McD's

Oh yeah, and since I brought it up last night at Flats, here's a link to that thing about the guy with McDonad's food making him terribly, terribly sick. DON'T try this at home, kids.

AWWW aren't germies cute?!

If you're wondering what to get me for ::insert random over-commercialized holiday here:: this year, check out these little darlings. Way to anthropomorphize, geeks!! I applaud you!!

I say, "hail, mighty geeks! All must bow before your power and glory!!"

But that's all you're getting today. I have things to do (she said, mysteriously, before heading for the couch, coffee, and hours upon hours of VH1).

** I also would like to smugly point out this. Thank you. I am actually smarter than you think I am. (despite grammatical errors to the contrary. Those were not my fault. It was the keyboard.)

Dave & Carmen

Forget Bennifer, forget Demi & Ashton, forget any other couple out there. Carmen & Dave are my new guilty secret. I always liked Dave Navarro in general, but now seeing them on their little "wedding reality" show makes it clear he's a cool guy (although a little freaky. go figure). What a fun idea they had with their wedding invitations... "til death to us part" indeed.

Healthy Marriage Initiative Invitation

A lovely marriage invitation here. Government definitely needs to stay out of "healthy marriage" n'est pas?

On similar news, Congratulations Daysleeper!! Best wishes!

Google Me This

Okay, it's truly starting to creep me out how many people get to my blog by putting in search phrases that would normally land them on a vile & disturbing p@rn page. I really don't want to put the phrases in this blog entry because it'll end up sending more of the hapless pervs here. While I appreciate and applaud the right for anyone to want to look at consensual adults doing things they wanna do, (no kids or animals, please! and consenting is an important word) I DON'T want to 1. look at it myself 2. have it pop up on google every time I put what I think is an innocuous search term into the thing. I put the "counter" on the page cause I wanted to see how many people were visiting, where they came from. I saw wonderful "google fiction" on estella's blog, and thought, wow, I wonder what people will get to my blog with?

Granted, they don't appear to spend much time on my site-- there are no nasty videos here, thank you very much. Aside from some search phrases that make me laugh-- "weight watchers stuff" and "luby's" and a really weird one about "TJ Maxx," and "Flannery O'Connor and a stoat" (what were they looking for?!)-- there are people trolling about for p@rn who think a website with a title "kim procrastinates" is a likely place to shop. It's really begun to make me very self-conscious about the words I use. Google is a "whole word" index-- it lists every word on your website and people with very loose search strings will see a match when there isn't one. But what words will get the deviants here? I shudder to think. The funny thing about it is that I can put phrases like "Little Women" into google and get p@rn. I don't understand why they're having so much trouble finding it that they have to search the ninth hit on the list. It's really easy. Just put the word P@RN into your search engine and you'll find it, dudes & dudettes!! (And I'm really wishing I hadn't written the word p@rn so many times here, and am thinking about adding a subterfuge to get it out of google.)

Look at the definition of procrastinate, please. It's not PROCREATE. Go elsewhere for your jollies, thank you.

just so's you know

I'm going out of town early tomorrow morning, to the land of the computerless. (My family isn't exactly computer-ish and unless I find a cybercafe, well, it's hopeless). So I'll be back Sunday (hopefully AM). Maybe I'll have interesting things to say based on my aerobics workshop and/or flights. We'll see. Surely something in Mississippi will be blogworthy. The odds are with us.

In the meantime, try these healthy diversions:

Boarding Bunny
senses test this one's kinda hard! test your senses. Although I totally disagree with them about the pineapple question.
Java Pac Man!
Take a meaningless test you can brag about. I like the gender one cause it says I'm a man, baby.
It's not addicting, it's addictive
Go to the Library

While you're wasting time, why doesn't someone go feed my cat? You know who you are. :)

UPDATE Oops. Have you SEEN the weather? Apparently, it is a terrible weekend for me to fly to Mississippi cause I go "standby" and it's just NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Which is actually quite a good thing cause on the way in to check the flight availabilities, I discovered-- drum roll please--
A LEAK IN MY PLUMBING!!!!! there is water in the floor (formica is ruined) and it's a fun filled day with a man with butt-crack tomorrow (aka the plumber). The water is currently off, which sucks when I want to wash my hands. Sigh. HEAVY sigh. I'm glad I took a shower after my workout.

So thankfully AFAA offers "credit" for missed classes. I must to the batcave to see how that works so I don't lose my money. Damnfire and hellnation.

