milchbubi

Death of a Salesman

2006-12-18T14:55:00.000-08:00

Three weeks ago my mother called me to tell me that my grandfather, her father, had died in his sleep. This should not have been a shock to me; he was nearing 80, was quite overweight, had smoked for about 30 years (before finally quitting 10 years ago,) and had had 2 previous heart attacks (the first when he was barely into his fifties.) I was shocked anyway and responded exactly the same way people on television do when getting news like this--I argued with her. "But you SAID he looked FINE when you saw him at Thanksgiving."

Over the next few days my entire family massed at my grandmother's house to take care of whatever needed to be taken care of and to attend the funeral. I could not be there, because I am here, in Germany, and could not afford to fly back. The strangled quality of my voice must have significantly alarmed my extended family because they all spent most of our phone time together trying to comfort me. Our biggest concern right now is my grandmother, who was/is the sort of 1950's-era housewife who never learned to drive a car, has no idea how bills are paid, and stands to collect almost no social security. Now she is alone in a big house in a fading ex-mining town in Northern Pennsylvania, and she has refused, thus far, all invitations to come and live with one of my aunts.

My grandparent's marriage remains a mystery to me. I was never under the impression that they loved, or even liked, each other very much...They married right out of high school and six months later gave birth to a 10 pound "premature infant" (my mother.) In my memory they never once hugged or kissed or slept a single night in the same room. Their interactions mainly consisted of decades worth of low-level bitching at one another, but, then again, as someone who really enjoys bitching, I can sort of imagine it as a building-block of a satisfying long-term relationship. My mother told me that, while clearly devastated, my grandmother carried out the role of the "brave but grieving widow" during the funeral as if she were Rose Kennedy and doing it for CNN.

I don't know much about my grandmother's early ambitions, except that she liked to sing and stopped after she married and had children. My grandfather, "Poppie" we called him, was one of those one-time small town high-school football and wrestling stars. After he married he spent his life working as a traveling salesmen for some kind of cleaning product company, watching TV in a series of increasingly padded and tricked out La-Z-Boy recliners, attending sporting events at his old high school, and grooming his only son, their fourth and final child, to follow in his footsteps in the sporting and business arenas. The pride with which my grandfather regarded his only son is still on display, shrine-like, in the upstairs hallway. Sometime in the late sixties my grandfather commissioned a painted portrait of his son, the only portrait he'd had done of any of his children. The painting features my then-teenage uncle's seemingly disembodied, floating head in the center of the canvas, surrounded by full-body images of him involved in a variety of varsity sports: winding up to pitch a baseball, winding up to throw a football, posing on the starting block at a track meet, and, most disturbingly, purple-faced and sweaty, tricked out like Tarzan in a fetchingly bikini-cut wrestling singlet, grinding some other kid's face into a floormat.

That picture still has the ability to make my mother and her sisters apoplectic with rage. They hiss softly every time they walk past it. My uncle, for his part, is now the only republican in a family of yellow-dog democrats and a disgustingly wealthy fundamentalist Christian to boot. All of this, I feel, can somehow all be traced back to that big floating head portrait.

My mother told me that, on a visit with them two summers ago, my grandfather suddenly told her that he didn't want her or her siblings to be sad when he died. "I've been waiting a long time for it," he said "I want to go and be back with my parents and my sister and brother." He had been waiting a long time. His father died in his early 50s, also of a heart attack. His brother before that even, in WWII. His sister, worst of all, was stabbed to death by her abusive husband when she was in her early 20s. So finally he got his wish. That is, if the people we love really are waiting for us some "other side" somewhere. I'd like to believe this is true, but I find it increasingly hard to do so. I lack my uncle's easy faith, after all.

As for me, the last time I saw m grandfather was last Christmas, as my mother and I were pulling away for our long drive back home. He was standing by the car's passenger side window crying, which he always did. He hated it when we all left at the end of the Holidays and his face would crumple and he'd start to sob quietly as we loaded up to go. I said something like, "Hey there old man, buck up, we'll see each other again soon," like I always did, in the kind of jovial voice that was supposed to make a joke of the whole thing. And he laughed a little, like he always did, as if I'd said something funny.

Ach Ja, Bucky

2006-11-07T12:39:00.000-08:00

So, two weeks ago I celebrated my 33rd birthday. The pub I chose for this event is the one pictured above. The reason I picked it will, of course, be obvious to everyone in Madison...since it sports a clearly plagiarized Bucky Badger as it's mascot. I came across this particular bar w/ accompanying picture on a random internet search. It's an "Apple wine" bar...featuring a nauseating fermented apple drink characteristic of Frankfurt. You'd expect apple wine to be really sweet but it isn't. Instead it tastes like something that went off after being left on a self too long, which, I'd bet anything, is exactly how it was first discovered. It gets more drinkable when mixed with Sprite.

For awhile I couldn't figure out how in the hell Bucky figured into all this, until I remembered that the word "Dachs" means "badger" (and "roof," for some reason, and is also the source of word "dachshund"...."badger-dog"....because that's what they were bred to hunt, if you can believe that. Explains why dachshunds are so damn mean, i guess, although in a straight-up fight my money would still be on the badger.) Dachs is pronounced like Dax. Dachs=DAX=Badger=Bucky. Get it?

Still, it's kind of an odd coincidence.

Anyway the people I had drinks with here had absolutely no idea why I was so fixated on the damn Badger, but there you have it.

It just tickled me to death the whole time. Thinking about how there were thick-necked men (and thick-necked women) all over the state of Wisconsin who would just die at the idea of Bucky drinking anything as sissified as a jug of apple wine/Sprite cocktails...at the idea of Euro-Bucky to begin with, really. A Bucky who sorts his trash faithfully, drives a Smartcar, sits down to pee (as is generally considered polite for both men and women in Germany,) and carries around his own bag for trips to the grocery store. Even right-wingers here carry the ubiquitous cloth grocery bags stamped with "Schützt unsere Umwelt" (Protect our Environment) and a picture of a 70's-looking cartoon frog kissing a cartoon turtle under a rainbow.

I'd like Euro-Bucky a lot better. I have a hard time imagining him joining a frat, for one thing. His politics would be closer to mine and he'd have an appreciation for art museums, sauna-weekends and dance music. We'd probably have a lot more to talk about.

Come to think of it, though, in a fight between Euro-Bucky and a Dachshund, my money might be on the dog.

May vee see your papers, Frau Brown?

2006-09-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

So today I cheerfully went down to my local Einwohnermeldamt (Resident's Registration Bureau) to register my bad ol' self with the local authorities. This isn't just something that foreigners have to do, by the way. Whenever anyone moves anywhere in Germany they have to register with the local authorities. There's nothing weird about that...they just want to know where you are, is all. Just in case they, uh....need to find you. Yeah. So anyway, tomorrow I get to go to another office, this one is 'specially for foreigners, it seems, to "apply for a residence permit." (No one has yet told me what would happen if said request should be denied, and believe me it had better not be because I just joined a Goddamn gym here and you simply cannot change your mind once you sign up.)

