Do YOU Have Love?

Things have slowed down a little, which is a good thing and a bad thing. I need to be gearing up to get some work done over the break, and I have my students' final papers staring me down from the end of next week. That grading promises to be boatloads of fun. I just hope to god that they haven't all again chosen to argue the same thing about the same small selection of pieces. Whaddayathink? Yeah. I'm screwed. Ah well, at least I made it through the semester, mostly intact. I'm bizarrely looking forward to the comparatively easy work of teaching research writing in the Spring! More grading, more repetitiveness, WAY less prep. The nightmares should start right around the first week of January. Bring 'em on.

I guess my perception that things have slowed a bit is primarily due to some denial I've been cultivating. Does that denial have a face, you ask? Why, yes. Yes, it does. I've been unabashedly scouring youtube for the parceled up back episodes of A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. I still have a wretched time getting her name right. For some stupid reason, my tongue doesn't want to say the 'l', so I'm always saying "Tia," even in the heat of an intensely nerdy discussion with q about the representation of bi-ness on the show. But, truly, the show has found a place in my not-as-guilty-as-you-might-imagine pleasures. I was trying to explain to Q last night what I find so captivating about it. I haven't quite articulated it to myself yet, but in a way I find it more compelling than other such reality shows. This is actually saying something as I've developed something of a penchant for the genre over the last couple of years. Blame it on my devotion to the treadmill. That's how it all began. As a sidenote, I actually had to plead the poor gym attendant today not to change the channel from vh-1 just as I Love New York 2 was coming on. I had, indeed, planned my trip to coincide with the new episode. Things look rocky in the house, by the way.


But the thing with A Shot at Love is complicated. The show is framed in such a way that, at the beginning, Tila was talking about trying to decide if she wants to be with a man or a woman. Now, closer to the end, she's getting a bit more ambivalent about this, talking instead about focusing on the person rather than the gender--a pretty standard bi line that drives non-bisexuals batso. Or, rather, it isn't that one discourse has replaced the other, but they are now woven together in the show. Depending on who she's talking to--the white, wealthy, suburban grotesques who exclaim that they never thought their son would bring "someTHING" like "that" home--or the suspiciously loving and non-prude extended family of our favorite "futch" (you guessed it, femme/butch)--she switches back and forth. I want to say that it radically doesn't matter who she ends up with, but... I'm always pulling for someone on these shows, but it seems less charged whether New York ends up with Buddha or Punk this time around (although, mark my words, it WILL be one of the two) than whether Tila chooses Dani or Bobby. This is all intimately bound up with the show's surreal subjunctivity, posing "straight" men against "lesbians" as though all's fair in love and war. The guys are so hysterical about affirming their heterosexuality that they are and have been way more violent than on any other comparable shows I've watched. The girls are constantly accused, by the guys and each other, of being indecisive, not knowing which (male or female) they want. One girl was kicked off really early in the show for messing around with a boy who is one of the final three. Not to be trusted.

All in all, the language of indecisiveness--always an important part of the drama in this genre-- is intensified as something intrinsic to bisexuality. At the end of the day, as Lorna likes to say, she's most likely to pick Bobby, thus proving once and for all that bisexuality doesn't exist. She likes the "softness" and "understanding" of a woman, but she gets really excited for the men, whose rough faces and strong hands she dwells on in every episode. Tila will go where the sex is, mark my words. Still, though, indulging in the fantasy of equality, which the show exploits with as much panache as is imaginable, I would love to see Dani win. Or lose and move to Buffalo. One of the two.

Mortiri Te Salutuum

That's one of the few phrases that actually stuck after two years of high school Latin. Perhaps further indicative of, as I've insisted to my sister on more than one occasion, high school is not nearly as much about education as it is, ultimately, survival. Anyway, we've just returned from our fabulous weekend in Ithaca. We splurged on a gay-owned b&b, where the owner, equal parts angel and sadist, stuffed us to the gills with three course breakfasts. Bless him, he veganized some of his usual suspects and conspiratorially commented that the other guests didn't need to know. So much delicious fatness. Above and beyond, though, was the amazing aromatherapy, surround-sound, five-headed steam shower. Holy fuck. Follow that up with the softest, fluffiest, robe and slipper combo you can imagine and settle in to watch Tila Tequila for a few hours and I'm completely in heaven. I'll save most of the reviewing for Q, perhaps, but suffice it say, we had a lovely time. Cornell brought out my good old undergrad resentment about the total college experience and that breezy, New England sense of entitlement. I'll refrain from elaborating and keep my self-righteous bile to myself. At least for now.

I close with a redirect, for those of you who feel meanly of yourself for not having taken the GRE, or who are, perhaps, mildly nostalgic about the verbal section. You also get to feel sort of smug for sticking it to the corporate world in that really vague, indirect way that websites with lots of ads offer. Also, it's bizarrely addictive. Check it out here, if you dare.

It Is Broughten!

Halloween Food and Scary Movie Festival tonight at 28. I made the imperious, rather assholey move of deciding who would bring what and further demanded that all food be Halloween themed. Time will only tell what others have come up with, but here's what Q and I are taking.

First, bean dip. Tasty, spicy, creamy. Not particularly good for us. Decorated with tofutti-licious sour cream web and spiders I whittled out of olives. The spots of red on the particularly scary looking ones are sri racha. I went that way instead of Franks for the creepy and bloodlike vermillion hue. I think I get extra points since the olives were not pitted and thus extra tricky. Whatever.

We're also bringing dessert. I volunteered us for this honor because VCTotW has been burning a hole in my kitchen counter for weeks now. Well, maybe the metaphor doesn't work here, but you know what I mean. These are the red velvet cupcakes with buttercream frosting. I got the wrong kind of food coloring, so they came out more brownish-maroon than red. I had been looking forward to a scarlet-gore sort of effect. In any case, I hope they look like brains, but it took a couple tries to get the technique quite right. As with all such things, I know what I would do differently next time. Right now I'm just hoping they're tasty and nobody confuses the decoration for piles of sloppy intestines. What do you think?


Also, first ever food porn on Ignorance Toboggans!

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.