2/28

S is for staying warm. I don't know what the dragon is for, but I though it looked neat when I bought it.

A real live Saturday!

Fun times today. Went to breakfast with A. and accidentally didn't come home until after dinner. Hadn't done that in way too long. We went to breakfast (yes - breakfast! before 11 o'clock!) and had tastiness at Wise Sons Jewish Deli, on Valencia (way out @ McCoppin, near 13th and Mission if you're taking the bus). Tasty stuff, nice people. They're squatting in someplace called Jackie's Cafe right now, but I hope they get their own place, because I would go there and try other tasty things. Then we went to a cafe and I made A. listen in great detail to what my class is now about. He was a very good sport about it. And then we went to the library. I checked out a book (for my class, of course), and A. returned some things that were about two years overdue.

The find was way lower than he was expecting, which was nice. One of the books was The Road, which we read together in our book club. In March of 2009.

I'm teaching it in my class, which I have not been obssessed with thinking about AT ALL.


After breakfast, sometime spent looking for the books (which were, strangely enough, on a shelf), a trip to the library, and quick look at the Union Square Borders, to see if they'd started acting like they were going out of business yet (they haven't, and are still blasting 20% off like it's a real discount), we went to Diptyque and sniffed a whole lot of fragrances and candles. I found one that I might need to get myself. And then we went to Grub and ate some more food.

I had a chicken pot pie (it was more like a super tasty stew with a puff pastry in it) and A. had the hanger steak. We agreed that, while his steak was good, my pot pie was superior. Despite the fact that I burned my mouth so badly at one point (on some cauliflower) that I actually had to spit it out. *Oh my god, how embarrassing!* I'll go back to Grub as well, though. They have a lamb porterhouse and a mac and cheese bar and other things that I obviously need to put in my face. After waiting an appropriate amount of time for them to cool, of course.

catching up

So, Blogger seems to have randomly stopped playing nice with Chrome. I didn't figure that out until just now, so am a little behind. Here are pictures from 2/24 and 2/25.

From Thursday, 2/24:

Daim!

 

 

A coworker had this, and it made me smile - this is the candy that had the fantastic ads when I was in Europe in 2002. Things like, "It's ok if you don't like Daim. Daim is made for beautiful intelligent people" and "You don't have to like Daim. Daim doesn't like you either!" I'm relieved to say that I found it very tasty  :)

And, from Friday, 2/26

Delicious

Mac n cheese with bacon. So good.

2/23 - The Aftermath (school version)

I'm not even showing you my whole desk, because it's embarrassing. But I'll say that I was desperate enough last week to order a pizza and a two liter of Coke, and that the leftover pizza and the coke went to campus with me when I was the over the weekend, and that most of the Coke is still there, at my desk. So this is what I find when I get to school this morning.

Note #1 says: "I love it that you have a big ole' bottle of Coke on your desk! You are such a good Southern girl  :)"

Note #2 says: "Not only do you have a big bottle of Coke but ti's right next to a can of Cafe du Monde coffee which I didn't even notice earlier. You are cracking me up!

I've told you about the Coke. The Cafe du Monde can actually has tea supplies in it - I've had it as a handy container for years  :)

Hey!

I'm still here!

Exhausted and headachy tonight, though glad I made it out to L.'s birthday drinks, even if only for a little while. All work and no play makes me very sad and grumpy. And I'd rather not be sad and grumpy. It makes for bad pictures.

Racialicious on black actors on TV vs the big screen

Is Hollywood Pushing Black Actors to TV?

An interesting read for several reasons, one of which is that I just did not know Jennifer Beals is black. I mean, now that it's been said to me, and I look at a picture, *of course she is.* But I haven't really watched her work, so my reference is Flashdance. Now, I saw that for the first time just a few years ago, so not as a child (when I missed that sort of thing all the time), but honestly...I mean, the character is White in that, yes? And so I just assumed that she was White, too? Because I had no idea.

