him out to drink after their final exam, though it was my first time. When we got there, the waitress was like, "Nice to see you guys back."

Anyhow, it was packed but there was only a smattering of white people in the bar, and the hostess was this (black) lady with dyed red hair and black tight pants and this red leather jacket ("Lady Red"), and she was the most bad-ass karaoke hostess I've ever seen - she opened up with hip-hop or something and nailed the song, but she was also seemed really nice.

The hard part about the karaoke place is that the audience is all black, and the songs are mostly black, so you have to sing something that fits the mood. Only, even not all songs sung by black people work, since it's mostly from the 70s on with an emphasis on R&B and Hip-Hop. The best I could hope for was Donna Summers's "MacArthur Park" -- early disco is usually as late as I go with black music -- while my friend did John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom", since he prefers blues.

Anyhow, my friend did well with his song, and a lot of (black) women cheered when he got to the part about throwing you on the floor and wanting it right now. When my song kicked up and the chords rang out, two (black) women at the bar clapped their hands up in the air a few times and started whooping, and they whooped louder as I broke into the first words, authoritatively -

Spring was never waiting for us girl
It ran one step ahead
As we followed in the dance

- and then when the chorus breaks out like majestic sunshine after a storm, people kind of started bopping.

Only, the bass was really turned up and the treble really turned down, so when the second verse came around, I had a hard time picking up the melody again and so I stopped singing, and Lady Red noticed it right away, and jiggled with the balance to bring out the melodic accompaniment so I could start singing again, and I did, but I already lost momentum, so the song didn't turn out well, both because of that, and because they cut out the entire slow middle part.

Other than that, the night was very slow, and a little odd since the bar was packed, but almost no one sang, so we chugged our beers and left.

And, as we left, Lady Red was like, "Hey guys, nice seeing you again! I hope you had a good time!"

A Very Barry Christmas.

So, last night I went to the Barry Manilow Christmas concert. It was out in the suburbs in a suburban theater close to the airport... I got off the subway, and I had to walk along a sidewalk past conference centers / airport hotels / etc for like 10 min., and there was no one else walking, though there were a ton of cars lined up to turn into theater parking.

Inside, the place was full of white women with frosted hair - the younger ones kept it long, while the older ones bobbed it. A lot of the women wore red, and many of them had on these little Christmas accessories, like a big sparkly snowflake necklace, or a big sparkly Christmas tree pin, or some big-ass Christmas design in silver sequins on their shirt.

When I went to go take a piss - I had been at a coffee shop before heading to the theater - there were 20+ women waiting to use the restroom, and when I went into the men's room, it was empty.

Out at the souvenir stand, it was a crush of women.

"Ooh, an ornament!", one white woman was like, pointing to this $10 powder blue ornament with 'A Barry Merry Christmas' writtten in white on it.

"And look at that t-shirt," one white woman was like, to her two white friends, one of whom was older and looked like her mother

"Which t-shirt?", the one was like.

"The purple one," the original lady said.

"I don't see any purple one," the mom-like one was like, re-adusting her glasses.

They had posters up too for upcoming events, like "Mamma Mia!", and when I passed by those, one white woman was like, "Look, 'Mamma Mia!' is coming!", and when her friend said she saw the movie but had never seen the play, she was like, "Well, I saw the play, and it was great, and I'd go see it again."

There was also a poster that said "MANILOW: THE HITS AND THEN SOME" and had a big silhouette of Barry on it, and people would pose for pictures next to it, as well as next to these gigantic Christmas trees in the theater lobby.


When I walked into the theater - I had a seat on the upper tier - a (black) lady (the only one in the theater?) was handing out "ULTIMATE MANILOW: THE HITS" glowsticks, which glowed a frosty blue when you cracked them... Outside it had been soft Christmas music, and inside it was easy-listening music, only with an oddly clubbish thumping-bass backbeat to get the women stoked...

My seat kind of sucked - this really old guy with tall hair was in front of me - but towards the end of the opening act, this Vegas-style magician - I jumped up and managed to get a really good seat up at the front of the tier, probably like $70 more than what my ticket had cost.

Anyhow, after the magician got off stage, the curtains flung back to reveal a 50-piece orchestra and a few Christmas trees, and the majestic chords of "I Write the Songs" rang out, and just when you thought Barry was going to get on stage, there were these bells ringing out and some jingle bells and some spritely Christmas music, and from offstage, he started singing -

happy holidays...

- and the women went nuts and jumped to their feet, and when he ran out on stage singing a 2nd "happy holidays", the women screamed even louder.

Overall, the concert was very mixed. The carols didn't do it for me, and he seemed to deliberately camp up some of his older stuff, and that didn't work for me, since his big selling point is authenticity.

That said, when he sang "Mandy", it was as if I was hearing every word of the 1st verse for the very first time, something that's hard to do for a song whose lyrics I could recite in my sleep, and everyone else felt it too - as soon as finished the chorus and was like, "Oh Mandy...", everyone burst into applause, simultaneously, since they were feeling it.

Also, when he did "Can't Smile Without You", which I always find very repetitive - the only interesting part is to see which woman he pulls up on stage to dance with, though he didn't do that this time - somehow he mixed up the delivery of the lyrics with the dynamics and rhythm, and it was great... It made me want to sing it at karaoke, even!

Other than that, the best parts were his onstage banner. Like always, he made fun of his Jewishness, which I love.

"Gee folks," he was like, "Can you believe that I put out three Christmas albums? That's right, three! Pretty good for a Jew boy like me."

At the end of the concert, too, when Santa came out on a golf cart and children starting flooding the stage for his big closing number, he shouted out, "Look who's here, it's Santa! After all, what's Christmas without Santa? It's like chicken soup without the matzah balls!"

Also, when he was talking about his current Vegas show, he was like, "And I thought Vegas was some place that old singers went to die. That, and seedy - you know, gamblers and hookers and everything. But, I've discovered that it's actually a nice family place - more like gamblers and hookers and their kids."

That's Barry, giving you just enough edge so you love him.

Leaving, people were like, "Wasn't that a fantastic concert?", and, "I swear, he brought Las Vegas right to this stage!".

Oops, Missed that Movie.

So many good movies I want to see.

By the time I turned around, Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans" was already out of the theater (last showing - yesterday).

But, Almodovar's "Broken Embraces" debuts tonight, and I might be going this weekend!!!

Story from that one Catalan guy I know.

So, this weekend when I was hanging out with some people after going to see a professional basketball game (we got half-price tix), we headed out after the game to get a beer at a local bar, and for some reason that one Catalan guy I know was reminiscing about his childhood in a small village in the Pyrenees (sp.?).

As he told it, him and his one childhood friend used to enjoy stealing candy from this one toy/candy shop run by an old Catalan guy, and he would go up and ask the man about toys that didn't exist, while his friend would steal the candy.

"Do you have like, you know, those frogs that sing?", he said he remembered asking once.

