Foreign Accents (2 of 2): Stammering Puerto Ricans.

After I texted that anecdote to my one friend with the cat – I had been to that street fair with her, and since she knows Spanish she had spoken with the vendor to verify that huitlacoche (sp.?) is indeed a fungus, to which he replied (in Spanish), “Yes, it grows on corn” – she texted me back that her favorite mix-up ever was when a Puerto Rican student she went to law school with couldn’t pronounce the word “focus”, and kept saying at a mock trial, “Your honor, our respectable colleague here is trying to fuck us on this issue.”

Foreign Accents (1 of 2): British English.

The other week I was having lunch with my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend and for some reason I was talking about some Mexican street fairs that I’ve been to in the city, and how you can find huitlacoche (sp.?) there.

After I explained what huitlacoche (sp.?) was – it’s this tasty fungus that grows on the corn cob and is more valuable than the corn cob itself – I said that at the street fair I went to “they put it in a quesadilla.”

Only, he heard, “they put it in a case of deer.”

the good, the bad, and the ugly (3 of 3): the ugly.

Between beer-drinking and this abs workout that the (black) (male) (Afroed) bartender at the student bar sold me on, my fat has shifted onto the front of my belly, making me look fatter and giving me bigger love handles, while at the same time my waistline is somehow decreasing and my shorts are falling off.

And, like a month ago I got a bad farmers tan that I haven’t been able to even out, so my arms / shoulder / necklines are dark and kind of match the color of my nipples, while my other skin still looks kind of white.

the good, the bad, and the ugly (2 of 3): the bad.

I got really stressed out several weeks ago. 

Basically, the class that I have to take as unpaid job training in order to teach next year eats up a *ton* of time:

- Tues. and Thurs. afternoon meetings.

- reading through handouts after class b/c much was skipped.

- decently intensive assignments due posted online in between each class (Wed., Mon.), the instructions of which often go to 4-5pp. single-spaced.

- bad posting, where the instructors post late evening sometimes for a next-day deadline (since they assume everyone has an iPhone or internet at home?).

I had hoped to limit the work to Tuesday or Thursday and block out at least 2 days the rest of the week to work 4-6 hours on articles and dissertation, but the work creeps into Wednesday and Friday and between that and other stuff the class chops up my *entire* week.

So, essentially, I won’t be able to work on articles or my dissertation for 6 weeks, or only for very frustrating 1-2 hour chunks, where you barely get going and then you have to set everything aside.

What a shitty school I go to – they really fuck their students.

the good, the bad, and the ugly (1 of 3): the good.

My boxed set of Madonna albums is much better than I thought.

Each album really does have 2-3 major hits, and at least several songs that are very good but I didn’t know at all before.

I was really bowled over by Madonna’s 4^th album, “Like a Prayer”.

Oddly, one of the greatest songs is after the famous 1^st track – “Like a Prayer” – and the famous 2^nd track – “Express Yourself” – and is co-produced by Prince, but doesn’t get much press to my knowledge: “Love Song”.

That song really is like if Madonna did a Prince song, which I guess she did.

Horrid Dream.

A few weeks ago it was so hot and I was tired but had a few drinks before bed, and I kept waking up with a start for no reason.

The second-to-last time, I did have a reason - I looked over groggily, and saw a gray-fleshed face amidst tons of gray curls, with these horrible blue-gray eyes and a gore-covered mouth with the teeth bashed in.

The person was lying down around 3 feet away, and had their face turned towards me and was looking directly in my eyes.

Dutch Women who Sleep with Priests (7 of 7): A Woman’s Observations about her Priest-Lover’s Psychology.

From Tineke Ferwerda’s “Sister Philothea: Relationships between Women and Roman Catholic Priests” (1989; translated 1993) (p. 176; paragraph breaks added for clarity):

To begin with, intercourse was threatening for him.  He thought it splendid to pet and to be caressed, particularly the latter.  It was a surprise to find that there was someone who loved him.  And I was good at that.  Really he learned a lot from me.  Later he was also proud of this.  With patience and practice our relationship became very satisfying in the sexual sphere.  We made love a lot.  Up to the moment when I noticed that he was putting what he had learned into practice with other women.

Did it sometimes give him a kick to be such a good lover?  There happened to be women who themselves had had an unhappy relationship and sought consolation with him.  He found it quite normal to do this.  If other women needed him, he had to give himself to them.  He couldn’t be exclusively for one person; he had to be there ‘for all’.

. . .