a telephone conversation with my dad and what matt thought I was talking about

Me: You hit a wall?
Matt: Her dad was in a car crash! Oh no!
Me: You broke it?
Matt: He has a broken bone (oh no) but is otherwise okay.
Me: Can you get a new one?
Matt: Oh, actually he broke a piece of the car, then.
Me: Did you win?
Matt: What the hell?
Me: I guess that makes sense. Of course he beat you if you had a broken racquet.
Matt: Does tennis have walls?



Actually he was playing racquetball.

you don't have to go to college

A lot of things have been going on.

1. I am probably going to New Mexico this summer for an internship at Sandia National Lab.

2. I just recently heard about Camp Wellstone and associated projects, and I want to do something related to that.

3. Last night I saw Moolaade, and then I talked about it in mixed (male/female) company. I came out of the film angry - angry that tradition sometimes has more weight than the real harm it does to real people. I was angry that every step on the way to making women count as much as men has been a fight. I generalized this one extreme example of subjugation to the entire struggle. And when I talked about that with this group, some of them commented that I shouldn't judge other cultures, that maybe traditions ought to be respected. But for me, when women's humanity is abridged, negated, ignored, or conveniently forgotten it's personal. I don't have to be there and have it happen to me - I am a woman, and I feel it. Some women don't have that reaction. Like men, they're free to talk about respecting traditions. I can't do that, because when I think about what happens to women in the name of tradition I feel as though I have been attacked and my country is under siege. I'm not ready to hold a reasoned discussion about respecting diverse cultures, I'm ready to bite and scratch like an animal. Maybe that's wrong and we ought to humor people who think women don't deserve to be counted as half of humanity. I don't care.

There are a lot of other things that make this list. People who think women are the property of their husbands, who punish women for the sexual response that men have to them, who keep women under house arrest as a matter of course, who want to limit contraception and abortion in order to remove any control women have over their own bodies - I won't accept that this kind of bigotry deserves a reasoned response.

I had a similar reaction when in November all those states passed anti-gay amendments. I've got a bisexual friend who's practically part of my family, and I spent quite a while with an itchy punching-hand. That's my friend, my household, that they're saying isn't capable of the same kind of love as everyone else. Punch punch punch.

4. Square envelopes require an extra 12 cents of postage.

5. I like giving out presents but I don't like the commercialization of this holiday. But I like its decorations, food, and rituals at the same time as I don't care for the tradition it stands for. I like having something pretty and celebratory to look at and do in the winter, because winter is cold and depressing. Celebrations really need a group of people to agree that there is a substantial reason to celebrate, though, or they flop. I'm one of the people that would contribute to such a flop. I think New Year's is much more worthy of celebration. But everyone celebrates Christmas - if I want to see my family, that's the party I have to go to. I can't just invent my own holiday, because of the celebration-requires-people rule. But I don't feel honest participating in this one, since I was one of those kids for whome the pledge of allegiance went "one nation, under hmmm." I am conflicted about Christmas.

6. Recently I've been tempted to go hang out with Unitarians, except that they seem to require that you think spirituality is important and good for you, and spirituality may or may not mean belief in something that is outside of what science can ever tell us about the world. Seems like a lot of the time they do think there's some sort of driving force to the universe, and we ought to do something like worship about it, and I don't think that. But I like their politics, I like to sing songs, and I like having friends. I like learning about religions, but I certainly don't like learning about them with the assumption that eventually I'll get one, and I'm afraid that Unitarians think I ought to have some Beliefs. I don't want Beliefs, I just want to hang out with a community that maybe sometimes talks about their values (and whose values are kind of similar to mine).

7. Finals week ended. I am going to clean off my desk, finish my thesis, and study for the qual during winter break.

8. What can I do as a volunteer now to get moderate-liberal ideas a foothold in mainstream people? Everyone's talking about 2006, but between now and then we need to convince people that Social Security is not broken, that people deserve old age and unemployment insurance, that the minimum wage should be raised . . . . that the platform we're going to run on in 2006 has merit and they should vote for it. How do I do that? How do I make myself an example, a missionary of progressivism?

9. I like cooking and I like vegetables. What's the best vegetarian cookbook ever?

10. Oh, a while ago we had Thanksgiving at my house. It was nice, there was a lot of food and everybody liked it. Matt's family and mine hung out for a while, and we were all social. This is nicer than traveling to someone else's party.

who knows, who knows (maybe I'll return)

I saw Arun's new band, the Opportunists, play last night. It was apparently their second show ever, and it is going to be cool to have this band in town. At the same show I saw Boy Skout, who are fron San Francisco. I think I want their lead singer's haircut, and besides that they played some good songs. I wrote my email address on a signup thing for the Women's Booking Collective, which I guess does what the Fanclub Collective does in Ithaca except with more focus on girl bands (Boy Skout was all girls), and without guys in the membership (which I don't think I'm in favor of, but that's the j.c thing all over again). Maybe they ought to be more like the League of Women Voters.