Another time, he was like, "Do you have, you know, like a twig, only you put it in water, and it grows downwards?".

He said the guy was really old and didn't understand children's toys nowadays, so he would always shake his head and be like, "No no no, I don't have that here, you have to go to Barcelona for that."

Story from my British friend (II of II): This One Guy.

Also, my British friend told me about this holy man that lived outside the city way in the sticks.

I guess it never rains in the Sudan, and one time it rained for a few days and was interfering with construction of a new mosque, so everyone went out to the sticks to get the holy man, and he came to the mosque site, clapped twice, and the rain stopped.

Also, it's a delicacy there to eat raw sheep liver when the sheep is slaughtered, but once some people killed the sheep and sliced the liver only to find that it was rotten. I guess the holy man was there, and he came up and touched it, and the liver wasn't rotten anymore.

Also also, the guy rarely ate and never took a shit, and the times he did eat, it'd just be a little, and he couldn't keep it down, and when he'd vomit, the neighborhood cats would come in a pack right away to eat it up, and they'd be in this big swarm around his vomit, licking.

Story from my British friend (I of II): Evil Eye.

I had coffee this past weekend with my one British friend, who was in a very chatty mood. His dad is from the Sudan and he lived there for a while when he was a kid, and he was telling me about how when he and his family went back to the Sudan when he was in college, he had decided to talk his entire Sudanese family out of belief in the evil eye if they brought it up.

As it turns out, his one cousin had recently gotten married and then she got sick, and though they took her to a zillion doctors, they couldn't find anything wrong with her.

"Don't you think it's just some virus?", he told his relatives, and he says that as soon as he said that, his younger cousins in the room started looking at each other like, "Man, is this guy stupid."

Then, he said, his aunt told him that science is great and can cure many viruses, but there are some things that science can't explain.

Then, the whole conversation degenerated into talking about how the family had been showing everyone wedding pictures, and so they were trying to figure out who they had shown the pictures to at around the time his cousin got sick.

Also, later that week, my one British friend came down with something, and his aunt told him that he was a victim of the evil eye, because he had just graduated from high school the past year and would be a perfect target for envy.

Soup problems!!!

The other night I got home and got my bowl out and went to go get my pot of sour red cabbage soup off the windowsill, but, when I went to open the window, the window was frozen shut.

(It's been snowing the past few days, and temps have dropped a lot.)

I banged the window sill a lot, to no avail, and since I didn't have any other ideas, I banged it some more, also to no avail, so I started wondering whether that shit would be out there till spring, or the next warm day.

After a bit, I realized I could slide down the top half of the window, so I did that, and I was able to just reach the pot handles when I stood on the inside sill and leaned outside and down, so I was able to bring it inside and get my soup, and then I was able to fit it all in the fridge after re-arranging the fridge for 10 minutes.

Also, I was walking around my apt. in my boxers, so I was like half naked leaning out the window in a snowstorm getting a pot of soup off the window sill. I bet the neighbors would have raised an eyebrow, if any had been looking (though I don't think many can see).

Addendum.

When people were talking about whether people in other areas of the country would do videos like the one from San Francisco, that Floyd guy, who was from Mississippi, was like, "Maybe in the South... The thing about the south is, is that the South will surprise you. A lot of people don't realize that. In Atlanta, people would be lining up, Tuskegee too."

He said that real slow, in a southern drawl.

Also, his one friend who used to work for Playboy said an old girlfriend of his would make sure to orgasm before making major decisions, since that was when she said she felt that her head was clearest and that she was most rational.

Also also, after everything had broken up and that Floyd guy was leaving, him and the older retired male nurse who used to be a thug and is now a sexologist got in a conversation that I picked up part of when I was heading past them to go to the restroom to take a piss... Floyd was saying that a lawyer friend of his had figured out that you could spray Teabaggers with Silly String as a counterprotest and there was nothing legal against that, since it didn't stain and didn't constitute violence, so they were going to try that this weekend.

"Cum could work too," the retired male nurse was like, smiling and joking.

"Yeah, that's right," Floyd was like, "But I don't think I can produce that much."

"Start now and save it," the retired male nurse was like again, smiling and joking, "It's for a good cause," and Floyd laughed a deep, low laugh.

Went to a sex doc again on Tuesday.

So, on Tuesday I went to a sex doc again.

The movie was a documentary of 22 San Franciscoans getting to orgasm on camera, only you saw them from the neck up, and they spliced the footage of them getting off and orgasming with interviews of them and why they're doing it why it's political etc.

I found it kind of tiresome and a little bullshitty, just like the film about 13 women masturbating. There's this idea floating around that the way that you become a sexual revolutionary is by doing something like porn, which I find kind of odd. Why is that a good thing? Especially, since most people are awkwardly mugging for the camera when they're getting off.

During the Q&A, I wondered out loud if people in other countries (Canada, France, England) feel compelled to make this type of film, or if it's a bullshitty U.S. thing.

At that point, someone corrected me and said it's more of a bullshitty San Francisco thing, though you get it some in New York too.

Also, the (black) guy who worked for Playboy brought a friend of his along, this late 40s big (black) guy from the south named "Floyd".

In response to the film, Floyd said that that part where the Asian woman said she was trying to counteract stereotypes of Asian women, that that hit home with him, since his old girlfriend used to run across that all the time.

"And she grew up during the Cultural Revolution, man," he was like, "So she was anything but passive."

I also caught a ride home with the girl who's kind of nerdy and into BDSM and her boyfriend, who's a little fat and pasty. They hung around forever afterwards for a planning meeting, even after it had broken up, and were talking off the series coordinator's ear about how they should find a sex magick doc out there. Then, when we finally walked to the car (they walked really slow), we had to wait like 5 minutes inside for the defroster to run so the guy's glasses could unfog, and then once we drove, he was really really slow, but also a really really bad driver, so from the time when the movie broke up until I got home was an hour! - and public transportation only takes 50 minutes.

Also, in the car, somehow they started talking about rope bondage, and how he tied her up once and he had to untie her since she felt faint from not eating breakfast.

Soup!

I tried making cabbage soup this week, with one head of green cabbage, and another of red.

After I added in the onions and green peppers, I realized the red cabbage would give it a different flavor, so I added just a little hot paprika, and like 2 cups of vinegar, to make a sour cabbage soup with a flavor resembling Polish sour pink cabbage.

It worked!

2 people: vampires, (black) people on Lady Gaga.

The other day when I was out drinking with friends I ended up being a little drunk and talking with a couple people:

1) A punkish undergrad guy who I ended up talking about "New Moon" with... He was really into it, and I asked him if he liked the whole vampire thing. It turns out he did, and he said he wished he could be one.

"Like in bed?", I was like, and he said yes, and that he wished girls were kinkier in bed.

2) A black woman who I talked with Lady Gaga about when "Bad Romance" came over the sound system. Her face lit up with mild appreciation when I asked her what she thought of the song, and she said she liked Lady Gaga, and though she had talent, and mentioned her songwriting right away.

