badgerbag: messy, surly, full of books

And one more thingAnd another

And one more thing

And another thing - speaking of lack of respect and journalists - I just read an article in The Guardian by a reporter who interviewed Salam. I really, really hope Salam gets more than a pizza out of this and more than 15 minutes of fame. We who read his blog should be paying him. Think of all the crap journalists out there and their pretensions of objectivity - and they make money for churning out their cookie cutter stuff. We should be supporting people like Salam and Christopher Allbritton. It may not be formal, or "objective" but I don't trust that kind of objectivity. Give me imperfection, give me flaws, give me wit and honesty over formality and credentials any day. I am also going to write to The Guardian and suggest that they pay Salam for all the giant chunks of his blog that they have been reprinting all through the war. Other papers too.

An untrustworthy witness to historyI

An untrustworthy witness to history
I hate to link to this kind of heinosity but:

The Elusive Mr. Peace by Bryan Preston spouts off in an incredibly obnoxious way about Salam Pax.

It's mind boggling to me that someone from America can write this with a straight face. From this country, where to be a technocrat is privilege itself, and just being a citizen makes one an "insider"? Has this National Review guy talked to a non middle class person lately, or an illegal immigrant? Does he imagine that to some "average American" his intellectual crap would be any less alien than mine is, or than Salam's might be to some "average Iraqi", whatever that might be (and I wouldn't know!) Is Preston some kind of saint who would give up all his money and family connections to help people who are unjustly imprisoned or tortured by his government or anyone else's? As if, because Salam Pax grew up in some wealthy family and is educated and has technical knowledge, he is not only complicit with all the injustice of his country's government, but must be a spy? Why would this be any more true for him than for privileged people in our country? Doesn't our privilege feed off not just this country's poor, but whole other nations? Doesn't our wealth seem to depend on keeping others down? Because I can gossip with someone I know about some internal computer policy at a big company, does that make me a corporate spy, just because I'm in a position to know them? If some cousin of Jenna Bush had a blog and said some sarcastic and cynical things about the war, would everyone jump to the conclusion that this cousin is a spy? It's nonsense. If this country were invaded and occupied, would Preston agree that every rich kid who went to Harvard and who came from a Republican family was as "untrustworthy" as Salam, and likely to be not only a spy, but if they keep a diary, whether public or not, an incompetent spy? That Harvard kid can't have an opinion, or record what's happening around them as their world turns upside down? Some armchair journalist across the ocean would of course be WAY more qualified to decide what "history" is!

Why would sarcasm, cynicism, being able to afford a computer and a pizza, and not having The Answers to everything make anyone "an untrustworthy witness to history" ? Am I making myself "an untrustworthy witness" just by writing this? I suspect so! After all, I curse the dictatorial regime of my country, and hate its policies, but accept the $400 tax refund I'm about to get, and I let my dad put me through college, and lord knows he got his money and his dad got his, by working for land-raping exploitative oppressive global evil oil companies! My freaking privilege was sucked right out of Nigeria and Indonesia and Colombia and Venezuela and Ecuador! And yes! That means I have the means and the words and the nerve to say whatever obnoxious thing I please - and otherwise I might not have any of those things. And I like to think that, under an even more extreme dictatorship, I would continue to say whatever I please, and damn the torpedoes. Does this National Review guy think it's impossible that anyone "elite" would make that decision? I suppose every upper class journalist and poet and union organizor and revolutionary and politician that ever got put up against the wall and shot by some military junta was "an unworthy witness" and "trying to lead a life of irresponsible leisure". What the fuck?! What leisure is he talking about?

I guess what pisses me off the most is the complete lack of respect Preston and other journalists have shown for Salam. They show their ignorance and racism but even more than that - a complete lack of imagination that many people decide to stay in a dangerous situation when they don't have to, and that people like Salam write even when writing honestly means they risk death.

I am boiling mad!

brillo and macheteMy dad seemed

brillo and machete

My dad seemed kind of overexcited at the thought of buying a machete at the hardware store. He's back there wearing some kind of hip holster and chopping the weeds like they're hydra heads. I have been picturing how to apply a tourniquet. Mom has made many things lemony fresh that have never been lemony fresh before. I am exhausted. L, I hope you are going to cook dinner. I may pass out. I believe your kitchen may be exuding a certain lemony freshness. Was I supposed to stop that...?

constant subtle deferenceThree Differences between

constant subtle deference

Three Differences between an Academic and an Intellectual - this article by Jack Miles is GREAT!

the full-blown humanities doctorate -- particularly if it is followed by long years of probationary appointments and then a negative tenure decision -- grievously delays a young person's entry into the general marketplace, burdens him or her with enormous debt, and inculcates over the years the self-destructive habit of constant subtle deference.

Saddle soreWe just got back

Saddle sore

We just got back from the dude ranch. My ass hurts, my brain seems to be gone, I'm sunburned, and worst of all, I really miss the horse. I could not stop thinking about Black Beauty's misery in the livery stable. Was my horse suffering under my horrible bumpy rein-yanking riding? And is it going to suffer even more now that I am not there to feed it apples? (Yes.)

Will those wranglers ever brush it or hose it off or look at its hooves before and after every ride or put it in a special horse blanket to cool down as recommended by the Pony Club Manual? (Not bloody likely.)

Highlights of the trip:

Hiding a geocache at the very end of a shaft of an old abanadoned gold mine
Loping (cantering, if you are not riding Western)
Petting horses
Petting (mauling) tiny little spotty foals
Drinking mare's milk
Talking fake "western talk"
Catching frogs in the dark with flashlights for the big "frog rodeo"
Awful food
Awful karaoke
Criticizing other people's bad riding
Yelling at little kids who talked for hours about the horses peeing and pooping
Fashion mistakes (clue to the midwestern woman, do not wear giant mattress sized maxipads with stretch pants, and then bend over)
Genial, laconic wranglers with mustaches, big hats, plaid shirts with pearl buttons, funny walks

I can't find info on that abandoned mine anywhere.

dude!On our way to the

dude!