MDD: Mathematics Deficit Disorder

When I began this blog entry, it was to joke about how bad I am at math. On the GRE, years ago, even after intensive studying, I managed to score a 13% on the math section. That means that fully 93% of the population did better than me. (Yes. I know the math is wrong there. It's a joke.) This is the same exam on which I scored in the 90% on verbal and somewhere in the 60's on logic. I took an IQ test sponsored by the BBC a month or so ago and did embarrassingly bad on it-- primarily because of the two math sections on which I freaked out and, under the anxiety of doing word problems (I know, they are easy for apparently everyone else in the world but me) I did stupid things like accidentally answer two questions at once, and generally just panic. I totally must have missed something like all of the math related questions, because I felt I was doing okay on the other sections of the test. According to that IQ test, I should have never made it past 6th grade. So then what the hell am I struggling with my dissertation for? I should be happily finger painting or something. (Sounds good to me!)

I have generally made okay grades in math courses-- given time, and a calm environment, I understand theory of math quite well. Better, in fact, than my husband did when he tried to help me with the problems I was working during my college Algebra course. Long ago when I was studying math all the time and took the ACT to get into college, I scored an above average score for the math section (I don't remember the actual numbers. See. Numbers are bad). So, when it's something that I don't get anxious about, I can do math just as well as the next person.

But it really does seem weird that someone who is as advanced in education and pretty smart about a lot of other things can just be as bad at math testing as I am. Supposedly, the average grad student has an IQ of about 120. My BBC IQ "test" put me WAAAAAAY under that. But I did fine in grad school, aside from the normal lame freakouts that everyone has now and then, and a few "issues" with tests/essays/bosses. I made all A's with the exception of one independent study where my professor thought my paper was "eh." So-- one paper "eh." Surely that puts me above average, huh?

I mean, I am apparently really, really bad at certain math scenarios. Clearly, my math problem must not be my fault. There has to be some sort of psychological disorder-- maybe a drug I could take to fix my math phobia. Well. In planning this blog, I looked up "MDD" and found an entry for it. I found a similar one here (these authors are remarkably similar-- perhaps they plagiarism a bit? hmmm? Is that better than my math problems I ask you?)

The first website says: "It is possible that some people have problems in math because of their genetic makeup. In contrast to some families whose members have great difficulty solving math problems, there are other families who tend to have members that consistently have a very high-level of math functioning."

"See" she said defiantly. "My genetics have cursed me to do badly in math. I'm not, contrary to what the IQ test said, just smarter than Forrest Gump. I have a mental sensitivity, dammit. Me and Barbie understand that math is hard. I demand that you refigure your tests to not be biased against me. I deserve a good IQ score, too. I want to be able to lord over everyone how well I do on standardized tests! I want to be asked to join groups like MENSA and scorn them because they don't know the word means "stupid" in Spanish." (Yeah, sure. They're being ironic.)

It's just not fair for me to suck at things like that. I want someone to design an IQ test that appreciates my special form of genius. So. You psychologist types. Get busy. Write me a test that proves I am the genius I am. I'm going to go fingerpaint till you get it done.

Outlaw Women Hit San Antonio!! Reward For Capture!!

The three banditas were lovely beyond words. Known only as La Vampira, Senora Rica, and Manda la Hermosa, they rode into San Antonio one Sunday we will never forget. La Vampira was a dark, exotic beauty with luscious red lips-- rumor has it she cannot live during the day without her magic golden "ear bobs," given to her by a famous Transylvanian Prince on their wedding night. She rides ceaselessly to avenge his brutal slaying at the hands of the deadly Jesuit vampire hunter, El Perskio. She believes if she avenges her Prince's death, his spirit will rise to take perfect human form again, and their love will last forever. Senorita Rica, with her blond curls and sparkling blue eyes, loves the taste of tequila and will shoot you on sight if you break her rule of talking business "after five." She only has eyes for her lover, the dashing Senor Broculi from New Mexico, but her sharp temper is legendary-- and she might just crack that bullwhip if you step out of line. Manda la Hermosa is the group's business-leader--she may not have a head for math, but she can add up the gold the trio has stolen from the banks of every unfair jefe malvado west of the Mississippi with no trouble.

The word on the street had it that it was Manda's idea to visit fair San Antonio on the springlike day in January. With its clear blue sky and warm temperatures, it was no wonder the three former saloon girls turned bandita would seek to have some refreshing lemonade at the new saloon run by the recent Irish immigrant, Mr. Pat O'Brian, after shopping for new blankets for their faithful horses, and some face creams from the local curanderas. Just outside the Alamo, they had a brush with a lawman who failed to recognize them; dazzled as he was by their beauty, all he said was "ladies." I saw them myself as they posed for newfangled pictures, holding their weapons of choice and displaying some of their cash. The rumor that they cheat at cards is surely an unfounded lie spread by detractors jealous of their beauty. They ride shoeless in honor of the legendary Amazons, who are said to have fought their many enemies while barefooted.