Anyway, the exchange with the woman who registered me was exceedingly odd insofar as she asked me to declare my religion. One's "official religion" is still something one registers with the state here. This might be because churches get state support and said support probably has something to do with how many people claim membership in each officially state recognized church.

All of that's fine, I suppose, except.."I don't have a religion" was NOT an acceptable answer. I know this, because it was the first answer I gave her. She just stared at me expectantly and asked the question a second time. Slower.

This was all unbearably confusing, in part because when people ask me "what religion I am" in the US I never know what exactly it is they mean. Often the question simply means "do you believe in God?" followed maybe by a "if so, what name do you call him/her/they in your house?" Sometimes it means "what religion were you raised in?" or, more accurately, "what holidays did you celebrate as a child?" Sometimes it means "Have-you-accepted-Christ-as-your-Personal-Lord-and -Savior?" Usually the latter applies when the question is coming from the old lady sitting next to you on a long-distance flight, and you can try pretending to read, or to sleep, or to not speak English all you want because she's got a massive hard-on for Jesus and she's never, ever going to shut up about it.

Also there are some situations where my preferred answer, "I don't HAVE a religion," is patently incorrect. The first is whenever one of my Jewish friends asks this question. The question then actually means "are you Jewish or are you a Gentile?" Here you have to pick one. You don't get to opt out, I know this, because I've tried. I do understand why this is. When one is a Gentile one gets to be part of the unmarked, political majority...one is not automatically "Otherized" in the same ways that an American Jew finds herself often to be. Here though, again, the question hints at political and cultural dimensions that reach beyond those suggested by the word "religion."

The second situation wherein "I don't have a religion" is not the correct answer, is when the question is being ask by the woman at the Einwohnermeldamt who is not going to drop it until you give her an answer that corresponds with one of her little numerical codes.

My second attempt, wherein I stupidly blurted out "uh...GENTILE!" also didn't fly.

"Are you a CATHOLIC, are you an EVANGELICAL, what?" she persisted annoyed**.

"I guess...Protestant?" I said.

"Evangelical is a kind of Protestant" she informed me "So, Evangelical, yes?"

"Um...sure...Evangelical."

And so now that's what I FUCKING AM.

Never mind that "Evangelical," in the United States, generally connotes the kind of person who speaks in tongues and firebombs abortion clinics. No fine, I'll happily be Evangelical for the Federal Republic of Germany if that's, apparently, what the Federal Republic wants me to be.

Right so, if you move to Germany they want to know exactly where you are at all times and they want to know what religion you are too, and there's NOTHING weird about that. NOTHING.

Just try not to think about it.

Praisejesusamen.

(**Please do keep in mind that this transaction was completed entirely in German, not in English. Any principled stands you yourself believe you might have taken in the name of Atheism or Agnosticism or whatever the hell, do remember that when one is dealing with an unpleasant bureaucratic hurdle, in a foreign language no less, all one really wants to do is get one's little stamped and signed piece of whatever and get.the.hell.out.)

Poland, the early days...

2006-09-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

Warsaw, August 29: Self-portrait after transatlantic flight, change in Frankfurt for second flight to Warsaw. Awaiting third flight to Lodz. Have made self sincere promise never, ever to fly across an ocean on an American carrier again. You'd have more leg room if you stuffed yourself in a cardboard box and went by mail. I'm going on British Air or Lufthansa next time.

World's most expensive nap. Had 8 hour layover in Warsaw. If I were entirely a different sort of person, I'd have used this opportunity to engage in some edifying tourism of Warsaw proper. Being the lazy bastard I am, I drug my 40 pounds of carry on luggage across the street to the only close hotel. A Marriot. 70 Euro for a six hour nap and a bath. Worth it.

World's boingy-est meal. "Sausage Plate" courtesy of the Warsaw airport

Scenes from walk to and from dormitory in Lodz. Note car driving down sidewalk in top photo.

Okay, that's all for today. Please continue to join me here as I bitch constantly about each and every single place I visit like the insufferable little princess that I clearly am.

Okay, I take back most of the trash I was talking about Poland

2006-09-05T12:46:00.000-07:00

Krakow is beautiful...charming, charming, charming. Beyond charming. I will post pictures, yes, when I finally find perfect digital camera/laptop/internet access trifeca.

Highlights from final days in Lodz...

1.Tour of of local Jewish history on which our chartered tour bus dropped 20 of us (all Polish non-natives) off at the end in an unknown part of town and took off with all of our stuff on board. 20 minutes of angry intercession with tourguide on the part of my academic advisor did, rather magically, cause said bus to reappear with our stuff eventually. Apparently they "needed the bus for another tour." Why they didn't think to warn us about this is beyond me. Also it isn't clear how they expected us all to get back to the university when the vast, vast majority of the dispatchers or local cabbies don't speak a word of English (or any of the other major EU languages, so far as I can tell) and none of us spoke Polish (or Russian, Czech, and other more common former Communist Bloc second languages.)

2. Group of local children that followed along after us on final leg of Jewish history tour yelling the only two English words they knew.."HELLO!!!" "HELLO, MOTHERFUCKER!!"

3. As ever, my twenty minute walk two and from my dorm over a pitted, mud road through what seems like an endless construction site. Said construction site is lined with vacant lots, gutted abandoned buildings, and the occasional deeply skeav-y bar. Cars aren't supposed to drive down this street, given the construction. But they still happily do. On the sidewalk.
I lived in Washington DC when it was still the official murder capital of the country and I can't say I ever felt quite so unsafe there as I do transversing that mud road after dark.

4. Second day in Lodz, when I saw an old guy nonchalantly pushing his car down the street. He wasn't pushing it from behind. Rather, it was one of those rattle-trap little Eastern European cars that looks like it's made out of recycled Jiffy Pop bags and was so light he could both push and steer simultaneously, by opening the driver's side door and keeping one hand on the steering wheel and one on the dash. His manner suggested there was nothing at all out of the ordinary going on, and walking hunched over alongside his car like that it looked more like he was escorting a very short friend down the middle of the highway. When he finally got to the crest of a small hill, he hopped in and rolled away.

4. Four hour drive to Krakow in back of car piloted by advisor and her husband. Headrest was oddly positioned so that it digs into the back of shoulders and very base of the neck instead of, say....reaching high enough to support the head. About five inches of leg-room. We got lost maybe eight times.

Fuck, I gotta post something

2006-07-01T22:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, look...I haven't posted anything in awhile. I had to teach an intensive summer class for about a month there, and I was literally working 14 hour days. Not only did the class meet for 2 and a half hours everyday, but it was the first time I ever lectured so I was frantically writing and researching content all day every day.

For the last week I've kinda been sleeping it all off and watching TV.

What else is new?

1. I am never talking to Joel again. I am sick of him. He is a small, ugly man. He went through a short relationship recently and had taken to calling me, telling me at length how great the sex was, waiting for me to get upset, and then telling me that I need to go into counseling for my moods.

