Goodbye, cruel world wide web

I am full of wild speculation about the mental states of people who click on the "Delete Your Blog" button. Did their boyfriends start reading? Have they been untrue? Are they being stalked? Do their blogs incriminate them? Do they work at the White House?

I lost a fight with a battle

Actually, I'm not sure if I feel good about that dude hitting on me. Guys hitting on girls they don't know in bars often run through everything that's wrong with male-female relationships in about ten seconds. Ever see that thing where a guy hits on a girl and she'll refer to her boyfriend, and the two guys end up talking each other into a fight over her? What I don't get is this: it's not like if the other guy wins she's going to change her mind and date him. I never understood that in fairy tales, either. Kings are always running contests to see who gets to marry their daughters. Sure, it used to be women's place in the world. But where do people get the idea that that's still valid?

Half the time

It's been a busy night. A guy in my group turned in his master's thesis, so we all went out after work. A dude tried to pick me up, which kind of made me feel good even though he was basically drunk enough that he'd pick up anybody. Then on the bus home I ran into R., who I haven't seen in a while. I got hijacked into going to his friend's house and playing card/board games about zombies. It was dorky, but hanging out with them was fun.

I'm glad Matt's coming back this weekend. I'd rather hang out and talk than write emails and post to my blog (sorry blog).

np: flashing lights - where the change is

When the party's over, it will start again

While I was upstairs having noodles with my housemates, one of their kitchen cabinets fell off the wall. It went like this: P. opened the cabinet to get a glass, and the screws holding the top of the cabinet both came loose, so it tried to rotate downward. He caught it, but a few glasses fell out and smashed on the floor, and we emptied the cabinet while he held it up. We ended up taking it the rest of the way off the wall, because there was no other safe thing to do. I bet now they feel the same way I felt the second time the ceiling fell in. It's like being betrayed, but by a building.

Any day looks good to me

I surprised myself by doing extra well at Kuk Sool today. I did this weird-ass kick where you jump, do a side kick, turn over and do another side kick with the other leg, and then land. On the first try! There were some things I didn't remember, but the things I remembered I did well. It was satisfying.
This is a note to myself: I need to work on stances, doing forms on the opposite side, pointing my feet in the same direction as my hands, and knowing which falls go with which technique in case my partner doesn't. Also there are some things I should know that I haven't been taught, but that's not exactly my fault.

And yesterday R. had a party, which was low-key but very nice. B. and T. showed up; I want to become better friends with all three of these people, so I was pleased that they could all be in the same place like that. There was also a little bit of halfhearted dancing. I think people find it hard to dance at parties with less than a certain population per square foot. Everyone gave it a good try, though.
I think there's such a thing as a friend-crush, where you want to be friends with someone but you're not yet, so they make you a little pleasantly uncomfortable. Just like crushes, but without any implication of ever making out.

Matt either worked or slept all weekend. I felt a little sorry for him, but neither activity was something where I could pick up part of the load. He needs to have normal weekend stuff to do, like lawn care. I can help with lawn care.

np: Saturday Looks Good to Me: You Work All Weekend
Also: I am happy to have acquired many, many candy canes - and eaten many of those.

Unholiday

Here is a blurry picture of my 3-foot-tall wobbly christmas tree with colored lightbulbs for ornaments. Is it wrong for me to like celebrating Christmas even if I'm not Christian myself? I sure do like brightly colored things, trees in my house, cookies, and presents. It's not like the Christians had those things first. Maybe in 20 years or so when they get the first non-experimental fusion plant online I can start celebrating Fusion Day. But on the same day as Christmas. The point will be to conspicuously consume a lot of electricity by baking cookies and putting lights on things. Also, it won't hurt to give people electronic presents. Or presents in general.

I think I'm one of the only people out there who genuinely thinks science is romantic. Well, me and the Flaming Lips.

Watch out baby 'cause I'm using technology

Fusion power! I tell you, we are about to live in the future.

Everybody's Hummin'

In FFX-2, there is a giant world-destroying weapon. Its name? Vengagun. Actually Vegnagun, but what do the positions of an n and a g matter when humor is concerned?

Lucky Catastrophe

On Monday, it rained and my roof leaked. No ruined yearbooks this time - instead, a ruined lease: I was going to re-lease this apartment next year. But since this exact spot on the roof leaked before, and they told me they had fixed it way back then, I don't think I really trust them to do anything properly anymore. Finding out, two days before I was going to sign the new lease, that they lied about this is actually somewhat fortuitous, though. I could've been stuck with the place for another year. Instead, I've been reading classified ads all week, and I'll probably start seriously looking around after the holidays.

Last night, L. and I went out for chocolate. The two-story chocolate bar is an expensive but wonderful place. Then we walked around outside, saw a dude playing saxophone on the steps of the agriculture building (go figure), and visited the mini-gallery in the Union. It was the winners and runners-up of a photography contest, many of which were actually interesting. Some were just gimmicky, though. One was a longish exposure of a car driving at night: my thought is, if had to look semi-abstract and technical, I wish it had used a technique that took me longer to figure out.
I think the judges of this contest had a thing for pictures like that, though - another one was of a street-drawing guy drawing a woman (in sharp focus) while cars streaked by in the background. Same technique, but a bit more interesting. Still, I think it's overused.

Edit: I forgot to note that the haircut I got yesterday afternoon is still rockin' today. I am having a sexy hair day, I tell you what.

Weekend Gods

I read American Gods this weekend, and it struck me that for all his acclaim, Neil Gaiman isn't that good a writer. He makes up great stories, but reading that book was like reading Harry Potter. The style just rubs me the wrong way. He'll remind you that, earlier in the book, he foreshadowed what is about to happen. Or he'll say, "Shadow smelled something" and then go on to describe what the smell was, rather than just dispensing with the dilly-dallying and starting with the smell. The words 'something' and 'someone' are very common. One gets the feeling that the reader is someone Neil has to be very patient with.

