slouching towards august

6 days?

2010-07-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

I am due in 6 days. In 6 days, a number of health care providers expect me to have a baby. In 6 days, I expect to have a baby. Which is the same thing as becoming a mother. I think.

I thought last Monday was the day for sure. So many contractions and feelings of weirdness and a general sense of cataclysmic change. But, no.

I have been sewing. And watching The Gates on Hulu. And eating the vegetarian Indian food that my mom cooks for me. And waiting.

unexpected pregnancy side effect of the day

2010-04-22T23:39:00.000-07:00

Teenagers are suddenly horrifying. Their pouts, their sarcastic swearing, their black lipstick: these strike fear into my heart. I look at them and hear faint echos of "I hate you!" and "you can't tell me what to do!" in the distance.

We just watched New Moon, the second installment of the Twilight Saga, and while I usually love teen melodrama, I kept thinking that the only person who spoke any sense in the movie was her dad, and that teenagers should not be allowed to make major life decisions.

This from a girl who moved to Germany with her boyfriend at 16.

I'm in for it, aren't I...

dentist

2010-02-18T10:37:00.000-08:00

I went to the dentist today to have a filling fixed. It broke over Christmas, when I was in New Hampshire, and I've been avoiding that side of my mouth for months.

My dentist is in an office building with other medical offices of all various varieties. My dentist has an unusual Armenian last name, and three other practitioners in the building have it too. A pediatrician, a periodontist, and a neurologist.

I can't help but imagining some elderly Armenians at a lunch buffet somewhere in Glendale reminding their friends.

"Our kids? Dentists and doctors. All four."

Five seems like an awful lot...

2010-02-17T16:33:00.000-08:00

It is warm here, almost hot, and I am in a lazy, post-teaching stupor. If I weren't on the brink of throwing-up, I might say something self-deprecating about my inability to pull it together and make something of my late afternoon.

I keep moving from room to room, looking for somewhere to settle down. In front of the computer? On the bed? In the bath?

I wish I had a sewing basket filled with items needing simple repairs. I would like to be mending.

Mike is in class until 10:15. I leave to pick him up at 9:45.

Four will suffice for today.

5 More Things

2010-02-12T14:08:00.000-08:00

I can handle things in units of 5.

It is very beautiful in LA. Blue sky and blooming South African trees.

I went to a Bris the other day, my first, and was surprised that I almost passed out. The moyle in his Hasidic hat, the heat of the crowded room, the father in tears, the big brother screaming, the baby screaming. It was much.

Mike and I are going to a Bed & Breakfast this weekend. This will be our first trip to a Bed & Breakfast. We have been together for nearly 11 years.

I am very excited about this Bed & Breakfast excursion.

My downstairs neighbor just told me that we are very quiet. That he never hears us. He seemed slightly disappointed.

5 Things

2010-01-15T19:32:00.000-08:00

This week I learned a dangerous graduate school lesson. If you aren't finished with something by a deadline, and you tell your adviser that you aren't finished, nothing happens. They say, "oh, when can you be done?" And you say something like, "next week" and that's that.

Mike is going to Seattle this weekend, and I'm going to finish this prospectus draft. I swear.

I feel as though I am typing through frozen molasses. It's like one of those dreams where you can't run away from your pursuer because your feet are stuck in tar. But in this case, it's typing.

I leave meetings with my adviser sure and with a plan. A few hours later, I am making feverish lists that include terms like:

Cuban Missile Crisis
Norman O Brown
Hair
Prague Spring

end

2009-12-30T20:11:00.000-08:00

The year is coming to an end, and I find myself with very little to offer in the way of year-end summary. But I will say that it is nice to be back in Los Angeles after 10 days on the East Coast. Here it is cold and rainy and familiar.

We saw tons of people while we were back there, but we didn't have nearly enough time with anyone. A day here, a dinner there. It was too brief and too rushed.

Mike's brother started a new family tradition, at least I hope it becomes a tradition. He bought a nice bottle of champagne and some fizzy apple juice for the non-drinkers, and we all gathered after Christmas dinner around the kitchen island and made toasts to everyone and everything that came to mind. The the brother about to deploy to Afghanistan, to the sister 4.5 months pregnant with her first child. To the girlfriend applying to graduate school, the step-father who went to the grocery store three times before 10 a.m. to procure all the things we needed for a joint carnivorous and vegan feast.

If I sound melancholy it's because this week between Christmas and New Year's always makes me melancholy. That they keep playing Auld Lang Syne on the radio isn't helping things, really.

some feminists

2009-12-03T10:11:00.000-08:00

I'm in lecture, showing a movie to students about 2nd Wave Feminism. It's called "Some Famous Feminists."

I've seen it twice before, because I've taught this class before.

"You could hear the ovaries roll on the floor."

The Lavender Menace, etc.

Overheard Today

2009-11-24T16:07:00.000-08:00

The scene: Two teenage girls standing roughly 50 ft. apart in the middle of my street. They are shouting so as to be heard despite the distance between them.

Girl 1: Guess what?

Girl 2: What?

Girl 1: I'm pregnant!

Girl 2: Bullshit.

Girl 1: No. I am.

Girl 2: Bullshit.

Girl 1: No! I am!

Girl 2: You are not.

Girl 1: I am! You can come over and see the paper work!

Girl 2: Why is there paper work?

Girl 1: Just come over.

Girl 2: I can't.

Girl 1: Why not?

and so on it goes....

thoughts about some words

2009-11-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

I just taught section, and we talked about Paris is Burning, one of my most favorite movies. After listening to three students describe the movie as "interesting," I asked them to refrain from using the word interesting, knowing that it is pretty near impossible to make it through a section without succumbing to the "interesting" at least once. They tried, and they all giggled when someone, everyone, slipped.

I told them that I couldn't stand the word "interesting" because it didn't mean anything, or rather, that it meant too many things to function as a useful term in an academic context.

Mostly I was tired of listening to 25 people say that the thing we are meant to talk about is interesting. In all honesty, I don't mind the word interesting and I'm not much of a stickler for specificity in verbal communication. But I thought this word ban might help them think of new ways to express their...interest...in the topic.

There is one word that I truly can't stand. A word that makes my hair stand on end when I hear it thrown around -- on TV, by my beloved husband, by everyone.

Curious?

Blessed.

Yes, I am the kind of person who can't stand the word blessed. Draw your own conclusions. My yoga teacher uses the word blessed to talk about getting to do yoga. People I haven't spoken to in 13 years who appear on Facebook use it in response to the question, "Hey! What have you been up to for the past decade?"

The obvious problem, from my perspective, with the word blessed is the implication that one's good fortune is somehow the work of some kind of deity (sometimes referred to as the Universe, fate).

It sounds so smug. As if I have been chosen by God to do yoga. I have not been chosen by God to do yoga, of that I am sure. I did, however, have the good fortune to be born in the first world and meet a man who would marry me and subsidize my yoga practice. If I am blessed because I get to do yoga, instead of say lucky or thankful or appreciative, what about those people who can't do yoga? Are they cursed? And if the non-yoga do-ers are cursed, how do we account for x horrible things happening to children right this minute? I'm not going to give examples, but I study German and American history so know that I have plenty of examples at my fingertips.

I know there is some really simple theological/epistemological/philosophical explanation that accounts for the widespread use of this word, and that really I'm making a familiar, not terribly sophisticated point about language and the presence of inequality of experience in the world (universe?). But, I just listened to 25 people describe young, gay hustlers dancing and dying in Harlem as INTERESTING and this leaves me feeling entitled to type a screed about a word.

I'm so blessed. (You saw that coming, I'm sure).

cleaning

2009-10-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

I've spent the past few days trying to put my house together in preparation for Mike's big sibling reunion 2009. It's been 4.5 years since all the kids were together -- since our wedding, actually -- so it feels pretty momentous.

I swept and swifted and dusted and vacuumed and washed down the sides of appliances. It's a two bedroom apartment, but I could spend all my time cleaning it. I just walk from room to room with a wet rag, occasionally getting so swept up in a streaming episode of Fresh Air that I forget what I'm doing.

So now the house looks in order, and there are clean sheets on the guest bed. It's very quiet -- Mike's at the airport retrieving two of the siblings -- and I'm sitting in the semi-darkness wondering why I don't keep the apartment this nice all the time.

home

2009-10-12T15:55:00.000-07:00

My neighbor is selling a Model T for $10,000.

Open Letter to Jewel Staite

2009-10-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

Dear Jewel Staite,

When I saw you in Trader Joe's this afternoon, I had just eaten half a pan of brownies and was on something of a sugar high. It was just two weeks ago that Mike and I watched our first episode of Firefly. We watched the whole first season over three days. The minute it was over, we ran out and rented Serenity. Then we cursed Fox for canceling it after just one season. Stupid network honchos. (See also: My So Called Life and Freaks and Geeks)

So Firefly has been on my mind a lot these past few weeks. I've looked at some fan sites, I listened to an hour-long interview with the creator, and I came this close to downloading a screen saver.

And I love your character, Kaywinnit Lee Frye. Also known as Kaylee. Also known as the coolest girl on television.