2. I put my Match ad back up. I took it down while I was teaching because I didn't want my students to maybe find it, and because, once again, I couldn't bring myself to respond to anyone who was emailing me. It's back up again because clearly the only thing fueling my lingering crush on little, mean, homely Joel is complete long-term deprivation and my overall lack of hope, love and sex-wise. Going on blind dates is like enduring a tax audit while getting tea-bagged by Dick Cheney, but I just have to keep at it.

3. Almost all of my friends have left town. I am alone. I don't like being left along on holidays, even shitty cocksucking Republican holidays like the 4th. I get to thinking that maybe everyone is at a picnic without me.

Mr. Angry Apologizes

2006-05-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

So...the day after I got the email included in the post below this one, I got a follow-up email from the same guy. He wanted to apologize. That was nice, I suppose.

Here's what it said:

"Hey, I owe you an apology. I'm sorry, I was just really hurting emotionally that day and felt like lashing out. There is no excuse. Of course, I don't expect you to write back.....never did. However, my actions were childish an insensitive. I hope you laughed it off.

I'm usually a very kind person but a woman was particularly rude to me that day and it brought out the worst in me.

I wish you luck in your doctoral endeaver."

Okay. But...um...I still got issues with this. First of all, I'm real sorry "a woman" was mean to you, but WHAT THE FUCK does that have to do with me? Oh, oh, oh...right, I'm sorry, we're kind of all the same...I keep forgetting. It's kinda like, you know, you're having a really bad day at work, and then on the way home some Asian dude cuts you off in traffic, so then you come straight home and start screaming racial slurs at the old Korean lady next door while bashing in the windows of her car with a tire-iron. You know, it's like just that.

The other reason I'm not-super impressed by Mr. Angry's act of contrition is his personal ad itself.

Observe:
1. He lists his age as 38
2. Clearly, he's actually about 45
3. He only wants women between the ages of 18 and 30.
4. Oh...also they have to be "slender."

Fucker. Don't even know what he was doing looking at my ad in the first place, since, at 32, I'm clearly too old (and too chubby) for his sorry 45-year old ass...

Fucker

Seriously, though.....you really think I'm pretty?

2006-05-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I got the following email via Match. The subject line read: "You are pretty, just confused."

The message itself said the following:

Ever noticed how the liberal "intelligencia" go off to Europe to study when they are in their twenties? Must have something to do with that "trust fund" in their future. Also, I have NEVER once met a liberal who is actually had to live with the "poor and oppressed". Yeah, so in other words, you are looking for a lefty (dred-locks prefered) to have casual sex and conversation with for the summer. You might as well go the entire direction and hook up with another girl.

This is one of the more interesting responses I've ever gotten from a personal ad.

First of all, being good self-interested resource maximizers, most people use the online personals as an easy way of making contact with people they might want to date. I guess there's no specific policy against it, but utilizing essentially the opposite strategy; emailing people you think you'd probably hate to say "I don't like your politics and I don't want to go out with you. By the way, you are a lesbian" seems irrational...if only from a time-management perspective.

More to the point, it is interesting to see what I (or an online picture of me coupled with a short description) might come to represent to someone who's never met me. Just like that news photo of John Kerry wind-sailing got used to make Kerry look like an effete, over-educated, East Coast snob who could never, ever sympathize with the problems of the common man, my personal ad clearly signifies, for this dude at least, the kind of woman who really pisses him off. Which is to say the kind of woman who has more education and money than him, insists on cunnilingus, and wants him to do his share of the laundry. Shit...who knows? Maybe my personal ad is out there LOSING an election for the Democratic Party RIGHT NOW!!

Finally, it's fascinating to me that he assumes that I must be rich because I'm in Academia (okay, most academics come from middle-upperclass backgrounds, but I ain't one of 'em) or because I'm a leftist (nah, lefties tend to be poorer than conservatives across the board) or that, since I'm looking for a short-term relationship ("casual sex" in his words) with a guy, I'm OBVIOUSLY something of a dyke. This last is the most egregious example of sad-ass logic in the whole thing...

....although here he is, of course, entirely correct.

Back into online dating...

2006-05-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

Despite (or rather because of) the fact that I'm about to leave the country for about a year in a few months, I decided to go back up on Match.com. Why? Here's my new "triple-threat" plan of attack....

My ad has now been modified to state outright that, while I'm open to meeting 'the one,' I'm about to go Splittsville for awhile. I'll be back eventually, of course, but looking to start something long-term now just doesn't make sense. Therefore, the ad reads, all I really want is "someone intelligent and interesting to enjoy Madison in the summer with."

Personally I thought the wording (or at least the implication) sounded kinda slutty....Ang and The Prof both think it's actually a little too subtle. Prof said he thought fewer guys would respond anyway because the possibility of marriage, babies and love everlasting is pretty much off the table. Clearly Prof is smoking crack these days.

Anyway, if my blandly worded incitement to commitment-free naughtiness doesn't get me stalked, skinned, and turned into a lampshade in some dude's torture basement, this whole thing might prove to be a refreshing experience....

Observe:

1. Dating men* (and some women...but this more a problem with the fellas) is a little bit like training wild squirrels to eat from your hands. You have to spend hours...days...weeks squatting absolutely motionless in the backyard with your palms outstretched and full of seeds. Eventually, they'll start to slowly approach. However, if you get excited and make the slightest move toward them, they bound back into the bushes and you have to start all over. But, see...this is dating without expectations. No, not even that...this is dating without even the POSSIBILITY of expectations in the near or distant future. What more can you ask for?

2. Since I'm not looking for long-term either, I'm free to go out with people I'd normally reject as utterly impractical right off the bat. For example, I generally avoid really 'sporty' people like the fucking plague. But.....I'M LEAVING!! I don't have to learn how to play softball, or try ultimate Frisbee, or resign myself to a lifetime of miserable wilderness vacations squatting over shallow hand-dug holes in the ground everytime I need to take a dump. If he doesn't want kids, or is a vegetarian, or a Buddhist, or has a really, really gross dog who constantly swallows, regurgitates, and then re-swallows the same shredded rubber ball under the bed all night, every night....IT DOESN'T MATTER!! Because, hey, I'm not looking for life-long compatibility here.

3. Finally, since letting go of all desires and expectations allows one to reach that perfect Zen state of dating that all the magazines tell you is the prerequisite for actually finding someone in the first place (and a prerequisite for ending up in an amazingly shitty relationship, sounds like) maybe I'll end up with the LOVE OF MY LIFE in a SPECIAL SEASON FINALE TWIST ENDING. WAAAHHH!!

Probably not though.

*(Yes...I know, I've written this post as if all I'm looking for are men. Well, on Match that's all I really am looking for. There are, like, three dykes up on that site.)

3am and still awake

2006-05-08T00:15:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to finish a paper at the last minute, it's due tomorrow either at noon or at 5pm...I'm actually not sure. Its for the kind of Prof who leaves town abandoning all papers turned in 15 minutes past the deadline and parcels out F's like mints. I'll probably have it done by 5.