On our way to the dude ranch. Don't ask!

Maybe they'll have net access, maybe not. Cowgirl up!

blog as you're watching it,

blog as you're watching it, because if you're not blogging, you're not really experiencing it

So says L. as we watch the fabulous movie "Dolemite".

"Tell him I want him out of here in 24 hours. And 23 of them have already gone."

"I'm so bad I kick my own ass twice a day."

rich, chocolatey goodnessMy class laughed

rich, chocolatey goodness


My class laughed and ate the penis and vulva cookies (see below). If anyone was horrified or indifferent, they kept quiet about it. The feminaries also seemed to amuse!

Tasteless yet so tasty!L. helped

Tasteless yet so tasty!

L. helped me make a double batch of tasteless yet tasty totally inappropriate anatomically correct vulva and penis cookies (for my class tomorrow as I do my Wittig/Le Guin presentation)

Sugar cookies and gingerbread to make them symbolically bi-racial... The vulvas have red-hots for clitorises and the penises and vulvas both have a creamy lemon frosting.

Mmmm!

They look SO NASTY yet so martha stewart.

Was going to get those silver BBs to make some of them pierced, but it was 10 bucks for a tiny little spice-jar size container of BBs, so I didn't.

Once I was elbow-deep in cookie dough, I remembered, gradually, that all the other times I made them:

A) the molasses ginger cookie dough is too sticky
B) it also puffs up really big so I got huge brown penises and pencil-dick white ones
C) and huge fat brown vulvas and delicate thin white vulvas/labia
D) it's not the Lemon Glaze it's the Quick Lemon Icing.
E) but since I made the glaze by accident, might as well use it too
F) because it melts into the cookies and tastes really good under the thick white variety of icing

I have no idea if this goes way over the line for a school setting, but if they've all read the Wittig, they've already dealt with more people pissing all over each other and descriptions of vulvas and vaginas than one would expect in a class... soooo.... why the hell not...

Can't remember when I invented these - it was certainly back in 21st St. Co-op days so that would be late 80s or early 90s.

You need a dough that can be handled - sugar cookie recipies work well. Maybe peanut butter or ginger snaps would be better for the brown variety.

To make the vulvas:

1) roll a cookie dough snake about 4" long and maybe 1/2 to 3/4" thick
2) lay it on the cookie sheet
3) fold it in half to make the labia majora - pinch the ends to make a sort of canoe shape. I always think vaguely of some quote from Inanna about the narrow boat of heaven...
4) use your pinkie to make the urethra first, then a vagina below it
5) put in a red hot
6) make another "snake" and flatten it for the labia minora. Here is where you can really have fun because you want your inner labia to be all shapes and sizes. Tee Corinne's Cunt Coloring Book is good for inspiration, as is Chapter 9 of Burton's translation of The Perfumed Garden.
7) It works well to have your inner labia meet right over the red hot; pinch together for clitoral hood and shaft
8) edible BBs for piercings are optional...

For the penises:

You have to keep in mind that making them big means they are kind of big for individual cookies and also can be a problem for structural integrity. Small works better!

1) roll penis shaft - whatever thickness... make some of them curvy... some straight... etc. Consult your favorite live models, porn mags, or Chapter 8 of The Perfumed Garden if you feel retro.
2) put them on the cookie sheet and pat them down a bit
3) make 2 balls roughly equal (or whatever) and put them on at the base
4) roll another ball to be the glans - fold it over slightly and pinch it for a great urethra effect
5) stick it on the shaft so it overlaps a bit. Voila!
6) you could add piercings or vary the design to make some of the penises uncut...

Frost them while they're still warm, you get a fabulous and kind of disgusting melty result of sticky and glazed-doughnut looking shininess combined with thicker spots of the frosting that looks white. Ewwww! But very good!

Strawberry jelly can also be used for the vulvas: great for puberty initiation rites, PMS parties, vampires, or newly joined Hell's Angels!

If you serve these to people who are drunk or a bit uninhibited you get some very good photo opportunities - usually involving vile and obscene licking of frosted vulvas.

It's eating my brain!One more

It's eating my brain!

One more paper to go. Why, why, why did I decide to write some sort of feminist thing? Was baited into it. I didn't even open my mouth about gender in this class until about the 10th class out of 12. And then the other day several people were saying to me, "Oh... wait... you have a baby? I just assumed you were... um... a lesbian...? Because you're always talking about that in class". Mega-irritating:

1) I talked about feminism and gender issues in 2 classes. (1 talk out of my 7 for the class)
2) Because I criticize some novel as Not Very Feminist, and gender essentializing of male and female, I must be a lesbian?
3) Because I have a kid, I must not be a lesbian?

The mind boggles. Hello world? Am I in San Francisco here?

Also noted that whenever any other girl in the class said something about gender, she would do all the excessive qualifying statements like "It seems to me like maybe it could be, but correct me if you think I'm wrong, that blah blah blah". While smiling, giggling, or placating. Now, I noticed myself giggling and qualifying as well, but I did manage to squelch it.

I am overwhelmed with near certainty that the prof, who seems basically nice, is going to condescend all over my paper because my feminism isn't grounded in enough logic, or something. That's just so backlash. I can't help expecting it! We'll see. I refuse to apologize for not being good enough to take apart the master's house with the master's Power Tool.

The one guy who brought up gender issues was fabulous, radical and incoherent as me, but no one jumped up his ass about logical grounding.

Fact also remains that prof's only advice for me was that I should "consider the humor" of the book I'm dissing; that I should read his papers. Was kind of hoping for a "you might look at X feminist theorist for help", but noooo.