I am looking forward to it, but I wonder if I am radical enough to hang with all these rail-thin, wild-haired, ambiguously oriented, painfully hip chicks. When it comes to music I'm not terribly DIY-oriented - I still can't even play one song on a guitar passably and I'm shy when it comes to hanging out with people who can.

I need some cabinet-level advisors, for real

What should I get from Amazon?

what's been up.

Ever lie down for a nap and then wake up a little later with your heart beating extra loudly? That happens to me sometimes - maybe I dream about running, or rollercoasters, or bike crashes. I never remember it, but I can tell Matt does it too.

I've been getting political as a way of procrastinating. I wrote a letter to Dick Durbin on Monday, because he made some remarks about opposing the FMA without actually opposing the substance of the law. Yeah, it's a political election-year distraction and that's disrespectful to the Constitution. But most importantly it's an attempt to write discrimination into the Constitution and permanently limit one group's rights but not another's. Durbin actually implies that, if some court tried to force states to recognize other states' gay marriages, he might support an amendment like this. Not cool.

Also I learned to knit on Tuesday. Made a washcloth/pot-holder with bumpy stripes for practice. Now I'm making another one, which has bumpy squares. It's silly to pick up such a time-consming hobby when I have so little time, I know. But the bumpy squares one looks really cool.

Lastly, I'm reading part of A People's History of the United States, because P. had it and wasn't reading it. I'm only reading part because I started in the middle - I'm mostly curious about the political history of the 20th century.

Adventures in the head of the midwestern chef

Other people may call Iowa the Hawkeye state, but when I was learning US geography it occurred to me that the states in the north-south column that includes Iowa and Minnesota look collectively like a chef. Iowa even has a nose. So that's where I went this weekend. Matt and I entered Iowa just north of the nose and drove across the face to the eye region, where Fred and Melissa live. Then we had adventures!

Ni hao ma?

Since Monday, I've been spending my afternoons in Chinese class. It's awesome. Today I learned how to say "this" and "that", as well as "car", "book", and some other things. I can ask how your older brother is, and whether he is tall. I even have a Chinese name - the TAs made them up for everyone. They're going to be very good at making up names by the time they have kids. Mine is Ke1 kai3xin1 (the numbers mean tones, all y'all who don't know pinyin). The problem is, we haven't really covered the x sound yet, and it's a really hard sound for me to make. So I actually don't know how to say my own name. I do know that xin1 means "heart". So my name is something something heart.

With everything I've learned in the past three days (I can make up my own sentences already), I'm not looking forward to missing Friday through Wednesday. At least they're being nice about me making up what I miss, and they seem to always be having office hours.

science to shape the future of the army

That's a pretty weird logo they've got there. But hey, they give me grants.

Thailand to separatists: "La la la we can't hear you ransacking our stuff"

I think it's funny how this BBC story quotes Thailand's deputy prime minister saying that this group of Muslim separatists are just "trying" to create sectarian conflict with T-land's majority Buddhists.
1. I bet it's hard to get a hardcore Buddhist to fight with you.
2. But if the Muslims are ransacking stuff, haven't they already created sectarian conflict?

written on

I've been through a few involuntary changes this week. For one, I wake up too early, all by myself (note that this is being written at 8am on a Sunday). Also, I suddenly want to read a lot of books again.

That second one is only kind of involuntary. I read the book that instigated it, Written on the Body, under my own power. But I didn't anticipate its effects. First I tried to get Matt to read it, to no avail. He doesn't really read books. To me that's similar to not liking meals. I just don't get it. Now I wonder: is there something like Pitchfork but for books? Does it have a message board? I also like talking about books.

For what it's worth, I've also been thinking a lot about the difference between contentment and happiness, and it's brought me nothing but trouble.

seven with one blow

This morning I spotted an ant on the kitchen floor. I followed it to the corner, where I discovered more than one ant on the floor. This discovery sparked a wave of destruction unprecedented in my interactions with insects.

