Anecdotes of a (black) union organizer (2 of 2): House party.

That same (black) union organizer was also telling me that his philosophy is, you can do drugs and it's fine, but just don't let that start affecting him.

He then started telling me how there's 2 apartment buildings in his complex, and the other week there was this party going on when he got home at night, and then it was still going on when he was up in the morning, and then after running errands and getting back home it was still going on, and it went on for four or five days and people were "coming and going and mething and blowing and all of that stuff."

He said that it was fine at first because it didn't affect him, but then after like the second day of non-stop party, a woman across the street said her flowers were gone, and what do you know, her expensive pot full of nice flowers that she had on her lawn was gone.

And, he said that that was the first sign that things might be going on.

Then, a bit later he went to go do his laundry, and in the laundry room a washer was on its side, and at first he thought it was because someone was repairing it, but then he realized that all of the coin boxes were gone, and he couldn't do his laundry.

"Now, that affects me," he was like, "And you can't do that, that is my limit."

So, he called the management company, and they thanked him, since there are 4 laundry rooms in the complex and they had only gotten into 3 of them, when he called, so they were able to save the fourth.

He also said that he came out during one of those days, and a whacked-out guy was leaning against his car.

"What are you doing leaning against my car?", he was like.

"I didn't know it was yours!", the guy was like.

"Like that matters," the (black) union organizer told me.  "He knew it wasn't his."

"He was probably checking out what was in it to steal," I was like.

"Maybe," the (black) union organizer was like.

Anyhow, later he found beer bottles stuck underneath his tires, and he thinks that that guy did it.

Anecdotes of a (black) union organizer (1 of 2): White Castle.

The other week at a going-away party, I was talking with a (black) union organizer who was a friend of the person going away.

He was telling me how he lives in a nice suburb just out of city limits, but there's starting to be pockets of drug-dealing more and more there, and you can start to see parts of the suburb changing for the worse.

He was saying that the other week after work, he was hungry and it was late, and though it wasn't the best idea, he decided to stop through White Castle, and there was a (black) guy in there who came up to him and was trying to sell him weed and stuff.

"And just because I'm black, he thinks I use drugs," he was like.

"Maybe," I was like.  "Or," I was like, "Maybe it's the fact that you were at White Castle late at night."

At that, he laughed, and was like, "Yep, munchies."

He then clarified that there were other customers there and all of them were (white), and the (black) dealer didn't try approaching them.

Ugh, bed bugs.

So, it was going on 7 weeks from when I got bed bugs again, and that's around the point where the life cycle gets broken.

So, on a Friday and a Saturday, I got lazy and didn't spray down my room with rubbing alcohol at night before I went to bed (I figured they were gone, and I'm just tired of the work).

Then, on Saturday into Sunday, I had a restless hot night and my sheet ended up being extended between the floor and the bed, when I woke up.

And, like 4-5 bites emerged that morning as I had my coffee.

There must have been bed bugs on the floor, and they crawled up and got me, using the sheet since I had the legs effectively blocked off as a route of ingress.

I also found one dropping in my sheets, when I did my "wet your finger and try to smear it" test.

I just hate these fuckers.  So much time, and so hard to get rid of, and the welts are so big and I scratch them and have really ugly scabs for weeks.

I really hope they're not with the neighbors upstairs.  If they're just with me, I probably almost got them, but if they're upstairs, that's another layer of complexity, unless I can find an actual bug and then set in motion the city ordinance req to have my landlord hire an exterminator.

I really resent how they have more people living upstairs, and they let others use the laundry room...

If I didn't pick them up in the city, my hunch is that their doing all of that brought them in.

My hunch: tenured arbitrary behavior is the biggest barrier to alt-ac, and healthy academic communities.

I've been thinking to my own experience with arbitrary behavior from tenured professors, which has been an extreme form of common dynamics (no continuity in feedback and random "shoot from the hip" reversals of course, delays in reading emails, etc.).

I've also been thinking to my going out to apply for and interview for non-academic jobs, and the confusion that I've encountered.

Since people there are mostly familiar with undergraduate and masters degrees, they simply don't get how I can be working on a project for years, and be unsure of where I'm at or what I need to do to complete it or what my timeframe is for finishing.

(My hunch is that if they have encountered people writing long papers, it's at the masters level, which has pretty standardized timeframes for capstone projects.)

So, what I'm increasingly realizing is, is that the arbitrary behavior of tenured professors is a *huge* barrier to this "alt-ac" employment, reducing the effectiveness of students' candidacy; if they make it to the interview stage with non-academic jobs, they're simply not taken as seriously, because of the confusion due to the huge difference in professional standards.

Thus, it doesn't really make sense to pursue a Ph.D. degree for academic jobs, and it doesn't make sense to pursue it for "alt-ac" jobs; although it seems like a program might have their shit together and you could get out in time, departmental cultures can easily shift over the time it takes to finish coursework and exams and hit the diss phase, and thus it's just too big a risk, if you're worried about employment.

Thus again, it seems like tenured professors are creating a hell of their own making.

If they simply got their shit together, they could attract smart people, who they enjoy interacting with.

But, most of them won't, and so they're driving out better candidates, and are attracting naive sycophants and the crazy rich...

People on my campus are already commenting that so many entering students are just naive, or just rich and busybodies and crazy troublemakers.

I would hate to be a tenured professor right now, it must be getting so increasingly unpleasant.

A dream of a dying plant.

The other week I dreamt -

I'm in my living room, and am looking at my big healthy plant that's on the top tier of my plant stand.

Its leaves are all subtly turning yellow, and I know it's starting to die like my other plant which had just died.

. . .

(My other plant really did die in this manner; my other big healthy plant is still alive and kicking, however.)

Anecdotes of an (English) acquaintance (2 of 2): His current job.

So, my one (English) acquaintance's job is helping Syrian refugees, and the other day he was doing intake.

And, his client's name was "Jihad."

"From now on, you'll be 'Jerry'," he was like.

When I asked, he then explained to me that the name "Jihad" isn't uncommon, you don't come across it too often, but it's around, kind of like the name "Ralph" in English.

Anecdotes of an (English) acquaintance (1 of 2): His high school days.

So, I know an (English) guy from a friend who I did my masters with back in the day.

When she was having a party, he was there, and for some reason he started talking about going to high school, back in England.

He said his gym teacher was really fervent, and would make everyone run laps a ton.

So, since the track would go just out of sight, him and a friend used to wait till they were out of sight, and then go behind a little grassy dip and smoke some pot.

One day, his gym teacher confronted him.

"How many laps did you run?!", the guy was like.

"Eleven," my one (English) acquaintance was like.

"That's too many, that's impossible!!!", he was like.

"Okay, four," my one (English) acquaintance was like.

"Only four?!", the guy was like.

"Seven, seven!", my one (English) acquaintance was like.

And, the gym teacher accepted that answer, and left him alone.