A story bearing on why I had to move.

This past Wed. at a community lunch I was sitting with a couple deans, including one from the business school, and the one from my school (the other dean, the female non-black one), was asking me how life in a different part of the city was, and I told the b-school dean I had to move because I saw students too much.

"I totally get that," she was like, and said she can only live in the same neighborhood as the university because all the b-school students tend to live downtown, and that the worst thing ever was that when she worked for the college, she had to expel a student, and that night she was at a restaurant and that same girl was her server. She said it was mortifying, and exemplified for her the worst of the weird boundaries that occur when you work where you live.

Went canvassing yesterday.

I went canvassing yesterday in my new neighborhood with a local organizing group a representative of which I had met at a block party a few weeks earlier...

I'm very impressed with the groups organization - I was feeling a tad under the weather, so she gave me the precinct where their offices and my apt. is, so I could do it for however long I wanted and then be right there to go home - and most of all, all the people I met when I was canvassing seemed to know the group, including a lot of the (black) people in the low-income 6-story apartment building on my route. The group's rep had told me how they've formed tenants rights associations to put pressure on negligent landlords and lobbied for new building complexes to have low income units set aside, and you can tell that people know about that and appreciate it.

I signed up like 4 people to maybe help people get to the polls on election day (2 black women and 1 black man, and 1 hispanic woman), and reminded a ton of people to vote, and they all seemed to know that it was a crucial election.

One of the units I knocked on was the unit of this older flamboyant (gay) (white) guy who had a lot of friends over, and when we were talking and the guys in his apartment were all saying they were voting, and when I asked the guy at the door if he wanted to volunteer on election day to get people to the polls, one of them butted in from the background and shouted out, "But he's early voting, and he can't volunteer because we have a date on Tuesday!", and so I mock-apologized to the guy at the door and was like, "Oh, sorry for getting in between you two," and winked.

I figure, at least it'll get them talking about voting maybe to other people.

One of the other women in the unit was (black) and was also telling me that through a program she was able to move from living on the street to the low income housing, and is an election day on Tuesday!

Another woman was (young) and (black) and super-tired, but agreed to volunteer on election day, and then was like, "Sorry for being so tired, but I just got off of work, and I feel more tired just being near your energy," and then I told her that I was actually feeling low-energy because I had a mild cold.

I also discovered that the top two floors of the apartment building, which I've walked by a ton of times, is actually a residential drug treatment center of some state program!

I was going to volunteer today but am feeling under the weather, but I'm def. volunteering Mon. and for like 8 hours on election day.

I *love* how this organization knows how to use volunteers, it's like the opposite of the student union.

TRIUMPH! - mailed out my article.

Yesterday after waking up and hacking another huge brown piece of sticky snot into the sink, I made it into school and worked and then mailed out my article about that one dead language that I've been thinking about for 4 years. It cost me over $10 in printing and then like $12 in shipping to send it out to a journal in Cologne for consideration, but it feels great to have that done - for now.

The best part was that the (black) post lady was the same one who I had talked to do the day that I had my parasite.

As soon as I came in, you could tell she recognized me and was looking to bring it up somehow, and the entire time we made small talk and I was saying how I shipping this out, I had worked on it for 4 years, etc., she wasn't listening, though she did laugh and bat her hand at me when she asked me if I wanted international delivery confirmation, and I was like, "No, because you know, I trust you guys, you've never lost anything of mine before!"

Finally, she asked me how the weather was, and I said it was fine, but I had gotten a little cold, and she was like, "And we know your health can be delicate...", and just laughed.

After that, I assured her that the docs gave me one pill, and the parasite cleared up... And while I was telling her that, there was like a line of four people mounting up behind me.

Karaoke places are dying! - No more krunk.

A couple Mondays ago after a departmental dinner me and some people planned to go to krunk, only when we showed up at the bar, it was just a regular night.

I asked the (black) bartender guy what was up, and he said that she wasn't doing it anymore, and that "it had been a minute".

When I asked him further, he said that the neighbors upstairs (the bar's on the 1st floor of a tall apartment building) had probably been complaining about the noise, so somehow someone said something about they didn't have a license.

The hostess still does krunk at other venues, though, so I'll have to find out where they are and go.

Odd canvassing experience.

This past Sunday I went up to this area in the far north of the city to canvass with a local unionizing group, to the Indian/Pakistani neighborhood, which also has a fair number of Mexicans, Chinese, and Russians, and a small number of African-Americans.

The organizer I went with had never done door-to-door in that area before, and not only was it a bad day since the weather was so nice out and people weren't home, but also that most addresses on my list were apartments, and it's hard to get people to answer the door if they don't know you, even if they're home and they talk to you over the buzzer.

It made me miss the single-family homes of northwest Indiana... It's so much easier to talk to everyone there, though when the wind blows there, it doesn't smell like curry.

Woke up with a cold.

So odd -

Though I had stayed out pretty late on Fri. and relatively late on Sat., I relaxed all day on Sun. but nevertheless woke up in the middle of that night being choked by post-nasal drip, so I got up at 3am and went to the restroom and harked back what ultimately turned out to be a disappointingly small bit of dark brown phlegm.

When I lied down again, my throat hurt, so I got up and made some homemade ginger-honey-lemon tea, and then had my last cough drop as I lay down to sleep.

That was enough, though, to make me change my Mon. plans and stay at home all day, and I needed it... When I got up, I thought I was fine, but then when I gargled with salt, I harked up this huge thin piece of dark brown snot that was bigger than a silver dollar and the thickness of a crepe, and super, super slimy (it stuck to the bottom of the sink and wouldn't wash away at first when I turned the faucet on).

I did nap that afternoon, but I was pissed, since I wanted to go into school and ship out an article to a journal for publication.

What a great word.

In ancient Greek, the word I snore is "renko", which the dictionary people note was based on an imitation of the sound for snoring -

RENK! RENK! RENK!

THEFT!!!

I was on the subway platform at like 11pm after a long day at school, and I was leaning against a pillar on the station platform, when I felt a tug on my backpack, and I look back behind me, and there's a young (black) guy standing there leaning against the other side of the pillar.

I take my backpack off my shoulder immediately and look, and there's nothing open, it seems, and the guy casually asks me what time it is, and walks away.

When I get home, I find that actually this small small pocket at the very front was opened, and the guy swiped everything in that - which was actually a ziploc bag full of toilet tissue, advil, and benadryl in case I needed them at school...

I wonder if he thought they were drugs, or if he was just taking whatever.

It really doesn't bother me that that was taken, but it was more that I was right there and he did that shit, that's kind of disturbing.