Meanwhile have been further making my blood boil by reading "sexism in gaming" thread on The Forge and the lame-ass comments to Beth "Gamerchick"'s articles on Gamegrene. Rant mode engaging! Down, girl! Down, girl!

Grrrr. Grrrrrumpy.

Dr. Lizardo out.

Don't mess with Tex-assIf you've

Don't mess with Tex-ass

If you've got crack in your crack, don't go to Texas!

New back of thong alphabet beads configuration: "COPS, LOOK HERE TO FIND CRACK"

"It's two separate things -- selling cocaine from an inventory in your rear and smoking dope with your buddies" - U. of TX law professor George Dix.

This pretty much tells you everything you need to know about Texas. 1) Cops like to look at ass. 2) Texans who talk about "blunts" and who are named "Dix" still manage to get law degrees and professor jobs.

enjoying history before it happensInvented

enjoying history before it happens

Invented the name of M.'s first high school punk band. They will all have super-retro monkees shaggy bowl cuts and suits with white shirts and skinny ties. And they will be named "The Spocktards".

And now that I think

And now that I think about it

Why not a new fashion trend: underwear that imprints backwards rude words on your ass so that when you moon someone... I'm not sure what to print, maybe the word ECNALUBMA.

It would be like having waffle-butt from sitting on a cane chair or a woven beach chair. But with words! On purpose! How cool would that be! They could do it with athletic socks too.

Or it could be like special prank underwear with invisible ink that prints onto your butt, but does not stain the actual underwear.

I could write a whole NEA grant for it! Putting Poetry Into the Community! On their asses! Colonizing the body! Or something. While I'm on the whole underwear-is-funny kick please behold these gem-like confections - worthy of Charlie Ames, Cherry's cheerful twin.

Is this another one of those brilliant ideas that's funny only to me?

follow meLooking at Victoria's Secret

follow me

Looking at Victoria's Secret catalogue this morning with L. - we invented another genius-like invention that will make us ONE MILLION DOLLARS. There was a thong with alphabet beads strung across the back and L. was like "Oh, you could put your phone number!" How fabulous! The ultimate slutty thong!

My contribution: nerdy, overly literate sluts could put "sequere me" on their thong's butt string.

Go ahead and honk if that make you laugh...

Fear and loathing in RWCI

Fear and loathing in RWC

I take notes at poetry readings to amuse myself and to vent. Over several months of going to the same open mikes, I get to know people's names and how they tend to write. In general I rank them into several categories:

A) startlingly good, makes my brain explode
B) technically competent, intelligent, but maybe a little humdrum
C) the Humdrum
D) Unspeakable - tedious - makes one embarrassed to be part of the human race

There's a lot of people in the "B" category who have one super excellent poem, or who in nearly every poem will have one line or phrase that makes my head explode.

Pet peeves of poetry readings:

- long explanations of the poem before reading the poem
- people who boast of their publications
- tedious journal entries; prose

Must dig up "poetry reading bingo" cgi. It generates bingo cards using lists of overused words. I passed them out once at my own reading but it just appalled everyone - though one person paid attention to it and finally yelled "Bingo!" when they had marked 5 in a row.

On my cute little mac laptop I have been recording people and
I have the most fabulous recording of G.H. reading his poem "Pirate Ship". I don't have the text in front of me but it goes down the page nearly one word at a time. Maybe I'll put it up somewhere and link to it. I have maybe half an hour of him just rambling drunkenly about Genet - nearly as good as the poems.

Anyway tonight I go to M.'s school show and then whisk off like a Going to Hell mom to go to my own show and read some poetry. They told me I get 10 minutes so I can really go to town and read something long.

June 8 I will read in SF. I realized last night that it wasn't time constraints that stopped me from sending off my J. de I. translations to F.F. and E.G.M. and various other luminaries of spanish translation who kindly said they would read them - I was afraid of showing them and embarrassed. But how much better it would be to be embarrassed in private in front of a couple of people I admire, than to be REALLY embarrassed when something of mine is published with horrible mistakes.

Meanwhile, reading Hipólita's "Inner Life" chapter in The Seven Madmen is making my head explode in the most pleasant way and I wish I could share it with everyone - carry the book around and shove it in people's faces and say excitedly, "Look! Look! Read this!"

Some readingSome books I've been

Some reading
Some books I've been reading lately - heavy on the not-heavy :

The Proud Sheriff by Eugene Manlove Rhodes. Nearly incomprehensible cowboy novel. Awkward but somehow authentic-feeling dialect. There is a character named "Spinal Maginnis".

I like it in books when people say "I'd just as lief". Very cool.

Betsy and Billy by Carolyn Haywood. Betsy somehow doesn't notice her mom is pregnant until the baby is actually born, and even then, she thinks Santa Claus brought it. I have a sick fascination with this sort of book - the sort of book where kids say "Gee!" a lot.

More Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.

Handbook to Life in Ancient Greece. Kind of random facts. Soothing.

Bits of The Hobbit to fall asleep by. Imagining reading it to M. in a few years. I will not need to read it. I can already recite it.

I think it was last month that I read all the Harry Potter books again.

Normally I read at least a book a day. I can't take this frantic pace of things lately. jhk reassures me it's just the end of the semester and it's finite. It feels a bit like I'm pushing myself on top of that to be in "productive mode" writing and synthesizing rather than my normal "absorbtion mode" of constant reading. It is exhausting.

I need more reading and less doing!