I find it interesting - black people know she's a singer-songwriter, much more often than white people do, and I think that's tied into the way they respect her (though none are huge fans), which is along the lines of respecting the talent of a Prince or a Stevie Wonder (white people usually don't recognize or care as much who tries to write their own shit, I think).

I also think black women admire her adventurous, individualistic fashion sense... They sense that she's more like them than most white women are, when it comes to fashion.

We've come a long way.

I sent a friend the video to Miley Cyrus's "Party in the U.S.A.", and she wrote back that it bothers her when girls who like fifteen are sexed up, like they so often are in our culture.

So, I wrote back saying that New Moon star Taylor Lautner is like 17, but they always show him shirtless or in a wet t-shirt, so it's not just girls anymore, and she should be happy about that equality.

And, she agreed, and said (ironically) that it comforted her!

A happy thing or 2.

1) When I got my new passport back in the mail, my old invalidated one didn't come with it, and I thought it was lost forever. Fortunately, my previous steeling myself to loss worked, and I didn't feel that sad about it - like Epictetus says, work at smaller losses, and then you'll be good at bigger losses!

Then, the other day, my old passport was returned in a separate mailing. There was a slip of paper in both envelopes when I looked explaining that sometimes the State Dept. does that.

2) I had boughten this watermelon like 2 months ago, but after like 2 or 3 weeks, I hadn't gotten around to cutting it open, so I threw it in the fridge (it had been on my kitchen table).

Then, this weekend, I cut the watermelon open, expecting to find it rotten and throw it out. But, it wasn't! So, now I have a big pot of cut-up watermelon in my fridge.

My dog-naming prowess.

Got this e-mail from a high school friend last week (background: when I was over at her and her husband's house I kept calling their dog Bentley "Bender", and her husband liked the name so much that they renamed the dog, which I think was also adopted and arrived pre-named; also, her husband is a high school teacher):

So, question for you, since you named our last dog. We adopted another dog. His name is Cody, which [my husband] doesn't like b/c he has a lot of students named Cody. So, we need another name. The only problem is, he already knows his name and responds well to it, so the new name has to sound close to the old one.

We haven't been able to reach an agreement, so [my husband] decided that we need to consult the guy who named our first dog :)

I've attached some pictures of Cody and Bender, in case you need to see him to work your magic. Send us a few options :)

Here is one of the pictures of Cody and Bender that she attached:

As it turns out, I suggested "Odie", like in the Garfield comic strips, and she and her husband loved it, and this is her reply:

read below; we'll be sure to call when we're having children too. :)

[forwarded message from her husband:]

[My last name] wins again!

I wonder if they will consult me when they have kids - I bet so, I'm thinking now.

The library...

can sometimes be nice...

The new book I ordered just arrived.

I guess, honestly, that I've had them order way more than $30 worth of trashy books for me, so the fine really doesn't matter at the end of the day.

Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden's break-up.

From Nathaniel Branden's "My Years with Ayn Rand", pp. 344-345 -- the situation is that he never slept with her after her depression that ensued after finishing "Atlas Shrugged", but she still wanted to resume a physical relationship -- he fell in love with another woman (a model like a decade younger than him) and hid the truth from his wife and her, then he told his wife, then he wrote a letter to her spilling his guts, and she felt put out because she always hated her appearance, according to what Nathaniel's wife thought -- and, after an hour of her screaming, she slapped him a couple times, during which he remained silent, and then --

Frustrated by my long silence, Ayn demanded, "Well? Do you have anything to say?"

"I am deeply sorry," I answered truthfully, "for the pain I have caused you."

"Well, I have one more thing to say to you!" Ayn stated. And then she left me her final legacy: "If you have an ounce of morality left in you, an ounce of psychological health, you'll be impotent for the next twenty years! And if you achieve any potency sooner, you'll know it's a sign of still worse moral degradation!"

. . .

A few more memoir excerpts on fucking Ayn Rand.

More from Nathaniel Branden's "My Years with Ayn Rand" -- this time, p. 161, starting a new section within a chapter --

On the sofa, three members of our group were reading. Two days earlier, Ayn and I had lain there, embracing. I looked at Ayn and enjoyed thinking, in this moment, in this setting, that I knew every detail of the body underneath her dress.

Again, on p. 171 --

This Saturday evening I looked around the living room at our family. Frank and Joan were once again locked in private conversation -- about art, I assumed -- and Ayn said to me, "I don't want to disturb Frank. Let's you and I get the coffee and the pastry. Will you help me?" When we were alone in the kitchen, Ayn turned and whispered, "Isn't it wonderful, darling?" I knew that she meant all the elements of her life at present: our affair, Frank's discovery of painting, the Collective's response to the novel, and the emotional vibrations of joy and excitement in the room tonight.

"Yes," I said, meaning it. "It's wonderful."

For a brief instant, she stepped forward, pressing against me and smiling like a schoolgirl, who was delighted by her own daring. I responded by holding her ferociously, moving my hand along her thigh. I felt desire -- and a tenderness that was almost painful.

. . .

Movie list.

I realized the other day that I should be keeping a list of movies I've seen on the big screen, just like my list of non-school books I read. A grad student I knew in undergrad had such a list, but for some reason I never kept one, though I was thinking the other day that it would be fun to look back at the end of the year and see everything I'd seen that year, since I go to a lot of movies.

So, I started. No time like the present.

Fucking Ayn Rand.

From Nathaniel Branden's "My Years with Ayn Rand", pp. 139-140, on fucking Ayn Rand:

In the realm of sex, I knew her as thoroughly as someone I had been intimately involved with for years. I had penetrated her consciousness in every way I possibly could since first reading "The Fountainhead", so the actual act of sex felt almost like a continuation of the same endeavor. The desire to 'know' her in all conceivable senses was central to my interactions with her. It was as if we had been engaged in foreplay for four years -- since the evening in March 1950 when we first met. Later, Ayn told me that was exactly how she felt.

I was conscious of two different responses to our first sexual experience. My body felt completely unastonished, completely serene, as if what was now happening was the most natural thing in the world. My mind, in contrast, had flashes of excitement and disorientation at the thought 'I am now *sleeping with Ayn*." The two perspectives were like musical themes running in counterpoint, yielding a result more thrilling than either could produce by itself -- a high level of excitement devoid of any trace of anxiety. I believed I did see a touch of apprehension in Ayn, but it was a kind one welcomes because it makes one feel more alive, makes the moment more momentous.

She made love with the same single-tracked concentration with which she did everything else; nothing existed but the moment, our bodies, this sensation, and then the next. What was electrifying was that in her gentlest, most sensual touch, I could feel the full force of her personality , as if the voltage of her mind and the voltage of her flesh were one.