It was truly a shame that just after they took these lovely photos, the sheriff of our fair River City came and trapped them in a horse corral. For forty minutes they fought to escape, mingling in a small stampede of various other riders drawn out by lovely weather. La Vampira bolted first-- escaping into a yellow buggy as she vowed to see her partners in crime later. The other two hid out for a while somewhere on the river before throwing the sheriff off their trail and escaping on Rica's gold-toned horse, named Saturn, after the Roman god of war. They rode out, singing "Yellow Rose of Texas" and dreaming of the day when their independent spirit and beauty would no longer label them outlaws. Surely no one would claim the $25,000 dollars in gold coin which is the reward for their capture-- but it would be a lucky man indeed who spotted them and lived to tell the tale.

Teaching "men" to not "abuse women"

I use "quotes" around my title cause I'm really feeling a little critical of this ad campaign and article about "coaching boys to not abuse women." Yes, one definitely must start when people are children to keep violence out of the home. The article implies that "kids are exposed to violence outside the home" that will make them violent. I say, hooey! In my experience (and unfortunately, in my childhood I had a lot of this kind of experience) the best way to keep someone from being an abuser is to not abuse them. Abusers are not usually outsiders-- they are usually insiders-- it doesn't happen in some random strange place, it happens in your own living room. The only way to stop it? To not have a man in the house who abuses his wife/the child's mom. To not have a mom hurt you. Most abusers learn it from their parents. Do you really think that the people who are out there hurting their kids and spouses are going to read this lovely little internet article and think "wow, yes, that's certainly the answer. I've seen the error of my ways?" If you do, you're a lot more optimistic than I am about this. I do realize that MAYBE coaches, and teachers, and outsiders can possibly have some minor influence on a kid if they follow the advice in here. But I think it'll be minimal.

I think their heart is in the right place. People (and I don't just say men here cause I don't think men are the only culprits in a very violent culture) need to learn to be kind to each other, to not be violent. But I think these little suggestions are basically using a thimble to bail the ocean. The violent culture in which we live, where TV execs take out scenes of "sexual content" (which is a normal and good part of human life) and leave in "violence" of a level that makes me nauseous, needs significant changes. And I'm cynically afraid that it'll take a shift in human nature-- and that, my friends, will take a frickin' miracle.

Okay. Today's entry is cynical to the extreme-- I'll write a more positive one tomorrow, wherein I talk about our "tourist in your own home town" day. With pictures. :)

Banditos of the Mall Parking Lot

Yesterday, at the Forum shopping center, there was this (presumably) security guard driving around in a golf cart, wearing a red-bandana over his face "bandit" style. His long, wavy black hair whipped out behind him as he cruised around the lot. I saw him several times, each time wearing the bandana. Ah, the freedom of the open parking lot with your trusty golf cart beneath you. YEEEEE HAAAAH!

What the heck is the point? It was not particularly cold yesterday, nor dusty. Nor have there been any major reports of SARS or Mad Parking Lot walker disease in the San Antonio area (that I know of). I kept thinking we should "circle the wagons" cause los banditos were coming.

Randomly Connecting Tangent in 3, 2, 1.......
When I was first in college, I heard a letter written by Flannery O'Connor to a friend of hers where she described a bizarre incident that happened in her home town where the local "clan" dressed up in their robes, drove around in convertible cars, which were decorated with Christmas lights, giving out baskets to the poor. She said something like "I don't make this stuff up." Seeing El Bandito Del Parking Lot made me think of that letter. Maybe it was a gesture of solidarity to Michael Jackson or something. Who the heck knows. Alls I know is-- it was kinda weird.

But what is weirder is this mask I found searching for a picture to describe the above event for you, visually. Check this out. Do you think the model puts that photo in his portfolio of "jobs" in order to go out and get more? All I kept thinking was Zed's Dead, Baby. Zed's Dead.

I'm a nervous wreck

Tituba (my kitty) is at the vet preparing to get her dental surgery today. She had a cranky night cause I couldn't feed her after 8 last night, and then I had to drag her out in the car and put her in an uncomfortable metal cage at the vet's. Then, while I was filling out the paperwork, she let out this heartbroken meowl. I feel terrible; I know the dental scaling is good for her, and it should help the tummy aches and stuff. But I still feel like a big, bawling, nervous baby. I know that the "risks" associated with anesthesia are low, but I still am freaked out by the fact that there are any risks at all. I know now why I put it off last year when the vet recommended she get this procedure. Cause I'm scared something will happen to her. I actually am more worried right now about her than I was about myself back a few years ago when I had to have anesthesia. ::sigh::

Yes. That would be bad. Now, I'm going to be a big doofus all day till she's okay. So if you have any good kitty karma to spare, think happy thoughts about my little black kitten and say a "blessing" to Bast for her.