But read the article to see thoughts about why so many really good Black actors are on TV, instead of at the movies.

Fixing some stuff.

First off, the picture of that poster of Michael (aka Paul Bettany from Legion) should have been for Friday, 2/18. Here's a picture that's actually from Saturday, 2/19:

That was taken from the train as I headed down to campus (in the rain) to grade papers all day. I had a lovely dinner with V. that evening (she cooked pork tenderloin and twice-baked potatoes - yummy!) and then we went to karaoke, where I continued to grade papers. No picture for 2/20 - just more grading, also done down at Stanford, so that I could leave the papers there and not have to go back down today, giving me one day out of the 3 day weekend off.



Today was spent reclaiming my life. I washed my hair, did A LOT of laundry, and imposed some order on the chaos photographed last week (see 2/15).

I even vacuumed, which I hadn't done in way too long, so I could put my happy orange rugs back down (which I washed some time ago, but didn't want to put back down on a cluttered, unvacuumed floor).

NO! DON'T LOOK UP THERE!

Yes, well...I had to put some things on the bed temporarily, you see, just so that I could vacuum. It's just that I was doing laundry and cleaning up paperwork and moving the furniture around to vacuum all at one, and it's a smallish sort of room... It'll all be put away properly by bedtime, of course. And, look -- a lot of it's blankets and pillows, anyway. Yes, and laundry. Yes, also a keyboard and a purse-type thing, and -- did I mention that I vacuumed? And also prepped all of the veggies from the produce box? Look, fennel!

I don't really know what I'm going to do with all of this fennel, but I suppose I'll find a recipe that calls for a lot of it. A couple of recipes. Am sad there were no more carrots since I let my last ones go wobbly. Will have to do something exciting with chard and onions and (and fennel). Actually I'm sure there's a tasty pasta sauce with those things in it -- will look for a good recipe for proportions.

Off to clear off my bed, I suppose. Mr. Fuzzybutt (the bear is the upper left of the picture) is looking at me suspiciously, as if to say, "You know, this is how things end up on the floor..." *sigh* He knows me too well.

Racialicious also wants to know who The Vampire Diaries thinks it's fooling.

Wait, yeah - it's a real post! Or at least a link.

A colleague sent me an email - a friend of hers is writing her dissertation on "interracial relationships in African American vampire literature" and we should connect. Wait, what?! Why did no one tell me that there's an entire genre of African American vampire literature? I mean, I probably wouldn't be reading it, because there are entire genres of African American lots of types of literature, and I'm usually not reading those either, BUT I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE NEGRO VAMPIRE LEAGUE!

Ahem.

So that email happened, and then Racialicious obliged me with this - White Vamps, Black Witches: Race Politics and Vampire Pop Culture. Which I promptly sent to said colleague's friend. And now I send to you. And say YES! Inquiring minds want to know! Why are all the vampires white? Why are all the witches black? And why the hell doesn't anyone ever say slavery on The Vampire Diaries?! It's not like we're not all thinking it! Geez. Or, as the article put it:

In the end, if vampirism is becoming a way for pop culture to interrogate race, let's get to it already. Television shows, even ones like Vampire Diaries, wield a sort of cultural magic -- and that magic can be used for good or evil. By creating tensions around race and then refusing to deal with them, by bringing up Southern history and then refusing to name slavery, the show is only making more bad cultural ju-ju. Not talking about race, or wimping out after bringing up race, doesn't make the world 'post racial.' In fact, it's kind of racist.

I think it's time TV vampires sunk their fangs into their own racial politics.

OK. Now I have to go reconstruct my room/life after Gradeapalooza.

Grading is impermanent...

But it feels like forever.