I swept up the raisin that was the goal of the ant-caravan, which pretty much guaranteed they would eventually disperse, but that wasn't enough to satisfy my need for vengeance against the crunchy little invaders. Matt set up a few traps, and I laid out a perimeter of ground chile peppers. Ants became Palestinians, confined to the corner by a demilitarized zone of delicious barbecue flavor for us, chemical burns for them. (This works reasonably well, by the way. Determined ants will cross it, but they won't make their little caravans across it or anything.) We put on our fightin' shoes and executed surgical strikes against any ants that escaped the border of their new territory. When it seemed like more ants were leaving than were coming in, Matt settled down to play Zelda and I left for work. The whole thing took about an hour.

salon.mom

Salon's "life" section, which is really just thinly disguised "light things for women to read," has recently gone into pregnancy overdrive. (How come I read it in the first place? A girl can only study so much.) But now, every single article is moms this, babies that. Is it suddenly the style for everyone of medium-professional age to plop one out? Have reasonably smart liberal women become just a chorus of biological alarms going off in unison? I feel like my aversion to the floppy, swelling, morning-sick glory of motherhood is 30 years behind the times. It was all right to not want children in the past, but now if you're a feminist you have to have both kids and a career, and when it comes down to it you have to choose your earth-mother roots above your man-impersonating professional life. What am I supposed to do, just skip straight to McSweeney's for the next nine months and hope the moms get over themselves?

you can leave your friends behind

I think part of the reason nobody danced at Friday's party was that we had too many chairs. A successful dancing party requires the right density of people, but there is also a chair threshold. When you have too many chairs, people feel out of place dancing in front of people who are sitting down. That's something that can be corrected, though - and soon, because Matt's going to get a graduation party one of these days.

Pinky's move-out has made me really want to put up some posters. When it was super full in here, it was hard to notice that the walls were bare because everything else was cluttered. Now it looks like the ceilings are really high, just because the walls are empty.

I am about to practice a little guitar, and I think I've begin to understand why it's kind of hard for me - I know how to make chords, and I know how to play a single note, but I can't translate between the two or play notes that fit in a certain key. Oh yeah, and my fingers still get tangled up a lot.

I'm looking forward to getting that gamecube we just bought on ebay. It should come in the mail relatively soon - say in a week or two. Just in time for finals to be over. This summer is going to be awesome, what with having a gamecube and throwing parties and Matt not taking classes and me learning Chinese and doing a lot of kuk sool.

counterproductive

Last night I swam for half an hour before kuk sool practice, because of that thing where you have to work out for more than half an hour in order to actually burn any fat. So going to practice after that was interesting but good, and I think I'll do that again. The bad news is, I had an ice cream cone immediately following practice.

I don't feel like I'm very good at studying.

quick fix

I've noticed that sometimes when I load this page I get a bunch of junk characters where posts ought to be. I'll check that out, but for now you should know that if you reload it everything seems to be fine.

communicative funk

I'm feeling cramped, tired, bored, resentful, and restless. I wish I could go on vacation from being obligated to be polite and responsible. I had a mostly good weekend with a few ambiguous parts - but the ambiguous parts were flattering. I feel guilty because of the nature of my resentments. I'm not going to get into it.

guy who got a headache and accidentally saves the world

I read a notesfile post today from a girl who saw a guy have a seizure on the street. He fell down and apparently got injured pretty badly. She went to an apartment building and called 911, which was good, but her next comments completely floored me: apparently, she is so afraid of strangers that she wouldn't go near one even if he was all bloody from seizing and then hitting his head on the sidewalk. Maybe it's my lifelong first aid training talking, but I just can't understand that reaction. It's not like cracking your head open and getting all bloody is something you can fake in order to do something malicious to your rescuer. Your head's busted! You're no threat to anyone! They will be able to tell if your head isn't really busted! I mean, she apparently doesn't have any training, but there were people there who did and who started taking care of the guy. She could at least go ask if they needed her to go get anything.

I had a taiji breakthrough yesterday. I think I finally got the legs right in standing meditation. It's a lot harder if I do it the right way. But a neat thing happened: my legs' "tired" response somehow got cut off from my brain's "want to stop" response. I got pretty tired, but found that I wanted to keep at it. After a while I quit anyway, which was wise - even the little bit of standing I did totally used up my legs, and I was a big wimp at kuk sool practice. I'm trying to make a habit of doing this more frequently, so maybe that won't happen so much in the future. Taiji is the most expensive thing I do besides school, and I spend the least amount of time on it. Not good.

my DJ

I have this idea that I kind of like, in which I blog as though I am the guy in this McSweeney's story and I have a DJ who follows me around exhorting everyone to get down. On one hand, it'd be fun to have a DJ, even if he's not real. On the other hand, that's kind of copying. Maybe I'll come up with some other kind of cool theme to do.

p.s. As of this posting, that link is actually broken, but hopefully mcswy will fix it.

