News of the Catalan.

1) He doesn't know when the term starts, and told that one Slavic prof who we both know from the student bar to call him the night before classes start.

"This is my extended summer," he was like, "And I prepare all my classes the night before."

2) Way back when he had a summer job in Catalonia where he would man a fire-watch tower and report in to emergency services if he saw any fires.

He said once one was like 5km from the base of his tower, but there was strong wind and because of his perspective he couldn't see the smoke since it was being dispersed so quickly, but someone from 30km away was able to see it.

He also said that in between looking in the binoculars for forest fires (which he did every 5-7 minutes), he was studying a book "Teach Yourself Basque!".

Going to a dungeon tonight!

I'm excited.

The museum coordinator who hosts the sex documentary series is giving a talk at 1 of the 3 S&M dungeons in the city, and I'm going to get in on a guest pass for that "fireside chat"...

Steve the Polyamorist gave me his cell and directions, since it's in an unmarked building near a major intersection near the Puerto Rican neighborhood, and you hit the leftmost of 2 buzzers and walk up 3 floors to get to the dungeon...

I wonder if they really need the anonymity, or it's more for the fun of it.

Unionizing: An exception.

My one colleague who's a 2nd career ph.d. student studying Islamic mysticism and whose funding ran out happily signed a union card.

She's working as an editor at a magazine and they make the magazine run, but pay is $9/hour (!) and the pressure is so much from the bosses that you can't ask for a raise without being a troublemaker.

She said she's at the point in her life where she doesn't care, and that she was in a union when she was a public high school teacher and a lot of good things came out of it.

...people I know are not going union...

I had texted my one (white) friend from Mississippi about getting a copy of a syllabus for this one course that trains you how to teach in a specific class, and when he said he'd get me an old one (he took the class; I haven't) but asked me why, he never responded back when I said the union wanted one in order to responsibly make the case that the class was job training that should be compensated.

I had also met with the one grad student from Romance Languages, and he really supported the union but said he couldn't join because he's afraid of what his advisor and committee members would think, but he said he'd get me a copy of this email where people in his dept. were informed that their language teaching was increased from 3 to 4 sections per week (for the same pay), so we could use it (without his name on it, of course) to make the case that salary should be linked to hours by contract.

Only, he ultimately decided not to, and emailed me and said he couldn't afford to be associated with the union in any way.

Another fat person story from my father.

So, like 4 or 5 years ago, my dad was at home, when he gets a call from our then-neighbor the town mortician.

"Hey, [my dad's name]," he was like, "Can you come into town now and help us? We really need it."

"That's nice," my dad was like, "But I'm kind of busy and I can't drop everything."

Then, our then-neighbor the mortician explained that a 500lb. guy had died and everyone at the home was trying to lift him into the coffin, but the 5 of them couldn't quite do it, and they needed a 6th since the funeral was in a few hours.

So, my dad went in, and they had this massive dead guy laid out in a sheet, and nearby this custom coffin that was really just sheetboard with a couple brass handles stuck on the end.

Then, my dad and our then-neighbor and the assistant mortician and the secretaries from the office and the owner all stood around the sheet, and they lifted and hefted and lifted and hefted and finally got the fat dead guy into the coffin.

Only, the owner is this really small petite brown-haired (white) lady, and she kind of let her edge of the sheet drop at one point, and the fat dead guy actually dented the wood edge all along the side of the coffin.

"Well," our then-neighbor the mortician was like, "I guess we'll have to make it a lefthand presentation," and he put some bunched-up cloth over the dent in the edge of the sheetboard, and swivelled the coffin around to put the fat dead guy's head on the left.

"Damn," the owner was like, mopping the sweat off her forehead with the sleeve of her suit, "Doesn't that just make you go want to get a CHEEEEEEESE-BURGER?"

A (kind of disturbing) fat person story from my father.

One of the people in the community college class he teaches is this 400lb. late 30s/early 40s (black) guy who always sits in the class, and one day my dad comes in and sits down at the chair behind his desk, and for some reason it's a lot shorter than usual, and he looks and it's a chair like a student should have, and when he looks up, the big (black) guy has his rolly-chair since it's wider and lets him sit more comfortably.

So, my dad walks up to him in the back, and is like, "Hey, [that guy's name], there's a couple of things wrong with this picture, like, for starters, what about moi?"

And, at that, the guy was like, "Oh, sorry, so sorry!", and hopped up and gave the chair back to my dad.

...somehow, I kind of wondered about the racially-charged nature of that situation when he told it to me, but I didn't ask him about it... it would have been a different story if it was a (white) fat person...

More stories of fat people from my mother.

"And [one person she works with at the library desk] and [another person she works with at the library desk] have gotten so fat, that if someone prints something out, I can't walk past them to get it out of the printer, but I have to ask them to get it for me!", she was like.

I then added that when I had an appt. with a dermatologist in Chicago, they had these chairs in the waiting room, and every once in a while, there was an armrest gone so a really really fat person could sit there.

"Don't be so negative," my dad was like. "You can't be sure of that, it could be for the comfort of people with one arm."

Some stories of fat people from my mother.

They remodelled the library that she works at, and now shelves are longer and closer together.

"And some people are so fat," she was like, "That I can't even get by them in the aisle, and the aisles are so long, by the time you get around to where you need to shelve the book from the other side, they're gone!".

So, she said, if she sees someone very fat in the aisle, she just waits for them to get their book and leave.

"Do you stop them if you catch them eating the books?", I was like.