Watching her eyes watching me was aphrodisiacal. I knew that what she wanted most was not my tenderness but my aggressiveness, my willingness to do anything I felt like doing, without asking and without hesitating. She wanted me to be a master, to use her language, exercising his rights over his property. This, and this alone, allowed the female in her to emerge fully. Because I had no unusual sexual predilections and no interest in giving or receiving pain and every interest in giving and receiving pleasure, our lovemaking was uncomplicated happiness.

That I could bring such joy to a woman twenty-five years my senior, a woman I admired so passionately, nourished my sexual self-esteem. That she could evoke an intense response in a man so many years younger, a man she perceived as the incarnation of her values, nourished hers...

In the bedroom there was no split between the novelist and the woman. She was sensual, passionate, uninhibited, aggressive, submissive, strong, helpless, and magnificently greedy. She made it abundantly clear that her most ardent desire was to be reduced to a state of total surrender, which meant that I was free to release my own aggressive energy. We were like two prisoners let loose.

Nothing we could say or do could frighten or overwhelm the other. Nothing was too much. Whatever one gave, the other welcomed. Whatever one wanted, the other provided. We embraced sex as a person embraces oxygen after being underwater for too long.

'What's happening to me?' Ayn would say. 'You're turning me into an animal.' And I would grin mockingly and answer, 'Really? What were you before?' 'A mind,' she would say. And I would reply, 'Really? Do you have a mind? Who ever told you that?'

...

3 (black) women: 2 bus stories, Tiger Woods.

1) My one (light black-skinned) friend was telling me and another friend when we were driving to the black theater to see "Precious" that she felt really racist the other day, because she was telling a story about how one time she was on this bus in the bad neighborhoods south of campus, and she felt really uncomfortable when she noticed there wasn't any white people on the bus.

"Does that make me racist?", she was like.

2) The other evening I was coming home from downtown on the bus, and there was like 10 Asian undergrads in the back of the bus with shopping bags, and every once in a while the girls would shriek and laugh loudly like they were in middle school, since Asian women do that a lot (I mean, behave a lot younger than they should be).

Anyhow, when it was time to get off the bus, the bus stopped, and when the bus was about to get going after some other people got off, like 3 of the Asians jumped up and went to the door and got off, and just as they got off, 4 other of their friends got up and followed them off, and then just when they were getting off, like the last 3 got up to get off, and the 2 girls of them lingered at the door saying bye to someone they had run into as they held the door open.

I was looking really confused at all of this, and 2 younger (black) women up ahead of me were too, and then the one poked the other and pointed to me and was like, "Look, he sees it too!"

3) After that, I needed a drink, so I got off the bus a couple streets early and went to the black neighborhood bar.

On the way there, there was 2 hulking 30-something (black) guys dressed like thugs, and one met my eyes and was like, "Good evening," to show that they weren't a threat.

Anyhow, when I was there, the bar was pretty full (almost no one at the tables, though), but I pulled up a chair between 2 (black) women. Betty Wright's "Tonight is the Night (Parts 1&2)" was on the jukebox, and they were both talking along with the spoken word parts, and laughing when she asked the audience to think back to the time they lost their virginity, and then when the singing started, they sang along, and also thumped the bar to mimick important percussion bits.


After a bit, one of the women introduced herself to me ("Cecille"), and we started talking, and she brought up Tiger Woods because of his crash.

She didn't know what happened, and was sure the truth would come out about whatever he was doing leaving his house at that time of night - it didn't make any sense to her - and then she was like, "But let me tell you, he is a very smart man. He's only thirty-three, and what's Jack Nicklaus, like 80? Just think, he's already a gazillionaire, and he still has a thirty-year career ahead of him. That's nothing at all like those basketball players, they're out there for 5 years at most."

Renewed my passport.

The other day I went and got some passport pictures and sent in my renewal application for my passport. I can't believe it's been 10 years. It was something, to have my old passport in my hand, and then look at the new pictures of me just taken.

Addendum.

I forgot -

This is the only memoir I've ever read that when I go up to crease the page of some juicy part, the corner folds down easily, since someone had done that a long time ago.

(It's a library book.)

Memoir of the guy who fucked Ayn Rand.

I'm starting the memoirs of Nathaniel Branden, who wrote a fan letter to Ayn Rand when he was a college student at UCLA and ended up being her heir apparent and lover despite their 25-year age difference.

He also helped found the modern self-esteem movement.

Anyhow, I love this part from the end of the "Author's Note" that begins the book:

Finally, my greatest debt is to my wife, Devers, whose contribution to this book - both editorial and psychological - is immeasurable. She provided inspired input from the first page to the last. Not only did she encourage me to write freely and openly about my relationships with three other women but she lovingly and mercilessly challenged me to keep going deeper into self-disclosure. This book is dedicated to her in love and gratitude.

When you read something like that, you know it's going to be a good memoir, esp. when it's from the guy who fucked Ayn Rand.

Historians and scientists on religion.

Overall, historians are usually pretty tone-deaf when it comes to religion or the Bible - their studies usually never deal with it or leave it out, or they use a lot of crude Marxist 'false consciousness' explanations from the 70.

One time, a ph.d. student I know at another (really good) school emailed me on behalf of his friend. The friend had this conceit that the difference between now and the (whatever) century (the 17th? the 18th?) was that people wouldn't say "What would Jesus do", but rather "Who was Jesus", or some bullshitty thing like that. I told him that that did not make much sense, and it seemed like his friend did not only not have any knowledge of biblical interpretation, but probably also had never read the Bible at all.

(I said this nicely, by the way - probably something like, 'That doesn't quite work, he should work on other projects.')

Anyhow, later in reflecting back I realize that this was probably the way the ph.d. student thought:

1) Only simple people read the Bible.

2) Therefore, the Bible is simple.

3) Therefore, I can easily write about the Bible, having never read it or anything about it before.

And, I realize now that this is kind of how scientists think about religion:

1) The supernatural does not exist.

2) Therefore, people who think there is a supernatural are dumb.

3) Therefore, I am an expert on people who believe in the supernatural (i.e., are religious people).

So maybe their problem isn't science per se, but illogically projected condescension that happens in the absence of critcial thinking skills?

New job idea.

Acting dialect coach!!!

The Hungarian actress I've been helping with her English pronunciation has been very pleased with my help in identifying her pronunciation problems and recommending exercises that she can do on her own to improve pronunciation, and she said that if I can teach people English and southern accents etc., I can be making like $50/hour or so.

Toilet problem.

This past week, whenever I've been flushing, as soon as the tank starts to refill, two stream of water come running out from under the lid and down the outside of the tank and spill onto the floor. I opened up the top, and discovered that for whatever reason, like half of the spout of water that refills the tank sprays upward onto the lid, and that's what's causing it.

Still haven't notified my landlord, I keep forgetting.

Manson conversion bio.

So, I was going through my bookshelf the other day, and realized I never returned the Manson conversion bio (not of Manson, but of Sadie Mae Glutz).