lower than Lo again

Adventures at the library today: after a couple of months of asking around I found out where UIUC keeps old technical reports, like to the NSA and stuff. In a corner of the basement of the engineering library, I dug up one of two precious (to me, anyway) copies of "On the theory of randomly spaced antenna arrays." It's beat up. It looks almost archaeological. It was written on a typewriter! So I take its yellowed, scribbled-on self upstairs to the desk and they say, "Um, I'd better look up how to check this out to you. Where did you get this, anyway?" I felt kind of like Indiana Jones. I'll post a picture.

np: Rooks - "Down"

Rashofranciscomon

The other day, Matt and I talked about the vacation we're going to go on this summer, and he said some reasonable things that bothered me. But I had trouble explaining what they even were, let alone why they bothered me. Basically, he was planning this road trip from a standpoint that assumed he wouldn't be able to find an out-of-college job before early August, and I had been assuming he would. So we had a funny little tiff in which I scolded Matt for being pessimistic and he at first didn't know what I was talking about, because I'd just latched on to some subtleties of language and not any outright statements. My idea was that if he believes he won't succeed, then he probably won't, so he should treat any non-job plans as backup. He didn't want to count on something that wasn't a sure thing. We were talking about the same plans, just each giving a different one verbal priority. For some reason that really bothered me. But today he had an interview that sounds like it went well. I guess next week we'll find out who won that non-argument.

-- I want to see more Kurosawa movies.
-- My dad has seen Starman and been to the crater. We talked about how it was a dumb movie.
-- I cut myself while washing the dishes yesterday and subsequently freaked out a little bit because it involved a very sharp knife. I did bleed some. Being injured by a knife is, to me, inherently worse than being injured most other ways. I was fine.

jammin'

I stayed home from work yesterday, which led to me getting more work done in one day than ever before. You'd think I would get distracted more easily, but I worked pretty steadily all day, and then I cleaned the bathroom and did laundry. I was a high-energy chick. Today I'm back at work... and posting to my blog. Ha.

Matt and I haven't decided yet whether to go see the Mekons this weekend. On one hand, I like going to concerts. On the other hand, that would be the third weekend in a row we've spent in Chicago, and we already plan to go next weekend for another birthday thing. That's a lot of trips.

Theo's coming over to jam tonight. I hope he isn't too disappointed when he finds out I'm really not any good at guitar. I've been practicing, though, which is good for me even if the improvement isn't all that great yet. If I were a baby, this would be like playing with a kid who knows how to walk when I just learned how to roll over. Maybe we should get some drinks so I'm not so self-conscious.

island of un-misfit toys

I am posting this from my new laptop, which is one of the least unwanted toys I've ever had. Wowie! I had begun to worry that maybe I wouldn't like its touchpad or it wouldn't be big-screened enough or something, but the truth is, this is exactly what I had in mind.

It helps that this has allowed us to rearrange the living room, since my old desktop is out of the way. There's more space, Matt doesn't have to keep his borrowed keyboard on the floor, and the comfy yellow chair is back in the living room where it belongs.

Oh, and I dyed my hair black. My natural hair color used to be darker than it is now, and its new lightness was starting to get to me. Now it's darker than it's ever been (but still a brownish, natural-on-white-people-looking black), and I'm far more at home. I wonder if I'll want to keep this up for a while. Odd how my mental picture of myself somehow diverged that much from what I actually looked like.

eyes peeled

A couple of days ago it snowed again, after the snow had all been melted for a few weeks. Apparently a few weeks is long enough for me to become unused to the sight; that morning, the shock of seeing everything coated in heavy white was as strong as it is in October. It was cottonball-weight snow, on a morning in mid-March following a warm day. Surprising. I think that kind of shock is what makes people like seeing. We've all been looking at things for so long that when something surprises us it's shocking in such a way that we'd like to be shocked again. Surprising visuals are the best thing about getting up in the morning. (I think I see them disproportionately in the morning because I spend the rest of the day at work, where I have already seen everything.) I want to carry a digital camera around to record all the new things I see, and post them here.

In the past, I have seen these things that I can immediately think of, which were new and strange when I saw them:
a man walking backwards with his dog following him, walking forward
a guy who plays a banjo on his porch on summer afternoons
some Korean students learning collectively to ride a bike
the library stacks, when I got lost there

tried so hard to please her

I've been listening to those MP3s that Pitchfork posts periodically, and I don't like any of them. I don't know if that's because I'm just being difficult today, or if it's because none of them are good. Some days I just don't like anything - it's hard to tell.

edit: Matt tells me they're paid advertisements, not stuff the fork likes. That explains why they're mostly dumb.