UPDATE: I just heard from the vet and Tituba is "in recovery" waking up and apparently fine. Her teeth are all clean and she didn't have to have a tooth removed after all. BUT there still is the question of the upset tummies, and why. So we have to keep an eye for a little longer, since she has just recently gotten a new kind of food; that could be it. It could be some liver issues (cause she keeps hittin' the sauce-- I tell her, "no more than ten Margaritas, Tituba," but does she listen?) So, I'm feeling a little better. Still anxious about what's wrong. I know it's totally lame to talk about your pet too much in a blog, but I promise to post something cool and non-kitty related tomorrow. :)

Eshu-Elegbara Comes to Town

Eshu-Elegbara is the African figure of creativity, guardian of the crossroads, and part of the "signifying monkey" of African folkloric tradition. Considering this is the first day of the Chinese New Year, singified by monkeys, I'm feeling very good-omen-ish. Since I've been studying voodoo as part of the dissertation work on Brown Girl in the Ring, I know he's also one of the voodoo loa who help the initiate participate in religious ceremonies. I put a veve to Eshu on my laptop the other day, to try to help beg for some help in the dissertation inspiration department. Today, I wrote four or five pages of the best work I've done in a long time, as intro to Chapter three, which will be the chapter that features Brown Girl in it. I'm very excited. Maybe, instead of invoking the dissertation fairies, I've been talking to the wrong cultural mythological tradition. If so, then so be it-- I'll get out the cigars and rum and candy and promise more to the loa if they just help me unleash the creativity of scholarship that I need before I can get on with my life. Really, now that I think of it, guardian of the crossroads is exactly the spirit to invoke for a dissertation-- which is a sort of crossroad between "student" life and "professor" life-- a key to the Ivory Tower. So, thank you Eshu. Keep my tongue signifying, please please! There's a huge bag full of chocolate candies and some Pina Coladas in it for you.

When You Realize You're Being Paranoid

And it's a good thing!

So I'm at Borders, browsing in the "metaphysics witchcraft magic" section looking for useful books for my dissertation work, particularly annoyed that the alphabet seems a bit "off" in this section and I can't find the author I want, and I hear two teenaged girls giggling and whispering in the book row behind me. I keep hearing the noises that truly mean that they are being secretive and weird-- those "unforgettable from the teen years" spider sense feelings that I am the butt of a joke. I'm thinking they're making fun of me cause here I am in the witch section, browsing through books like Hex in the City and Voodoo in Haiti. I'm debating whether or not to turn around and give them an "evil eye"-- heck, since I'm in the witch section, they OUGHT to fear me, right?

Then, after they leave and I have made my final selections (including a cool book called The Pagan's Muse, with "pagan prayers" and poems) I glance at the row the girls were uncontrollably giggling in.

Oh. The label on the row reads "Erotica" ::blush::

No wonder they were all teen-ager-y. Clearly, it wasn't my butt they were concerned with (well maybe, but probably not). :)

Still, it's sad/funny that I felt a bit paranoid in the witch section. I happily recognize that the world of witches is NOT what many people think it is-- witches aren't Satanists-- in fact, most witches, being pagan, don't even believe in Satan at all (you have to be Christian to be a Satanist, in a way-- he is the devil of the Christian pantheon, after all). And I don't live anymore in the heart of the Bible belt where some fundamentalist fellow might yell at me through a bullhorn cause I'm at an Irish Pub having dinner. But it's really a bit disconcerting to browse that row and see the looks on people's faces as you go by. If you don't believe me, try it sometime. Oh, not if you live somewhere like NYC. But anyplace that's a little "small" that might have obnoxious teens. Just make sure the magic row is not right next to the Erotica one before you get your hackles up.

Of course, I'd rather be the one browsing the witchcraft stacks than the young man and woman who were snuggled up very cozily with her on his lap being all "Jack and Diane" on a chair in the middle of the "Religion and Spirituality" section who looked at ME funny. I guess you can get yourself dropped off by your parents at the book store and the clueless parent figures there's no place for canoodling. (There was a plague of teens there this afternoon apparently). They're the ones who should have been in the Erotica section. Maybe next time I'll point that out to them.

MMMM. John Cusack-y goodness

I hate it when blogs do too much quiz posting. But I'm really stoked about this one, cause I wanna wanna wanna work at the High Fidelity record store. Really. I realize "good" is not a "good" really, but at least I knew somethin'.
Picture Removed Cause it Won't LOAD!!!!Good. You know your music. You should be able to
work at Championship Vinyl with Rob, Dick and Barry
Do You Know Your Music (Sorry MTV Generation I Doubt You Can Handle This One)
brought to you by Quizilla

In Case You Didn't Already Know This....

I hate to do so many entries on my cat lately, but she is my current main companion. And so.

The in case you didn't know:

it does no damn good to yell at a
cat because they are driving you crazy while you're trying to
work. They just meow at you and claw your chair.

Also. Women Writers, my "online academic feminist geek fest" is new. There's tons of book reviews. Soon there will be new poetry & fiction. And MAYBE some scholarly articles, although I'm not sure. So. If you want to know what you ought to read, check it out. While I go pummel the cat.