I found it very interesting, because it turns out she became Pentecostal and reinterpreted a lot of her experiences as encounters with demons.

For example, she had this vision once on drugs where there were these spirits in her belly and then they crawled out through her skin, and in remembering she combines that with Manson telling her there was something special in her, so she sees that as the demons in him recognizing the demons in her.

The night of the Sharon Tate murders, too, she was chasing someone out on the lawn with a knife, and she looked back and saw Tex levitating above the ground inside, and she remembered at that moment that a woman from the Family said she felt possessed after sleeping with him, and she realizes now that he was possessed during the murders.

In the photo section in the middle of the book there's this picture of her with long hair and in a flowery dress smiling, above the caption:

My smile is because of Jesus.

My favorite part of the book is when she converts, she tries to convert other prisoners in her women's prison, like this lesbian she converted (I'm jumping in at the tail end of the story, p. 284-285):

When she was released from prison, an entirely different person walked out the front gate, delivered from one of the most blatant sins found in a women's prison. Lesbianism is rampant, with sixty-five per cent of the women at least occasionally participating and forty-five per cent openly committed to it as a life style. Most of these become lesbians after entering prison, and prison officials seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it. They don't condone it, but they don't condemn it either.

On the main campus at CIW, women frequently manage to sleep together, and lesbian activity is often visible right on the lawns and other places.

With that, she ends a section in the chapter.

Library problem.

I had this problem with books getting recalled when I was away on Christmas break last year, so I complained to the student liaison for my division, and recently she got back in an e-mail to me and other students who had given her feedback with answers from on high:

Fine structure:

1) Quoting in full from a student email: “I've had a problem this year with the fine structure around recalls, since it's not appropriate for Christmas break. I left the week of Christmas for a 12-day break, and on Dec. 23rd (!!!) someone recalled 3 books from me - and I had a $30 fine when I got back! The same thing wouldn't have happened if they had recalled them in the week after Christmas, since I would have returned within the 7-day grace period. It's unrealistic for people to return all their 60+ books at home over christmas break (the response of the circ desk to me), as it is if someone is gone for the entire summer. Because spring break is only a week, the same dynamic doesn't come into play then. Could the fine structure be reduced, or the grace period extended for the time between fall and winter quarters? I never recall books from people at the beginning of Christmas break since I don't want to stick someone with fines, but it seems some library patrons don't have that same common-sense courtesy.”

While we understand that receiving a recall over winter break is inconvenient, the Library is used quite heavily during this time by faculty and students who choose to remain on campus. For many patrons, this interim is the best (perhaps only) time to do research between September and March, and it’s equally inconvenient to them to not have the books they need.

This answer kind of annoys me. While everyone has the right to recall during this period, it's probably not the best thing to do, at least between Christmas and New Year's. Campus is a ghosttown - don't people realize that? Sometimes I see these old professors roaming the streets, or in the library at 10pm at night, and you realize how socially maladjusted they are...

Like a friend said to me once, if you can smalltalk in academia, you're a rockstar, the standards are so low. And that's not even if you know how to work a room at a reception, she clarified, too.

Anyhow, I imagine one of these lonely people sitting in front of a computer just recalling books the day before Christmas Eve. Some people just have sense at all.

Pimple.

I forgot -

When I was in Montreal for my conference, I got back the 1st night from reception-hopping, and though I wasn't even wearing a sportsjacket, just a collared shirt and a sweater (and pants etc., of course), when I was in the hostel bathroom undressing, I look, and I have this *huge* pimple on my left upper arm, where it's red and angry and coming up from the skin like a little vesuvius, even though it hadn't been there earlier when I was dressing up in the bathroom... I guess I must have been sweating more than I thought, and so the pimple built up.

Anyhow, it took me a bit to get my fingers around it, but I did, and when I popped it, all this white gunk about the size of 2 pinheads combined burst out onto my fingertips. I squeezed the pimple a bit more, and some clear juice came out, too, and then that was it.

2 more (black) cashier women.

1) I was getting a coffee the other day at Starbucks, to read a bit before going to karaoke, and the younger (black) girl who rang me up for $1.53 was like, "That will be one hundred and fifty-three dollars, please."

I didn't know how to respond for like a second, but then I was like, "That's it? And people say there are no more deals anymore!", and I handed her my two dollars.

"Thanks," she was like. "I'll be back with your change after I go hit up the shoe sale next door."

2) On Sunday when I was getting my groceries, there was this older (black) lady who had a very small purchase (not even half a bag of produce), and while she was getting out her money, I pulled out my canvas bags, and put them on the part after the scanner so I could start pulling out my produce from the cart and weigh it on the scanner/scale thing, and because my canvas bags touched her produce (the bagger was just starting to bag it), she looked at the young (black) cashier and was like, "I know that some people are in a hurry, but do we really have to do that now?"

As soon as she turned to go, then, I apologized to the cashier if I made the other patron feel rushed.

"Oh, don't worry," she was like, "Older black women always yell at me."

That made me surprised, and I said so, and she was like, "There's a lot of them, they have no money and they're mean and their husbands are dead their families want nothing to do with them, so they come in and take it out on me. My boyfriend thinks so too."

She was really pleasant, so I said again that I was surprised, and then I told her that my mom says people like that deserve what they get, since if they haven't learned social cues by now, that's there problem. The cashier liked that.

Purple sweater update.

So, on Saturday I stopped by the store where I got the purple sweater for like $60 last year, since they tend to carry a lot of staple wardrobe pieces for several years running. As it happens, they not only had $20 off of sweaters that day, but I was able to talk a cashier into letting me use a "$10 off your next $30 or more purchase" card I had gotten in the mail but left at home...

The one girl cashier on the men's side said no when I asked her, that I'd have to have the actual discount card, so I went to the women's side, and the male cashier there gave it to me! So, I got a new purple sweater for like $27, tax included.

My mother is repairing the holes in the other one so I can wear it everyday now. Some of the holes are really big, though, and she's having a tough time of it. When my dad saw a few of the holes, he was like, "Man alive, that moth must have weighed five pounds when it got done!"

From John Edward's one book...

I love how this is the first quote on the blurb page opening John Edward's book "One Last Time", right after the heading "Praise for John Edward's One Last Time":

"My lifelong obsessive fear of death ended when I met John Edward. He put me in touch with my parents and others that I thought were dead. They are alive and still loving me."

--Patty Duke


Later in the book, he described going to see the Casper the Friendly Ghost movie with his wife and enjoying it so much, that he buys the soundtrack (I've always wondered when I see CDs like that in music stores, who buys them?).

In his other book, he reveals one of the three pre-arranged signs with his mom that he's kept secret, so that she can contact him from beyond through other psychics and he'll know it's her: Pooh-bear, since he has a big Winnie-the-Pooh collection ever since he was a kid.

I find the Long Island background to his book fascinating. (He's from there.) Long Island and New Jersey are undervalued American places (the recent attention to New Jersey from the Sopranos notwithstanding).