I swear you are not the first celebrity I have seen in LA. Or even in the Trader Joe's. Half the cast of The Office shops there. So do the guys from Flight of the Conchords, and most of the former contestants on Project Runway. And I've seen Andy Garcia, Meg Ryan, and Giovanni Ribisi at the ArcLight. I'm not even going to talk about New York, where I used to see Uma Thurman nearly every month. (See also: yesterday's posting).

Which is all to say that when I saw you in the frozen foods aisle of the Silverlake Trader Joe's and yelled, "Oh My God! Oh My God! Oh My God!," it was something of an aberration. And then when I asked if I could take your picture with my phone? That was totally unprecedented.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say I'm sorry for being so totally uncool. I know the deal, I really do. Living in LA means that when you see celebrities you just act super chill. You might nod a "hey, nice work" nod, but really it's best to just look away, kind of like when you see someone getting arrested in front of a bar on Saturday night. Shrieking, camera phones, fluttering hands? Not cool, I know.

I'm sorry for creating a scene, I really am. But thank you for letting me take your picture, because seeing you in real life was really exciting. O.M.G.

Long live Serenity and her gifted mechanic. May you fly forever in our hearts and on DVD.

xoxo,
La Critika

star, rock.

2009-10-05T00:41:00.001-07:00

Saturday night we joined P + Q at the Eagle Rock Music Festival for some moonlight strolling and music. It was a free event, and it felt very low pressure. We listened to the bands we liked for as long as we liked. I spent the better part of the biggest act's set wondering around looking for caramel corn. The Occidental College students were out in force, many dressed in essentially the exact same outfit I wore for the better part of 9th grade. Yes, I mean to say that I saw girls in mom shorts, band t-shirts, and sneakers with black socks. No, no one was wearing a t-shirt as cool as the Holiday in Cambodia shirt I'm sporting below. Perhaps because that was the coolest shirt ever.

At the end of the night, just as we were getting ready to walk back to the car, we stopped to listen to a band called The Happy Hallows. I really liked them, enough that I apparently didn't notice we were standing next to Adam Goldberg of Dazed and Confused, Friends, and 2 Days in Paris fame. Q pointed him out, and since he was just a few feet away, I predictably squealed and buried myself in P's chest. Because in the excitement of the celebrity proximity, I forgot that I was standing next to P and not Mike. In one smooth move, I think I managed to alarm Adam Goldberg, Mike, P, Q, and myself.

I pulled it together and we went home, walking back through the residential streets of Eagle Rock by the light of the harvest moon.

nice.

2009-10-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday felt momentous. It wasn't, but it felt that way. At 5 p.m. I felt like I had finally put something to rest. It's not entirely clear what that something was, but I'm just happy to note that I felt a lightness last night that I haven't felt for a long, long time.

At Intelligentsia, where I was the only person in the entire place with a PC, I wrote a 4 page mini-prospectus for my entirely new dissertation topic. They were strangely easy to write, those 4 pages. What I produced was better, on every level, than the 15 drafts of mini-prospectuses I produced for my other, now abandoned, topic.

Then my computer battery died, crappy PC, and I left the beautiful people at Intelligentsia. I was bouncing after drinking a real coffee, the first real coffee I have had in months. Bouncing doesn't really describe it. I was sparking. I think the kid behind the counter winked at me on my way out.

I stopped by the fancy store next door, which I always do when I leave Intelligentsia. I like to look at this one purse.

And it was on sale. My purse was on sale, and I spent about 45 minutes talking to the sales guy about the purse, about the possibility that it would ever go on sale again, and about his biggest sale so far this year (6 bags at once).

And then I bought the purse. I left before I could change my mind. I'm pretty sure I really was sparking at that point.

I raced home and finished the mini-prospectus, the bag in my lap while I typed. I sent it off 30 minutes before my self-imposed 5 p.m. deadline, and then I just sat there, staring at the giant map of California on the wall in my living room.

I wrote some emails and waited for Mike to get home. He wrote a paper about mortgage backed securities, and I went out for drinks down the street with my girlfriends. And the bag.

Themed

2009-09-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

You might not know this about me, but I am a big fan of themed events. And matching pajamas. I feel like both speak to my desire, mostly sublimated and certainly not realized, for an ordered, coherent life.

Last night Mike and I went to see Taking Woodstock and ate at a macrobiotic restaurant. That I am planing on changing my dissertation to something about the cultural history of the 1960s made this evening was something of a triple-themed event: movie, food, dissertation.

The movie was sweet. And honestly, I enjoy anything by Ang Lee. The protagonist is a young gay man who accidentally brings Woodstock to his small hometown. I loved that the lead was gay, and I especially loved that his gayness wasn't the central drama of the film. And the Catskills are beautiful, and young people on acid are beautiful, and Emile Hirsch is beautiful. So overall it was a nice film, more enjoyable than excellent, but certainly a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

The macrobiotic food was good enough that I might be toying with the idea of actually going macrobiotic. Watch out carrots, you are too yang for me!

They have arrived

2009-09-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

After two years of desperate pleading and empty threats, Mike's little brother's ex-girlfriend sent me Mike's D&D Books. Some 14 books and countless pages of character data sheets and hand-drawn maps; it's all there.

I had given up on getting the books back. While it occurred to me that it might be worth it to fly to Texas and retrieve them in person, it also occurred to me that they might have been tossed-out at the end of the brother's relationship with said ex. That she kept them, and mailed them, is a testament to her character. If my heart had been broken, and I still had the guy's stuff stored in my grandmother's basement, and some of that stuff included books belong to the guy's older brother, would I have boxed it all up along with some homemade scented candles and sent it across the country?

Here's a big, old cosmic Thank You to the girl from Texas.

I sort of can't wait for Mike to get home. I'm expecting swooning at the very least, but I'm hoping for tears.

weddings and cancellations

2009-09-08T10:49:00.000-07:00

Lecture was canceled today. The Professor asked me to go to campus anyway and write a notice on the board. When I got there, one of the other TAs was already there, writing said notice. Apparently the Professor had asked all three of us to come to campus and write a notice on the board.

But, lest I complain to much, now it is 10:51 a.m., and I am sitting at home, eating granola, and planning a productive day. And thinking about Sunday's wedding. It was a very cinematic event -- gorgeous bridesmaids, candles and twinkling lights in trees, a first dance to Bob Dylan. As we were standing at the bar, waiting for our margaritas, Mike and I counted all the weddings we've attended together. I was surprised that it only came out to 10. 10 weddings, not counting our own, in 10 years. I could have sworn there were more because I'm pretty sure that wedding attendance was all I did between 2003-2006. I went to a few without Mike, either because he was working or because he wasn't (and feeling subsequently cash strapped). Even with those solo ventures, it looks like I attended approximately 1.2 weddings a year since 1999. Here's the breakdown:

1999 = 2 (Canyon, CA & Soda Springs, CA)
2000 = 0 ?!?!
2001 = 1 (New Mexico)
2002 = 0 ?!?!
2003 = 2 (Cambridge, MA & Andover, MA)
2004 = 2 (Olema, CA & Concord, CA)
2005 = My Wedding
2006 = 2 (Santa Clarita, CA & St. Louis, MO)
2007 = 2 (Grass Valley, CA & Berlin, Germany)
2008 = 1 (Piedmont, CA)
2009 = 1 (Los Angeles, CA)

For someone who loves weddings, I haven't managed to make it to very many.

Now laundry.

Wedding

2009-09-08T00:20:00.000-07:00

Our friends got married on Sunday at the LA River Center. It was a beautiful, moving, cheerful wedding and we danced and drank and ate with much fervor.

They were married by a friend who is a writer on The Colbert Report. I mention this detail only because the wedding ceremony was actually honest-to-God hilarious. Not in a way that over-shadowed the couple, but in a way that made them spend the ceremony laughing and crying.

It was a non-traditional Jewish wedding, and instead of a reading of the seven Hebrew blessings, they asked seven friends to offer them blessings of health, love, prosperity, friendship, patience, joy, and family. At least three made me cry (health, love, and family).

Full bar, cupcakes, and photo booth too...

Almost Human

2009-09-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

I've been sitting in this little bookstore/cafe for days now. It's air-conditioned, it's just up the street, they have root beer and almond cookies.

The soundtrack might drive me out. I can't remember everything they've played, but there has been a lot of Tom Jones and a lot of Leonard Cohen. And since this is Echo Park, there has been a fair amount of Elliot Smith.

It's not that I don't like this music, but mostly I do.. It's just that all this crooning and heart-break and talk of death makes for a strange week.

Enough

2009-09-03T14:36:00.001-07:00

We are entering day four of TOTALLY MISERABLE WEATHER. See those caps? I mean it. Smoke and ash, temperatures in the high 90s, toxic levels of particulate and ozone.

When driving down the 5, the presence of the California Aquaduct always makes me pause and think about the folly of living in place that has to import all its water. A short pause. Then I put my foot down on the gas and zip South. "It's just like Chinatown!" I think.

But this week has been more than a bit much, and I can't help but think that living in LA is a big, crazy mistake. Fortunately, with just a touch of alas, Mike is already convinced, 3 days in, that the MBA is the right way to go. He came home last night with a big statistics textbook, looking excited.

I hope the weather breaks soon, and that some Fall rains extinguish the burning forest immediately to my left.

another

2009-09-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

Mike got home around midnight last night. He was exhausted since he had been at work since 4 a.m., but he seemed happy. And, more importantly, he was laden down with MBA schwag (water bottle, t-shirt, laptop bag, and pens).

