Wish Fulfillment

SNL Awesomeness, via SLOG.

Nausea, and some good stuff, too

Ugh. Does it make me a bad person that I was filled with loathing last night when my mother told me an "exciting" piece of family news? My mom uncharacteristically warned me that this is all very much, for the time being, on the down low (which apparently means I can't tell my sister, since she's the only member of my family whose knowledge of the secret might be of some consequence through me both in that I am actually in contact with her and she might actually give a damn). So here, the big secret: my uncle (aged...I don't know...but he's gotta be at least in his late forties as my mom's baby brother) has decided to propose marriage to his lovely girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend. I'm not sure what she qualifies as and my mom was clearly irritated at my raising such a frivolous question when faced with exciting and happy news and refused to answer my request for clarity. The would-be fiance is in her early 20s and recent left her home state, where she and my uncle dated for a couple of years, to attend grad school on the other side of the country. She's a splendid girl. Cute, very smart, slightly sassy. On my last trip home, I stumbled on a copy of Gender Trouble and presented it with her as a pre-grad school gift. She studies German history with an emphasis in Women's Studies or something of this variety. She's now been away from home for two years, I think, and she and my uncle have more or less kept up a long-term relationship. I say "more or less" because my uncle has always been...monogamy challenged? She always said if she ever found out about another woman it would be over between them. Things apparently changed this summer when she let my uncle know that she had met someone else, and since she's a self-proclaimed monogamist, my sense, and my mom's sense, was that things were over between them. My uncle was appropriately plied with drinks and good humor, I assume, and all was as it should be (I thought). Because, seriously, OF COURSE she would find someone else. Then, apparently, he's had the epiphany that if moving to where she lives is what is required to win her back, then goddamn it he's going to marry her and move. He's purchased the ring, and all that, and is apparently planning to pop the question on Christmas at midnight, where she will be staying at her parent's house (which is, by the way, in a really really rural part of the state). He's under a strict directive to inform my mother the next morning of how things turned out, so I'll be among the first to know, as I'll be home for the holidays this year. Seriously, if she says yes, it will make me so sad on more than one account. Then, again, if she says no, that will suck for different reasons. Thus the nausea. On the one hand, I'll have to participate in the celebration when a dirge seems more appropriate. On the other, just having to watch the vicissitudes of emotion on my mother's face betray her own emotional investment in this couple sounds excruciating. If I can manage to be drunk for that phone call (What do you think? Can I pull off a bender on Christmas morning?) it would be better for everyone, and if all else fails, it will be excellent practice in keeping my trap shut. Families are so good for such exercises in self-improvement.

The good stuff? I recently made the zombie finger cookies from Lindy Loo's fabulous blog, and they were fabulous. Most of them are hurtling through space for my stepfather's Halloween/Birthday party, but they were generally adored by all. STILL want to make some cupcakes, but I've not yet plucked up the checkbook to go purchase the pastry bag and all that. Reading Michelle Cliff and really liking her, so that's fun. However, I loved this comic from Married to the Sea. I hope you enjoy it as well.

Holy Crap

Seriously. What a week this was. It all started off with receiving midterm essays from my students on Monday. Sixteen or so hours later, I had them all graded and commented on. And I was braindead. Poor Q, having to listen to me rant about how predictable and boring such papers can be. To give you all a hint of this mundanity, we've been through two thirds of a rather hefty anthology, read tons of stuff, and yet most of my students wrote on some combination of the same four stories. Seriously, what's up with that? I guess this phenomenon is just the literature class version of the "big game" essay in composition. I could go the rest of my life without ever reading another one of those things. It is, however, compelling evidence against the snowflake theory. I'd love it if there was a way to make students aware of this without crushing their mindgrapes completely. You know, they need a little juice just to get through the day.

What else? Work work work. It occurred to me that I needed to make a couple changes in my first chapter. Again. Then sitting down to do so proved to be this incredibly painful experience. I've looked at this freaking thing so much that out of sheer exhaustion I ready to just let it be what it is, come what may. I finally, after more hours than it really should have taken, managed to hammer something out. Hopefully when I go back to look at it on Saturday, I'll experience much less loathing. This is fascinating stuff, right?

Mina went to the vet today for her "senior visit." In cat years, she's 65, which seems so weird to me. I still call her "baby." Should I switch at some point to "grandma"? Two hundred and fifty dollars later, we walked out with the promise of a phone call in the morning to let me know how her blood screening worked out. I've got my fingers crossed really tightly that they don't turn up something awful. The whole experience prompted me to look at the pet insurance company websites, but ultimately decide against trying to pursue that option. For most of the plans, she's too old, and most don't cover pre-existing conditions, which I assume would her kidney problems and the teeth that the vet wants to extracted. Can you say suckage? Poor kitty.

Enough with the whining already! Q and I have lovely plans to get some delicious Chinese food tomorrow night and then go see Patricia Williams talk. I've offered my students an extra credit incentive to attend and write a response, and it will be interesting to see how many take me up on it. I'm thinking not many are planning on it, but perhaps that will change when I give them back their papers tomorrow?

