Odd telephone set-up at my parents.

Somehow with my parents' new cable package, caller ID flashes on TV if you've got the TV on and someone calls.

The other day my mom was in the kitchen and the phone was ringing from my call, so she called out to my dad, "Who is that on the TV?".

"Indiana and the Dolphins," he was like.

She told me this right when she picked up the phone right after he said it, she was still laughing.

Comment of my Latina trans*friend from clubbing.

The other night I went clubbing late and saw my one Latina trans* friend leaning up against the side bar at that one trashy late night club that I like going to.

"Hey," I was like as I came up to her, "Where is my Brazilian husband?".

At that, she held out her hand and gave a haughty backhanded point out to the club.

"Find him and share," she was like.

The Previous Unavailability of Music.

The other day I heard Mahler's "Te Deum" on the radio and was incredibly absorbed by it, and that brought me back to a handful of other times in my life that I'd heard something on the radio in the car, and actually lingered in a parking lot to hear a song through to the end...

With classical, Percy Grainger's "Warriors" and Cesar Franck's Symphony in D, and with pop, Brian Wilson's "Heroes and Villains", in the original arrangement before he had his Smile-associated breakdown.

Because music is so easily available online, moments like those don't really happen anymore, where you make yourself listen to something b/c you're not sure when you'll be able to hear it again.

I remember that even through the early 2000s, Smile was this legendary thing that was on bootlegs and passed around, it wasn't like you could just go out and find it somewhere.

That difficulty of access really made stuff worth more, somehow.

I also find it interesting that Brian Wilson's music lined up with classical music, in its overwhelmingness.

I think that says something about his orchestrations or musical complexity or something.

Unsure about Going for Academic Careers.

You know, between that awful waste of time at the art school and how long it's been taking to get my doctorate, and also the incredible amount of stress and time it takes to get tenure or even to a tenure-track job, none of which is a given, I'm not even sure how seriously I'll pursue an academic career once I graduate.

I once had thought more seriously about it and have lined myself up pretty nicely with credentials, but dissertation completion is still a ways away and I just feel burnt out sometimes, and can't stand the thought of a crazy long application process, and I don't particularly even want to leave the city.

I don't particularly put myself through more periods of economic instability, either; I want a regular, predictable paycheck, and someplace that I'm decently respected.

It really is silly to expect people without any money from somewhere else in their life to pursue a chance at this career.

It really grates me how lottery-like chances at dissertation completion fellowships or the like numbs the consciences of tenured professors because they can be like, "Be sure to apply for that," and then if nothing pops they did their duty, in their opinion, and if someone falls out during the process, that somehow reflects on them and their stick-to-it-tiveness.

And what do they have to offer at the end of this?  A chance to work with people like them?

Eff that.

I like researching and writing, but I don't need a professorship for that, and teaching can be nice, but it's not the be-all and end-all.

I wish that I hadn't sunk so much time into credentialling, with these couple half-finished academic articles prepped to finish post-diss. and a dissertation that's set to be a good academic book but may not necessarily be worth turning into one, depending on what direction I go in.

The doctorate has been good to develop thinking, but as my plans have changed, a lot of things that I've done for the sake of professionalization would have been better spent on other projects.

I almost feel like a demographic casualty of the academy, b/c someone with my economic profile needs luck nowadays in order to make it, the instability so militates against their success.

Really, it's kind of sad for them, and shameful, that someone as dedicated as I am can't make it.

Incredible bar statistics.

I counted up across the open page of my notebook, and of the 31 bars, like 29 were bars that were either new or flipped from previous establishments.

So, I've now delved so deeply into the city's bars, I'm mostly turning up places that got re-established since the last times I was in those neighborhoods.

That one mall was crazy too, where 2 of the bars had only been open for 2 days by the time that I got to them.

A friend who I did my Masters with and who checks in on my bar project every once in a while located 2 online liquor license resources and emailed them to me, and I think I'm now going to have to search those extensively by zipcode in order to locate places that I haven't been to, perhaps involving secondary address searches or checks onto Google maps.

I think my barquest has now entered the "tedious" phase.

Noise from Upstairs: New Varieties.

So, besides the kids running around upstairs, the dad of the couple hurt his leg or ankle or foot or something somehow, and now walks around with one crutch.

The other morning beginning at like 7am and going on for over an hour, it was like a pegleg walking around upstairs, with enough time between thumps for him to move his normal foot and reposition before making a step with his crutch again.

That stuff drives me nuts...

One burst of noise and I can usually get back to sleep, but if it goes on for a while, I'm up and it's difficult to sleep back in till my alarm goes off.

Tales from a former bartender at a T.G.I. Friday's downtown.

I'm really outrunning bars...

The other Tues. I went a new mall complex that's been opening up, and of the 6 bars there, all had opened up within the past month, and 2 within the past 2 days.

I can feel the horizon of bar completion approaching!

Anyhow, the bartender at the front bar of a newly-opened restaurant was quite chatty, and at one point he dropped that he had most recently worked at a T.G.I. Friday's downtown, which was "crazy".

When the conversation allowed, then, I brought back the conversation around to that and asked him what exactly was crazy about it.

"Stuff like you wouldn't believe," he was like.

"Like what?", I was like.

"A man walking in with a purple masquerade mask hanging off of one eye, a broken cigarette in his mouth, and saying he wants us to call the cops," he was like.  "And he says to call the cops because he's feeling homicidal."

"No shit," I was like.  "So what'd you do?".

"I told him we'd call the cops," he was like, "And in the meanwhile, I'm flagging the security guard, 'Come over here, come over here!'".

He then said that the cops came, talked the guy into a van, and took him off somewhere for mental evaluation.

He also said that once two huge 6- and 7-tops were filled with teenage girls who were in there somehow though the restaurant became "19 and up" at a certain time, and they got in an argument and started throwing napkins and straws at each other.

And then glasses, too, which hit other patrons and were shattering everywhere.

He also said that once they found a gun in a holster just sitting in a chair; some guy had gotten up and it had just slipped off him, somehow.

A bit later, the guy even came back looking for his gun and claimed it.