Self-reflection: Guatemala.

I ran into this girl I know from the Obama campaign at a co-op part last weekend.

She had done some Chinese school in China after the campaign - she worked for them for a month - and is now thinking of getting her MBA, since she realized that people with consciences need those skills.

After she said that, I told her a horrific story about this Lithuanian guy I know who was in private equity in New York, and when we had coffee he would come out and say shit like if it benefitted him or his family, it was ethical, and that they would be protected from global warming, and that he would love to live in West Africa (he had been there for work), since you can get a big mansion for cheap and labor is cheap, so you have people to take care of the place and serve you.

At that, she told me about this guy in her Chinese school who had grown up in New York and was an investment banker, and he had told her about a trip of his once to Guatemala to visit an uncle there who had married into one of the ruling regimes there...

When they were there, there were all these military checkpoints when you were driving, and their chauffeur kept getting pulled over and everyone wanted bribes, but as soon as they told them which family they were from, the soldiers got deferential and let them through without any hassle.

"You know," he was like, "People talk all the time about oppressive regimes, but they can be very nice for some people!"

(She said that he said this in the tone of wide-eyed amazement, as someone who had never thought of something before at all...)

Saw Avatar in 3D at the IMAX.

So, last weekend I saw Avatar in 3D at the IMAX with my one hippie friend from Michigan. She had already seen it once (small screen, non-3D), and wanted to see it again.

Overall, it was exactly what everyone said it was -- much, much better than I thought. I left in a happy daze, and was so glad I went. I didn't even find the script cliched like everyone said it was!

Though, I did have a run-in at the theater. During the first, quiet scenes, these 3 (white) people - 1 guy, 2 women - were talking to each other full-voice about the movie.

"Wow, would you look at that?", the woman said to the guy next to her.

After this happened like a second time, I turned around, but they didn't even noticed I had turned around - the seats are really on a huge incline so I tapped the guys leg and was like, "Hey, could you guys please not talk, I can hear you and I want to watch the movie."

At that, the woman whispered to the guy, "What did he say?", and then the guy leaned down, stared at me (he had those stupid 3D glasses on!), and there was tons of alcohol on his breath.

I ignored him and watched the movie, and then he got bored with it, but for the first third of the movie, every time there was a slow part, he'd gently kick the back of my seat (I think).

I was thinking of going to get an usher, but I didn't, and he got bored and stopped.

Also, I thought through what I would do at the end if he got confrontational - he didn't; and I didn't even look back, I just talked with my friend while everyone was filing out - and finally I had decided on saying -

"Dude, that whole movie had one lesson - don't be an asshole. So, please, don't be an asshole."

Section mistake.

During section the other week, I referred to the upcoming historical Jesus book "The Shadow of the Galilean" as "Standing in the Shadow of the Galilean".

Cabbage.

My new cooking experiment:

I'm making my own sauerkraut.

A Romanian grad student loaned me a Romanian cookbooks (we had been talking about recipes), and next thing you know, I have a jar of shredded cabbage fermenting on my kitchen counter.

I have the cabbage weighed down in the brine solution by a plastic lid that has a few butterknifes holding it down so it doesn't float up.

Sometimes, I come in, and press the knives down into the lid, which makes the lid press down against the cabbage, and all these bubbles rise up from somewhere within the cabbage!

New job idea...

The census! Starting pay is like $18/hour to walk around and go door-to-door.

My mom was hesitant, but I was like, "Shit, Mom, I went door-to-door campaigning in Gary," and after a pause, she totally agreed, and was like, "I guess that's right."

Honestly, I enjoyed going door-to-door for Obama, and I did that for nothing, so why not do it for pay? It would make a nice complement to dissertation-writing work.

I went and took the test the other day... When the exam proctor was collecting them, me and some other test-takers started talking, and this one (black) lady who had worked it ten years ago laid it all out for me and was like, "And you know, the assholes you go to watch out for are all them people in [the yuppie neighborhood downtown], they mean, they don't answer surveys, they sic the concierge on you!"

Saw Patti Smith yesterday.

I saw Patti Smith yesterday; she was in town to speak at the main public library branch about her new memoir of her and Robert Mapplethorpe being young in New York.

I like Patti Smith - she is talented, honest, down-to-earth, and real.

But, since I had lined up before the library opened at the side entrance with a lot of people (it was the first line I saw), I almost didn't get in...

At least 1200 people showed up, and the auditorium only sat 300, and after waiting in line inside forever, I went up to the front (the people next to me held my place) to do some recon, and found out that they handed out yellow tickets to everyone coming in the main entrance, and they had been snatched up!

So, me and a few folks I had been near in line went up farther near the auditorium entrance, and when a (white) lady with a badge passed, I asked her what was happening, and when she said that all the tickets had been distributed and you had to come early, very nicely that we did come early, but we saw people at the side entrance and waited there.

"Well, you guys wait here," she was like, "And if some people from the press don't show up, I may have tickets to give you."

As it turned out, she did have two tix, so me and another guy of the four of us who were standing around got to go in! Though, it was open seating (even for the press), but it was relatively intimate auditorium, so our seats were great.

What struck me, though, is what the lady said when she gave us tickets - that when she came in to work at 11:30pm, she saw all the people lined up and she knew that her entire day would be people yelling at her.

"And so when I can, I reward the people who are nice to me," she was like.

After the talk (and Patti Smith also sang a few songs), I went upstairs and I had the two tix (which also let you get in line for booksigning, they were numbered), and I looked for the 2 other people who had stood around with us but didn't get in, but I couldn't find them. There was another line of people with books waiting around in line for them to get signed (maybe Patti Smith was going to do a few after she got done with the books of the people in the auditorium?), so I looked at the line and looked for nice people. There was one light-skinned, slightly overweight (black) woman in her early 30s with a nice face, and since everyone in the auditorium was pretty much white, I went up to her and asked her if they had numbers to get in or what.

"We're in line, so go back there," she was like.

At that, I turned my shoulder to her and gave the tickets to two older (white) women who were sitting on the floor and reading quietly, so they could go downstairs and not have to wait around all day.

I'm going to send a thank-you card to the woman who gave me the ticket, also, in care of the library branch.

3 projects: 2 languages, 1 quilt.

1) I've picked up some Spanish phrasebooks so I can engage Mexicans in ordering tacos.

The other night, I was out with friends at a Mexican place, and I was like -

Quero una torta con carne asada, por favor -

and the waitress asked me (in Spanish) if I wanted everything, so I was like -

Si, con los todos -

and then she with a smile corrected me and said it was either "el todo" or "todo" (I think it was just "todo").

Then, since I was so nervous that I forgot half my order, I was like -

y una diet coca-cola tambien, por favor! -

and she gently corrected me again, to say "una coca-cola dieta".

2) On the 14th when I went into the French bakery near my (current) apartment, I greeted the owner - this short monolingual French woman who is kind of fat and wears black and a black hat and little rubber boots all the time, and talks with customers while her tall, thin, overworked (French) husband slaves away in the kitchen - with -

Bonjour, ma valentine! -

and she laughed good-naturedly at that, because she thought my joke was cute.

3) My mom is helping to repair a quilt for her co-worker at the library in my hometown - the woman never quilted before, and she messed up the pattern some, and then her the distances between her stitching was all over the place, and I think some other things were wrong as well - and so my mom took on the salvage project (the woman put a ton of time into it) and finally finished it for her like this past week...

"[the woman's name]," she was like, "Box it up and ship it to the Vatican, because they need to declare it a miracle."