When I woke up this morning, he was already gone and it looked completely overcast. Smoke covering the entire sky and ash on the cars. I stayed in bed for a few minutes, thinking about how much I hate waking up alone and how unsettling I find all these fires. My thoughts reached an anxious pitch and I decided to get out of the house. So I'm back at the bookstore, enjoying company of the other solo laptoppers.

There is a woman on the block who sells fresh squeezed juice from a folding table. Her young daughter assists her, a slender little girl who manages all the English-language transactions. Today the girl was wearing a shirt that said "Spoiled But Worth It!" Strange wording, to be sure, but it's not the first time I've seen it this week. One of my students was wearing a shirt with the same words yesterday. This genre of statement is in vogue with the sorority girls this season. The campus is filled with beautiful, semi-dressed girls sporting words and phrases like "Spoiled," "Expensive," "Daddy's Girl," and "Princess" across their bouncy chests in shiny letters. My favorite so far is "You Can't Afford To Look At Me," which seems to me to be more an indictment of the t-shirt wearer than the t-shirt ogler.

On the body of a Salvadoran pre-teen who is inexplicably not at school on Wednesday morning, and in plain pale-blue rather than gilded Juicy Couture lettering, the phrase is oddly accusatory. I can't help but read it as a statement of fact, directed exactly at me. Like, she's being spoiled by a system that devalues her life and labor such that she's not in school and it's worth it because it's this system that allows the likes of me to spend my days in cafes, drinking $3.00 a cup Salvadoran coffee and blogging.

hello from apocalypse basin

2009-09-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

The sky is pink with smoke. It is 99 degrees in Echo Park. Mike is starting an MBA program. It's a weird day all around. I took the bus to school this morning and sat across from a nun in a pale blue and brown habit. She spent most of the ride yelling and pointing at various passengers.

Lecture, a long wait for the bus, and then home.

I fell asleep in the air-conditioned chilliness of my bedroom and woke up hungry. There is no food in my house, and it's too hot to cook, so I came down to the bookstore to eat some vegan chili and be among people. Mike gets home at 10. This is going to be a long four hours.

Malibu

2009-08-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we swam in the ocean and it was incredible. The waves were huge. I kept getting dragged out and then crashing back into the shore, knees scraped and face totally planted in the sand. I went out alone for a while, M & K & W reading and eating cheese on the beach.

I got pulled out again, but this time I couldn't come in. I swam as hard as I could against the current, but I just kept moving steadily backwards. I was close to the life guard station, and one of the only people in the water, so I wasn't terribly worried, but when I saw Mike look out at me, I shouted for him.

"Mike!" I yelled, arms waving.

He waved back, a friendly hello, and turned back to his Economist.

He looked up just in time to see a wave crash directly on my head, sending me crashing into the shore.

He came down to help me up, and we walked back to the towels and blankets and our friends.

I wanted to go back in the water, but couldn't convince Mike to join me. I decided to respect the riptide instead of pushing my luck.

5 Best Things About Being Back in LA

2009-08-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

Here's some structured positivity to counter my generally grumpy mood.

1. Mike.
2. Superking Armenian Super Market.
3. Having access to all my clothes, not just the small bag of dirty laundry I brought to Canyon.
4. Walking to the bookstore.
5. The pretty pink haze at sunset.

books

2009-08-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

There is a little bookstore in my neighborhood. It's run by an irritating woman. I once overheard her telling a customer that she really isn't much of a reader.

But today I'm enjoying hiding out in here, my laptop and decaf coffee set up on a nice table facing Sunset Boulevard offering a choice view of Echo Park's latest crop of hipster kids, parading around in their American Apparel rompers. The music is nice.

There are a lot of books that I want to read, but I'm putting myself on something of a fiction suspension. This summer, like every summer, I rediscovered mysteries and genre fiction and lost the ability to read any non-fiction writing longer than the average New Yorker article.

My fictional main events for Summer 2009 include the following:

Masie Dobbs novels. Maisie is a brilliant but poor girl in interwar England whose employer recognizes her talents and sends her to be educated, forever caught betwitx and between upstairs and downstairs. She's a private investigator and something of a psychic.

The Sookie Stackhouse novels. These books are the inspiration for the HBO series True Blood and the story focuses on a small-town telepathic waitress as she learns to live with the vampires who have recently made themselves known to their human neighbors.

The Twilight Saga, previously described, about which I have mixed yet strong feelings.

I think I should serve as a cautionary example of what can happen when genre fiction reading gets out of control. I am starting to think that maybe vampires are walking among us, that I might have psychic powers, and that chastity is a turn on. I actually considered joining a Twilight chat forum. Save yourself before it's too late.

here

2009-08-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

I can hear my new neighbor on the phone, talking about her "relationship." I have done nothing today but stare at my books and think aimlessly about my dissertation. And Twilight. And listen to my neighbor talk on the phone. I'm trying to figure out a nice way to let her know that her conversations are not private. I don't want to creep her out.

My dissertation?

We might go see music at the Echo tonight. The grocery store needs a visit. New shocks for the car and sorting out some loan information as I approach my 13th year as a Sallie Mae borrower are also on the agenda. Exciting times in the Southland...

flying by

2009-08-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

I'm back in LA and at something of a loss to account for my summer.

Instead of accounting, I'm going to spend a minute reflecting on vampires. You are welcome to stop reading now. My feelings won't be hurt.

Last night, while Mike slept soundly, I read 460 pages of the 3rd book in the "Twilight Saga. I could not bring myself to stop.

The Twilight Books are, as you might already know, incredibly "problematic." The story revolves around a beautiful teenage girl who falls in love with a beautiful teenage vampire who loves her with a love that is more than love and who spends every night watching her sleep while gnashing his teeth as he worries about her safety. She is also in love with a werewolf boy from the local Indian reservation. Werewolves and vampires are mortal enemies. The girl is klutzy and defiant. Let the heartbreak begin.

A lot of pixels have been filled with concerns that the relationships in the Twilight books condone a kind of possessive, controlling behavior that would be better characterized as abusive not... Heathcliffian. Wuthering Heights gets a lot of play and so does...you guessed it...Romeo and Juliet. The vampire spends a lot of time acting like a stalker. She's a teenage girl in love who seems to enjoy his attentions, but that doesn't make it right, right?

The chaste love of the girl and the vampire (they can't consummate their relationship because he might become too excited and kill her) has clearly tapped into to some widespread desire on the part of adolescent girls to be endlessly worshiped but never defiled. An epidemic of chivalric delusion.

These books, these 600+ pages books written with what can only be describes as very little style, have been on the best seller lists for months and months. Nordstrom recently launched a clothing line and some publisher has re-released Wuthering Heights with the subtitle "Bella and Edward's Favorite Book."

But while they are poorly written and valorize proclamations of eternal love, smoldering threats to kill rivals, ill-fated suicide attempts and lots and lots of unwanted physical restraint, they might represent a step-up from Paris Hilton, from sex tapes, raping and killing the prostitute in Grand Theft Auto. At least a step away from thongs for 8 year olds, from Toddlers and Tiaras, from crotch shots of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, from Miley Cyrus and the stripper pole.

Is this where we are? Stuck between a vampire and a stripper pole?

Evil Eyes Returns

2009-08-06T15:59:00.001-07:00

We've been spending lots of time with Mike's family which has been unexpected and nice. The little brother got back from his first tour of duty (Iraq) on Friday, and we drove down to San Diego with his girlfriend (in from Ohio for the occasion), Amy, and Happy to greet him. His landing was delayed for a few hours, so the five of us hung around the McDonald's on the base and waited.

After much searching and parking and lipstick reapplication, we found the flight line and joined a group of about 200 children, moms, wives, friends, dads, and newly-born babies all milling around and waving little American flags. Some ladies from a local church had arrived to greet the soldiers whose family and friends couldn't make it. They set up tables with Cheetos and lemonade and pizza.

When the helicopters finally landed, their propellers coming to slow stop in unison, there was a collective pause. They were too far away to really see, although you could clearly make out a lot of camouflage in the distance. It took another ten minutes for them to form lines and start marching towards us across the tarmac. I didn't expect to cry, but I did.

The girlfriend, who had been staying with us for a few days already, was entirely silent after the helicopters landed. I kept patting her shoulder and asking her if she was all right. "Um.." she would murmur and look at me like "Hello? Of course I'm not alright. I'm freaking out!." When the troops -- members of a battalion called Evil Eyes -- got within 20 feet of us, someone must have give a signal because suddenly there was running. I hadn't even begun to look for him by the time the girlfriend broke into a sprint and jumped into his arms.

I mean come on, it really doesn't get much sweeter.

Welcome home kid. We are so glad you are back.

Today I...

2009-07-05T23:48:00.001-07:00

ate ice cream for breakfast with Adeline.
learned all there is to know about Addy, American Girl Doll.
searched for Physick Book news.
said goodbye to Mike, who returned to LA.
walked down the old train tracks.
sat in the forest, trying to identify small brown birds.
realized that birds make me think of Mike.
lingered in said forest.
walked home slowly.
worked on the crossword with my family. LMOP?
ate zucchini burritos.
nagged Adeline to eat all of her dinner lest her parents think that ice cream for breakfast spoils her appetite.
watched Dan Savage on the Colbert Report with my mom.
watched the History Channel with C & J
watched the Hills (Season 4, ep. 18) with C & J
watched something amusing about a zoo in England with C & J
felt like recounting my day on this blog and did so

ramen, no text

2009-06-19T00:37:00.000-07:00

What The Hell Was That All About?