Cats Love Pilates

It is a widely held belief that Joseph Pilates invented Pilates, a stretching and toning techinique, in the early 20th century. In reality, he ripped off the exercise from his cat, Pickles. Cats have been doing "pilates" for hundreds of thousands of years.

During some Pilates moves, cats will often meow loudly and run under your body while you try to do the rapid motions of "rolling like a ball." Do not be confused or upset-- the meowing is actually encouragement as the kitty says, "get your fat butt moving-- it's about time you started working out." Kitty yoga, of which all cats are natural masters, is very similar to Pilates and cats instinctively understand what you are doing; their apparent distress is actually an attempt to push you to your peak Pilates and/or Yoga technique.

Your yoga/pilates master cat's darting under your body is not designed to throw off your workout, as kitties understand that good workouts actually push you into physical "overload" and you boost your metabolism by adding complex motions like the advanced move titled "avoiding-crushing-10-pounds-of-cat-under-the-rapidly descending body" (it's actually very hard to translate into English; you should hear the name in felineglais). As you attempt to avoid squishing the kitty under your rapidly rolling body, remember that bleeding from multiple kitty scratch wounds burns calories-- so if you come a little "too close" for the kitty's comfort, they might swat you. This swat is to be taken as a compliment.

An added bonus to kitty Pilates is that by properly positioning kitty, you can pet them while doing your "hundreds." However, be sure to keep your powerhouse engaged while removing kitty from your tummy, where she will have settled during your brief rest period between sets. Again, this is not an attempt to distract you but to remind you to keep your abs flat and comfortable for kitty rest. The longer you can stay with kitty on abs and abs engaged, the better your physical conditioning.

Kitty Pilates and Kitty Yoga are advanced, very spiritual practices which I'm sure you will come to love as much as I have. My kitty yoga master, Tituba, (which means well-stretched-one in felineglais) leaves you with a calming "namaste" as she enjoys her catnip tea and contemplates the Nirvana of the couch.

Guess what I did tonight?

Watched Friends. Played on the computer while that horrible Donald Trump show was on (soooooo borrrrring. the worst reality show ever!) Then, sat on couch to watch Will & Grace & drank Sleepytime tea. This is what it looked like. Those books are the ones I'm using right now for dissertation work. This is officially "my view from the couch." The piles of papers? Photos I took for the dissertation. See how busy I am?

Digital cameras are fun.

Hey, give me a break. My husband has been out of town for months and will be out till May and my cat pukes in the middle of the night. I am allowed to be annoyingly blog-camera-irrelevant fact-y.

witches are cute--- and scary-- and.... er.... Russian Politicians(?)

If you do a search of images of witches on certain internet graphics websites, you find a really fascinating juxtaposition of scary evil witch images from, say, the 1500s (around the time our modern concept of the witch develops) and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch looking cute and perky at various functions. Oh, and various "witch doctors" from third world countries in full costume. And, inexplicably: Vladimir Putin. ??

One of the things that is most fascinating to me is that in old woodcuts of witch trials, almost ALWAYS the witches are female and the entire crowd of people surrounding/executing them is male. And if there are women, they are there either as other witches or horrified onlookers. Women don't appear, in most of the art, to be enjoying the spectacle the way the men are.

the trouble with blogging is....

when you talk to a friend you haven't spoken to in a while, but who regularly reads your blog, all your "new" stories are "old" to them.

Things to do today:
1. get "sample" dissertation bound so I can read it. Gaze longingly at it and wish it were mine. Think about putting white out on the name and seeing if the committee will fall for that trick.
2. nap-- the cat puking kept me up for three hours. But I did read dissertation work during that time, so it counts as work. Can it count as work today, or is it yesterday if it was still dark out?
3. Exercise. I bailed on exercise Tuesday, so need to workout today or else both weekend days will be workout days. Because of the rainy wet weather, I begin to feel the urge to bail today, too.
3.a. Have you ever noticed how long it takes for the microwave to cook for 8 minutes when you're starving? You go in there, and there's still 4 minutes, after what seems like HOURS of waiting. Lean Cusine Vegetable Eggroll, HURRY UP!!
4. stop blogging.
5. but there was this interesting article on NPR yesterday, on the Diane Rehm Show about writer's block (which I don't have, but a little bit of dissertation anxiety) and hypergraphia. I thought the woman (Alice Weaver Flaherty) on the show had been spying on me. Maybe she is. Maybe secretly I'm being recorded RIGHT NOW. In that case, I better take a shower. Go to the NPR link and listen to the article on "The Midnight Disease." Totally. She's watching me now.