I laughed, I cried, I beat king koopa

These Mario animations are surprisingly moving.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

may I make an observation

The building I work in was built in 1947, and my floor was added in 1965. Walking around here sometimes reminds me of what they had that we don't. Back then, there were adventures in science. Engineers built an antenna to track Sputnik from the roof of this building. Little kids cared about secret codes and radios. Besides being a "who's better at thinking" fight with Russia, the space race was also a time when it wasn't as dorky to be interested in those things for non-corporate reasons. The architecture of this building reflects that. The walls and doors are solid and plain, but certain details make this environment belong to the science that happens within it and to the attitudes (good and bad) of the time. Door handles and railings are made of copper in a nod to the metal that does it all. Women's bathrooms have obviously been converted from men's, because back when this place was built women didn't do this kind of thing. It's a fallout shelter. This summer we cleaned out a closet and found 50 pounds of "carbohydrate dietary supplement," stockpiled in the 50's by a now-deceased professor, in case the building's fallout-sheltering capability was ever used.

Things are just as dramatic these days, but no one believes anymore that science solves problems. Only money solves problems, and the new buildings on the quad are monuments to money, not to research.

it was fine at the time but the laws have changed

I am angry at everyone who is against gay marriage, and confounded by the subset of those people who are not religious. I've met some, so I know they exist. I'm pretty sure my mom is one. Is it because they think gay sex is gross? I think my mom having sex is also gross, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't be allowed to be married.

My short list of books to read is getting too long to be called a short list. It now includes Gravity's Rainbow, The Virgin Suicides, Written on the Body, Reading Lolita in Teheran, and The Paradox of Choice, plus several others that pop on and off the list depending on my mood. This has already happened to my previously-short list of new music to listen to. I think I've told myself to go out and get at least 10 or 15 new albums, none of which I've actually picked up, or even downloaded. I'm such a slacker.

fly in the works, wrench in the ointment

I am beginning to accept that my linear algebra textbook is irreversibly lost. Just when I started to do the homework again! I really don't want to buy a new one. I'm buying a laptop. Those are expensive. So are books, to a smaller degree. I can only buy so many expensive things.

In better news, Matt and I made a cheesecake yesterday. It's chocolate, with cruhed oreo bits in it. Delicious. Why make a plain cheesecake when you can make something amazing?

no talking, no driving too fast

This bothers me: there are people out there who drive too fast in the snow, crash their cars, and don't admit it was their fault. I met a guy today who spun into a ditch when he tried to pass a truck that was going 45 in bad weather - when the left lane hadn't been plowed! He tried to go 55 in an un-plowed lane! He's lucky he didn't hit the truck. Cause and effect, dude.

This weekend Matt and I went to see "The Triplettes of Belleville." I can't put my finger on what it reminded me of. I've been trying to think of it for days now. When I was a kid, did I watch a lot of cartoons with no talking? Did anyone else ever see one called "The Point," where there are a bunch of cartoons with round heads and one with a pointed head (or maybe the other way around), and the round-heads don't like the pointed-head, and then the conflict is resolved in some sort of heartwarming way? I am pretty sure that had no talking.

np: Things in Herds : "People Trap"

my new linear algebra technique is unstoppable

Today I realized that I can either do the crossword in my math class or skip the homework, but not both. It's a tough decision: I have to be in class every day anyway, bcause there are quizzes on Tuesdays that get handed back on Thursdays. Given just that information, one would think that skipping the homework and sitting through the class is the better option, but it's not. The professor has some of the worst speech mannerisms I've ever heard. He does that thing (common among Indian people) where he says "3 by 4" instead of "3 divided by 4." He lets questions sit in dead air for too long. He has a few favorite questions like, "Isn't it?" that he uses constantly and in totally inappropriate places: "Assume A is an n x n matrix, isn't it?" He opened the semester with a big talk about how "we're taking 300-level math courses now, so he's not going to bother us so much," and now he waves grades over everyone's heads. He laughs at people when they try to move the class along by answering his questions sooner, instead of waiting for him to do it himself. Long story short, I'm keeping the blessed distraction of the crosswords and doing the homework from now on.

announcements

1. The title is "Miss Teen Wordpower," but I am not a teen. Not that anyone thinks I am, but still. Just in case.

2. Matt thinks the previous post was embarrassing because it was about him. Too bad. I like him, so he's going to get talked about in my blog.

3. I got a bowl of lentil soup for $2 and it was my lunch.

There is no remembrance of former things

I have been repeatedly listening to a song by the Books called "Take Time." It makes me think about what it's like to be me and Matt.

That which is now, and that which is to be, has already been.
For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day. She climbed down from the tree next day. God bless her.