Am already planning projects ahead. The list is very long. I woke up this morning worrying about my projects for June and July.

crow and hawkForgot to note

crow and hawk

Forgot to note that hawk the other day. A big hawk, maybe a red-tailed hawk, with something in its claws swooping up from the ground - divebombed by a crow. While the hawk was rising up higher the crow landed on its back in mid-air and began pecking the hawk's head. We drove past - I was just able to see the crow ride the hawk all the way down to the ground in the middle of a field of alfalfa. The hawk was still graceful as it landed and the crow hung on tight, surfing and pecking.

all points bulletinI love this

all points bulletin

I love this situation in Texas, where Democrat representatives left the state to avoid a vote on redistricting - and this quote from NM makes it even better:

New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid said it appeared her state
had no authority to arrest the lawmakers if they show up there, despite
being asked to do so by the Texas governor.

"Nevertheless, I have put out an all-points bulletin for law enforcement
to be on the lookout for politicians in favor of health care for the
needy and against tax cuts for the wealthy," said Ms. Madrid, a Democrat.

Meanwhile, on Planet XLet's say

Meanwhile, on Planet X

Let's say just hypothetically I were writing a novel about...um... some people on the board of a cultural organization on some other planet. "Hmm, we need someone who can read Lorax." *silence all around* What about Theo? He speaks Lorax. Isn't he kind of a Lorax?" "I dunno, is he really Loraxian? or what?"

me: You can't just ask Theo to do everything because he's one of the 2 people you know who speak it! Let me ask some other people, I will call around the local language departments!

So the City of Planet X gives out ten thousand Xircon grants to ... groups that sponsor the public knitting of especially artistic Thneads by renowned knitters. Oh no! We didn't get our ten thousand Xircons! *grumble grrrrumble it was because they said we weren't multicultural enough. They looked at our names... Bobby... Susy... Cherry... and said "Hmm, you are all a bunch of Once-lers. No barbaloots? No Swamee-swams? No Humming fish? And what about the knitters? No? Come back next time...

I hear them all grumbling. "They can't tell just from looking at our names that we're not barbaloots and stuff. We could have gotten married and changed our names. Or be half swan. But no. Let's invite Miss Once-loot, she sounds like she might be one, but it's just that she married a barbaloot. I hear she can knit. What is the world coming to when we just have to invite people for who they are and where has poetry, oh I mean Thneed-knitting, gone?

Dear reader, did I let this pass? No. I did not.

Oh once-lers, note how you have become very defensive and are telling us all how your great-grandmother was half cherokee, I mean star-bellied sneech, and how you invited Truffula Van Looterhonker last year to have a knit-off in the history park theater, and wasn't that multicultural enough? No. So the granting organization looked at your Once-ler-y names and made a judgement. Was it unfair? Look around you -- look around the table, all are green mysterious arms sticking out of cloaks and window shutters. When we speak, do we not speak through snergally hoses? Do we not sound as if we had smallish bees up our noses? We ARE ALL ONCELERS in this room. If you want sneeches on this board then go look for the sneech organizations and talk to them and read their stuff and see who's a good organizer . Then invite them! Don't just invite the one token sneech you've heard about through a friend of a friend! Do some research! Go to their events!

Well, they asked me to come and give them new ideas. Little did they know that I come without a "mute" button.

And I come with a handful of firecrackers to tie onto their tails.

I can still hear the one guy thinking, because I read minds - he is thinking "I know High Art when I see it, and High Art is the same people we invite every year, and they are my friends. And the same core of 10-30 oncelers come to our knit-off events. And that one Loraxian gay guy who knits in small sizes but they're always all cutesy with loraxian mythologial creatures on them and those offensive truffula trees. The barbaloots and sneeches with their wild stomp-knit techniques are ignorant and scary and barely even really know how to knit the RIGHT way. They're all going to get the grants and my organization is going to die.

They're so bitter but so clueless about why their group is moribund...

I realized at some point that they might think I'm chicana, I mean Loraxian, or something just because I speak Lorax! Did they? Do they now?

They will take their medicine and LIKE it. they wouldn't know a good Loraxian poet if it grabbed them by the balls. They have Emily Oncelerson and Once Whitman and Once-ler Stevens, my personal un-favorite, stuck in their worshipful niches up there on the mantle. A sneech, a lorax, a barbaloot, a swan, must now be admitted and tolerated, ruining everything because you can no longer just be all bitter but must adapt and change to the rest of the world.

Anyway am feeling proud. I did not let these aliens go uncalled on their shit.

They will thank me for it eventually.

The end!Finished paper on collaborative

The end!

Finished paper on collaborative storytelling. It turned out to be a sort of overview and I committed many sins of bad academic writing. But I had fun thinking about it. I expected jhk to read it and respond with an imaginary-beard-stroking "hmm" that would annoy me off the face of the planet. Instead, he said that while reading it he had a fabulous epiphany. He is truly my knight in shining armor! Not only all the child care while I write and wig out, the omelet-making and dishwashing sort of practical support, but a comment that went beyond gratifying. (Even though my paper turned out kind of lame).

L. also did much babysitting and made me relax. This morning she whisked me off to take a horseback riding lesson. We melded as one with our noble steeds. No... well, we jolted around on our rude, bossy, head-putting-down-and-grass-eating and bolting-suddenly and stopping-all-the-time and head-tossing-and-rearing-up horses. The horses were pissed off at us and our confusing contradictory instructions. We just walked around an arena for an hour - occasional uncontrollable trotting was endured - and had a 10 minute ride on a trail, and my ass is feeling very, very, black and blue. L., if you are not also complaining of a sore butt, I hate you.

I have to go write the other paper now - I think it will be easier, because I don't care about it quite as much. I could talk about sex, death, prostitution, and metaphors of disintegration and myths of descent to the underworld all day long without breaking a sweat.

And Bryony if you are still reading, go kick an Exmoor pony for me, because if I did really get to ride one, it would just be a jerk to me... there would be no galloping like the wind across the moors with my hair mingling with its windswept mane... there would only be a surly beast and an inept, out of shape 30+ big-assed mama half-falling off and cursing.