Pretty sure this round of paper grading has taught me a valuable
lesson. Grading is like Samsara writ small, a seemingly endless cycle
of reading and commenting. Each paper is like a new rebirth, and each
time, I'm caught - how could you write this?! Oh, what an interesting
idea. Didn't we talk about this before you wrote the paper? Well,
maybe this time, there will be a thesis. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY
RELATABLE, AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?! Over and over, some pleasant, some
painful, and each a little harder to recover from than the last, as I
carry with me the weight of the grading that went before. Only a Noble
One, well on her way to Enlightenment has the fortitude of spirit to
grade freshman papers on Buddhism to without suffering several
lifetimes of pain.

I am not a Noble One.

Here's a taste of what I did today (while I should have been grading papers).

Yeah, I'll pay for that lack of grading tomorrow.

"Heroic Humanism and Humanistic Heroism"

That's the name of my very first publication, which will be out very shortly. It's a super short, non-academic piece* I wrote for the upcoming PopMatters spotlight on Joss Whedon, in which I address things like, "What is humanism?" and "How lame is Fox?" and "Just how awesome was that episode where they gave her the umbrella, and why?" I'll obviously be talking more about both the thing I wrote and the other things coming out in the spotlight as it starts to happen (next month), but just thought I'd mention it, since it's part of the reason I am sleep deprived these days.

*When I say that it's non-academic, you should filter that through what you know about me. The website is not an academic one, and the piece I wrote is not the piece I'd have written for an academic thing. But it is called "Heroic Humanism and Humanistic Heroism" and it is written by me, and it  does include the phrase "she will repeatedly do so in ways that increasingly undermine the very separateness of her Slayerhood," so...

2/16 - Wow.

Check out the email address on this totally reputable email notification I received today. 

2/15 - the aftermath

So...um...I got that article written...

2/14 - Ouch, and also busy

This is where I was until 10pm last night.

This is to say nothing of the migraine and the not sleeping and the writing and the grading that is yet to be done. Awesome. So I'm post dating this, because I forgot to post it last night. Cut me some slack, dude.

2/13 - Aliya et alia

Aliya!
(and a giraffe!)

 

Grandparents and dad

(and yummy dinner)

Mom & Baby 

Hooray!

I took these pictures with the camera on my very own computer, which has finally been returned to me! It works, and I didn't have to pay them anything, making these (at least for the time being) THE BEST PICTURES EVER  :)

The shirt also adds to the awesomeness.

A's Birthday

The birthday boy, chillin'.

A story in progress.

"These things are your becoming."

I got this goodness from one of the deans, who got it from one of the student lists. It made us both a little teary. And then she said, "I'm writing music right now and I"m thinking I might reach out to this author, ask if I can collaborate with her on turning this into a song. Well, maybe not the heroine part." (It amused me to hear that the dean is writing music, in the way that it must amuse my students to hear that I love karaoke.) Anyway, this dean was like, "Well, maybe not the heroine part." And then we were both like, *shrug* "Maybe the heroine part, too!" *laugh* It was a funny moment.

A funny moment. I'd just had coffee with two professors, to talk to them about teaching, at a moment when I'm looking forward to teaching my own class for the very first time, which might also be the last. This alongside having an article and an invitation to give a paper (so, I'm validated as an academic?) to think about while simultaneously beginning to consider what my backup career path will be in case the fellowships (no jobs to apply for) simply do not materialize (oh, right - only maybe, if the fates allow). Note that I'm not even touching the weight/love life part. The gravitational pull of that one is too strong for this post.

I want to send it to my little sisters, who are not yet 20-something, though I know I cannot make those future versions of them understand what their present selves have not yet lived. Those things are their becoming.

I want to send it to that younger me, who once was 20-something (was she, really?), though I know she is no longer there, is already moving through time, faster than she can imagine, towards where she sits now - was sitting then, when she wrote this - having already become who she is today, on her way to who knows what next.

2/10 - Cabbage Patch Kids

A friend asked on Facebook who still had theirs. So here are mine:

From left to right: Quintilla Emma, Leeann Juana, and Adrianna Ronni.

Yes, I kept their original names. Yes, Quintilla is a Cornsilk Kid. Yes, Leeann is wearing a fur (faux, of course). And, yes, Adriana is an astronaut.