Bulimia Kitty

That sounds like a cool grrrrrl band, doesn't it? If you have a grrrrrl band, you're welcome to use it. But in reality, it's a sad (mostly true) story. My cat Tituba, who is my baby, my angel, is having a "digestive issue." I first noticed it when she lost a bunch of weight in December. She'd always been a cat that people said "boy, that cat is fat"-- insulting her and making her very sad as she read through Cosmopolikitty. She would ask me if her collar made her butt look fat and push her salad away before finishing it, ordering it always without dressing of course. So I was happy at first, thinking the "weight control" cat food had finally done its trick getting her down to a normal, not-fat kitty weight. Slim, trim, doing kitty yoga and all.

But lately, she's been puking up all the "dry food" at approximately 3 am. Then, after begging for more "moist food," she eats for a few minutes, then runs to the litterbox where she has, er, other issues. Other than the puking, and litter box issues, she's fine-- seems pretty much normal. Happy and playing and all that. But I'm definitely worried about that binge-purge stuff.

I'm taking her to the vet at 10:30 today, to see if there's something we can do. She's 10 years old, which in cat years is an old lady. I can't help but wonder if her exposure to the Victoria's Secret models and all those mean (dare I say, catty?) comments from people over the years is affecting her as she tries for supermodel thinness. Maybe she needs some therapy. And twinkies. I wonder if she can keep those down.

UPDATE: Well, we're back from a harrowing experience. Poor kitty had to be poked with needles a BUNCH cause she needs blood work to make sure she can "go under" next week. Why? She has a bad tooth, and needs the rest of the teeth scraped for tartar. Basically, that, and the stress from Andrew being gone, is probably what is causing her puking and smelly poop. Because of the sore tooth, she doesn't want to eat the dry food, and the moist food is stinkier. So, mostly, everything is okay.

Except for the "you better watch your back" looks she's giving me now after her visit to the V-E-T. So if I don't post again for a long, long time, and you hear something bad has happened to me, tell the police it was the cat. She's definitely got it out for me now. I hope she doesn't hire a "hit snake" like she did on that mouse problem we had a while back.

Liberty For All

As Long as You Get it in by April 15

Yesterday, I was driving along and there was this young woman in a Statue Of Liberty Costume standing in the parking lot of a fairly empty former-grocery-store strip mall (since the store relocated, it's a bit Mad-Max-ish). She was waving a sign about coming in to do your taxes at the tax-refund store in the strip mall. Waving her little "faux" torch and holding her little "do your taxes" sign.

She was a study in fabulous contradictions. Oh, Lady Liberty, ah, since when are you a tax-whore?

LIBERTY: "Give me your tired, your poor, your starving masses yearning to breathe free"---- "and bring your W2 forms and your I-9s while you're at it. Don't forget photo ID cause if you want to file this baby electronically and get all your deductions, I'm gonna need that ID on file."

A much, much better mascot, metaphorically speaking, would have been Uncle Sam. Or even some tea. (wait for it; it's revolutionary war humor)

OOH. Now With Titles

I've been faking it. I saw other blogs with titles and have been making them up with a "heading" html script. I just realized, after joining a blog group called blogsisters, that the button on the "settings" section about a title field allows me to automatically insert a title. With no fake HTML on my part. Finally. A title feature that can really satisfy my urge to label. So, now, I am a sistah, and capable of inserting witty monikers for all my entries. If I could just get my frickin' archives to work, I'd be all good.

Now, for my nightly date with Sleepytime tea.

Reading The Third Wave

So third wave feminism is important to me, to my dissertation, and I've been trying to figure out what it is so that I can write about it in said dissertation. Basically, the idea is that there have been three distinct "waves" of feminism. The first wave is considered to be early feminists-- a big long historical group starting roughly with women like Mary Wollstonecraft and moving into the 1900s with suffragettes and suffragists (yes, there is a difference.) Second wave feminists are the ones we are most familiar with-- women and yes, men, of the 1960s to the present who fought for equal pay rights, equality in the workplace, an end to domestic violence as a "to the moon Alice" joke, sexual freedoms, such as birth control rights, and increased representation of women in ALL walks of life. These second wavers are still actively engaged in feminism-- many of them are my mentors. Third wave, then, is defined as women and men who have come to feminist thinking with it always there-- those of us born since, say, 1964ish. But what, you say, beyond this rather simplistic concept of "waves" is the third wave of feminism?

We correspond roughly with Gen-X (although we don't often like to admit that.) A while back, on my other website, we did a collaborative review of a book that helps define third wave feminism better than I can do in a brief blog entry. Check it out. Also check out a couple of websites with some good definitions and arguments: here and here.

Third wavers have been called post-feminist, and disparaged as creating division within feminism where there should be none. Second Wavers have said that third wavers are selfish, that we feel a sense of entitlement. "Well, geez" says I. "Wasn't us being entitled to freedoms and choice part of what you fought for?" The Onion wrote a bit a while back titled "Women Now Empowered By Everything a Woman Does." They mean it as a joke-- a way of poking fun at the way feminism has been co-opted by things such as the Luna bar and cereal.