Went to see a scary movie last week.

I was pretty excited to go see "Paranormal Activity" the other week - I like scary and suspenseful movies, but only if I know that there's no gore involved, which will make me sick. I had asked a friend who had seen it if it was bad, and she said no, and then I asked her straight-up what was the worse thing that happened in the movie, and she said someone was thrown across the room, so I shouldn't be afraid.

So, I went to go see it, and knowing the worse that would happen kind of deflated the movie for me, but it was still nice, though not as scary/freaky as "Blair Witch Project" or "Sixth Sense", so I was a bit disappointed, both by that and by how inconsistent the movie was on demons and possession.

But, when I was going to bed, I swear I heard something in the walls, so to calm myself, I read a chapter or two of John Edward's "One Last Time: A Psychic Medium Speaks to Those We Have Loved and Lost", which happened to be the book I was reading anyway, but was also pretty effective, since it had a much more benign view of the supernatural. It amazes me that all these people can try to contact the dead, and are sure that it's their love ones that are coming through. In a way, it's naive. How do they know?

From my friend who works the library desk...

My friend who works the library desk on Sunday nights also does hair.

She says this woman who sings in her church choir is really proud that she never puts anything in it, and she has the nappiest, nastiest hair ever.

One time, then, the woman had her hair tied up in back, and she took off the hair-tie or whatever and shook it down, and was like, "I have virgin hair."

"Yeah," my friend was like, "But it needs to get fucked."

Was at the BNB this weekend.past

So this past weekend I was at the BNB ("black neighborhood bar"). I stopped through after the student bar to get a beer and see if anyone I knew was around, and I ended up talking with this younger (black) girl two seats over, after she struck up a conversation when the "New Moon" trailer came on.

"I so want to see that," she was like.

As it turns out, she's the Sunday day bartender, and was addicted to the first Twilight movie. As she was telling me this, the Saturday night bartender, this big, thick-set, intimidating (black) man with a goatee and dreads was like, "I've only seen that nine times."

"What?", I was like.

"My daughters," he was like. "They kept dragging me to it, I couldn't say no."

After he left, I started asking her about how much of the first book made it into the movie, like the scene where the vampire protagonist confesses to the human female protagonist that when he was stand-offish the first time he met her, it wasn't because he didn't like her, but rather because her smell was driving him insane, and he could barely restrain herself from devouring her.

She said that that was definitely in there, nodding brightly.

"I don't get what's going on inside that head of hers", she was like, "But I love it!"

Missed Opportunity: A Scientist Asking to Understand the Humanities.

The other day at the Wednesday lecture-lunch thing, I happened to sit down across the speaker and not know it, and the guy was the chair of the new interdisciplinary program training people in the intersection of biology and physics.

Anyhow, he asked at one point why humanities ph.d.s take so long compared to the sciences, and that his wife is an anthropologist and he asks her this all the time and he still doesn't understand, and all I could come up with off the cuff is the huge research histories in many fields, and that newer research doesn't invalidate older stuff, oftentimes, and you kind of have to know it all.

I also said that 70% of time was spent learning other languages (which is very time intensive, to gain proficiency).

Later, I realized I should have asked 2 things:

1) Which living and dead languages had he studied, and at which levels?

2) Had he taken a college-level history course?

I never established what his level of knowledge was, and if I had asked that, I could have quickly broached issues of the different languages needed in different fields, how long it takes to learn them, etc., as well as how history at the college-level is not just "dates and facts" like you may have learned in high school or in an intro history course in college.

I think this bothered me so much, because science people (and econ people!) can be very chauvinistic when it comes to other fields, and it really really sucks when they get into high administrative posts, since they don't understand other fields and don't usually understand that they don't understand, which is something humanities people don't usually do - on the contrary, they'll recognize the importance of the sciences and support them, whereas scientists won't do the contrary.

And, usually scientists really really suck at critical thinking skills, too.

Martinis.

So, the other week I was going to go have $5.50 martinis to celebrate my finishing my comprehensive exams, but people were flaking out all that day, even though they had said they would go when I pitched the idea like a week earlier.

Anyhow, I ran into my one (black) dean that day, and, after congratulating me, she was asking me if I was going to do anything to celebrate.

"Six dollar martinis!", I was like.

"Good for you," she was like, " I always say that you have a healthier work-life balance than anyone else around here."

"Yeah," I was like, and then I went into explaining how there was no one else around to go out with me, so she should encourage that more, so I have someone to go to six-dollar martinis with, because I can't always do it alone.

At that, she laughed, and was like, "Heck, if I didn't have a church function tonight, I would be tempted to go with you!"

. . .

As it turns out, a friend did come through, and we went out and had three rounds.

That night, in my troubled sleep, I imagined that I was in the martini bar, only there were no tables or chairs or bar, just couches built into the walls with throw pillows everywhere, and my one (black) dean was walking down the center of the bar towards me holding a martini glass.

Smelly undergrad.

The other day I went to a lunch lecture, and the place was packed, and I got like the last chair, by the door. When I was eating my sandwich and potato salad, this heavy bearded (white) undergrad with several piercings came in, and he ended up sitting right next to my chair, and the smell of b.o. was so overpowering that I was actually thinking of getting up to move to another part of the room and sit on the floor elsewhere, out of the range of his smell, but I didn't... I thought people would look at me funny, and I was hoping that my nose would get used to the smell and I could start eating again.

Montreal.

My biggest impression from being in Montreal for a conference -

It was very jarring to hear French everywhere, and see an integrated society. It made me realize that I associate foreign languages with people being racist assholes and English with progressivism on integration, but that doesn't have to be the case... It's funny to think that Europe could be like that someday, with all these rinky-dink languages being used in multicultural societies.

My other big impression was that I had two of my bags opened up in the airport. One was because I had my (empty) thermos in it, but they swabbed the outside to make sure there wasn't traces of explosives or drugs in there, and then the other one because I had 4 coffee cans in it...

Actually, I also had 2 big plastic bags of really good paprika that I had gotten at a Hungarian deli, and I was wondering if it scanned as cocaine when it went through the x-ray machine, but no, it was the coffee can. The younger (Quebecois) dude who stopped me looked a little confused when I pulled out all those coffee cans from my luggage and he had to swab them, so I was like, "I collect coffee cans, and I found many new coffee cans on this trip."

"Oh," he was like, looking a little confused.

Then, looking at all of the cans I had unpacked, he was like, "Where is your can of Tim Hortons?", and I explained that I had gotten one of those at a Tim Hortons in the Detroit area last year, since the chain is expanding into America.

"The can is bilingual," I said, "although I bought it in the United States. One side says 'always fresh', and the other says 'toujours frais', and there is pictures of people skating on it. It is a Christmas can."

"Yes," he was like, "Tim Hortons produces seasonal cans."

Purple.