XIV, why me?I just noticed

XIV, why me?

I just noticed this afternoon that our driveway is tagged with gang graffiti... this happened when we lived 10 blocks away too. I wonder if there is any connection. Last time I talked to the police about it and the officer who came out to take a look - they actually have some guy assigned full time to track local gang activity -- he explained a bit about the situation in CA with the Nortenos and Surenos. This guy knew all the names and taglines of the kids...

I just looked up some history and it was pretty interesting. I feel kind of relieved that when I wear a bandana on my head it's usually a red one, otherwise maybe I'd be in big trouble! Or maybe I'm in bigger trouble for wearing a red rag and not being an actual norteno? I have no idea. A shout out to my homies in the 650: quit tagging my house and making me all paranoid.

AlasIf only Barthes weren't dead.

Alas

If only Barthes weren't dead. It would be so cool to make a sort of hypertext blog or bulletin board of S/Z and Sarrasine. Wouldn't that just be the ultimate "writerly" text? I wouldn't let it just be random people - I'd limit who could write to it.

La la la.

I'm so digging this article "Playing Stories, Telling Games: Collaborative Storytelling in Role-playing Games" by Lisa Padol. I should write to her and tell her how I'm grooving on it and bouncing ideas off it. The part about myth could really be expanded - it's just kind of lamely thrown in, but I know what she means. But all the stuff about author, text, meta-text, is so right on, and so succinct and clear.

Floor length, in marmalade tabbyCat

Floor length, in marmalade tabby

Cat fur coats. Hmm. I just can't see what all the fuss is about. If people wear rabbits and eat rabbits and cows and etc. etc. then why not cats? Why are people so illogical?

And while we're eating and wearing cats, how about domesticating some other animals? I still want a dik-dik running around my back yard. Smaller than most dogs, keeps the grass cut, sprightly, cute, and pettable. And mmm, tastes like chicken. If we stick them in zoos, why not in cage farms and milking machines? Dik-diks running happy and free in the lovely forests would be better, but if the forests are going then domestication seems to be the only way to preserve biodiversity...

I just spent 3 hours at a toddler's birthday party. My brain is fried.

Antonio's nut houseThe Nut House

Antonio's nut house

The Nut House now has a splendid addition to the walls - L.'s diagram of:
"Butt begins here*" *as understood by low rider jeans makers and wearers
"Butt ACTUALLY begins here"
"Butt line as understood by our MOM" (right up nearly all the way to the boob line).

It was an excellent diagram reminiscent of the how-to-put-in-the-tampax instructions. Taped it to wall of bar full of chicks with their thongs out. Ass spacklage aplenty - a fertile field for it. Checked my own ass. Big and fat. Red undies sticking out, no thong. Jeans are down, but not ass-crack down. Whew. It's just the really low pants that look nasty. I like to see girls' bellies though.

I was carded to get in. Apparently am not enough of a hag yet to look completely silly in my bat-ears hat from "Hot Topic." Stanford jocks look right through me. Girls also look through me. I'm dowdy! Couple of guys in the hip style glasses note my hip style glasses and do the "stare too long and barely move an eyebrow" thing. I am in an alien land. Wish I had laptop to work on paper amidst beer and nutshells. L. and I are amused at how unhip we are. We are completely out of place. I think longingly of a hot bubble bath. "Want to play hangman?" I laugh. "No, I'm serious!" We get lottery tickets with ladybugs on them, and lose.

One ruined Shiner bock and another silly drawing later, I feel MUCH better. Drew penguin with yo-yo and cup of alkaseltzer. Drew sea lion with sunglasses and a bikini and a beach towel and a radio. L. drew flying fish and more fish and octopus and realistic cattails and another blimp and a palm tree with a monkey. I gave the monkey another yo-yo.

I haven't been to a bar in what... several years? It was just what I needed - to see other people desperately pursuing fun and realize yet again that my idea of fun is not their idea of fun. I like to read at parties - I get to have my kind of fun and yet be around people.

Fuck, why is my throat sore? Am I going to get sick right when I need to write 2 papers?

hate selfPaper sucks. I hate

hate self

Paper sucks. I hate it. Ideas vaguely amusing but its style sounds like an autistic 6th grader on heavy tranquilizers. I have no oomph left in me.

Oomph??

Thank you John Lee HookerI

Thank you John Lee Hooker

I have listened to "Tupelo" and "Church Bell Tone" about 50 times today. It is very soothing. I have been writing this paper practically non-stop since 10:30am. Occasional stretching, food, news reading, blogging, email.

To give you an idea of the silliness and joy of this paper - to counteract all my whining about doing it - I give you just the beginning of the the bibliography:

Works Cited

Bakhtin, Mikhail. "Discourse in the Novel." The Dialogic Imagination. Ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson. Austin, Texas: Univeristy of Texas Press, 1981.

"Bill Gates Grants Self 18 Dexterity, 20 Charisma." The Onion 18 June 1997. . Viewed May 2003.

Blackburn, Jolly R. "The Great Revolt." Knights of the Dinner Table, Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Kenzer & Company, June 1998.

I also quote my own husband extensively. What could be sillier? Just by juxtaposing Barthes and the game "Trollbabe" in the same sentence I get a deep sense of satisfaction as if I were flipping off all of academia at once. "If only they had one neck..." or whatever that quote was...

battles and warsAm deeply disturbed

battles and wars

Am deeply disturbed that Bush and his officials are referring to this year's war as "The Battle of Iraq" - they explain that it wasn't a war, it was one battle in a larger war.

We all knew this is how they were thinking, but it's disturbing that they can just say it outright.

Procrastinator IIPaper is killing me.