Along with my constant sleepiness I've been shockingly apathetic about everything for months now. This entire year has been an exercise in courting disaster for me, really. I've been doing such a half-assed job of everything and, while I fear failure in some abstract sense, I no longer seem to fear it enough to make myself take steps to avoid it. Worse, despite the fact that I actually LIKE what I do, my interest in it doesn't seem to be much of a motivator.

I thought maybe I could blame recent excessive television viewing for some of this, but then my satellite receiver broke and I was TV-less for four days until they sent me a new one. During that period of time I did nothing at all. I just sat in a chair staring out the window, listened to an audiobook, or slept. Normally when I'm putting off doing work I have this excess of nervous energy and I clean the house...anything to keep from sitting still. Now though, I am all about sitting still...except for the tongue chewing and nail biting bit.

I could be depressed, I suppose. Before when I was depressed, though, I FELT it. I was, not to belabor the obvious, deeply, deeply sad...and deeply crazy. This does not feel like at all like that did. Plus the Zoloft's been doing a pretty good job of keeping the volume knob on the crazy tuned to a reasonable level (unless...shudder...it's suddenly stopped working.)

Today I decided to do some internet research on this and found that there is a (rather small) movement in the psychiatric community to get "Apathy" declared as a DSM mental illness. Depression, Anxiety...and Apathy??? I dunno.

I think the thing that troubles me the most is that I can't even begin to draw the line between "grad student normal" and "major depression." Isn't all of what I just described actually pretty much, like, most of us a lot of the time?

That which presently preoccupies me

2006-05-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

These are a list of my current worries. Many, but not all, of them have something to do with the fact that I will be in Germany most of next year.

1. You would think that out of all of the problems one has when one goes overseas for a research stint, finding someone to take care of a cat for you would be the least of them. (They're CATS, for fuckssake!!!) You would especially think finding cat foster-parents would have been easy given the volume of petsitting I have been doing over the last 5 years in preparation for calling in just exactly this favor. You would be wrong.

2. Still, though, whoever takes them probably won't be willing to stand still in the morning and let Tilda lick the post-shower baby oil off of their legs (she enjoys that for whatever reason, plus it helps prevent hairballs!) or gently hold/squeeze Lola's hind paws in bed at night in just the way she likes while she's falling asleep.

3. Actually number two, above, probably doubles as a pretty good explanation for why I'm still single.

4. My German sucks. God it sucks. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've been studying it for years, but people who don't intensively learn a foreign language for the purpose of going abroad....and then actually go abroad to find out how fucking bad their speech and comprehension still is.....have no idea how much this complicates the whole process. Nightmares, people. Every night. Alienation, anomie...like something out of a Fritz Lang movie.

5. I'm growing my hair out, so right now I have a big-ass mullet.

6. Right now, I also have a big ass.

7. I finally got some money together to buy a wireless ("Airport") card for my computer. But then when I went to buy it, the DOIT chick was all like, "Oh uh, this computer's five years old. Apple doesn't MAKE wireless cards that fit this computer anymore, because right after this one came on the market they UPGRADED to the 'Airport extreme." And I was like, "Oh, thank you, Miss, for that useful information, and THANK YOU TOO, Steve Jobs, you FUCKING COCKSUCKER. THANK YOU SO MUCH for your strategic use of planned obsolescence to price basic computer technology even farther out of the reach of people like me." Now if I want an Airport card I have to buy an old one on Ebay. EBAY!!! And they're even more expensive now, used, than they were new before. Know how come? Cause now they're RARE.

Yellow Fever

2006-04-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I finally got a long-awaited look at the ex-girlfriend of Joel (alias the Professor) this dude I went out with for a short while last year. His ex, Kim, this chick he dated for a few months shortly after he divorced his wife and a few months before he met me, had long been something of an object of fascination for me. She dated the Prof, but also she ended up dating this sorta hot dude that my friend Bonnie had gone on a date with and quite liked. Since Kim had scooped both Bonnie and me (sort of....Prof deemed her worthy of a semi-long relationship, whereas he broke up with me after a few dates, ostensibly because he was "too stressed out over the recent purchase of a new house to handle a relationship") I was anxious to lay eyes on her.

She was kinda scary, actually. Joel had described Kim to me thus: "After my divorce I thought to myself, 'I've got to find me a really thin girl, I want to date someone really thin.' So I started dating Kim. She was really, really thin, and we went out for awhile. But she was too thin, actually." (I know, I know..he's awful. But is he unusual? Really his politics are impeccable..including, on the surface, his gender politics...but you get a glass of wine in 'em, get him really talking about relationships, and crap like this comes spilling out.)

Anyway, Kim.... Clearly she had a pretty bad case of the ol' anorexia, a look I can't say I find particularly appealing, but, worse, she'd had it for quite awhile. Twenty-something Eating-Disorder Girls are one thing. Yeah, they're essentially victims of starvation, but their bodies still retain enough youth, stamina and elasticity that they look emaciated, but not necessarily scary-ass, drug through hell backwards, rode-hard-n-put-away-wet SICK. Eating Disorder Girls in their 30s and above are another thing entirely. They look like they've suffered a long illness, 'cause they have. I think the worst thing about Kim (no, not her REAL name, I'm not THAT huge of a bitch) was her SKIN. Yellow...profoundly yellow, malaria yellow...as if her body had given up and started breaking her liver down for whatever calories it had to offer. Yellow and loose and dull, like crepe-paper or chicken skin. She also had deep, brown under-eye circles and her hair was long and brittle and dead. (GAH, there's NOTHING worse than really long Eating-Disorder Girl hair, it looks like that wispy shit you see still clinging to the victim's dessicated skull during CSI exhumation scenes.)

Her boyfriend, Greg, was, as promised, quite attractive-tall, athletic...healthy. (According to Joel, it isn't particularly surprising that he's dating Kim, as Greg also tends to go for super-thin women.)

Okay...so...we get it. A lot of guys like that reed-y Kate Moss thing...but, but, but....even when it means that prematurely-aged, slack and jaundiced skin...the dead, dry cadaver hair, the brittle fingernails, and blue lips, and sunken eyes? Is the thin thing really so wonderful that you lose the ability to SEE that? Is ANY really thin girl automatically attractive? Are TB and radiation sickness patients suddenly hot commodities on the dating market, despite the bloody sputum and missing hair and teeth, because they're so very incredibly thin?

And..honestly. What are we to think about the fact that so many men prefer the women they date to be weak and sick, even if being that sick makes you...well...ugly? It can't be about beauty, when beauty is clearly the first thing to go when you treat your body like that. I'd hate to say that its about power...that intelligent, well-educated, lefty men STILL just want girls who make them feel big and important by being the very embodiment of powerlessness themselves...but what else could it be???
Or maybe the dude that dates underweight women totally gets off on the fact that this whole thing is a performance wherein she constantly proves her devotion to him by denying herself....they go out to dinner, he stuffs his face, and she sits across from him starving and picking at an undressed salad.

It's like the dating equivalent of those people who train their dog to sit there with a dog biscuit balanced on its nose for 15 minutes before giving it the okay to eat.

Except when does she get the okay to eat?