2009-05-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

Seriously.

Impossible amounts of data, memorized and forgotten. 320 books, "read" and forgotten. Hysterical fits of crying and self-loathing. And more self-loathing. And then some.

Forgetting, self-loathing, tears, books.

Yes friends, I've hiding out in a Fassbinder film.

But seriously. Now that that whole thing is over and I'm ABD and back to normal graduate school levels of anxiety and self-loathing (Orange Alert), I have to say W.T.F.

But rather than vent* about the process, I'll just say that I'm glad to have passed and am looking forward to returning the 139 library books that are strewn this way and that.

update

2009-04-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, always concerned with the rep., I told the professor.

Although trying to explain all this to some who can't send attachments (and who has extended the deadline for the second take home midterm to the day of the final (3 weeks), and who tells the students on the first day of class that they will all get As) was something of an ordeal.

She responded with one line.

"Liars. You did the right thing."

Cryptic.

the cover up is worse than the crime, kiddo

2009-04-28T22:43:00.000-07:00

Every semester, one of the undergraduates goes haywire. They cheat. They miss the final. They come to class drunk.

I am not unfamiliar with the undergraduate undoing.

Still, I was surprised to get a frantic email from the professor I teach for at 10 a.m. this morning. One of my students was having family problems. He'd come to her claiming that he emailed me repeatedly asking for help or extensions and I had never responded. Since I hadn't responded to his queries, he had stopped coming to class. Now he was in danger of failing, of losing his scholarship, and he begged her for extra credit."I don't blame the TA," he said. "She probably gets a lot of emails from students. Maybe she doesn't respond to everybody."

Wha? Did I somehow miss a series of emails from a distressed student? Huh?

I went through my inbox. Nothing. I looked for him in lecture. Not there. I sent an email and asked him to send me the emails. "Just forward them to me," I said. "And then we can sort out what happened."

For about three hours, I felt bad. I felt like I had somehow, in the haze of this crappy-ass semester, really dropped the ball.

Then he replied.

A reiteration of the family problem story. And a screenshot. A screenshot of his gmail "sent" box.
I opened the screenshot and could see halfway down the page the subject line of an email sent to me in February with his name and FAMILY PROBLEM in the subject line.

"Damn," I thought. "I really messed this up."

But wait! That's not how you spell my name. And why is this a screenshot instead of the email?

Mike got home and looked at it. "No way," he said. "Totally fake." He did something and suddenly there was a page of code. Photoshop code. He blew the image up, and the line with my name didn't line up. And in the background of the screenshot, the kid had left an open tab of porn.

"Free sex Porn XXX"

In the meantime, he and the professor had exchanged a series of emails and cc'ed me on all of them. She grew increasingly sympathetic, he grew increasing understanding of the TA's failure to respond to his crisis. "I know she was sick in the beginning of the semester. That might be why she never got back to me."

Email upon email upon email.

The professor suggested that he and I meet to discuss the issue. In an email sent to me and the student, she addressed me directly. "We all lose track of things," she said. "Don't worry about it too much."

I emailed him back to set up the appointment. I asked again that he forward me the emails in question. "I'd really like to see what I missed," I said.

He sent me another screenshot. This time of the body of the email. This time he spelled my name right. As per Mike's forensic photoshop sleuthing, it had been changed 6 times in 1 hour.

There is not much I can do with this. The professor does not "have my back," and the issue is not if he did or did not (not, as it turns out) email me in February when the family crisis began, but that he is failing and the professor is going to let him do some extra credit to pad out his grade.

"He's already done a fair bit of extra work," I want to say. I'm not a hard grader, and I don't want anyone to fail. But this guy stopped coming to class and then tried to blame me for it. I understand family crisis, believe me I do, but why do you have to go making things up about your poor TA? Why throw me under the bus?

We're meeting Friday. I'm dying to say something like, "So, what are you doing after graduation? Have you thought about graphic design because it seems like you have a lot of experience with photoshop."

Or maybe, "And next time, think about closing your free porn tab before you email your Women's Studies professor a faked screenshot."

A girl can dream.

2/4

2009-04-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

A woman in my program failed her orals on Friday. She was a year ahead of me, and this was her second attempt, after freezing-up completely the first time. I left my 2 p.m. section in a good mood, ready to head home and start thinking about my 3rd written exam this coming Monday.

As I walked toward my car, I saw a cluster of graduate students hanging around in the front of our department.

She hadn't told anyone when she was taking it again, so I had no idea what was going on or why everyone looked so glum. It took a few minutes for the story to come out, since no one wants to be the one to spread the dirt. But there is no way to keep a lid on this. They asked her to the leave the program immediately.

We could hear her crying inside, her now former adviser gently but firmly telling her to collect herself. We could hear the department secretary checking with the Dean's office about protocol. Her close friends stuck around, but the rest of us scattered. No need to be standing there were when she comes out - 4 years and not even a "thank you for playing MA" to show for it.

Later that evening, she sent out an email to the group. She'd be moving to DC, and there would be a liberated-from-academia party. I replied to say that I was sorry she had been put through this, and that I imagined really good things in her future. Which is the truth, come to think of it. She's cupcake obsessed (as is everyone I know) and wants to start a family. So a bakery and some babies; I bet she'll be a lot happier than the rest of us.

She responded. "Don't let it freak you out," she said. "I'm sure you'll be fine."

I spent last night and today trying to anticipate what the hell I might be asked on Monday, and how I might begin to craft a coherent 6-8 page answer in the two hours allotted to each question. But I'm also thinking about my plan B, my bakery and babies alternatives.

Susan Boyle

2009-04-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

No snark.

I don't care if this was faked.
Or if she's not singing.
Or if really she's not very good.
I don't.
Because I Loved It.

1/4

2009-04-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

I just finished the first part of my 4 part PhD qualifying exam. It was so much worse than I thought it was going to be. So much worse, in fact, that I am sitting at home with all the shades drawn looking for jobs on craigslist New York.*

Although I produced something like the appropriate number of pages, I am literally cringing and gnashing my teeth as I think about how terrible those pages were, and how dumb I am going to look in front of the 6 smart people who are going to read them. And, I'm thinking about how really dumb I'm going to look in front of the 6 smart people when I try to explain how it was that I sat down in their dumb qualifying exam room and basically reverted to the intellectual level of a mildly stoned college freshman.

As I was leaving to head home, I ran into one of my committee members. The one who failed the last person to fail a qualifying exam in my department. The one who told the failed student, in front of the rest of the committee, that she would make a really good high school teacher.

"How'd it go?" she asked, all chipper and tenured.

"Eh," I said. "It was hard." I said.

Luckily for me, the disinterest of tenured faculty in the lives of others is one of the few constant truths in this world, so she barely even paused to register what I had said before she moved on to other news.

And now, 45 bluebooks by morning.

*It should be noted that I look at craigslist NYC whenever doubts about graduate school arise. Hey, we've all got our thing, man. Don't judge.

cuz

2009-04-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

Mike's little cousin was just here. He's on his way to Japan for four months where he'll be working on an epic film. "Like Lord of the Rings," he said. "But with angels. And in Japan."

He's so young and so full of optimism that it was all I could do to not beg him to take me with him. "Take me back to 23! Take me to Japan with the angels and the epics!"

Instead, I offered him a beer and we talked about how it came to be that he and Mike both grew-up in New Hampshire and have only met once. They are both so New England, so profoundly laconic, and so reticent to ascribe causal meanings to anything that no conclusions were reached.

spending too much time in places neither here nor now.

2009-04-13T16:04:00.001-07:00

There are no more mysteries. Thank you Google. Forget the disenchantment of modernity, of secularization, of mechanical reproduction. Let's talk about the disenchantment of actually finding the boy you liked in 9th grade and exchanging jpegs with him, or the disenchantment of watching, with 31 year old eyes, your favorite Saturday morning cartoon.

Last week, thanks to the facebook juggernaut, I got back in touch with someone from my past. I hadn't seen him, or heard news of him, since the end of 9th grade. One day were sharing a Nation's burger in the front seat of his car, and the next thing I knew I was in love with a new boy at a different school, one who wore all black and whose learner's permit had been suspended. From the Subhumans to the Smiths; it was a long journey.

The boy with the car was my very best friend for four months in 1992. We weren't boyfriend/girlfriend. We didn't make out. We just sat in his room reading Hunter S. Thompson and listening to records. Sometimes we'd go to Berkeley with his friends, a big group of boys with skateboards and emerging drug & alcohol problems, and secure recreational substances.

Being the only girl in the group had advantages. It was a two-door and I always got shotgun. Some of these boys were very cute, and sometimes popular girls would approach me in gym class for insider information. "Does, like, Spencer have a girlfriend?"

And really liked him, the boy with the car. I also really liked the friends. Together we were all so sweet and shy and generally unpopular. We clung to each other in the halls. To avoid walking alone, we'd be late to class.