Procrastinator II

Paper is killing me. I am all excited about that project to annotate Wittig though. Ah, to write footnotes and glossaries! No more papers for me if I can help it. A soothing index! A rambunctious parody!

But no. Ugh, why is it such torture? The gears are grinding.

Salam Pax is backSalam Pax

Salam Pax is back

Salam Pax is back.

I think some major publisher should put out his blog entries as a book.

An odd thing: there is an article on Salam's return in the UK Guardian that has bits that aren't in the blogspot site. Like all that stuff about the NY Times reporter naked in a striped towel job-interviewing Salam and friend to be translators. I bet John F. Burns is smacking his forehead in dismay, not only is everyone in the world giggling at his "stripy towel", but he missed out on a great interview... the whole fucking world waiting to see if Salam is okay and what he will say... ha!

But what does this mean? Is the John F. Burns in a towel story just something silly added in by Guardian joker? Did Diana edit it out? Or what?

To me, the entries read like Salam but a very upset and freaked Salam.

And why is Diana's site blank - just a white page? I have been worrying about her as well because of the immense amount of hostile publicity she has gotten.

I almost never agree with Diana's politics but have thought that her friendship with Salam has been extremely interesting and in fact in some odd way I have been inspired by it, I guess, resolving to regularly read stuff by people who I disagree with - blogs are good for that. Thus my regular reading of Not a Fish and others. For example, reading some academic article or newspaper propaganda that I disagree with is just irritating, maddening; I can barely stand to read it, I think it's pompous, it's dishonest. But reading someone's diary is different. I trust the informality, and see the person. When I see the person behind the ideas, I can understand the ideas - or at least listen to them for a while.

Just like Salam's blog is not The Real Story, but I feel certain it is A Real Story. I trust subjectivity more than (pretended) objectivity.

This has also been true in the Moms Club here. People were VERY divided over the war. Lines were being drawn. But there was some history of us knowing each other on a personal level. This, to some degree, restrained the impulse to hate each other blindly. If there is anything that will deconstruct nationalism, it will not be revolutions, it will be communities.

Perhaps it is naive of me, but I always want to believe that when people actually know each other as people they can't be evil to each other. Despite all my readings about violence, war, torturers, prisons: I live in foolish idealism. It's not that I don't hate people - oh, believe me, I hate people - but I don't hate them enough to hurt and kill them. If Salam Pax was not an idealist underneath his cynicism, then why would he write?

Incredibly great photoshoppingMax's picture got

Incredibly great photoshopping

Max's picture got farked and I'm so amused. I like the mars face one and the bomb-pop!

deadlinesAs this deadline approaches I

deadlines

As this deadline approaches I am more and more inspired to write anything but what I'm supposed to.

This new project to annotate Wittig - how attractive it seems!

Finishing my translation of J. de I.'s 1967 Elegy - unspeakably compelling!

Fixing those little things in the Sepúlveda "Women of My Generation" translation - it needs doing, right now! Before I forget that part about Tania's thighs!

In the bathtub - mentally writing a long praise-laden review of the new Gregory Hays translation of Marcus Aurelius! Writing imaginary fan mail to Gregory Hays. Writing imaginary and rather passionate fan mail to Marcus Aurelius.

Seriously everybody, go and read that new "Meditations". I am unusually attached to the stodgy Maxwell Staniforth translation and it is very pleasant to compare the 2. What good new insight it gives me.

Someday I will look for the original and try to read a little of it with the English and some dictionaries. Just the thought of how pleasant it would be to do this makes me feel all teary-eyed. (God, please let me live long enough to have time to potter about peacefully with books and dictionaries and writing. Like nearly every other thought that crosses my mind, what an unworthy thought for a Stoic!)

But no, I am going to go at least work on the rotten bibliography for this rotten paper which I really do want to write - but it is so upsetting that I haven't written it yet, I can hardly bear it. If only I had gotten to this point about a month ago. Then I could turn in something good. I resolve firmly that whatever unspeakable thing I turn in next Monday, the paper will get revised this summer until it doesn't embarrass me and then will be posted on jhk's game site if not sent out to some semi-respectable academic journal.

Grrrr. Mad at self. Blogging seems hauntingly attractive.

Am now imagining Hays googling himself a few weeks from now and giggling madly at this page.

For the love of God,

For the love of God, Montressori!

Someone posted on the Mom's Club mailing list asking for ideas for a mystery-themed party - and 2 other moms wrote back suggesting they look at Edgar Allen Poe short stories.

If that doesn't make you laugh, read on for a peek into my fabulous new invention - the Pit and the Pendulum toddler birthday party!

"Mommy, why is it so dark? I wanna balloon! I wanna cuppy cake wif chockwit! AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaahhh...... [repeat for as many times as you have guests]

The few cautious toddlers who don't fall in the pit (just like a bounce house, but it lasts longer!) can be strapped to tables - and scythe-like pendulum applied. For an added boost of nightmarish party horror, decorate the pendulum with evil clown faces or Teletubby heads!
(Rats optional).

Or if you're no gothic Martha Stewart and don't have time to dig a really good pit, try the "Cask of Amontillado" birthday party! Feed the kids some salty snacks, then promise them unlimited access to Capri-Sun squeeze packets and lead them down a dark tunnel. A hallway will do. Mmmm! Cold, juicy goodness, a special new berrylicious flavor! All the squeeze-juice you can drink!

Then at the end of the tunnel, shut them in the room with the juice and brick up the door.

black market laborThis article on

black market labor


This article on our black market labor situation (not even considering the stuff about pot and porn) got me thinking . I have a kneejerk reaction to tell people to hire day laborers - merely because they are so desperate for work. I know it is problematic, but haven't really tried to think it through. And with babysitting? I did come to the conclusion that it was wrong to pay someone less than the going rate just because they were a recent immigrant and will take any job. Maybe you are thinking libertarian style, "It's not wrong, you offer, they are free to accept or not". However, I am more prone to think, "Of course it's wrong. It's unethical to take advantage of other people - in this case bad immigration laws and worker protection laws, unstable world economy, the person's lack of information about how much their work is worth, etc."