Random notes 4/10-4/13

2006-04-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

1. I rode my bike into campus on Monday for the first time this season, and I managed to crash it into something (in this case, the ground) almost immediately. This happened when I decided it would be a good idea to BIKE down a flight of three wide-ish stone steps instead of dismounting and walking them. I do not know what I possibly could have been thinking. I am not the sort of person who "hotdogs" (as the kids used to call it, back in the day) her bike down, or up, things. I think for about a second, as i went over the first step, I remembered those kids from the 80's Kool Aid commercials, perfectly guiding their Huffys and skateboards down a long flights of concrete steps or gracefully jumping them. (This is a job for KOOL-AID, OH YEAAHHH!) As a consequence of this lack of judgment I was late for Femsem and spent most of a Yen Le Espiritu talk picking gravel bits out of my palms.

2. Also, riding a bike is really tough on the ol' snatcheroo...at least until one gets used to it. I suppose men have the same problem.

3. I got an iPod, finally. It's black n' really pretty, although I'm kinda miffed you can't buy the multi-colored ones anymore. I spent about a year trying to decide whether I wanted an orange or lime green iPod once i could finally afford one, and now they don't make them anymore. (Honestly I still can't afford it, but finding out they can be used as digital tape recorders made up my mind for me. I most definitely need one of those if I'll be spending the next year doing German-language fieldwork, and you really can't beat the storage capacity or battery life of an iPod. Plus, you can't download and watch Futurama episodes on a standard digital tape recorder, or so I've been told.) Actually, I'm scared to take it out of the house now that I have it, for fear that 1. it will be stolen or 2. someone will grab it away from me and get an unvarnished look at the godawful music I listen to.

4. I am going to Lodz, Poland this summer! Poland...damn, man. I got a paper accepted at a conference there, and a grant to defer my travel expenses. Poland! Why am I so excited about going to Poland? I dunno, but I am. Poland!

Things we already know, already

2006-04-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

After being lectured more or less non-stop for our entire goddamn lives by everybody, I would like to announce that we all know the following things.....

1. We're all too fat. The average American's BMI is 700, we watch too much TV, the only exercise we get is shoveling food into our enormous maws. We're fat. we get it.

2. Our pets are also too fat. Mine in particular. My cat Tilda sleeps draped across my chest every night and it is exactly like being crushed under a purring boulder. This is BAD for her, yes, diabetes...heart disease...arthritis...blah blah blah, I KNOW.

3. If we have children, those children are also too fat. I don't have kids yet, but when I do, I bet they'll be pretty fucking fat.

4. If we don't have children and we're women, we're all waiting too long to have children. I'm 32 and I don't have kids yet. I won't be having them anytime soon, because I'm broke and single and will be for the foreseeable future. By the time I can afford kids and/or will be a relationship I'll be in my late 30's, if I'm lucky, and my babies will all be born retarded and with flippers. Yes, I know. (if we don't have children and we're men, hey...no worries, mate! Just wait until you're 50 or so and then marry a 12 year old. That's what everyone else does.)

5. We have too much credit card debt. Hell, I'm still paying 22 percent interest on groceries I bought 7 years ago....oh, and also on the two months rent this last year that I had to put on my Mastercard. In case you were wondering, I can actually do simple math. I do understand that I'm losing money this way.

6. Smoking is bad for us. Drugs are also bad for us.

7. We drink too much.

8. We're all too stressed. We need to learn to relax. Stress is a killer...heart disease...strokes...cancer, blah, blah, blah. WE NEED TO LEARN TO RELAX OR WE'LL FUCKING DIE! We get it.....Thanks.

Random notes 3/20-3/23

2006-03-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

1. Children smell bad. Not babies, I generally like the way babies smell. It's school-age children that smell bad. It's a very particular bad smell too. They all have it. Sort of stale, a little acrid...metallic even. My downstairs neighbors have a kid, and I can always tell when he's been in the hallway because the kid-funk lingers in the air. Elementary schools totally reek of it. I think maybe people with school age kids tend not to bathe them that often. Maybe I'll like the way my own kids smell, though.

2. I've gained weight. 176.5 at the doctor's office, but that was with clothes and shoes. I'm oozing over the sides of everything I own, like a warm, yeasty sourdough starter.

3. My deviled eggs rival those to be found in the best restaurants. Case in point: Madison's Old Fashioned Cafe. Nice trendy little place on the Capitol Square, good food generally...but the deviled eggs there are sort of bland. Mine are not. My secret? Two kinds of mustard and a little Apple Cider Vinegar. Sometimes I even add a touch of curry powder. My deviled eggs KICK ASS.

4. I am suffering a severe lack of motivation work-wise. I'm not making much progress on my dissertation, and my classwork is mediocre at best. I feel like I kind of biffed my grant application process too. Like if I had done a better job, I'd have gotten further along in the Fulbright process (even if I ended up getting rejected eventually) would have gotten into the Berlin program outright instead of getting wait-listed, etc. I should have applied for more grants too....there were a few I could have put in applications for that I just didn't (mostly because each one is a fucking mountain of work.) Urgh...why do I always feel like I'm fucking up even when I actually do sorta okay? Or like I'm a huge dissapointment? Today I met with my advisor and she was all "Well, your applications clearly could have been better...I mean, they weren't BAD, I wouldn't have let you send them if they'd been bad...but they could have been better." I almost started crying, which was great.

They could have been better? What CAN'T be better?

Sleep

2006-03-20T14:40:00.000-08:00

I had a doctor's appointment today. My primary concern is that I sleep too much. I asked my doctor if there is such a thing as being chronically overslept.

"How much sleep are we talking about here?" she asked me.

"I can sleep 11 hours a night...and sometimes I'll still be up for an afternoon nap," I told her.

"How do you have time to sleep for 11 hours a day?," she asked.

"I don't"

That last question was the best part, I think. If sleeping for 11+ hours a day weren't a problem, I wouldn't be asking her to fix it. It's a little like asking someone "Wow, you have cancer? How do you even find time for that, what with your job and everything?"

My doctor scheduled a blood draw to see if my thyroid's working properly. I'm sure my Thyroid Hormone levels will be fine. That would be far too easy a solution. Probably I have one of those diseases that everyone thinks you're just making shit up when you tell them you have it, like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. That would wicked suck.

My doctor also asked me if I was more depressed than usual. "About the same," I said. Anyway, I don't get sleepy when I'm depressed. I'm what they call an "anxious depressive," I get all brittle and edgy.

Everything I own is rubbish

2006-02-15T20:38:00.000-08:00

Case in point....my stereo. It stopped either rewinding or fast forwarding tapes. Who still listens to tapes? Me, because everything I own is shit. We've covered this. Everytime I need to rewind or fast forward something I have to drag my old boom box out of the closet, plug it in, and then stand there holding the cord in just the right position or else it shuts off. Rewinding and fast forwarding is the only thing my old boom box can still do, but I have to keep it around because of the thing with the stereo. The stereo only plays CDs about 1/3 the time, too, either cause it's old or because the lens is dirty.

Also, I just paid $400 to have my breaks replaced and the mechanic told me I need to get my second tie-rod end fixed. That'll run me about $200.