But the thing is-- the Onion is partially right! Women today can be and are feminists without having to march on Washington in big groups waving signs. It's not just about big political movements; it's also about being free to choose to not think about it! The freedom for women to just live their lives today IS a feminist act-- because of feminists, women can choose to live their lives without being forced into things they don't want to do, or given no voice. Even the choice to NOT be a feminist can be seen as a feminist act. You are allowed to not think about it, to stay home and be conservative, and still enjoy certain freedoms as a woman that women of the past, women of other countries, do not have. Think about the women being beaten with a stick by the Taliban for going out in public without a man to accompany them, and women who have to ask for political asylum to avoid having parts of their sexual organs cut off, and you will realize that ALL women in the US and other "first world" countries have a lot to thank feminism for.

Just in the daily clothing choices we make, and our choices of whether or not to be stay at home moms or high-powered attorneys, of whether to teach our toddler sign language or dress them in pink and blue, we can define ourselves as feminists. Like to wear short, short leather skirts and spike heels? Like to wear PANTS? Like to cut your hair? Like to use a condom to prevent pregnancy and/or disease? Like to READ? You have a feminist to thank for that.

As a blog I recently discovered put it, feminism doesn't exist-- feminismS do. There is no monolithic theory upon which we all agree. I can't define it very well right here. I'll have to do some work and really write a clear, coherent description of feminism, including third wave sorts of it. But that, of course, would mean I'd be working on my dissertation. So. For now, know that third wave feminism is a fact and will be around for a while. That doesn't mean we're trying to destroy those who have come before us-- nor that we don't realize we, too, will eventually be last year's news.

I need to get out more.

Yes, today, on the way back from the 11:00 hot aerobic workout, I found myself laughing and talking to myself because of a sign at the plant nursery down the street. It said "Fruit and Pecan Tree are here." So I was debating-- was it one pecan and one fruit tree? Or a tree that is a miraculous new mix of fruit AND pecan? As I was talking to myself, I realized that this is not exactly normal behavior. I think I need to get out of the house for a while and actually talk to other people. Maybe the cat doesn't count. So today is officially "errand running day." There are eyebrows that need waxing and checks that need depositing. And maybe a trip to Red Robin. mmmmm Red Robin. ::gurgle like Homer Simpson.::

Electronic Databases Rock!

I spent today downloading a ton of articles that I had been "meaning to get" ever since one of my committee members mentioned them, ages ago. I just hadn't made it to the library to get them. But, today, I figured out that the ones I really needed are available through some online databases that I can get access to through the library on campus. Score! So I have a TON, an absolute TON of reading material that would make people on planes wrinkle their foreheads when they said "what are you reading" and I showed them. They would say "What's the point of reading "Anti Essentialism in Practice: Carol Gilligan and Feminist Philosophy"? And I would smile wisely and say "ah, it's work stuff."

I worked hard today and now am on my way to the gym, and then later I will watch Friends and eat some rotisserie chicken & salad & veggies. I feel very virtuous, so don't get too close, cause my halo might poke you in the eye.

My "About Me" Page is newly updated.

January (not April) is the Cruelest Month

For most Americans, it's not Lent that is the time for penitence and virtuous redemption, it is the first few weeks of January. We try to quit things: smoking, eating too much, drinking, cursing. We go to the gym, that Foucauldian
Panopticon whose mirrored walls mercilessly show every bulge, every flaw, that was gained over the months of "holidays" from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve. The machines in the gym are medieval torture devices of which deSade would approve-- they bend us, move us like hamsters on a wheel spinning every so often upside down. We vow to get that project we've been neglecting done at last. To spend more time with our loved ones. We say "while in our cars, we won't speed anymore; we won't flip people off and cut them off in traffic; we will drive like mature adults." We'll save money, pay down that credit card debt.

If you're in a "public place," now, or the next time you find yourself in some line at the coffee shop, look around the room-- chances are good that a few of the people who you see are suffering from secret aches and muscle pains-- too much weight lifting or step aerobic-ing. They're craving a cookie, or a cigarette, or a damned drink of wine. Their cravings cannot be expressed well because they've given up cursing, #%&@!!. They are neck-deep in guilt over something they've been putting off for so long it's almost an insurmountable task. They're trying to juggle their schedule to include new yoga classes, or weight watchers, or that second job to save more money. They have made resolutions, dammit, and they're going to do it this year!

So. In the light of this national season of purging and fasting and stubborn attempts to mold ourselves into the people we want to be, I vote you who are reading this today be kind to someone. Smile at them. Don't sabotage their diets by bringing in Krispy Kremes. Don't disparage that project they've been writing for years and have yet to get done. Don't ask them when they're going to settle down, find the right woman/man, have kids.