In My Shoes

Recovering from another marathon Monday--seven hours on North Campus, and slowly letting a touch of bourbon ease the vise-like tension on my brain. The sea of my students' faces was particularly inscrutable today as they demonstrated their manifest lack of enthusiasm for Richard Wright and Nella Larsen. So, as in other days when class doesn't go as brilliantly and smoothly as I'd like, I'm feeling sort of slumped. Mostly, I hope to Yog-soggoth that yesterday doesn't prove any sort of indication of the way the rest of the week is likely to go. You know how people joke about doing ridiculous things, like putting on an article inside out or accidentally wearing different socks (though some of us [me] worry about this particular incident considerably less than others [queercat], occasionally even doing so on purpose when a pair of appealing and matching socks simply doesn't present itself)? Well, yesterday I got up at 6:15, walked the half mile to work, and went about my day for a solid hour before I realized that, yes, I was wearing two different shoes. Yes. Yes, I did. Luckily, they were sufficiently similar in color and material that nobody else noticed without having it pointed out. When Q showed up several hours later, my samaritan with a matching shoe discretely wrapped in a canvas shopping bag, this was the subject of general mirth (for my co-workers) and pinkness (for my gingery self). Ah well. Does this mean a need a day off?
Fucking wah, right?

My good news is that I was granted permission by our neighbors, the lucky owners of a monstrous squash plant that has taken over their front yard, to harvest the squash blossoms than have been growing in more or less abundance. Just to piss you all off, here's what we're having for dinner tonight: our beloved and ubiquitous kale, barbecued seitan ribs, herbed cream cheese stuffed squash blossoms, and baked sweet potatoes with cardamom butter. Suck it.

Parents Gone Wild!

What a week that was. Extra hours at the co-op, loads of evaluations for the search committee, the usual labor of teaching, doing final revisions AGAIN on my first chapter to resubmit it to my committee. I don't know, maybe it wasn't all that much extra work. For the last couple months, though, I've been setting my alarm to get up at about seven in the morning to squeeze the maximum number of productive hours out of the day. Truly, most mornings, I wake up perfectly alert and ready to start the day. My own personal neurosis is that if I don't get up right away, the slowly seeping anxiety will begin to overtake me and completely ruin any semblance of rest above and beyond my standard eight hours. On Friday, though, I actually woke up and thought *ugh, again?*. (Note, for the full effect, you should hear this in the whiniest voice you've ever heard me use.) One class and one search committee meeting later, I was finally able to read some comic books and my assigned reading for Monday. It was kind of relaxing and lovely. Now I'm staring down the barrel of a day completely free for whatever research seems to me appropriate, relevant, and interesting. It's still disorienting to be able to read whatever I want to in the name of research. I suppose it's still akin to the giddiness of radical freedom when I remember being a kid and how badly I wanted to be able to go where I wanted, do what I wanted, etc. Is anybody else still thrilled that they've grown up and escaped their parents?

Also, the pumpkin pie brownies were pretty good. I made them in a 9X9 pan, and if I were to make them again, I'd make them in a round pan of some sort. It figures that I'm not enthusiastic since I'm not crazy about pumpkin in general. Q loves them, though, so mission accomplished.

Lastly, another one for you silly non-sloggers, particularly b. Dan Savage said he would file this one under "every child needs a mommy and a daddy," but I think something more like simply "American family values" would be appropriate. Be prepared to feel very self-righteous. http://www.parentsbehavingbadly.com/

Discuss.

Totally Fake

Why, totally fake? Because (and I know I'm unlikely to garner much sympathy from you lot) I've been busy, yet plagued by guilt for neglecting my blog so grievously. Teaching a survey class, as it turns out, is a fuck of a lot of work. I've almost got comp down to an art form requiring practically no prep, but to do this class right I've had to bone up on a lot of history and related stuff. My class seems largely benign (as in, NOT hostile, thank you god) but mostly very quiet. If they're not moved by the reading, I suffer. Today, I suffered. Last week, not so much. I actually composed a really frustrated blog entry a few weeks ago after trying to teach some Native American accounts of Wounded Knee. Or, really I should say after failing to do so. Then things looked up a bit. I'm managing my crazy stress better now. I'm no longer over-preparing quite so heinously as I once was. Also, seeing my office mates buried in comp essays makes me feel a minor twinge of relief. At least I don't have to talk about thesis statements, even if all my students are likely to write their Midterm essays on the "Yellow Wall-Paper." What can you do?

So, here comes the fakeness. Since I have nothing new to say, only teaching, dissertating, working, running when I can, have the following little shreds of candy. I don't know whether or not I'm the only SLOG fanatic, but on the off-chance I am...In response to extreme protests about the San Francisco Folsom Street Fair posters, which featured a playful rendering of the Last Supper complete with leather daddies and dildoes, Savage has compiled this great collection of other Last Suppers that apparently failed to garner so much outrage. For some reason, I find this endlessly entertaining. Lastly, I just got the famous vegan cupcake book, but lacking a pastry bag and some nice tips (I hope to acquire some soon so I can torture you all with cupcake porn), I'll be making these. We're going to be so deliciously fat.