Everyone else had to be home at midnight, but I had an awesome 1 a.m. curfew. He worked out a deal with his mom. When we were hanging-out, my curfew was his curfew. She didn't like the other friends, but she liked me. She thought I was a good influence on him, and we used that to our advantage. Teenagers are brilliant.

At the end of a night spent driving around, looking for parties, and hacky sacking in the Taco Bell parking lot, we'd drive out to Canyon. We'd park at the base of my driveway, turn off the car, and talk. We'd talk about everything and nothing. We'd hold hands. We liked each other, but not really in that way. I can't remember how we decided not to fool around. Maybe it just seemed obvious at the time.

Over the years, I shaped these few months up into a rock-solid good memory. I had such a hard time in high school (German high school was excellent, but that is another story), but those few months, I became convinced, had been great.

In other words, I invested a lot of energy in my memory of this kid, the boy with the records and the car.

Last Tuesday, avoiding my books and unable to sleep, I entered his name into a search field. I've done this before, but he's never come up. Not on friendster, not on myspace, not even as a google search result. But this time, there he was on facebook, his name attached to an unrecognizable 34 year old face. He barely remembered me, and when I thought about it, I could barely remember him. There was Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail and the time we broke into the country club, but I couldn't recall anything else.

After memories had been jogged, he told me that he thought I was cute.

"Uh, thanks."

Then he told me that he regretted that we hadn't slept together in high school. Those weren't quite the words he used, but this is a family-friendly blog.

I know that I have a tendency to romanticize the past, and that this poor guy had no way of knowing that to me he represented the possibility of decency and friendship in the midst of an otherwise dark early adolescence. He couldn't possibly have known that, in some strange way, he really meant a lot to me. But did he really have to say that he wished he had gotten some while the getting was good?

But I digress. Because the point is not that jerky high school boys grow-up into jerky adult men. Or that seeking out people from the past is potentially disappointing. Or that given how much I'd invested in my narrative of those months, the guy didn't stand a chance of not disappointing me. The point is that 15 years ago I never would have found him. I wouldn't have even tried. I would have continued to think of him fondly. I would have retained a few halcyon memories of my 14th year.

I wonder if this is how people feel about history in general. When you just want to remember the 1950s as a period of domestic tranquility and prosperity and some annoying historian jumps up and down pointing out that white prosperity was built on black inequality. "But what about mom. And the apple pies?" you ask. "Nope. Racist federal housing policies and looming threat of nuclear war."

I kind of want my apple pies back. But not enough to turn off the computer.

FAQs

2009-04-09T23:43:00.001-07:00

Are you almost done with your neurotic self-imposed study exile?
Yes. P or F, commence to begin active, fun, balanced life the evening of May 4.

Are you secretly hanging out with your other friends/husbands/family members and just ignoring me?
No. I swear. The total neglect of all social, emotional, and personal obligations is universal.

But at least you feel kind of guilty about it, right?
True.

Do you think that you'll pass? The writtens and the orals?
I'm very afraid of the evil eye and don't want to speculate. Keine Hora.

Have you at least learned anything interesting?
Probably. But I can't remember.

Seriously, what's the best thing you've read in the last month?
Winthrop Jordan's White Over Black was fascinating. Also, I'm newly interested in neo-conservatives, Janis Joplin, and homespun.

Is Mike taking care of things for the duration of your neurotic self-imposed study exile?
Yes. Although I can't get him to actually do the reading for me. Lazy and selfish man...

Are you going to get back to your books now?
Yes. Right away.

Biff without the trophy

2009-03-31T01:00:00.000-07:00

I taught Death of a Salesman this week. I must have read it in high school, but I didn't remember a thing about it. The students seemed to like it; our discussion was quick and witty and full of shared laughs.

As we neared the end, I asked them which character they empathized with the most. It's a gender studies class, and the text was assigned to illustrate the post-War crisis in masculinity. "Biff? Willy? Bernard?"

They were suddenly quiet. I hate it when I kill the conversation with an open-ended question. I always feel like I went for the low-hanging fruit and then accidentally dropped it in the mud. "Did you empathize with any of the characters?" I asked again (emphasis added).

They did not. A student who had previously told us that her life goal is to be an anchor at Fox News finally spoke up. "They're all just totally pathetic. Losers."

After she broke the silence, everyone rushed to agree. Pathetic. Losers. Morons. Idiots. Spineless. Failures.

I'd spent the night before crying as I read, feeling totally suckered by Miller but also genuinely moved.

How was a story about a white salesmen in 1950s Brooklyn, written by Miller as an expression of his cultural front activism, written as a critique of a kind of capitalism that no longer exists, speaking to me so completely?

As I read, I couldn't even rally for a reflexive dismissal of the pretensions of universalism or absence of racial difference. The kind of responses that it is basically my job to have. I just read and empathized and cried.

There are 25 students in my discussion section, and their voices started to sound like a chant. "Pathetic. Losers. Failures. Pathetic. Losers. Failures." In reality, it was probably two loud students talking over each other while 23 others looked on in boredom.

I told them that that they should read it again in 10 or 15 years. I told them to read it again when they realized that their lives hadn't turned out the way they'd wanted them to. "Read it when you realize that you aren't who you thought you'd be."

There must have been a tremble in my voice or something because they all stared at me in that worried undergraduate way. They same way they stare at you when you give a lecture about the Communist Manifesto and you almost raise your fist but catch yourself awkwardly at the last second. You can just see them thinking. "Oh god. Is she going to freak? Are we going to have to stay late?"

But luckily for them, I never stay late.

I pulled it together, dispensed some useful midterm exam information, and sent them on their way.

Those who can't and all of that...but I kind of like teaching.

today

2009-03-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

I got up.

I went to the cafe for coffee.

I watched two girls, one of whom must get paid to impersonate Mama Cass, try to buy plane tickets on their phones. They did not succeed; one phone was thrown down on the table in disgust. It then fell onto the floor. More disgust.

I went to Walgreens and spent a lot of money on sundry Walgreens items.

I came home and ate breakfast.

I read a book.

I listened to a lecture about the Enlightenment.

I took a shower.

I made dinner.

I read Modern Love.

I started to read another book.

I took a break to account for my day.

reading in public

2009-03-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

Mike's gone camping. He went with 8 other people out to the desert to see the wildflowers. I told him I was looking forward to having the house to myself so I can get some work done. The phrase buckle-down was used.

But now that he's gone, I have no idea how to use my time. A whole weekend? It's not even dinnertime and I'm already restless, plotting ways to make my reading more interesting. I could walk down to the bookstore and set up in their cafe. But, I have a thing against the owner. Not against her as a person, but against her voice. It drives me crazy. Half-whine, half-squeal.

Other options include either the Downbeat Cafe or Chango. Both would be fine, but potentially filled with graduate students who will distract me with their departmental gossip. It is almost warm enough to go sit in the park, but not quite. If I stay here, I'm certain to fall asleep.

What I really want is to find a new cafe, somewhere deep in Hollywood, where they occasionally film reality shows. I want tacky purple furniture and antique pinball machines.

Alas, stuck in Echo Park, I have no choice but to pack-up my book bag and see where fate directs me.

hello

2009-03-24T20:08:00.001-07:00

Mike got into UCLA.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

outside with italics

2009-03-19T15:31:00.000-07:00

My response to anxiety can best be described as "The Lockdown." I don't leave the house. I stop doing all the things that I love to do. I fixate on the source of my anxiety. PhD exams are actually designed to provoke this kind of behavior. Ostensibly, I'm supposed to be locked-down. This kind of asocial hysteria is a good thing in the eyes of my adviser. Anything but a lock-down would represent a violation of our unspoken agreement that I work as hard as I can all the time and he make himself vaguely available to me on alternating semesters.

But it's getting old, and it's not really working. I can force myself to stay inside and read all day, but I still am only capable of absorbing so much, and life without the things I love just straight up sucks.

So yesterday I went to Whole Foods and bought beautiful little lettuces, parsley, mint, blue cheese, salmon, and new potatoes. Over the course of the day I prepared these ingredients one-by-one. At 11 a.m. I washed the lettuce. At noon I roasted the potatoes with garlic and pepper. At 3 p.m. I made a salmon salad. By 5 p.m. I was making a blue cheese dressing and by 6 p.m. Mike and I were eating a version of salad nicoise on our foldout table in the project room.

It wasn't outside, but it was really nice.

new, new, new

2009-03-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

I met with a therapist today. I'm pretty sure that therapy no longer counts as something to be kept secret, and am also pretty sure that mentioning it here doesn't constitute a blog overshare (fake word of the week). But perhaps I'm wrong, in which case I apologize for the transgression.

Last week was our first session, and she was late. 10 minutes late on a 50 minute appointment, and when the regular end-time arrived, she kicked me out. That, and she's very horsey. Tall and good-looking with high leather boots. I suspect that she spends most of her time riding a black stallion through her gated community. She told me she's a Freudian, so I'll leave it to her to figure out the black stallion bit.

But today was a little better, and I settled comfortably back into the heightened narcissism that is therapy. There is nothing wrong with narcissism, as far as I concerned, but it felt a odd to be on the couch, literally, telling a total stranger about my exam committee. Sitting in her well-appointed office (an apt description in the case of this woman's Persian rugs, tasteful prints, copper bowls filled with fresh flowers and French candies), I thought about the irony of my student health insurance paying for me to talk about my (partially) school-induced problems.