It has been odd to watch my "Of course it's wrong!" war with my "$15 an hour for babysitting, I must cough this up??"

And even worse, underneath all that, thinking "And of course childraising actually SHOULD be paid more if society valued it correctly." If I really wanted someone else to contribute to raising my kid then it seems like they should be part of the family, or neighborhood, or co-op or group marriage. Co-op of my dreams, I have certainly failed you.

M.'s nanny for a year and a half is just not in touch with us anymore really. I wish she would be... She did love him but she also has a huge extended family of her own and plenty of other problems to think about, like, what happens if I go back to Brazil with my linguistics degree and there's no jobs? I'm sure I was irritating to work for, in my own special way, but I had to be better than some of those other yuppie hose beasts who try to make her wash dishes and yell at her and accuse her of weird things like stealing a paper towel. (I'm not kidding! She dried her hands and was told she had stolen a paper towel!) I was like "okay, I've just given you a third of the money I made, a third to taxes, and then I get some. That seems okay. Meanwhile my kid is being brought up by someone who knows how to enjoy playing with babies 8 hours a day, or so she claimed consistently! Some people really do! I draw the line at believing that anyone enjoys cleaning my house, though.

When her sister-in-law came once to pick up M. with her husband and kid and there was only one car seat. And she put my kid in the car seat! And hers up in the front seat between her and husband! I freaked out. Oh no. That was one of those major disconnect moments when you realize you have no idea what is going through another person's head. Okay, in Brazil you just drive around with kids not bucked in, as I was raised, rattling around in the back or front of station wagons, vans, and pickups. But things are different now! I explain in bad spanish that it's the law. She didn't know that ... just thought the whole car seat thing was a yuppie fad to roll your eyes at!

It is better now that he has school and jhk and I are at home to pick him up and play with him. But if i have another kid, am I going to be able to deal with that first year? Maybe a half time babysitting? To have days, weeks, months go by where I'm not producing anything but milk, mystery novels used very roughly, and bitching about not enough sleep. Will it be different magically the 2nd time around? Or better because I have friends who will babysit?

Truly I used to think it startlingly wrong to hire someone else to clean my house. I first encountered this when visiting my friend A.'s apartment in some high rise in greenwich village (1st time in new york). Lo and behold "their maid" was in there cleaning. I was appalled and felt really uncomfortable to be around these scary rich people.

From a later perspective I began to think "Well, her mom had some fancy job at the UN and her dad worked somewehre else and they had a bad commute and so get up, go to work, come back 12 hours later, if they cleaned the house they'd have no time for anything else"

Of course Louise "our maid" also had to commute to her cleaning jobs, all across town, with no benefits, on the bus no less, and then go home to her own family - and then clean her own house . Guess she didn't have time to do much else, no leisure time and tickets to broadway plays and visits to the symphony like A.'s parents. The general unfairness of it all doesn't let up its grip on me. If the divide were not quite so great, I could handle there not being total fairness.

Now that I am on that cooking-cleaning-childcaring end of the stick, not only do I suck at it, but I don't even get a paycheck. Social security statements of the future will have big fat zeros on these years. jhk suddenly locked into heinous unpleasant 'responsible provider' role.

Meanwhile when I want some furniture moved or stuff hauled out of my yard I feel obliged to go pick up some guys on the street (last time they were crawling over each other, fighting to get in the car) and pay them 10 bucks an hour which is actually overpay and drive them back and they go back out on the street to join the hundreds of men in baseball hats waiting in small groups eyeing my pickup truck like it's the holy grail and I'm going, Is that 20 bucks going to actually help you any? What is your rent? Is your family here or waiting for you to bring them over? Are you okay? But I can't say any of this even with bad spanish because it's just "cuantas horas". 2. "2" "Dos" "Okay." When they go home, father and nephew, is their 40 bucks welcomed? Desperately needed? Did I just help them? Is it too small an amount to even matter, a drop in the bucket to their rent? Where to even begin to attack the root of this one small symptom? Don't shoot me, but as soon as you start thinking about social inequalities and wealth doesn't it just torment you?

I don't know what it is with these post-sleeping pill writing sessions, I get started and can't stop though my eyes are barely open and I feel about 100 iq points dumber and number than normal.

from The Nation:"Terrorism is the

from The Nation:

"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich." - Peter Ustinov

Not before I passed outThat's

Not before I passed out

That's what happens when I get the writing urge AFTER taking the sleeping pill.

I also meant to say something like this:

Why is Iraq suddenly not news? WTF? And are people noticing that "During the War" the embedded reporters couldn't say much because it might be a security risk, but now that it's no longer "during", and thus not a risk, these reporters seem to have nothing to say - or maybe it's their publishers and TV stations that just don't think it's news anymore since it's not "During". So when do we get a little more of the real story?

But no one seems to care to report on the situation any more, except people like Alternet and Memory Hole. Pro-war people are still rah-rahing about how everything was justified and "the war" is over so fast. What's happening now somehow isn't war, isn't a military occupation, but "stabilization". This is doublespeak, this is hypocrisy, and it's wrong.

And how fucked is this, which seems to have gone under everyone's radar?

Newsday reports that when a mob killed a Shiite cleric in Najaf, the CIA lost an operative and up to $13 million. Abdel Majid al-Khoei, who was killed with another cleric, was on the payroll because he was pro-Western. The money has not been found. Police on Friday arrested two people possibly linked to the killings, after gunmen shot automatic weapons and threw grenades outside the city's central shrine, the tomb of Imam Ali.

