The other week I was texting with my one (art school) colleague who wears (women's) clothes, and he was making a joke that Katy Perry fans should be called "Left Sharks."
And, I corrected him, and pointed out that they're actually called "Katy-cats."
Then, I told him that all the roadies who've f*cked her are called "Katy-dids."
. . .
(I made that sh*t up, but he believed me at first, or at least wasn't sure whether to believe me or not.)
...when I was adjusting something in it as I was leaving work the other week, at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:
A rough kind of plastic feel on something oval, that I gradually realize is an avocado, and as I feel it more and more and go to pick it up and take it out, my thumb goes right through the sort-of-hardened avocado skin shell on it, and I realize that it's beginning to rot, like it's a week or perhaps two over-ripe, though not more.
. . .
(Like a week or so before that I had gotten an email when I was working a lunch shift that there was a flash sale on sweet cherries at the local grocery store -- $1.99 a pound! -- and so I headed there after work to get some, and besides my like four bags of cherries, I also picked up some avocados for my avocados-on-toast thing that I do for breakfast, and since I didn't have my usual canvas grocery bags, I had to get some plastic bags at the grocery store, but I also used my work-bag to take stuff home, including some cherries and all of the avocados, and I guess I accidentally missed one in there when I was unpacking the bag and I left it in there all that time, to rot.)
...by my (just graduated-from-college) (front) (upstairs) neighbors, who are moving out, and who I got to let me tour their apartment so I can see what it looks like, and offered them a tour of my cottage in return:
The (shorter) (skinnier) (jumpy) one (stepping inside): "Smells like a cottage."
. . .
(As I often do all day, I had all the doors and windows closed to keep the cool air inside from the previous night -- I don't have A/C, to save money and to be environmental and to be more in-touch with natural temperature cycles -- and there was a a strong stale espresso smell inside, and perhaps sauerkraut from my breakfast, and also a little condensation since the tile floor can do that inside when it's hot out during the summer, beyond the trouble that water has in evaporating after I take my shower in my little shower-booth that's tucked inside my bathroom that's tucked inside my cottage... I wonder which particular part or parts of the smell made him think that, or was it all of it, and if he could have parsed that reaction, or was it something primal and automatic, like an animal, and so he would have been unable to, it was just a visceral reaction, because as for me, I don't even notice it, you know.)
For some reason, I saw a social activism job ad right in my area, and in an area that I'm interested in and where I have experience, but, it's like $70K plus bennies for a job that works you to death at like 55-60 hours a week.
Like, I'm interested for a change of pace and the extra money would be nice, but compared to waiting tables, it's not *that* much more money per hour, especially after taxes, and I'd rather have my freetime.
Of course I'd make different decisions and opt for something like that if I had people to support like a family, but I don't, so I really don't see the point of going into something like that.
Years ago my one (lawyer) friend from (Missouri) told me not to worry so much, that I'm doing okay and making good choices and if money and benefits ever become important to me, I can shift into something like that, but still, I just wish that I had better-looking career options that were a bit more professional, for my dayjob.
I really do feel like over the past few years I've figured out a few wedge issues, that have really just pried open all this okay-accurate but uncritically traditionalistic stuff that has actually been sleeper issues holding the field back, with the one ancient language that I've been studying intensively for the past few number of years.
Like, I'm increasingly realizing that this major part of the language that everyone says is one thing because of this one major semi-deified scholar from the 20th century, all of that is actually probably several different things that historically got merged together, including some stuff that patterns with stuff in some famous languages from another family-branch.
I'm also realizing that some orthographic and language instructional stuff goes back a fuck-ton of time to early indigenous language instruction, and you can draw a straight line on some less-than-ideal presentational stuff from all of that then to major scholars now who are considered the el primo experts at the el primo universities.
That's on top of how some stuff I figured out makes estimates of chronological development that recognized experts have put on paper multiple times off by something like a millennium (!).
If you even straightforwardly said any of this in pithy one sentence summaries, you'd be ejected from polite society, even though you'd be stating things drily and crisply and you'd be entirely correct and entirely justified within an intellectual world actually devoted to rational ideals.
But, in reality, even if you buried these points as minor asides, you'd have other scholars steering clear of you, since you're right but you're questioning what "powerful" people have said and so it's better for their careers to not engage.
It really is astonishing to me how many of the "best" experts out there now have been made to look like shit, by projects I'm doing. I mean, I listen to them and cite what's good and they do have good things that they're saying, but it really is just astonishing. Like, at this point, it would be easier for me to list who I **haven't** made look like shit (yet).
My one (grad school) colleague who got into (social work) once observed to me when we were talking about something, that I usually see something shaping up and digest it and render a verdict that can seem from out-of-nowhere and even a bit out-there at the time, but in retrospect, I'm almost always proven right (= his words to me about me, more or less).
With activist-y stuff and freelance writing, that kind of approach just runs into too many barriers that puts an end to so many worthwhile contributions before they start, whereas with scholarship at least it's out there for those who might care, and for posterity.