She told me that I should consider a practice. "Something like Yoga. Or Pilates." I didn't laugh out loud, but I did spill my coffee in my lap. And I took a moment to be glad it was my school, and not me, who was paying for the horsey woman to tell me to do Pilates.

humbled by the internet

2009-03-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

Sure, I've said too much in a status update and awkwardly dodged some unfortunate friend requests. But for the most part, I'd like to think I'm quite facebook savvy.

Last week, I got nosy and asked someone about some of the other posts on their wall. What did it mean, I asked, that people were proud of this person? What was the source of the pride? I posted my question on this person's wall. This is a person, it should be known, that I haven't seen in 15 years and who I just barely knew 15 years ago. A person who in the normal non-facebook universe would not be on my planet. Would not be even in the same galaxy.

I was thinking law school or a marathon. I was bored and curious.

A few days passed and I got a message asking what I meant by my post. Only then did it occur to me that I had no business asking this person any questions more probing than, "Hey! Great to hear from you! What are you up to these days?"

I wrote back, making use of all the emoticons and exclamation points I could to make it clear that I had meant no harm.

Another couple of days passed.

"Rehab," the person wrote back. "Rehab for meth addiction. That's why people are proud."

I pieced the story together from facebook fragments. I wanted to tell them that I remembered them. I wanted to say that even though they only briefly touched my life, I was proud of them too. "Even though I don't know you, I'm proud of you for remaking your life."

Then I remembered that I don't know this person, and I restrained myself.

I imagined saying a million things, but I typed, "I wish you all the best" and the logged the hell out of facebook.

Today

2009-03-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

I found someone to serve as the outside member of my exam committee. This is a huge relief. I'm not sure I could have faced postponing this AGAIN.

Last night we watched The Graduate with some friends, and we were all surprised to see that parts of it are filmed on our campus. "That's here!" we yelled. The last time I watched The Graduate I was probably 20 - just about the age of Benjamin and Elaine. Even then I thought Mrs. Robinson was a lot more interesting than her vacant daughter. Now, I found myself sympathizing with completely Mrs. R., trapped in Pasadena with a rich husband and nothing but nitwit teenagers for entertainment. Sympathzing with. Envying too.

If things were different, Mrs. Robinson, if I were rich, if the future was still in plastic, I'd meet you at the Taft. We could hangout by your pool and drink scotch on the rocks and smoke all day long. Bravo would make a TV show about us.

Nothing Anyone Needs to Know - Blogging

2009-03-07T10:52:00.001-08:00

Last night I had an incredibly elaborate dream about an upcoming Judd Apatow project. Kelley had been hired to write it, the whole thing, from scratch. And Mike was going to art direct. They had been hired, away from their respective non-cinema related jobs, independently. It was a happy coincidence that we all going to be living in one big house and working on one big project. And there was much talk of sequels. I was delighted. My Hollywood dreams of fame and insiderness and fortune finally coming to fruition.

But Judd Apatow? Was this going to be the Judd Apatow of my beloved Freaks and Geeks or the Judd Apatow of Knocked-Up horror?

There is always a catch...

my saturday

2009-03-07T10:42:00.000-08:00

Hello Totally Random Professor,

I'm a "many more years than I care to count" year graduate student in the Football University Useless Humanities Department. My adviser, Mr. Sabbatical, suggested I contact you in order to ask if you would consider serving as the outside committee member for my already scheduled qualifying exam.

Famous Person was going to serve as my outside member, but the Dean's just notified me that his relationship with the Department makes him ineligible for this role. Members of my exam committee include Famous Person, Mr. Sabbatical, Scary Smart Cultural Historian, Jolly Early Americanist, and Francophile. With the addition of an approved outside member, it will be a 6 person committee.

If this is something you might consider doing, perhaps we could meet and talk about it in person? I know this is a late request, but I appreciate your consideration.

Yours,

Completely Demoralized
PhD Student
Useless Humanities Department
Football University

10.

2009-03-06T12:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I learned that Mike's brother had landed in Iraq via a facebook status update.

Right?

In other news, Mike and I celebrated our ten year anniversary last night with pizza and bourbon-based cocktails. I'm still pretty sick and made it through about three sips of bourbon before I handed the drink over to my hearty man-friend.

There is a lot to say about spending 10 years with someone, but much of it seems like pretty well-trodden territory. At some point, week 3 if I had to specify, being with Mike started to seem like my natural state of being. And so it's been since then.

We tried to talk about the past. About all the apartments we've had and friends we've missed and walks we've taken and meals we've shared. But we made it to about year 4 (Santa Cruz, everyone, Neary Lagoon, Zachary's) before we drifted to the here and now.

The Deans rejected my exam committee, and I'm scrambling around trying to find a new outside member. Mike's been accepted to one MBA program and waiting to hear from the other. It seems like the MBA is going to happen and that seems like it's probably a good thing.

As much as a I hate the idea of living in the moment, and believe me, it's an idea that I hate, the moment triumphs over everything.

loathing in los angeles

2009-03-02T18:33:00.000-08:00

Mike and I have much in common. We both love fake meat. We both love thrift stores that support people living with HIV/AIDs. We both love small bookstores, quiet cafes, and the BBC World Service. And we both hate, hate with a hate that is more than hate, the dreaded portraitist Elizabeth Peyton.

But it is me who wishes that she would keep her hipster, insider mitts off our kick-ass First Lady. Mike claims that he doesn't care what Elizabeth Peyton does anymore. "Whatever," he says.

I'll have to keep up the loathing for the both us, I suppose.

The Bus

2009-02-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

I rode home on a training bus. There was a nervous driver and three observers who sat staggered in rows 2, 3, and 4. The chief observer was a 62 year old man with diabetes, 25 years of LAMTA bus experience, one grandchild, a recently broken shoulder, and a deep vein of patience.

I learned this when a woman got on the bus a stop after me and sat down right next to him, ignoring several rows of empty seats. They chatted for a few minutes about the bus system. Then she went for it.

Lady: You are very lucky to be the trainer. An easy job for you, no work. Just watching.

Trainer: Well, not luck, really. I worked for a long time to become the trainer.

Lady: But many people work for a long time and things don't work out for them. They are just poor. Or disabled.

Trainer: Yes, that is bad. For those people.

Lady: Like me, I worked very hard as a nurse but then I got disabled and now I have nothing. And sometimes the bus drivers, they don't have a heart. They don't pull up to the curb for you! You can't get on the bus!

Trainer: That is no good. I train them to be courteous but sometimes they are not.

Lady: So what does the trainer really do? Nothing?

65 minutes. It was totally captivating (captivating is a good way to describe being stuck on a training bus on a Friday afternoon in LA).

This guy just wanted to do his training and give candy to the kids on the bus. There are a lot of kids on the bus in LA. Moms with more babies than hands. He carries the candy with him. I would have thought with allergies etc. state employees dispensing candy would be illegal, but apparently it persists.

The woman just wanted someone to hear that things are not easy and that even people who work hard get old and sick and have to take the bus alone.

When we hit the Alvarado and Beverly bottleneck, things got a little tense. He stood up to talk to the driver about resetting the "stop requested" announcement and he stayed standing, hanging off the rubber loop handles and rolling gracefully with the bus's movements.

Lady: You don't need to stand. You just want to stand.

Trainer: 25 years on the bus. I can stand and sit. I can do anything on the bus.

Lady: So your body is fine? Not broken?

Trainer: Yes.

Lady: Diabetes?

Trainer: Yes.

Lady: So maybe you are not so lucky. Maybe it all comes back. What you do, it comes back to you.

The bus trainer sat back down on the seat next to her. He sat there and she sat there and they didn't say a word for the next 3 blocks. After 65 minutes of back-and-forth, they spent the last 45 seconds of their relationship in silence.

The trainer pushed the stop button for her; she had already told us where she would be getting off 30 minutes back. Apparently, he remembered.

Does the Content Actually Matter?

2009-02-26T23:37:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what's come over me, but I'm actually looking forward to teaching tomorrow morning. Friday. At 8 a.m. We're talking about something I know a silly, excessive amount about (gender and the Progressives) and the Professor has spent the whole week lecturing about cowboys and Tarzan and cowboys again. Gender, the Election of 1912, Tarzana, California? This is going to be a fine discussion. If I weren't still feeling pretty crummy, I might show up in costume.

After 3 semesters of teaching outside my geographical field with historians of trauma, holocaust, and medicine, respectively, I must say that leading a discussion about something I actually know something about sounds nice.

not the cornmeal!

2009-02-25T18:58:00.001-08:00

I've been out of commission on a lot of fronts (studying, sick, etc.) so Mike has taken up the management of our household. He does the cooking, cleaning, shopping, and every night I'm happy to sit down with a bowl of something wonderful that he has whipped up. Last night it was steamed rice with broccoli and mushrooms and bits of seaweed. There have been perfectly fried cubes of tofu dipped in chili sauce, pots of lentils, and even some German dumplings.

But tonight he set out to make polenta, and I've been watching with horror from the project room as he follows the Joy of Cooking recipe which seems to include lots of milk and no stirring. They even say no stirring. "Don't stir, just boil with milk."

