Changing neighborhoods...

I've been thinking for a long time of changing neighborhoods.

My funding is running out this year, and not only am I sure that I want a service industry job (waiting tables, bartenders) to complement my dissertation writing -- you can't teach to live and still remain sane, though you can teach on occasion for experience and the salary is helpful then -- and you just don't have those opportunities in my neighborhood, and plus transportation back here at night is a bitch.

Additionally, I know of a neighborhood I think I'd like to live, and if I'm going to be on the job market in 2 or 3 years, I think I would regret not having tried living there.... The neighborhood is pretty (black), and it has a bunch of African immigrants to boot.

The other week I was up there, and the following happened:

1) I ate at an African restuarant, and the hostess loved my saying the portion of jollof rice was bigger than my head, so how could I eat it?

Also, a 30-something couple had their young son in, and he looked tired, so she was like, "Come here, baby, I will make you fufu," and she went up to him and took him in her arms.

2) At the McDonald's that I swung through, this big group of (black) teenagers hanging out was talking about some girl, and the one was like, "You know, Maria with the ugly face and the big titties," and then one was like, "You mean with the mark here" - and at that he gestured to his eyebrow - and then the other one was like, "No man, the one with the gap in her teeth, Mexican Maria."

3) Walking out of the neighborhood, I passed a storefront church on the main drag called "Temple of Victory", and a huge gospel sound (live!) was coming out of it.

...

Plus, I think I can the same price for an apartment. If I work at a restaurant or bar 3-4 times a week, what's the difference between living near there, and commuting to school, versus living near school, and commuting to a restaurant or bar job? I say live in a new neighborhood and try it out.

More Student Bar Sleaziness...

I forgot -

The other night when I was in the student bar, the younger (black) bartender, who's a really nice guy and like the only younger bartender I like, was telling me and a barfly I know that he's had his fun at the student bar, and remembers once looking around in the room he was bartending in (the bar is set up in multiple rooms, with bars in the front and the back) and realizing that he'd slept with five women who were in the room right then.

Also, I always order my whiskey and glass of water "...and no straws", because plastic is petroleum, and the gruff old white bar tended started giving me good-natured hassling over it that same night, and then when he asked me why, I told him that oil got us into Iraq, and plus they had brain-washed my generation with Earth Day since elementary school, and to that, he was like, "Well, there's worse things you can be brainwashed with," and he told me that from now on, when he remembers, he's going to stop putting straws in glasses unless people ask.

Saw a professor...

So, there's this one (tenured) professor who I run into at the student bar every so often.

The night after I ran into my one Belgian friend, I ran into her there, and we had a very good conversation, including -

1) A good friend of her friend's mother is John Waters, and he was an usher at her friend's wedding. He wore a white tux and escorted her to her seat, and she was so flustered all she could do was curtsy, since she used to sneak into movie theaters to watch movies like "Polyester" when she was growing up in New York... She said that at the reception she wanted to talk to him, but all she could do was lean against the bar like ten feet away from him, and try to overhear the comments he was making to the circle of people around him (she said they were invariably funny in a John Waters kind of way, and he was nice to everyone).

2) Her 6-year old daughter is obsessed with this Pixieland game or something that's Disney-licensed where you get to customize a fairy and hang out online with other fairies in these little fairy worlds. Because she's sure that at least half the fairies are perv-y 60-year old men, she customized her own - she made her fairy really dark black and with violet eyes - but now when she goes around to talk to the fairies to check them out, you have to ask them "Will you be my friend?" before you can talk further, and everyone keeps saying 'no' to her.

"It's pixie racism!", she was like.

3) One time she had this undergrad couple in her Milan Kundera class that would make out the entire class, and like the 3rd class, she called them out on it.

"If this is some meta-commentary on Kundera," she was like, "I approve, but I think I got the point the first time you made out for an hour-and-a-half in my class."

Then, she kicked them out.

I asked her if they got into heavy petting, and she said she couldn't see below the desks - they sat in the back - but she assumes they did, since they would start by playing with each other's hair, then nibble each other's ears, then kiss, then start frenching, and at some point their hands would drop below her line of vision...

4) Another time, this kid would always fall asleep in her seminar, and it was small, so once she got the entire class up and left to a different room while he was there sleeping.

Also worked up - the Belgian!

The night of the Supreme Court decision I was going to the student bar to have a drink and see if I ran into people, and on the way there I ran into my Belgian friend.

"Hey," I was like, "How are you?"

He said something, and when he asked in response, I was like, "To tell you the truth, I'm really upset over health care and now this Supreme Court decision."

At that, he confessed that he was too. I hadn't known it, but he's planned for like forever to stay here in the U.S. after he finishes his degree, and he wants to become a citizen.

"I really have no plans to return to Belgium," he was like.

He then added affably that why should anyone care about Belgium, it's nice enough but it's so small, but to be a U.S. citizen, any vote you make affects millions of citizens.

He then also added that he's bothered by how people get caught up in parallel streams of news and accept lies about ObamaCare and how much money this will cost, when it will actually save money in the long run.

"I just don't understand why people don't look at other countries and see how well this works," he said, and added that he had been hoping that this recent economic downturn would lead to a worldwide revival of socialism, but he doesn't think it lasted long enough.

And, after we finished - he was heading home to take weight off his feet, he hurt his foot lately - he said, "And I will definitely open a bottle of wine now, I need a glass after talking politics."

Also worked up -- my advisor.

On Fri. afternoon when I was around school, I passed my advisor in the vestibule when I was heading out...

She was in a rush, just like I always am, but called out in response as we passed each other, "How are you doing?"

"To tell you the truth," I said, hushing my voice -- and at this she stopped dead and turned around to face me -- "I'm very upset over health care maybe failing, and then this Supreme Court decision."

As she looked at me, her face was very grave, and her eyes were teary (I've never seen her like that).

"I know," she was like, "I am too."

Then, she added as she grimaced and turned around to leave, "But don't worry, things will get better," and as she said that, her voice was strained like she was on the edge of crying.

A thought about these leftist progressives...

All these progressives resisting health care are like the leftovers from the Dean campaign --

They're all privileged white people who use the internet a lot and take up the cause of the poor because it makes them feel good, but ultimately they won't bear the consequences of their being out of touch with reality when they fuck all the poor people who don't live in their neighborhood out of health care.

All shook up.

Whenever I get out of section from being a teaching assistant, I'm on this adrenaline high that lasts for hours.

Also, for some odd reason, a disproportionate number of the droppers from the add-drop rush at the end of the 1st week/beg. of the 2nd week of class were in one section of mine. I think that was just coincidence, but I kind of oddly found it personal.

Also also, the one student who forgot we had a big assignment due this week is also in one of my sections (though she skipped section last week, when we discussed the impending big assignment that was due, and she must have not been in lecture or tuned out when the professor noted it was coming up), which I also found to be an odd (=poor) reflection on myself.

My friend with the cat: A dude she took home.

My one friend with the cat every once in a while tells stories about memorable dudes she took home.

For example, the other night she talked about when she used to live in L.A., she met an Ultimate Fighter at a bar, and he was telling her about how bad he felt about the guy who died after a fight with him, from wounds inflicted during the fight.

"I probably should have said no from that," she was like, "But it was too hot."