Life repeats itself for everyone - everyone dies, everyone is happy sometimes and sad sometimes. Nothing ever happens for the first time in the world. But it could be the first time for the girl in the tree, and it could be the first time for us. We've been together for long enough that not many things are new, but it doesn't matter. Some things can be significant no matter how many times they happen.

Something is happening that is not happening.

When people realize they are in love, they have probably already been in love for some time. Important things often happen that way: when people get married, they're already privately united. When they split up, they've already separated before they say the words. For some things, it's impossible to point out when they happened, but you just have to acknowledge that they did. Other things happen without being acknowledged - when I get out of bed Matt turns around in his sleep to hug where I was.

There is no new thing under the sun.

Happy early Valentine's day, today and every day.

I'm keeping Matt's suit in my office today, because he has an interview at 4:30. He's going to stop by and change before that, because it's melty out, which is bad for looking nice in suits. The interview is for a full-time job in town doing embedded software stuff. I hope it goes well. I want him to be able to stay in town while I finish school without losing ground in his own career.

Remember how I mentioned that I made my first stuffed animal ever and that it was a present, so I couldn't post a picture yet? Well, now I can:



It's a love moogle. This is a pretty dorky present, but they liked it. You can't see the writing on his belly, but it says "Chris + Melanie" (they got married).

I am slowly figuring out which titles and subtitles on this page correspond to h1, h2, etc. in the template. Matt could do this ten times faster and better than me, because he's a computer guy. But really, I care less about what my blog looks like than I do about my ability to change what my blog looks like.

behind the shield of war and terrorism, there are many other little wars going on

Today Salon has a couple of articles about a new movie by Bertolucci and the artistic problems caused by bending over backward for the MPAA. The review of the film and the interview that accompanies it really make me want to see this movie, but they also hit on something that all the movie-rating boards in the history of the US have never understood: that being totally naked is less obscene than hiding behind the corner of a bedsheet. That strategic scrap of cloth constitutes an admission of guilt. It shouts, "What you would see here, if this movie hadn't been required to snag an R rating, is bad!" But just standing, unclothed, can be an expression of just how unashamed and normal that action is.

don't worry I do not seriously want to get married, girls just think about these things

Several people I know are planning weddings (one is this weekend), and it's got me thinking about that whole thing. Back when it was a new thing for everyone to be planning a wedding, I thought that if I had one I'd want to have some large ceremony with the dress and everything, and find some way to make it huge and significant even though I don't have any built-in meaning to the ceremony like religious types do. But now I keep hearing about the stress of planning weddings, and my (unspoken) response is increasingly, "Why not just hold hands in front of a justice of the peace and have done with it?" This is not a new question to ask by any means, but it's the first time I've asked it and not had my inner little girl go, "Aww, but I wanted to dress up in something white and sparkly!" To ask "Why not?" and have this absence of response: that's new. I'd still throw a party afterward, and people could dress up and make toasts and everything, but I'd probably wear red or something.

I learned about push-hands today at taiji, which was fun and interesting. Different people have very different ways of practicing it, especially when they're new at it: men push hard, stiffly, and fast, and some women hardly push at all.

p.s: Casey was wrong in that one comment he posted to Lisa's blog and probably forgot by now: Up with skirts!

confidential to lisa

I know Chinese doctors say it's bad to drink or eat cold things when you're on the rag. Do they also say you shouldn't breathe cold air? I think I chilled my uterus today - I went outside and it took hours to warm up.

I have been to all these states

(maybe also Louisiana)



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

really super, supergirl

I couldn't be accomplishing any more this week if I was on speed. Last night I sewed my very first stuffed animal ever (after a couple of false starts), and it is cute enough to make a nice present. I'll post a picture after it's been presented. (I wanted to buy a mog plushie, but I couldn't find one, so I sewed one instead. It's very cute.) That whole thing probably took me about 8 hours.

We went and looked at that place that was in my dream - it wasn't at all the same as the dream, but I liked it in a different way. Matt liked it too, but Pinky wasn't as enthusiastic - I think he may have been talked into it yesterday, though. I think he underestimates the amount of space he needs, and I don't think he noticed that all the blinds were closed, so of course it was dark. He's right that the kitchen is a weird shape, but I don't think that will really bother us too much, especially if eating mostly gets done at that little breakfast table, which I think it will. There's still a lot of counter space, which I'm way into. Matt's comment on the place was, "It's got character, and I didn't think landlords like that guy existed." I basically agree with him. I mean, he told us that he could put a floor in the attic for us if we liked. I wonder if he'll let us paint. Or if we could alleviate Pinky's light issues by getting him to put in another window.

Today I came up with a simple way to represent the weird array I've been thinking about, too. And I found out that there's an all you can eat Indian food lunch I can go to. Lots of nan for me today!