* It was fine. Good even. Unstirred polenta, cooked in a double-boiler, is quite fine. The mushroom butter sauce didn't hurt either.

noch mal?

2009-02-24T16:55:00.000-08:00

Shall we try this again?

It's been a strange few months...

~ Mike's little brother was deployed. We still don't know exactly where he'll end up, although Iraq or Afghanistan seem like the going options. He's pretty shaken-up by this, Mike is, and has started a blog where he tracks the little brother's movements across the ocean. We got to see him just before he left. He asked us for books, and we spent weeks agonizing over what to give him. In the end, we opted for a mess of things we remembered liking when we were 21. The Crying of Lot 49, In Cold Blood, Crime and Punishment, White Teeth, The Big Sleep, The Master and Margarita, assorted spy novels, and some Nietzsche.

~ Mike's uncle passed away unexpectedly in his Gloucester, MA apartment a few weeks ago. We hadn't seen him in 3 years, as our trips to the East Coast are always so full of plans and visits and somehow making it out there to see him, us not having a car, he not having a car, rarely ever came together. It feels pretty crummy to see that written up there, but it's true.

~ A much-anticipated baby birth has brought me more-than-expected joy. Welcome to the world, D.H.

~ I moved my orals back to May, for a host of reasons, sound and unsound. I feel very "eh" about the whole thing.

~ My mom is still stuck at home after "the foot incident."

~ In light of the orals reschedule and the foot incident, the mother-daughter March '09 trip-to-Paris is on indefinite hold.

So that is the news from Los Angeles. We had to make a quick trip to Berkeley this weekend for an MBA interview, and after 3 days of gorgeous Northern California lushness and rain, we hit the Southland at 5 p.m. on Monday. Staggeringly slow traffic and a soft orange-pink haze. "Oh," Mike said, "smog."

I promise that my next post, whenever it may be, will have more narrative structure than this one. Narrative, I find, is the first thing to go.

quiet

2008-12-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

I've noticed that my blogging friends have been pretty quiet these past few days. It's probably the holiday, but it feels like something else is afoot. Some kind of collective slow-down.

I'm stuck in a mood. I know, from reading magazines, that everyone freaks out a little when they turn 30. I think I'm a year behind, because my freak-out, which is less of a freak-out than a mess of uncertainty, kicked-in about three days after my 31st birthday.

It's not so much that I'm worried about getting older. I'm a youngest child so I'm always, no matter how "old" I get, going to be younger than the people I'm accustomed to comparing myself to. Sure, looming anxiety about mortality is a downer, but, frankly, I've been in the thrall of anxiety about mortality (mine and that of the people I love) since I was 6 years old. So that part of 31 is nothing new.

Instead, I keep circling around this idea that now is the time to make choices. That the days of living dangerously (or without foresight) are behind me. However, it's not like I suddenly acquired better decision making skills than those I had when I was 30. It's just that suddenly the stakes of my blunders seem a lot higher.

None of this is all that mysterious, I know. I'm 31, I'm married without children, my career is unsettled, and my family and friends live far away. There are, obviously, a lot of decisions to be made.

But intentionality is harder than it sounds. We went for a run tonight and bought milk at Walgreens and before I knew it, Mike was asleep and I was aimlessly grading term papers in the cool glow of our LED Christmas lights.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have developed a strategy. In the meantime, I'm going to bed.

vim

2008-11-24T16:50:00.000-08:00

It's dark. It's 4:52 p.m. When I lived in Berlin, about 13 years ago, it would get dark before I left school. It would be dark when I woke up and dark when I got home. It was technically light out during the lunch hour, but then light and Berlin in mid-winter don't quite belong in the same sentence.

LA and light, on the other hand, do. Which is why I particularly resent this darkness.

projects

2008-11-18T22:02:00.000-08:00

Exhibiting uncharacteristic optimism, Mike and I named our second bedroom (itself an entity of unexpected optimism) "the project room." I put my books in there; Mike set-up his desktop computer, made an art-supply closet, and rolled his desk into the corner.

Despite the lofty name, for the first two months the project room has been 1. a guest room when Mike's family came to visit 2. the place where our computer lives and 3. the place where we sleep when my mom is visiting.

But this weekend Mike set-up the new sewing machine (given to Mike as a thank you for collecting a friend's belongings from her apartment after a nasty break-up), and project room came into its own.

Mike showed me how to piece a quilt, and together we started cutting and pinning and stitching. Once the quilt has been bestowed on its rightful owner, I'll post some pictures.

los angeles fires, as seen from my porch

2008-11-16T22:28:00.000-08:00

burning

2008-11-15T20:39:00.000-08:00

With LA on fire, and the temperature reaching into the 90s, Mike and I decided to go to Ikea.

We made it there and back without incident. Once home, we went at our apartment with vigor. New, awesome orange slipcovers for the sofa, found amongst the damaged and returned and deeply discounted. New shelves, new lights, new plastic boxes. New Christmas lights and potted plants.

After 2 hours of incredible sunset (the smoke makes the air thick and Tang-colored) the particulates started to take their toll.

Thinking we could escape by taking a walk, we strolled down Sunset Blvd, wheezing. Just as we were about to turn back, we spotted the bookstore that we've been hearing about for months. It was in the midst of its opening party. Inside, surrounded by books, wine, cheese, and lots of people, a few short blocks from our house, I could barely smell the smoke. "My god," Mike said. "It's like...a real bookstore!"

Flame-colored skies and airborne events have nothing on the opening of a used bookstore in Los Angeles. A woman dressed in head-to-toe black and clutching a beautiful hardcover, stage-whispered to her husband. "Isn't this just unbelievable?"

only

2008-11-11T22:18:00.000-08:00

On Friday, a little girl from my hometown collapsed on the playground and died a few hours later. Her death has pulled the days around it out of shape; the election and my mis-scheduled orals are on my mind, but I can't think about this girl without feeling heartsick and I can't stop thinking about her.

I used to know everyone in my hometown. I could spot an outsider from a mile away, tipped-off by the sound of their car or unfamiliar walk. Now, when I go home, I see a lot of cars I don't recognizes zooming up the hill with local speed. I smile, cautiously, at teenagers, guessing that they are kids I once knew.

This little girl, however, I knew. I've known her parents my entire life. I remember when her step-grandmother was pregnant with her uncle and when her other uncle used to show-up at my grandma's apartment in Berkeley looking for my cousin or brother. When I was her age, her grandmother, wearing berets and low-cut jewel-tone sweaters, would have coffee on College Avenue with my mom. Her mother works with my sister-in-law. My niece wears her hand-me-downs.

I don't know quite where I'm going with this, but somehow being so entangled with this little girls' life makes her death seem so much more inexplicable. Not because I can imagine the sadness and loss touching her mom and dad and sister and friends, but because this little girl was, as I guess we all are, so much more than the sum of these connections. I know her world and that world doesn't begin to explain her. All the things that surrounded her and made her and connected her to me just make it so awfully clear that she was so much more than I could see. She was more than a little sister and daughter and niece and neighbor. A singular little person, a person with a future and a life of her own to live. And it is the loss of that life, her life, the life she was going to live without all of us, that just breaks my heart.

I love you, B. I wish so much that you were still here.

whoa

2008-11-04T23:55:00.000-08:00

I'm at a loss for words, again. I can hear honking and whoops and fireworks going off a few blocks away and I want to go be where the action is, but Mike and my mom are passed out and I don't want to go out alone tonight.

I found the whole evening very moving. I cried during the acceptance speech. I can't believe that I have a President who can say the words gay, lesbian, and New Deal without sneering. I can't believe that I have a President who knows what a student loan is, and who does not hope to see Roe v. Wade overturned while he is in office. I can't believe that the President of the United States is an African-American.

I am completely overwhelmed with hopefulness and excitement. I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed, right after I give a shout-out to the man of the hour.

Way to go, President Obama.

a loss...

2008-11-04T00:31:00.000-08:00

I don't know what to say. The election has rendered me totally useless. I feel like such a voyeur; I can't stop looking (at pollster).

winners?

2008-10-29T23:31:00.000-07:00

Tonight we screened Happy Together, Wong Kar Wai's 1997 film about gay sex, love, and the reversion of Hong Kong back to China. The overarching theme of our series, in so much as we need a theme in order to convince our department sponsors to fund our pizza and wine spread, is representations of the city in cinema. I'm not at all sure how Happy Together speaks to this theme. I mean, it's just a very sad love story about two people who can't even begin to be nice to each other and seem to get beaten-up or beaten-down at every turn. Although most of the action takes place in Buenos Aries, we rarely see the city. Instead we see the tiny room the two lovers share, and the abattoir where one man works.

The city as blood-soaked site of wage-laboring exploitation and steamy showers? You can run away to the city but all you see is the inside of the same rundown apartment?

I don't know what to make of it.

In other news, I am being driven completely insane by some of the current California propositions. I received a Yes on 8 mailer today. Proposition 8, for my readers outside California, calls for a reversal of the the recent California Supreme Court ruling (Prop 22) that determined that prohibiting gays and lesbians from marrying violated the equal protection clause of the state constitution. Prop 8 proponents call for a return to the pre-Prop 22 policy that limited marriage to one man and one woman. Fine. I get it. Prop 8 proponents oppose gay marriage.