But the story, in which a guy who (spoiler) is the bastard son of Odin falls in with a bunch of old gods in a fight against modern god-replacements (Media, Technology Boy, etc.) for the hearts and minds of America, is neat. I see now why the Sandman stuff I've recently started reading is so much better than this - he didn't have to flesh it out, just write the story.

Also, the Ted Leo and the Pharmacists show I saw this weekend was great, but I can't figure out why people danced at his disastrous previous show and not at this one. I felt a little exposed, wiggling while the rest of the room stood still.

Hardcore Cider

I went out for beers with some people in my research group today after work. It was weird that such dorky people still went out for beers after work. I have always attributed that kind of thing to less ivory-towery types.

Is there such a thing as Seasonally Surprised Disorder? I'm not sad that it's dark so often, but it's definitely unnerving when it's getting dark at 3:30.

Hi honey, I'm home

I wonder: how common is it for men in couples to become house-husbands? Does it vary with income/education level? I think it might have a spike in the upper middle class, and then drop again as people get richer and more conservative.

I don't think I would like being a housewife - I might like it a little bit, but I can think of many things that I would rather do. Also, getting a PhD and then staying home with the kids doesn't seem efficient. But at the same time, I imagine I'd like a house-husband: if I ever have kids, somebody's got to stay home with them. And wouldn't it be nice to get home and there'd be a dude who's already warm when it's cold out? But if I don't want to be a housewife (and for good reason), what dude would want to be a house-husband?

Boys Against Girls

P.'s comment about my X-2 post illustrates one of the oft-cited man/woman differences. I think this difference is better attributed to a science/humanities split, or a thinking/feeling split, or even a hard science/soft science split. Or a sane person/overachiever split. Or fighty/conciliatory. In any case, the generalization is that women like to talk about how they feel, how they should feel, and how they'd like to feel, while men like to talk about what to do.

It's strange that P. is actually one of the least macho-masculine guys I know, but he's got the most male communication style. In fact, I don't think I've really ever noticed any other instance of this phenomenon. I wonder how womanly I am in conversation.

In any case, I will probably buy X-2 when it becomes available. In the meantime, I want to talk about how I feel about X-2. I feel excited.

No Boys Allowed

Women and men are different. For politeness's sake, I like to attribute that to different social expectations of the two genders, but arguing and defending that position is beyond the scope of this blog. Recently, the legitimacy of women-centered and women-only spaces has been on my mind, as have the differences between the two and whether the first must imply the second. Specifically:

-Should spaces that acknowledge and attempt to counteract the androcentrism of the rest of the world exist?

-Do men need to be excluded from such spaces in order for them to function?

-Why do women feel the need to defend themselves from men specifically, rather than from nasty people in general? Are men disproportionately nasty?

Fantasy is Right

Final Fantasy X-2 is coming out early, but I already told my mom I want it for Christmas. How can I wait for it?

My mom knows this woman who's got a daughter that hates middle school. What does this have to do with me? I also hated middle school, and I turned out okay, so she thinks I should talk to this daughter and help her not hate middle school. I might not mind being pen pals with this girl (I like talking), but I think she might think it's lame, or pushy, or dumb that our moms set us up on what is basically a play date even though I'm over 20 (and she probably doesn't think of herself as much of a spring chicken either). It doesn't help that I don't have her email, I have her mom's. What to do?

I wonder how people put those little mini-titles at the top of each post. I haven't figured it out yet. I bet it's simple.

Time was, I wrote a lot. Angsty teenage poetry (I liked to think it was some of the better angsty teen poetry around), stories in which all the characters were basically myself or people I knew, stuff like that. But at least I wrote, and I thought I was going to get better at it. These days I've clammed up - I mostly write equations. See, I was reading Salon's article about Zoe Trope's high-school journal, and I felt as though I was reading my own stuff from back when I was that age - all stuff that I'm a little ashamed of now, and I've mostly thrown away. I had a few different thoughts while I was reading this excerpt, in this order:

1. This reminds me of stuff I would have written back then, except my journal was in poetry form.

2. I could totally have written this book. Why have I not gone on any anonymous book-signing tours?

3. Wait, I destroyed all my old writing because I hated seeing it. Would I really want to have it permanently out there, with tons of people reading it?

4. How is Zoe going to react to that very situation in a few years?

5. What made me stop writing?

The only answer I could come up with for #5 is that I am happy and calm now; I was unhappy and dramatic then. What does that say about the lives of poets? Maybe I just learned to write at the wrong time. People should learn to write as children, then not even see any pencils for a few years while their hormones settle down. That might work.

I actually had an idea for a poem today: a poem about how I'm so out of practice that I'm not sure I can write any more poems. It'd also reference that "pen is mightier" thing, by having a bit of martial arts imagery. It could be okay, or it could be just as bad as my old stuff is (it didn't age well).

I am partly starting this blog in an effort to get used to writing things down again. Hopefully it will get less truthful and more artful as time goes on.

Matt is studying for a class for which the lecture notes include:

- The key to a successful leader is a high need for power.

- The additional responsibilities following participation in decision making is not a part of psychological contract.

- It is surprising that even with communication technology, proximity is still important.

- In the past, you adapted to the network. In the future, the network adapts you.

I'm not sure what's going on in this class of his, but I think this test is just a front for something more sinister.



Edit: In hell everyone will have to solve problems about radiating apertures and switch between coordinate systems. Also, they will have to derive Bessel functions for themselves and they won't get any cake.