Did you say $13 million? $13 million? The CIA. Uh. *feeling of having been punched in the gut.* This is like the wildest COINTELPRO conspiracy theorist rantings that I go into and no one seems to believe. Or maybe they believe it but don't know what to do with the information. It's not like I know. At least it contributes to my personal cynicism and lack of nationalist sentiment and/or blind patriotism. Here is another article on the CIA and al-Khoei.

And let's not forget incidents like these - throw a sandal, get gunned down in cold blood.

I continue to be deeply ashamed of my country, and no one is paying me 13 million dollars or any amount of money to say so, and I won't take it back or stop saying it.

Midnight brillianceRPG game talk with

Midnight brilliance

RPG game talk with jhk and he sniggers at Jim's idea of "Concubine: the role-playing game." Oh my god! What a great idea! I can see it all. Sing in me muse, for ...

Picture it - the players are all concubines in the emperor's harem. This could be arabian nights style, but I would rather make it Golden Lotus style - dream of red mansions - Tale of Genji-ish though I guess must settle on one and make it really historical. Concubines, wives, maidservants, and some eunuchs. The point is not to die - to be in the emperor's favor - to get pregnant - to have your son declared the heir - to frame those other bitches' sons so they get exiled or executed . To get political power in the realm. To escape and get home. It could be an ongoing soap opera or a more tightly plotted game where maybe a year goes by in between game sessions. (to give sons a chance to get older) Or could be set during a horrible crisis: barbarians threaten the empire, the 'men of the rivers and lakes' are gathering at army strength in the Marshes of Mount Liang; rebels and corrupt officials are everywhere, and the emperor gets sick..... The lovely barbarian princess longs for her homeland , the sly politician's scheming daughter... the older first wife from before he was Emperor... and that bitch of a dancing girl who wriggled her way right into the Emperor's good graces - that hussy!

You could make the Chinese one with such wonderful background detail and lots of sleazy golden lotus references and hilarious concubine art and delicate pageboy eunuchs and some big fat muscley eunuchs. The Emperor- ultimate PC... palace factions would center around his advisors and maybe harem as well.

The Arabian nights one, well, I have that book but nott a lot of other source material to draw on.

Futuristic world of "Concubine!" also possible. To keep all the fascist-loving future history gamers happy, make it a hellish dystopia, throw in some Nazis and Confederates and Mormons and some kidnapped sorority girls in some sort of radioactive underground thinktank and destroy the world. Presto, instant Emperor with concubines.

Giggle as you picture the combat system. Assassinations! Blowguns! Poison! Spying! Love and intrigue! If they'll play Trollbabe, surely they'll play Concubine!

jhk: Dude, why do they wear silk and stuff, doesn't it just tear?
me: Oh, you mean because of their prickley quills?
jhk: yeah because, you know, I've always wanted a harem full of really sexy luxurious porcupines, but it does seem... that's a lot of silk pants with holes in them....
both of us: Bwahahahaha!

the urge is upon meI

the urge is upon me

I feel the blogging urge hot and strong tonight - chain me down in the cellar - it must be a full moon - quick, quick before the witching hour!

Ahem. I guess the witching hour hit already because I feel that I could type for hours and hours.

After this poetry reading tonight and on the way there with fellow poet s.b. I find her a kindred sprirt and a motormouth. I say "a web site is not an intimate artifact" and she's grooving with that, "Yes exactly!" s.b. wants to make small books, maybe 3-10 poems, small size, small page size, but nice looking, and she wants to listen and pick what she thinks is best and needs publishing, and publish it. Yay s.b.! More power to you!

Ooooh my sleeping pill is hitting. The screen is sort of pulsating and letters moving around all funny.

Invited s.b. to come to our bad attitude moms coffee hour next week. I liked listening to her going off about being a harsh critic and yet likeing people and not wanting to discourage other people's writing. I think we have similar tastes but not a perfect match. I like the idea that she is doing something similar to my book makikng but that doesn't mean we automatically must work together. It seems good to stay independent but be friendly and know what is going on with each others' projects.

Did not absorb her actual poetry too well, just glanced at two of them about gaugin paintings but was too distracted to read. As long as it's not the humdrum prose that I rant on about, I'm cool with that.

Productive My "to-do" lists never

Productive

My "to-do" lists never actually include things like "lie in bed for 3 hours eating chocolate, reading net news, commenting on other people's blogs, and laughing at Eric Conveys an Emotion. " Nor do they include "drive self 6 blocks to cafe using only left foot". Nor do they include "lie in bed for another couple of hours reading old Marta Randall science fiction paperbacks and Seneca and eating more chocolate".

Yet somehow yesterday I also spent 9 hours working on school and paper-writing. Go, me!

Parenting consisted of cooking some mac -n- cheese, reading a couple of books along with some general cuddling, and puttering in sandbox for a while. new babysitter did the picking up from school part and had some sword-fights at the playground and played catch (thanks fab new babysitter!) jhk did all the rest of the bathing and feeding and driving and playing.

Must re-assess my to-do lists..

Pay bills
Send rent check
Get ride to poetry reading
get M. at 2
work on paper
write outline for other paper
fold all laundry
write up last rpg episode

Like L. (who shall remain linkless), I will start writing down things like "loaf" and "lie on couch eating chocolate" and my favorite of her list items: "lotion self".

gay french superheroMy friend Max

gay french superhero

My friend Max has a new costume for some goofy circus act he is doing in San Antonio (involving bouncing spring stilts and probably some kind of trampoline craziness.) Anyway, I just snorted coffee out my nose at these photos of the outfit (made by the glorious seamstress Sha). Don't say I didn't warn you - swallow what you're eating now...

http://maxham.com/mark/pics/gay-french-superhero-1.jpg
http://maxham.com/mark/pics/gay-french-superhero-2.jpg