But what did the mailer say? Did it say, "We're Prop 8 supporters and we oppose gay marriage because we adhere to a Christian/Muslim/Orthodox Jewish world-view that fundamentally opposes homosexual relationships?" No! It talked about the children. More precisely, about how preventing gay and lesbian couples from having state-sanctioned relationships that do not differ from heterosexual couples' state-sanctioned relationships hurts children because studies say that children "do best" in households with a mother and a father. Say what? So gay people can't get married because researchers have determined that children of divorced parents or widowed parents struggle in ways their two-parented peers don't? WHAT DOES ONE THING HAVE TO DO WITH THE OTHER! Just come out and say you oppose gay marriage because you oppose homosexuality! Leave the children out of it.

It's official. This election has pushed me other the edge. Between the Prop 8 mailer and my students assertion that poor people shouldn't "breed," I feel as though I'm in that episode of the Twilight Zone where people start using existent words in new ways and eventually the protagonist can't understand any of the conversations going on around him but can recognize all the words being used.

"Dinosaur doctor is at follow?" "Lampshade, speaker up button!"

Etc.

historicity*

2008-10-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

There is no better time to be in a history PhD program than the week of a major, ground-breaking, earth-shaking election. In preparation for my long overdue oral exams, I've been meeting with people this week, firming up my exam date, talking about questions, scuffling over historiography. But mostly we meet and talk about the election.

Yesterday, I met with the 20th century person on my committee and he said he has stopped taking interview requests and spends his nights worrying about disenfranchised voters. And assassination. And mob violence. "But a socialist? They think he's a socialist? Don't I wish..."

Today, the intimidating cultural historian said she thinks the racism and accusations of communism coming from the opponents signal the death throes of the campaign. "It's like 1962. Last I checked, the Cold War had ended. I think we won."

There are four (married) lesbian couples in my department. Some of whom moved to California, and our department, from places like Duke to get away from the kind of scary homophobic vitriol that comprises most of the Prop 8 campaign. I met with one such professor yesterday, and before we started our boring Planning Committee meeting she clutched her wedding ring and said, a little louder than expected, "God dammit, I hope they lose."

Interesting times.

*Capitalization partially corrected for the Grammar Sensitive

sunday, something of a routine, crossroads.

2008-10-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

I went to the Hollywood Farmer's Market again this week. This time I hit up the Obama bake sale and spent some time chatting with the No on 8 activists. No matter how many times I go to a solid farmer's market, I never cease to be amazed by how beautiful everything looks when I unpack my bag. I'm especially fond of my over-sized Daikon. I'm taking preparation suggestions.

5:09

2008-10-23T05:09:00.000-07:00

I give up. I've been trying to fall asleep for 4 hours. I had two very unpleasant dreams between 2 a.m and 2:40 a.m, but otherwise I've been tossing and pacing and tossing and passing since 1. Is the math right on that? I don't know. If I don't go to sleep, today is going to be miserable. But really, at this point, I have to get in an hour and a half, so who cares? But if I'm this incoherent on my blog, and this unable to self-edit or say, NOT BLOG, how in the world am I going to get through teaching and meeting with a professor?

Oh that I had short-acting sedative. At this point, I'd probably be better off with a long acting one.

Damn.

warning! cheesy as all get out

2008-10-22T00:15:00.001-07:00

Mike and I have been together for 9.6 years. We do a lot of annoying, nagging, heteronormative couple things. He complains that my eyeshadow clutters the bathroom counters, and I protest that he doesn't clean said counters, so he can suck it. He marvels at my ability to misplace my keys, and I can't fathom his ability to forget holidays, especially ones that require difficult multi-destination travel plans. There is nothing particularly note-worthy about any of this, but it accumulates and it's easy to talk about at parties with other annoying, nagging, heteronormative couples.

So instead of talking about those things up there, indulge me while I report the following:

When Mike got home from work today, we changed into our running clothes and headed up into the hills. We ran through the sunset and kept going after it got dark. At the top of the ridge there is a full, open view of downtown and a tiny community succulent-garden. We pondered the city for a few minutes before sprinting back down the hill to home. We got home, hungry. "Would you...?" I started, weakly. "Make you a cocktail? But of course." I cut up vegetables and took out the frozen fake meat. He mixed strong drinks. We streamed election coverage and jumped over to Marketplace because we felt like it. I made the stir-fry incredibly spicy since we apparently burned off our taste buds and only eat food that makes our necks sweat and eyes tear.

We ate dinner on the couch. Otherwise known as, how 90 minutes can be worth a whole world of dirty counters.

cooked

2008-10-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

Here's what happened to all that produce from the Hollywood farmer's market. I wish I had pictures, but alas, just words.

Parsley and Cavolo Nero Pesto
Persimmon and Jicama Salad
Carrot and Jicama Salad
Butternut Squash Stew with Aleppo pepper
3 pink lady apples eaten with various lunches
Asparagus and "chicken" stir-fry with chili, lime, soy-sauce, and ginger*

Tomorrow I'm roasting the parsnips, potatoes, and heirloom carrots to take to a post-operative friend.

Just call me Betty Crocker of the Farmer's Market, baby.

*Quorn

delay

2008-10-21T13:05:00.001-07:00

Grading term papers drives me to total distraction. My distraction looks like the following:

1. Dear Produces of MTV's scripted reality show The Hills: If you are willing to pay my rent, enable me to travel between LA-New York-Boston-SF on a private jet, and furnish me with a new wardrobe and personal make-up artist, I promise to spout dialogue more interesting than the syllables that escape from the lips of your current The Hills cast. You want drama, struggle, tears, drunken fits, chaste kissing, and fancy cars? You got it.

2. Obama might actually win this election. Oh. My. God. Four years of studying American History and spending hours and hours thinking about/reading about/writing about the ways in which the very fabric of this country is woven together with threads of structural racism is about to be totally turned sideways. Or counter-clockwise. I don't even have the appropriate clock-based spatial metaphor to describe how weird it will be if Barack Obama wins the US presidential election.

3. Obama might lose this election. Oh. My. God. What would we do? Would things really change for the worse? Can things really get worse? Would Tina Fey have to return to Saturday Night Live full time? What would happen to 30 Rock? Who cares about 30 Rock! Sarah Palin is the Vice President! John McCain got into office race-baiting and invoking class warfare! I can't find my passport and our flight to Finland/Canada/Other-Northern Nation - where people like me threaten to move to whenever the country shifts right - leaves in an hour!

4. I'm running out of sticky notes. How can I indicate their grades without inking them if I don't have sticky notes! I have to go to Walgreens right now. Right after I watch this 45 second clip of The Hills on Jezebel.

Sunday Morning Fall

2008-10-20T10:34:00.001-07:00

I went to the Hollywood Farmer's on Sunday morning and came home with potatoes, parsnips, kale, jicama, baby butter lettuce, butternut squash, asparagus, persimmons, sorrel, parsley, mint, Pink Lady apples, and some raw goat's milk cheddar.

That's a lot of produce for just the two of us, but I think we'll be able to get through it. Last night I made a butternut squash and brown rice stew with Aleppo pepper and a salad with the jicama, persimmons, and walnuts. I felt like I was in a Martha Stewart Magazine Fall Special Issue, but everything was pretty and yummy, so I'm not complaining.

Friday Night

2008-10-18T16:08:00.001-07:00

We toyed with the idea of going for ramen in Little Tokyo, but the wait for a table threatened to be epic. Instead, we rented a Norwegian movie called Reprise and watched it on our couch. When I saw the name Von Trier flash by during the opening credits, I was worried that I had accidently signed us up for some kind of horrible 3 hour carvinal of Scandanavian brutality, but Reprise was actually a lovely, sad, beautiful little movie. It's about two friends in Oslo. Both are young, sweet, bright men in their early 20s. One falls apart and the other tries (and fails) to help him.

There were moments that were hard to watch, but only because they seemed so much like what it's actually like when a friend goes to pieces and everyone around is trying to hold them together and they fall apart anyway. I suppose I felt so moved because it felt real and familiar, but also distant and beautiful. Cinematic.

I also liked the soundtrack and the clear Nordic light.

First Friday

2008-10-17T14:40:00.001-07:00

My students were great today. Granted, the bar has been set pretty god damned low these past few weeks, but today they came through.

First, I told them that if they talked over me or each other, I was going to make them complete a four page essay about the differences between Darwin and Lamarck. I must have said this with sufficient conviction, because they sat quiet for the whole 50 minutes.

Once I had their attention, we proceeded to have a nice discussion. I did some lecturing, they did some talking, things got heated for a few minutes, and everyone left in something approaching a good mood.

I'm so resistant to lecturing. They get lectured at enough in lecture, but today, as I stood at the front of the room and talked about various forms of teleological argumentation and they took furious notes and raised their hands to ask if the scientific method isn't also a form of teleology, I realized the beauty of telling them what they need to know in order to pass the class.

8:29

2008-10-17T08:29:00.000-07:00

There is nothing better than waking up to an email like the following from a troublesome student:

"omg, i had no idea! am i going to be graded down now!!!!!"

Yes, I'm afraid you are.

A Move

2008-10-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the amazing power of google search algorithms and the miraculous ability of said algorithms to link a girl to her blog even when said girl has never once not ever used her very unusual, very web-visible, name in her blog, La Critika has moved. Welcome.

Things should be back to normal soon.