I recently got a really cool scarf that has mostly dark and light gray and black stripes,with a few stripes of lavender and deep purple mixed in. The other night, then, I was coming back on the bus, and since it was packed, I had to stand near the front, right next to this younger (black) girl who was seated and had a short curly haircut, with the curls on the top front of her head dyed the same shade of deep purple.

"Nice hair!", I was like. "You should be wearing this scarf."

"Thanks," she was like. "You know, it's my favorite color."

Forgot.

I forgot --

At that last sex doc, there's this one late middle-aged (black) guy with a beard who comes sometimes, and who gives me the feeling that he's not quite all there... He talks way too much, and doesn't notice that he's acting boorish, and I always think that people who don't pick up on other people's social cues have a little something wrong with them.

Anyhow, the dude used to work for Playboy, and he was saying that there's no telling how your children will turn out, that they're their own people, and that though his daughter was around everything as a kid, she now is a really conservative "I want to find one boyfriend and settle down"-type.

"And I remember when she used to be playing in the office and the gay art director was xeroxing his balls on the photocopier right there," he was like.

He also added that he was of mixed feelings about not always being able to be upfront about your sex life even if it was nothing to be ashamed of, and that it was hard for him to stop going to sex parties during the custody battle.

Doc / Social Hour from a while ago (part II of II): Social Hour.

The social hour the other week was good too.

I ended up talking to the ghost hunter and the prof of that one sex study I was in.

The ghost hunter as a vampire for Halloween.

"Just pulled one of my costumes out," he was like.

As it turns out, in his closet he has a whole rack of costumes for sex (vampire, pirate, etc.).

Later, we were talking and I mentioned my hometown.

"Shit," he was like, "You're from [there]?"

As it turns out, his grandfather was this retired western actor who lived in a nearby major city and dressed up as a cowboy for a saturday morning local tv kids show I knew ("Deputy Don"), and would also dress up as a vampire to host late-night movies (I think, I don't remember that character too well), and that at 5 years old when he would visit his grandfather they would dress him up as a vampire too and he would rise out a little miniature coffin next to his grandfather.

I told him how once when I was in middle school at a friend's house, his mom came home from a daytrip to that city and asked her how it was when she came in the door with bags, and she was all excited and was like, "I saw Deputy Don at YaYa's Chicken!"

Later, he was talking about his new tattoo and how it hurt when they put it across his spine, and when the sex study prof asked him what it was, he turned around and lifted his shirt and revealed a giant Ouija board across his back.

"Bitchin'," the sex study prof was like.

I then said it was a little impractical, since you could never get the planchette to slide correctly.

"No," the ghost hunter was like, "I'm gonna use women's titties."

Later, before he left, we talked more, and I'm getting from information from him about his ghost tour company he runs. In peak tour time, guides can do 2-3 evenings a week, and you get $25/hour for a 3-hour tour, plus tips. He also said he does a sex tour (i.e., a tour of sex-related sites) and that that's bread-and-butter and it's mostly bachelorette parties, and that as an ice-breaker he asks women what they get off on.

"For some reason," he was like, "All the women from the 'burbs like getting choked and having their hair pulled."

"Interesting," the sex study prof was like.

After he left, I talked with the sex study prof. He asked me (per our conversation at the swingers's barbecue) whether I'd been cycling - he's a big-time cyclist - and I told him yes, a daylong trip to Michael Jackson's boyhood home in Gary, Indiana, and he was quite pleased.

"That's great," he was like.

Then, he was like, "I think I figured out Michael Jackson this week."

"Like how," I was like, "Sexually?"

"Yeah," he was like, "What turns him on," and then he explained that he started from 2 things:

1) He had the money to do anything he wanted and turn into anything he wanted, whether a woman or a better-looking man, and he became what he did.

2) A gossip column quoted Debbie Rowe as saying he would dress up as Peter Pan for foreplay.

From there, he said that a not unheard-of thing is to want to look like your object of desires.

"You know what an autogynophile is?", he was like.

"Like Schreber?", I was like, and immediately he was like, "No, he was mentally ill," and then went on to explain it was straight cross-dressers, who get turned on by dressing like women, and want to do women, though they're not the only ones - there's auto-amputees who self-amputate and also want to fuck amputees, and he even met a gay dude who goes to bath-houses not to fuck, but to look at hot men and then go to a cabin to think about himself being them, and jack off.

So, under his theory, Michael wanted Peter Pan, and to look like Peter Pan.

After we talked more - he is very avuncular, and gave me academic advice - he was tired and went to leave, and I went to hang out with Steve the BDSM guy and some other BDSMers. They showed me some digital photos of Burning Man, and Steve was saying they're starting up a regional group and the other week they went to a campground and made a big model of a warship and lit it on fire to the 1812 overture, and then later this other BDSM guy explained the dynamics of puppy play and pony play to me.

The headspace (as he understands it) is being dominated by being made to walk on your knees without pads not being able to speak have a bit in your mouth etc., or being beaten if you're a bratty sub, but also having affection given to you when someone pets you or treats you well, so you have both sex and love at the same time.

"Man," I was like, "I bet people who get into that are turned on all the time when they're playing."

"Yeah," he was like, "And remember, the tales are attached to buttplugs. That helps, too."

Again, though, he said that he's never done it, except to play the part of a neighbor and tell someone what a nice dog they have, and pet them, or go to his car and get a newspaper for beating them if the owner forgot one.

Doc / Social Hour from a while ago (part I of II): Doc.

The last sex doc I went to was on 2 HIV- gay male nurses from Florida who were allowed to adopt 5 HIV+ kids because they were unadoptable and everyone thought they would die soon back when AIDS first broke, and it was hosted by Steve the BDSM guy, since, though not gay, he has kids and is part of another sexual minority.

The highpoints:

1) Steve said he's more careful with his kids and discipline then he'd be if he wasn't in BDSM, and because of that, he's never ever spanked them.

"Yeah," someone was like, "But I bet you're really creative punishing them."

2) Steve also said that people think BDSM people are different from everyone else, but his life is quite boring and is like everyone else's who is married with a job and a mortgage etc., the only difference being what you do on a Friday night when you can get away from the kids.

3) This one (black) woman with a short leather skirt, high boots, and bleached blonde hair dropped that she works for social services and does mediation, and that she's controversial with her peers because she thinks parents should need a license to have kids, and that she's arrived at this position after having seen mistreated kids in court for years.

4) Someone said that someone they knew in Kenya said all the kids who were born with AIDS were spoiled because everyone thought they'd die at 1st, and now you have all these kids who grew up in orphanages for whom education and a profession was not stressed, and who don't have the best manners/work ethics compared to other kids there who don't have AIDS, and plus now you have to teach these teenagers about safe sex, and you have kids with AIDS and without AIDS experimenting with each other.

5) After, when I was talking with Steve the BDSM guy, he was saying he might not be able to make the next social hour, since he was building a Tesla coil.

"You know," he was like, "One of those coil things that sparks."

"Fuck," I was like, "For sex?"