Instead, offer them help with some difficult task-- open the door, say thank you, give those of them you know well enough to do this for a massage. They might not notice it, might not even say thank you in return, but you will be doing something kind and small and local and helpful to your own cosmic karma.

Me, I'm too busy writing my dissertation and entering the food I eat into my online diet journal and going to the gym and studying to be an aerobics instructor. It's definitely up to you guys to keep the season of resolve going. I resolve to get back to work on my real job.

Dissertation Work is Cool

Today I worked (for enough hours to now have a sore back) on the dissertation. I worked on analyzing the movie version of Practical Magic, * got some screen shots for the essay which I will eventually have to redo with a DVD version (they come out much clearer & cleaner than the video screen shots). I also wrote a bit in the chapter, which will turn into a conference paper for the conference I'm going to in April. I got the shooting scripts for the two movies (Practical Magic & Witches of Eastwick). They'll come in handy when I'm trying to quote the films. It's amazing what the Internet can provide us nowadays. You think-- surely, somewhere, someone has done this work for me-- and yup. There it is. So far, I've noticed a couple of minor errors in the transcription of PM, but I don't mind too much. It'll save me some major major typing.

I is a good good girl. :)

*from now on, I'm doing movie & book titles in bold instead of italics. I don't like the way italics looks on the page-- it scrunches them together too much. However, in true academic nerd fashion, I have to say this cause it IS a departure from MLA format. I know. No one but me cares. Just FYI.

Just in case you were wondering about why I think the characters in the Lord of the Rings are gay. Read their Very Secret Diaries and the continuing Journals.

Then, when you're done playing around with silly journaly things, check out Mr. Picassohead. So far, I am not thrilled with my creation. But I will, if I ever really like it, post it.

Elderly Father-in-Law Pummeled to Death With Carry-On-Luggage

In case you were wondering, it is NOT okay to be a complete hour late picking up someone who has been sitting around all morning in airports and on uncomfortable airline seats. Especially because you just didn't bother to leave to pick them up until you heard from them that the plane had landed, and then you ran out of gas. (Fill the tank up BEFORE you leave, please). Unless of course it's a clever ruse to get them to never ask you for a favor, the old avoiding the "please pick me up at the airport" bit. It's really much nicer to say "no, I can't pick you up" than to just make it a huge pain in the ass for you to be relied upon.

Crazy Irate Airline Passenger Gets His Butt (and Presumably Other Body Parts Too) Arrested

In case you were wondering, if a plane you're supposed to be flying on has a "minor mechanical issue" that keeps it from taking off for hours (really, we'd rather it break on the ground thank you very much Mr. Maintenance-- and that's not sarcasm), it's totally NOT okay to turn into Mr. Hyde and try to rip a flight-attendant and a gate-ticket guy's head off. What will happen when we finally leave the broken airplane to be "Re-routed" is that you, Mr. Mild-appearing Crazy-man will be "Re-routed" to the police station, and get some lovely photos you may or may not choose to share with the grandkids. And maybe some fingerprints. This also goes for the road-rage bristley pitt-bull of a man who did the "sarcastic guy applause" when they announced the first delay. Just because you buy tickets on an airplane does not entitle you to be qualified to demand the plane leave ON TIME when the thing breaks. Things break, Mr. Angrypants. It has happened to me a total of ONCE in many many years of airplane flying, so I figure, they really do have a pretty good record.

And yes. I did have an okay time driving Andrew back to Shreveport & then coming home again. Mostly. You do meet the most interesting blog characters, people, when traveling.

Math Is Hard Barbie

Sweet. For years I have been trying to figure out which Barbie was the one who pissed off feminists (of which I freely admit I am one, although mathematically challenged). Merely mentioning it in conversation tonight led Uncle Bob to find it online. Teen Talk Barbie. I have a "high bid" on ebay right now to get her. I believe too that math is hard, and that shopping is fun. I want her. Desperately. I know it sells out all the feminist principles on which my life is supposedly based. Screw it. I am an enigma wrapped in a mystery.

Happy New Year!

Well we had a very nice party at a friend's house-- photos are here if you wanna see. I've started using the online ofoto service cause it's easier than doing a whole spread myself in HTML and my server for womenwriters is a little full. So if you want to see lots of photos where I carefully positioned the camera for my best angles, check em out.

Andrew goes back to Shreveport tomorrow, and then I start my "new job" Monday-- writing full time to get the damned dissertation done. Andrew's dad said "you ain't doin' that... you aint finished it in a year". GRRRR. I do not like it when people assume because I'm not done with it I haven't worked on it. I have. Dammit. It just takes a lot of work and is hard. What have you done lately?

Anyway. I may cut back on blogging a bit, so that the computer doesn't suck me into that vortex known as the online community, where the writing I do doesn't get me a job. But I'll try to do something every day-- it just might be more of a "quickie."