Okay, actually Shamus paid $400 to have my breaks replaced...and I think the check I wrote him to cover it bounced.

random notes 1/15-1/20

2006-01-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

1. Classes started this week. Something I learned in one of my classes is that if your hair is badly thinning, do NOT, under any circumstances, dye it jet black and comb it backward with great hand-fulls of Depp hair gel. The effect is disturbing.

2. My cat, Lola, started this weird thing where she wants to climb onto my left shoulder and snog my ear in that excessively loud, slobbery purring cat way. She only does it while I'm sitting on the john.

3. Lemonade Crystal Light is surprisingly tasty.

4. I always have a nervous habit, but it'll change from time to time. Sometimes I chew my fingernails, sometimes I'll need to rotate and stretch some part of my body (my neck, a wrist) until its swollen and painful, which'll only make me feel like I need to do it more. Or I'll pick at something, like a zit, until I work it into a right little scar. Recently I can't seem to stop chewing on my tongue. Sometimes my tongue'll get a little white sore on it from rubbing against the jagged edge of one of my teeth. Once that happens I can't stop scraping it and chomping on it. It's like it has this itch deep down inside it. It's gotten so bad my mouth tastes a little like blood most of the time.

5. I've had three dreams this week that I've woken from in a cold sweat. Two involved being chased by the walking dead, in the third I'd been told I had to teach a college-level math class.

6. If you think dating someone a lot uglier than you means they'll be grateful and treat you better, you are sadly mistaken. Try to find hot, insecure people instead. Then you can be the mean, ugly one.

Holy fucking shit

2006-01-14T22:40:00.000-08:00

I PASSED, I actually PASSED. I can't even believe it. I was so sure I failed I called my friend Shamus and made him log onto my email account as me and tell me what the email said when I finally got it (if'n you're an outside reader...unlikely, since about 2 people read my blog and I should spare myself the bother of typing and just call them both......yeah, well, if you aren't in my grad department, our preliminary exam results come in the form of an email from the department secretary.) I was too scared to look at the email myself..I thought "I'll see that big FAIL all in capital letters and my eyeballs will burst into flames." Better to hear it from a friend. But I passed.

The catch is, even though I passed, it was what we call a "weak pass"....meaning, I squeaked through so narrowly I'm required to meet with someone on my committee to "discuss the results." Basically, I have to report for an ass-chewing sometime next week. They'll be like "We decided to pass you, but you didn't really deserve it...and this is why...blah, blah, blah"

I don't mind, I guess. Its a little like finishing some awful thing and having someone hand you a Special Olympics "Good Effort" medal. Except Special Olympics kids get praised and taken out for pie at Denny's after, they don't have to meet with the judges and get told they basically did alright except they're still really throwing that javelin like a retard.

Whatever. A weak pass is still about a million times better than having to retake the fucker. I told Reba and Virginia I wanted a cake that says "Congratulations on your Pass-With-Ass-Reaming!" They said they'd do it. Really, that's even better than getting a cake that says "Congratulations on your Pass!" or even "Congratulations on Distinction!" because mine will have more icing.

HA!

it was awful

2006-01-06T23:19:00.000-08:00

the prelim was like getting ass-plowed by grizzly bears. i totally bombed it. my committee would have to be drunk to pass me. i still can't really write about it.

i. don't. care.

2006-01-03T19:10:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I take the political prelim, and I do not feel prepared. I have been studying for this thing, off and on (mostly off,) since June. There is a decent chance that I will not pass it, because motivating myself to study for it has been like pushing a stone slab up a hill. The major literatures have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with my research or my research interests. Studying them has been a task akin to memorizing names and numbers from a 1974 copy of the Barstow, California Yellow Pages.

There are some literatures on the political prelim that I actually like, but they rarely come up as questions...so I haven't really studied them. This is an unfortunate strategic response to having to study for a test in which there is a huge body of literature, and one is working under a time constraint. If I get asked a question on something I like and will eventually use in my Dissertation research (citizenship, nationalism, discourse, etc) it will be especially cruel, because odds are I will be unable to answer it.

If I fail this thing tomorrow, all that will happen, supposedly, is that I will retake it in August. Except that this is grad school and of course there's all this shame and guilt associated with everything, so I'll end up feeling ashamed and guilty. My advisor will let me know how horribly dissapointed in me she is and I'll feel like total shit. I won't have a good excuse for not passing it, either. Just that I couldn't quite pull it together to do the unbelievable volume of studying necessary to confidently pass the fucking thing.

Yeah, bitch, that was me at Starbuck's...

2005-11-30T18:43:00.000-08:00

I don't understand how Madison, a town with more coffee shops per capita than any other place I've ever lived, still can't manage to scrape together two or three people who can make a drinkable cup of coffee. I probably spend an average of about $6 a week on coffee that ends up tasting like hot, milky ass.... and that I end up, consequently, just throwing out.

Also, before I moved to Madison, I never realized how many different WAYS a cup of coffee could suck. Burned and bitter. Too weak. Burned and bitter AND too weak...my favorite...like drinking really rusty tap water. Sometimes it tastes oddly flat...Reba says that happens when you start with tepid or warm water instead of starting with cold water that is quickly heated. Or sometimes it's the steamed milk that ruins it. That happens when it isn't scalded properly and ends up being sorta...slimy.

In fact, the only consistantly good coffee shop on State Street is Starbucks. Everytime I've bought a cup of coffee there it was actually GOOD. And if you have a problem with me buying coffee at a non-locally owned establishment, you can kiss my ass, Hippy Fucker. ERC? Terrible...probably the most reliably terrible, well next to Fair Trade, anyway (which started out good, but went downhill for some reason.) ERC's coffee is always way too weak (its just tan, hot milk really) while Fair Trade's is generally burned and tastes like the bottom of a utility room sink. Also the ERC closer to the Capital is staffed by hipster assholes who blast music through the stereo system like they're at a Yo Lo Tengo concert and sneer at you if you ask them to turn it down so you can read. Room of One's Own? Terrible. Michelangelo's? Terrible...although Fair Trade and Michelangelo's do have good sandwiches. That leaves Starbucks. Bitch.

request denied....

2005-11-17T13:59:00.000-08:00

So I officially do not qualify for a personal loan. This is hardly a surprise. According to UW Credit Union, for someone with my income they'd only give me a loan if I had less than $5,100 in credit card debt. I have about six thousand in debt. Or $1,000 too much. According to my financial aid counselor this is actually not a lot of credit card debt, but then again, I do not make a lot of money.

My car insurance is about to lapse. My rent check just bounced. I cannot pay my Mastercard bill and its about 12 days till payday. Plus I owe money to everybody I know. Plus, my jaw still hurts and I'm starting to look forward to my evening Vicodin tablet just a little too much. It makes me feel like my veins have been filled with warm mashed potatos and worrying about money, and my dissertation, and the January prelim suddenly seems so, so silly.

And yet an addiction to painkillers never made anyone's life better...well, not in the long run. I know this. As soon as this dry socket resolves itself, I'm going to have to ask one of my friends to take that bottle of pills away from me and keep it for a little while.