How come I keep dreaming about Matt

Boy, am I a power dreamer lately. Last night:

The house that we are going to go look at and maybe rent today turns out to be excellent. It has a huge basement and tons of space, and it's very pretty.

Then I fly my airplane (bear with me here) to go see Spalding Grey (who has recently returned from his disappearance). On the way back a girl wants to ride with me, so I let her. But we start off going the wrong way, so we land, figure out which way is west, and are about to take off again when the girl turns into Matt and takes off without me. He flies the plane around for a while, and the lights on it start to resemble the Space Invader shapes, because he doesn't know how to fly or land a plane and it's getting all busted up. I watch, terrified, as he breaks and crashes my airplane. (I don't know how you can break an airplane while you're in the air still and you haven't run into anything, but this is just a dream.) Then I'm stranded, because I flew my airplane instead of driving, and Matt crashed it. Matt comes out without a scratch, though, and he doesn't get that I'm angry with him.

Now that I think about it, prisons are normally full of people. Maybe Pinky and I were kidnapped and they were just trying to fool us into thinking we were in prison. If that guard was the only person there, we totally could have escaped.

7 fat years, 7 lean years

Last night I had two dreams. In the first one, I was in prison with Pinky, and there was a prison guard. Those were the only people in the dream. The guard wouldn't tell me why I was in prison, he just kept giving me a guilt talk along these lines: "Oh, I think you know why you're here. I bet your family's worried about you. But you can't call them. Because you're in prison. Now you stay in this room full of bunk beds and think about what you've done."

In the second dream, Matt bought a cell phone. He didn't sign up for a plan or anything, he just bought the phone. I was angry because we were supposed to sign up for one of those share-minutes plans and get rebates on the phones, but there he went buying a phone for no good reason, when he can't even use it.

The night before last I had a dream in which I was trying to adopt a kid, but there was also an old lady that wanted to adopt the same kid. So a bus full of people including me and the kid went over to the old lady's house. It turned out she didn't have a house, she lived under a bridge. Then all the people went over to my house, which was some sort of twentysomething condo where I lived with Matt. The kid picked me and we lived happily ever after, and then my mom asked me what happened to that necklace I used to have (which is actually a necklace that doesn't exist in real life).

emphasize naked computing

I should ask Matt how it feels to be on an elite squad.

my red hot car

My parents want to trade cars with me. They've been leasing a Neon for a year, and they want me to buy it and give them my (older) car for my brother to drive. Thing is, what I really want is a Toyota Prius. I won't be able to buy one this year or, unless I get a fellowship, next year, but trading up now means it'll be longer before I can trade up again. My car is 8 years old. It's really a question of whether it will last until I can afford the car I really want. It's probably smarter to get the year-old car now, rather than try to hang on to the old one long enough to replace it with sparkly new technology. It's not as fulfilling, though.

I have a problem: because of the distance between the TV and the couch, looking at the TV for long periods of time isn't comfortable with my glasses on or off. I get headaches. But right now I've already got a headache, and I want to go home and play Final Fantasy until it goes away. The problem is that if I play Final Fantasy, it will never go away.

late bloomer

There's a scene in Middlesex, which I'm reading this week, about how a boy figures out the workings of orgasms, but his sister doesn't. She's used to being close to him and doing everything together, and she feels frustrated and left out because this is one thing they can't share. It takes her another ten years to figure it out.

I've been thinking about this, because sometimes I feel retroactively left out. Apparently some people discover the secrets of masturbating when they're still children. I didn't even know that sex was supposed to feel good (and that was why people did it) until high school, and then it took me another couple of years to put that into practice.

Here's what I think: sex ed tells boys what their penises are for. Sex ed doesn't even tell girls they have clitorises. That's got to be part of it. I'd blame it all on that, except some of the early adopters I've encountered were girls. Chalk it up to me not being the investigative type, I guess.

adventures II

I finally tracked down that wayward check. The office lady who gave it to me was unfriendly - she mumbled in a loud room and then got snippy when I didn't understand what she wanted - but she also told me who would fix my address. Happy ever after.

Now I'm only a month away from owning this. Yow!

Also: everyone on this campus who does office work is a woman. There are no men. I think that's how it is everywhere. Why? Clerical work isn't strenuous, it's full time, it must pay decently. You even get a computer. If I was a dude, I would be all over this. What are all the guys doing?

adventures in officemagicland

This morning I went downstairs and asked our department's payroll office-lady where my paycheck could possibly have got to. I explained that last time direct deposit broke, payroll had mistakenly sent some other materials of mine to my previous job, and I feared that that had been the case this week as well. I knew that direct deposit had failed to work for some graduate students. She asked, "Don't you have direct deposit?" Yes, I do. But it hasn't done its thing. Also there's no check in my mailbox, and could she please look up where they sent it? "Well, it looks like they sent it to the administrative office of the place you used to work." But where is that? They've restructured since then. Also, can she change my payroll information so this stopps happening? I don't have permission in the computer. "I don't know how to do that in the new system." No 'I'll figure it out,' no 'sorry,' just she doesn't know how.