Weekends just got more awesome

My new waffle maker came today. It's supposed to be some sort of special flippy type, to coat the griddle evenly. I'm excited to try it out, maybe this weekend.

2/8 - Sleepy face

Yes, my eyes are heavy with sleepiness. And, yes - those pieces of paper you see just behind me are things I need to be doing. I am not doing them tonight, because I've already fallen asleep at my desk once. Enough. There is just not enough slack in my slackademia these days.

2/7 - Still waiting

Checked to see why my computer repair was on hold. They were waiting for a "top case", to fix cracks that I was not at all concerned about (they'd been there for a long time, and don't have anything to do with the pressing problem of not being able to see the screen). Really? I tell you I need my computer back ASAP and you're holding it for a cosmetic fix? I told them to just send it back unless the case was there today. So now it says the repair is in progress. It's obviously not coming back at the beginning of this week. My guess is Friday.

Overheard at Caltrain station

I have a crazy brother - I told you that, right? He shot me once! I actually have this shrapnel scar... He shot a mailbox, but then it was like pyeunh,and I looked down there was all this blood and I was like holy shit, ----- shot me! He was hella scared too. And I saw a rattlesnake bite him one time. He had this pet rattlesnake and it bit him, and he like, dropped it on the floor and shot at it --shot a hole in our floor! And then he was like, "It bit me, motherfucker, so I'm gonna kill it!" And we had to drive him like 20 miles to the nearest hospital. Yeah, I love him, but he's a little crazy.

I stopped listening for a bit here to talk to a guy at the train station about how we were both really hearing this. Then I hear:

And then I made a myspace page for him and put up all these pictures of him and her. I just like destroyed this chick, like "Whoa, this bitch looks like a man!" Cause she was hella mean! So I was like, "Look, this is what he's been telling me, like he wants my babies and he wants to get married, so I don't know what y'all got going on, but this is the first I've ever heard of you..."

And then the train came, and we headed to different cars. I kind of want to know know this guy was she was talking to. I hope, for both their sakes, it wasn't a date.

2/6 - roommate fuckery (cont.)

Details? Well, as the book says, everybody poops. Sometimes it's messy. Grown ups who are not disgusting bastards clean up after themselves, rather than waiting for their moms (who don't live here), the maid (we don't have one), or the shit fairy (imaginary) to come along. Nasty bastards with no home training think they should just leave shit splashed up the insides of the toilet, waiting for me when it's my turn to clean the bathroom later this week. Hell no. Also?

You have really stupid hair.

2/5 - ComicCon registration: a pictorial account

Reload...Reload...Reload...Reload...Reload...

*@#!(**(@#^&%&

Reload...Reload...Reload...Reload...Reload...

Reload...Reload...Reload...Reload...Reload...

INSERT PAGE WHERE YOU CAN SELECT FOUR DAY PASS, THEN SEVERAL MORE CYCLES OF OVER CAPACITY RELOADING, THEN A PAGE THAT TELLS YOU THE FOUR DAY PASS IS SOLD OUT, THEN SOME GNASHING OF TEETH (MOSTLY PROVERBIAL), THEN GIVE IN AND BUY INDIVIDUAL DAYS.

(I DIDN'T HAVE THE PRESENCE OF MIND TO TAKE PICTURES OF THAT, BECAUSE I WAS BUSY SWEARING AT THE SCREEN, AND HAVING CONFUSIONS WITH CREDIT CARDS, AND SWEARING AT THE SCREEN SOME MORE.)

Reload...Reload...Reload...Reload...Reload...

VICTORY!
(Except for the part where it cost $34 extra and took over an hour. Except for that.)

You'll certainly hear more about this when it happens (in July, which will be the biggest party ever). You *may* hear more about it in the coming days, during which there *might* be an *actual* blog entry. Hey, cut me some slack - my computer tried to commit suicide, ok?