Big things happening...

I'm becoming active in the graduate student union on campus.

As of last spring, they affiliated with a major national union that's providing suppport.

I've been attending meetings, and have talked my way into devising talking points to get new members and pre-empt negative scripts that people might bring to interactions with the union (e.g. unions are threatening and manipulative, grad student unionizers are disorganized hippies, etc.).

I'm wondering if I should talk with the profs I work closely with and the dean I know to get their take on how involvement might affect my future in academics.

Near-Death Experience.

The other day I went out the back door of my apartment building to drop a bag of trash into the dumpster before going out, and I opened up the door and walked into the narrow alley and almost got run over by a dump truck that was speeding really fast down there, the guy had to slam on his brakes.

Then, he stared at me like everything was my fault. What a dick.

Story from my one friend with the cat: Margaritas.

My one friend with the cat met me for this free dancing in the park event despite having woken up with a really nasty hangover that morning...

The previous afternoon like 4pm she went to this outdoor taco place with some friends she plays tennis with so they could snag a table before the after-work crowed flooded the place.

As it turns out, her friend ordered a pitcher of margaritas, and when they were finishing the first one, she was like, "Whoh, this is strong, we should switch to beer," but her friends convinced her to just eat a taco and then they'd see what happen.

So, the last thing she remembers is eating a taco and then starting a 2nd pitcher of margaritas... She talked to one of her friends, and she said they had to walk her home.

That night, too, at 10pm, she came to consciousness in her bathroom in the same skirt she had worn to margaritas, and she was sitting on the edge of her bathtub holding an icepack to this bump on her head that she doesn't know how she got.

Then, she looked around, and there was vomit all over the bathtub and all over the bathroom floor, and some down the center of her skirt, especially at the bottom.

Mexicans love me...

...when I try to order shit from them in Spanish.

I've been buying Mexican popsicles ("paletas") from the street vendors with the little ice cream carts, and they teach me little phrases like "Quando?" ('how much?') and "Tenge un buen dia!" ('have a good day!').

I think they are used to stumbling through English badly, so they are glad someone is trying to speak Spanish with them, and then they can be very nicely magnanimous by helping to improve my Spanish, which is probably a wish fulfllment thing for them where they wish they had someone to nicely help them improve their English.

Everything is breaking down...

My bike - gear chain got fucked, had to buy a new one.

My computer - my zip drive port won't work anymore, and it's acting funky.

Bugs in my apartment!

The other night I was cooking by my stove when something black and elongated oval-ish ran out in a long, smooth arc from under the stove and out into the open and then back under the stove, but I have no idea what the heck it was (too big for a silverfish, though the lighting was odd and perhaps its legs cast odd shadows, and it moved too slowly for a roach)...

It makes you realize why beds have legs, so bugs can't crawl up onto you while you sleep.

Story from my friend with the cat: Summer camp.

My one friend with the cat went to this rural summer music camp like over an hour away from my hometown when she was in middle school back in the mid-80s...

She said the camp was segregated by sexes outside of rehearsals, but they had this dating system left over from the 1950s where you could ask a guy you liked down to an ice cream/soda fountain place to get a pop or an ice cream float on a "coke date".

"Coke dates?", here older sister and brother-in-law who were at that time lawyers in L.A. were like, "We go on those all the time!"

She said she only realized what they meant when she was in her 20s and for some reason thought back to the comment.