"Naw," he was like, "Just for fun, with some friends. We got the design plans off the 'net."

2 (black) women telling it like it is.

1) I was in line at the local office supply store to return some index cards (wrong size, needed the slightly larger one) and get a notebook, and the line was really long, and so the assistant manager came and opened up the second line, and this older (white) dude booked from the end of the line to there, at which me and the 20-something (black) girl behind me raised an eyebrow, and then we looked at each other and shook our heads, and she was like, "Some people are so ignorant."

2) When I was coming out of the store, I was walking on the sidewalk and this (black) woman who was just about to turn into the parking lot began to stop to give me right-of-way so I could walk across the entrance to the parking lot and continue on my way, when all of a sudden this young (black) dude in a big SUV roars out from behind her and turns in front of her car and right in front of my face, going like 50 miles an hour, which surprised me a ton.

So, then, I reached out and slapped the back of his car - that's my policy; if I can do that, you're too close to pedestrians and you're being a bully with your car, I tell drivers if they challenge me; this guy didn't, he didn't seem to notice - and when I was on the other side of the sidewalk, the (black) woman pulls up with her window rolled down - she had a white knit cap on, and had these huge black sunglasses that almost covered her face, and she looked more elderly than I expected, close-up -- and she was like, "That guy was a jerk, Did you see him come 'round me and turn in through two lanes?", and I was like, "Did you see me slap the back of his car?, he was totally way too close to me", and right away she was like, "Mmm-hmmm, that is bullshit."

Evangelical humor.

The other day this prof was giving an informal lecture over a free lunch, and she mentioned how once when she was teaching out at Wheaton, this one kid who was really afraid of the Rapture was in the shower, so his roommates set up the room with their radios on and their stuff left mid-activity, and had everyone from the entire floor clear out so that when he got out of the shower he'd think that the Rapture had happened and that he was the only one left behind, which he in fact did.

Purple sweater.

The other week I pulled out all my winter clothes from my plastic zippered bag (instead of pulling out random pieces as I needed them, as I had been doing), and it turns out that my maroon sweater had gotten a small moth hole in it, and my deep purple, 100% wool sweater that I paid full price for and wore when I dressed up had like 6 all up on the right upper chest and sleeve, including 3 big ones.

I was pissed at first, but I quickly employed techniques from Stoics like Epictetus, and asked myself whether I expected anything perishable to last forever anyhow, and I reminded myself that I shouldn't be attached to material possessions, and my anger soon passed.

Like half a year ago, another friend who does religious studies said she's afraid of losing her cat she loves so much, so every morning when she cuddles her she thinks of how she'll be dead soon and imagines her rotting in her hands.

Addendum.

I forgot --

The other weekend when I was at a wedding I was talking with one guy who I know from college who spent time studying abroad in France, and when we were talking about European racism I launched into my British friend's stories about experiencing racism in France, and he said he went to Paris as this wet-behind-the-ears American kid prepared to look down at the U.S., and after like a week of North African students his age accosting him at bars and launching into 10 minute stories about how horrible things were in France and how they wished they lived in the U.S., he said he changed his mind some.

He said all of the stories were very personal too, like how someone's grandmother fell with grocery bags on a busy street, and no (French) person would help her up.

Possum / Whiskey / Spaniards.

The other day when I was biking back from campus in the evening, there was something in the street ahead that looked like a cat, so I swerved my bike to aim at it to make it run real fast out of the road, but it turned out to be a possum, and it just kind of ambled a bit faster, and I had to re-direct my bike away from it so I wouldn't hit it.

Later that night, when I was at the student bar, the older (white) bartender who's kind of gruff found out that my exams were over, and gave me free my first cheap whiskey on the rocks.

Later on, the Spaniards were there, and the one Spaniard who studies Romance lit was bitching about how when you call up the campus Safe Ride (=the door-to-door after-hours shuttle for people who don't feel comfortable walking at night), one operator is nice, but the other (black) (male) operator is a dick, and I had to break it to him that if I was the operator and I heard a male voice on the other end asking for a four-block ride along major streets, I would think he was lazy and a pussy, and be gruff too.

That brought out a story from the Catalan about how he had a (black) (male) cashier at the one cafeteria on campus be like, "Please put the money in my hand," when he had first laid the money on the counter because his hands was full with pizza and his wallet and whatnot, and how that type of behavior in a cashier is bad, and how American blacks are all full of attitude. I tried to explain to him that the 4 out of 5 people who do that usually do it as a conscious or unconscious racist thing and that it probably doesn't happen to white cashiers nearly as much, and that the guy was so used to sticking up for himself that he didn't take a second to evaluate the situation and realize that it had only happened because his hands were full.

Anyhow, no matter how I tried to explain, he just didn't get it, and said that he wasn't a racist, and that black people could be just as bad racists too, and that he treats everyone equally and that in the Spanish context you complain about bad service no matter who's giving it. I said that he was right about (black) on (white) racisim in some select instances, but that that didn't apply to this situation, and that years ago at a conference in D.C. a (black) woman at the coffee cart had told me the same thing, and next day when I was in the same line I noticed it happening to her a lot (and I lied, too, and said that it didn't happen to the [white] cashier at the next cart in the same conference building foyer; there was no other coffee cart), and since then I've changed my behavior and been very particular to put money directly into the hands of (black) cashiers, and that he should separate out intent and perception, and recognize this as a consciousness-raising moment and go from there.

At some point, too, I told him that being the demanding non-(black) person to a (black) person in a service industry job has huge racial overtones, and though sometimes complaints are justified, he should be careful into coming off like someone yelling "Jump!" with the expectations that a (black) person will ask "How high?", but he didn't understand that either, even when I explained how when I saw "This is It" at the all (black) theater the other week the (black) audience clapped and cheered when in the documentary the (white) producer who fronted money for the show was extremely deferential to Michael, because (in my interpretation) it reverses the usual situation ... In response, he said something to the effect that service from many (black)s he's encountered has been shitty and lazy.

Overall, though, he wouldn't hear any of it it, though, at all, and said at some point that he didn't like it either when he went into the black neighborhood bar and everyone looked at him...

I still don't know how to have handled the situation better - maybe to ask him straight off how he imagines the situation to have looked from the (black) cashier's point-of-view?

Race-based hostility at the black neighborhood bar!!!!

The other week my one (white) friend who's originally from Michigan and who's kind of a hippie and who is a huge black neighborhood bar fan was drinking at the black neighborhood bar like she often does and was hanging out with the bartender and talking and was the only (white) person in there, like she often is, and this one odd almost-middle-aged (black) guy who sometimes sells bootleg bottled natural essences table-to-table came in from smoking up out back in the alley, and he comes up to the bartender and is like, "Hey, [the bartender's name], is this your white woman?".

My friend started to give the dude a "what the fuck?" look, but right away, before she could even do that, the bartender was like, "Naw, she black, she just got a lot of Rican in her."