Dr. Hook, DDS

2005-11-15T21:55:00.000-08:00

I ended up needing to go back to the oral surgeon's day early for a new gauze pad, because the one I got put in on Monday fell out last night.

That it fell out was not surprising, because, in contrast to my first "wound pack," the oral surgeon who did me on Monday didn't tuck the pad in that deeply. I could tell, because it didn't hurt as bad when he was doing it.

Today when I went back, I got the original guy again--This guy takes his little metal poker and sticks that pad down there like he's trying to tuck it in around my goddam tailbone. Like he's trying to get his entire hand down in there. He must have jabbed me with the hook ten times, the end result was an immense throbbing pain and what looks like a squared-off military bed dressing. The kind you bounce quarters off of.

After packing my tooth socket, he looks at me and says gravely "You're really going to have to take it easy with the eating." As if my wound dressing fell out due to sheer gluttony, or because I've been ramming food into my mouth in a particularly violent fashion. Actually, last night's dinner was potato buds, cream of potato soup and a bowl of ice cream...all requiring very little chewing. Breakfast was more ice cream. Lunch was a slimfast shake and...guess what....ice cream. Tonight's dinner? Pea soup and ice cream.

I should have told him it wasn't my diet that was dislodging that gauze pad, it was all the damn $20 blowjobs and could he swab my throat for Gonorrhea while he was in there?

my life is unpleasant

2005-11-14T11:47:00.000-08:00

I just got back from the dentist's. In case you were wondering what "dry socket" is, it's when the blood clot that forms in a tooth extraction site and protects the raw tissue while it's healing is either dislodged (and swallowed, most likely) or never forms at all. Sans blood clot, the bone and nerves are exposed to the air. This hurts and is absolutely repulsive to contemplate, I realize, but if I am going to go through it, everybody else is going through it with me.

For the foreseeable future, I will return to the dentist's office every other day to have the wound irrigated and fresh, medicated gauze stuffed into the tooth socket with a little metal poker. This also hurts.

It is unclear to me when these treatments will end. Probably when my lower jaw finally just gives up and falls off.

The medicated gauze, ibruprofen, and clove oil I've been variously tossing at the pain have helped somewhat, but there's now this deep fucking ache back there that might just be caused by having my jaw constantly wrenched open and hosed down.

I would love nothing more than to go home and curl up with Prince Vicodin, my new boyfriend (supplemented sometimes by Princess $39.99 Walgreens-Brand Heating Pad...and the occasional tumbler of Kahlua) but instead I am in the chilly and extremely loud 4th floor computer lab, banging out another grant application.

Also, I just blew my last $2.50 worth of quarters on parking. I did not, somehow, feel like walking to my dentist's and back for the hook, so I drove.

jesus....

2005-11-13T21:32:00.000-08:00

I haven't written anything in months, but now I'm back. It's a Sunday night in November. I've worked all weekend. Its cold outside, I think, but I didn't leave my house today, so I'm not absolutely certain about that.

On tuesday I had three wisdom teeth removed. On friday I developed "dry socket" in one of the extraction sites. Tomorrow I'm going back to my oral surgeon for the third, but probably not final time, to receive the standard treatment for that particular condition. It is performed sans-anesthesia and, except for the fact that the modern dentist washes his hands before performing it, is strikingly reminiscient of dentistry in the Middle Ages. It involves a metal hook.

Tomorrow, if there is time, I will go back to my financial aid counselor for the second time to appeal their decision not to allow me to take out any student loans this year. This is the third month in a row that my rent check will bounce and my car insurance is about to lapse, again, for non-payment. I will cry in the financial aid officer's office, but they will most likely say "no" anyway. Then again, they said "no" last time, but I managed not to cry. Maybe that's what dignity gets you. Good thing I don't usually have very much of it.

It is going to snow this week.

I promised my landlords that I would have the now perma-stalled 1988 Chevy Nova that has been sitting behind my house since last November gone by the time the snow started. I tried donating it to St Vinnie's but even they won't take it.

There you have it.

Wonders never cease.....

2005-07-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

I just got the "good-morning-I-had-a-lovely-time" email from last night's date. I guess he liked me after all, because he asked me out again.

This was despite the fact that he spent our entire date turned partially away from me on his barstool and giving me the fisheye whenever he absolutely had to glance in my direction. I wouldn't have thought anyone who spent an hour and a half concertedly not looking at me and parrying attempts at conversation in much the same way one does when forced to share a bus seat with a masturbating, un-medicated schizophrenic, would have had any interest whatsoever in a follow-up date, but there you are.... Guess I'm not as adept at reading people as I thought.

For future reference, if you're very socially awkward, but you're trying to find a boyfriend/girlfriend through arranged dates or online personals, bring this handy cheat sheet with you. You can even write it on your forearm...
Step 1. Look at date, try to fix gaze in rough direction of his/her face.
Step 2. Talk (funny anecdotes that relate to the general topic of your conversation, personal stories etc.. are best.)
Step 3. Ask questions and listen. (this is the part where your date engages in Step 2)
Step 4. Once you get good at Steps 1-3, mix it up. Go from 2-3 and then back to 2 again. Try smiling while looking at your date...Once you acquire a certain level of skill you should be able to hold eye contact while talking AND smiling, or listening, nodding AND smiling.

Don't be afraid to practice in front of your bathroom mirror.

Tonight's blind, and mute, date.

2005-07-14T21:11:00.000-07:00

I scheduled an absolute flurry of online dates for this week...well, like three, but when you think about it, that's a LOT of goddamn beer, coffee and awkward small talk for a single 7 day period. I just got back from a date with bachelor number 2. Cute, but a goddamn potato in terms of conversational ability. For the first 15 minutes of the date he barely spoke and wouldn't even look at me. It was so bad, the BARTENDER at the place we met actually came to my rescue by jumping in and trying to keep the conversation going.

I couldn't help wondering if I wasn't as good looking as he'd hoped and he decided to show his disappointment by sulking and refusing to be drawn out. God knows, I'VE shown up for blind dates to find my partner to be about as appealing as a plate of cold chicken feet, but then again, I've nevertheless always tried to maintain a stream of polite questions and bubbly, winsome anecdotes so as not to make the situation even more painful. He warmed up a little after about a half hour and talked me into a second drink....and seemed kind of annoyed when I cut the date short. So maybe he didn't find me powerfully ugly...i don't know. Honestly, though, dude, I'm not here to clean your teeth...the first date is basically a TALKING thing. You can't just SIT there and stare at your drink for two hours. Fuck.

Later, back at the Batcave....

2005-06-28T20:52:00.000-07:00

I am so goddamn shallow. So, I was walking across Library Mall tonight on the way to my date and I almost had a full-blown panic attack because I was scared that, when he showed up, he would be wearing tapered stonewashed jeans. With a really tight T-shirt tucked into them. And white sneakers.