I call Old Job's office, and some of them remember me. They tell me where their paychecks go these days, and I walk over there. An office-lady asks me my name, and says, "You're not on my list." Of course I'm not on your list, I don't work for this department. "What department do you work in? Why don't you go over there?" Because my office address is wrong in the payroll computer, and whenever direct deposit breaks they send my stuff to you. "Have you checked with your bank?" Yes. My bank knows how to use its computers. Finally she understands what I want and asks me my name again. She looks in a box which does not contain my paycheck. "Oh, I must have forwarded it back to the business office. It might not be there yet, though, because of the holiday."

I go back to my desk and call the business office. They do not understand why I am calling, so I explain three more times. Then: "No, it's not here. Have you checked with your department?" It was forwarded to you. It's probably still in campus mail. I'll call back tomorrow. "Oh, then you should probably call back tomorrow."

What bothers me is not so much having to run around doing the administration's job, it's the excuse they repeatedly gave for not knowing what to do: "We have new software. We don't know how to use it. It's the same software that was new three months ago and caused you to get paid a month late and your student loan check misdirected. Yeah, we still don't know how to use it. No, we're not really apologizing for that." For some reason, office ladies don't care if students get paid. P. thinks this is because they think "those kids can pay for college, what do they need a paycheck for?" The truth is, I can't pay for college, and I never could. I had scholarships and loans for undergrad, and now I get free tuition, but this is my only job, and my parents don't pay for me at all anymore. If I don't get paid to do it, that's all there is. They would probably get agitated if their paycheck turned up missing, but it never will - they work in payroll.

It came out magical

I'm listening to "Out From Blown Speakers," and whenever I hear it I feel like I've been let in on a secret.

I'd Help Dean, But He's All the Way Over There

P. just left for a Dean Weekend in Iowa. Now, the truth is: P. wanted company and asked me to come, and I like Dean, but I didn't come along. Why? I just want to stay home. It's nice here. I don't have to sleep in a sleeping bag and eat cold sandwiches when I could be sleeping in a bed and eating hot, delicious rice-and-vegetables. But here's something, Dean: when you need me here in Illinois, I'll be around.

I finished writing my first-ever conference paper today, which pretty much makes me a real live scientist. P. thinks I need to write an article that goes in an actual journal, and the 2004 Proceedings of So-and-So don't cut it. I think that an article will make me more scientific, but the damage has already been done. You be the judge.

I had a clever idea for a salad, of the kind that can be eaten with pita bread. We'll see how it goes.

not playing now, but playing previously: The Delgados - "Accused of Stealing"

Doom House

I am pretty convinced that I'm allergic to something in my house. It's probably mold, and it's probably in the basement. I'm afraid I'm going to get sick repeatedly until mid-March and not be any good for anything. Imagine it: snot lurking around every corner, just waiting for me to let my guard down.

np: Os Mutantes - "A Minha Menina"

bring 'em on

Some of these ads are so good I almost cried.

Hey, what's Festivus?

Merry Christmas and New Year and everything, everybody. This is the second winter vacation in a row we've spent at Matt's house, and I'm starting to miss some of the Michigan-specific things I'm used to. My mom came to Chicago for the weekend, and she had to bring me some nuts & oranges so I wouldn't be lonely. And apparently Matt thinks bubble lights are dumb; if he thinks that then he is definitely not with it.

Matt got a pretty nasty cold and fell asleep around 9 pm on NYE - I ended up skipping one of the parties we'd planned (where I would only know two people) and going to the second one by myself. It was more fun than that last bit makes it sound. We played games until our attention spans got too short, which didn't take too long. Then everyone got all hedonistic. People were there that I haven't seen all year, I drank three different kinds of champagne, and at 5:30 everyone went to sleep (me under the kitchen table). After breakfast some kuk sool friends and I did some grappling. I gave a few people a ride home, picked up Matt, and we had dinner with A. (and a different A. at whose house she was staying). I wasn't back at Matt's house (not counting a short shirt-changing stop) until 9 pm or so. I think he felt a little left out. That's what he gets for hanging out with germs.

You'd think today I'd be tired, but I just want to go out again. I'll see what I can do.

np: The Angels of Light - Kosinski