THAT was my big fear. I thought "If I see him and he is wearing tapered jeans I will fly into slobbering fit. I will have an honest-to-God breakdown right there." I was literally in a breathless panic thinking about it. It's like when my spider phobia gets really bad and I'm terrified that a spider will get on me somehow. That I will look down and there will be a giant spider sitting on my forearm, and.....that's it. I can't ever imagine anything past that. I would see the spider and then I would go into a psychotic episode from pure fear that I would never, ever recover from. Except this time it was imagining my blind date showing up in really, really bad pants.

Either I am the most superficial person alive, or...well......that's the only interpretation I can come up with.

It just that I've been on so many really terrible dates in the last few years, and small things, tapered jeans, a Bush/Cheney pin, freedom rings circa 1991, a visible human bite mark...well, they can say a lot about a person.

Anyway, he wasn't wearing tapered jeans. He was wearing shorts. And a tucked-in T-Shirt. And Tevas with white ankle socks....and I didn't even hold that against him because he's from Europe and that's to be entirely expected. And he was sweet but boring and we had absolutely nothing to talk about and I counted the minutes until I could make my apologies and leave. And there you have it. I am so, so, so, so sick of dating.

Mouse Hospice, II

2005-06-28T17:38:00.000-07:00

The box is still there. The mouse and food are gone. Maybe something ate the mouse or maybe it survived...or crawled away to die somewhere else in defiance of my hospitality.

If it lived, maybe it'll come back and free me if I'm caught in a net someday.

In other news I have a date tonight with some guy I met through Nerve. Its our first meeting. We're having drinks on the Terrace. He's a scientist and is originally from the Netherlands. A scientist.....I don't know how I feel about that. He's probably going to be a mildly autistic dorkwad.

The Mouse Hospice

2005-06-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago I found an injured mouse on my front porch. I'm pretty sure it had a broken leg. I think maybe my downstairs neighbors caught it in a trap and just tossed it out there. It was directly under the porchlight in full view of any and all possible predators. It was cute (as mice are) and looked terrified.

I was thus presented with the following options:

1. By far the most sensible course would have been to leave it there and let something eat it: circle of life, weak and the sick, etc....

Of course I didn't do that because it was small and scared and furry and I am a dipshit.

2. Kill it myself. The second most sensible option, since it was probably going to die anyway and was suffering. But how? I briefly envisioned myself stomping it to death, then considered stringing a bunch of extension cords together and dragging my vaccuum cleaner down from my apartment and just sucking it up (would that kill it? I would it get stuck in my brand-new $89.99 Hepa-filter Hoover and gum the whole thing up?) I ran through other unworkable ideas...putting it in a bag and holding it up to the tailpipe of my idleing car, lugging one of the spare concrete blocks up from the corner of the basement and dropping it on the mouse's head....

3. Subcontract the job out to a professional, otherwise known as taking the mouse up to my apartment and feeding it to my cats. My cats would have loved this and it might have saved me a little money on cat food. On the flip side, I have no solid evidence that my cats would actually kill a mouse....even a gimpy one. They are well fed and domesticated. Would they have been any more motivated to kill and eat a mouse than I would be to to do the same and feed myself if someone gave me a hunting knife and stood me in front of an injured deer?

4. Take mouse to vet and pay for tests, surgery, etc. Would have had to wait until morning, plus I have no money, plus this would be patently ridiculous. Mice are vermin and, according to a not entirely trustworthy public health notice I once read somewhere (probably on MSN or similiar) might be carriers of the Bubonic plague (or was that squirrels?) Dropping $300 to rehabilitate a mouse that my downstairs neighbors would just turn around and trap again a week later would be soft-headed in the extreme. Like naming the cockroaches in my apartment and sewing them little clothes.

5. Put mouse in box and bring upstairs to either recover or die in relative safety. Problem here is cats, also plague. Mouse might escape from box only to crawl behind fridge and die.

6. Construct cardboard "mouse hospice" from empty box of teabags, cut open little door on side so mouse can get out but is nevertheless somewhat protected from rain, owls, etc... by cardboard roof. Fill wih shredded newspaper, breakfast cereal, and apple chunks (for moisture.) Pick mouse up with washcloth and stuff into hospice. Hide hospice in shrub so mouse doesn't feel so exposed and can escape into leafy cover if it recovers enough to make a run for it.

YES!! Clearly the PERFECT solution. Maybe the mouse will get better, maybe it won't, but, I reasoned, at least its somewhat safer and has access to food.

That was too days ago. The cardboard box is still there in the bushes but I've been afraid to check it. After all of that work, the mouse is probably still in there, dead.

Real American Heroes

2005-06-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

I've just found the best personal's site ever....possibly one of my favorite all time websites: Esquire Magazine's Brutally Honest Personals. From Dave Scheffler of New Jersey who's endured "crushing debt" since his "tragic foray into Santeria" to Washington State's Michelle Hardenbrook who says "My breasts sag enough that I could throw them over my shoulders to fend off cold, and my stomach seems to be following them south." I love them all. They are my online dating gods. I might die for them.

a nibble!

2005-06-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

T+2 hours since my Match profile went up and I have my first response! And, ooohhh, he's got a PhD! I am a shameless slut when it comes to advanced degrees, I must admit. Now I have to upgrade myself from a "member" to a "subscriber" and pay, like 30 bucks, if I want to email him back. Bummer.

Trolling the net, II

2005-06-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

I've bitten the bullet and joined Match.com singles as well as Nerve.com. I'm now peddling twice as much virtual ass online.

I didn't do Match.com for awhile, because I'd been informed that--online dating-wise--Match is to Walmart what Nerve is to Target, same flimsy merchandise perhaps, but people on Nerve at least try to pull off that "young, hip, & edgy" thing a bit more. Match, on the other hand, seems like it might be all Subaru Foresters and Ray-Ban sunglasses...but we'll see.

That old double standard...

2005-06-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

I was at a small party a year ago, when the boyfriend of a friend of mine (both of whom are fellow grad students) announced that he "would never consent to a long-term relationship with a girl who 'allowed' him to sleep with her on the first date." I thought this was one of the more exceptionally disgusting things I'd ever heard anyone say, particularly the emphasis he put on the word allowed. It was as if he was duty-bound to try to have sex with a woman on the first date, indeed to go through with it if she consented....but would nevertheless spend the whole sexual encounter in silent judgement of her, smirking inwardly about how she had "failed" his little test.

Later I told this story to a man I was dating, thinking he'd think it was funny. Instead, he said that "that was probably right" and while it didn't bother him that I was "sexually forward," most guys would be more likely to date a woman long-term if she waited awhile. "What's awhile?" I asked him. "Oh..," he answered "maybe three months?" Three Months??? I'm sorry, did we just travel back in time? Am I in high school again? Should we spend our first 20 dates dry-humping to M.C. Hammer? "Oh no...I can't have sex with you yet, sorry....you might suddenly decide I'm a slut and besides, I don't want to mess up my claw bangs. "

Today's MSN Dating and Relationships Section featured a similarly annoying article on Reasons Men Suddenly End Relationships which noted that men are often tempted to dump you if you have sex with them either "too soon" or wait "too long." Also, they are apparently upset by women who "play too hard to get" or "get attached too quickly." What defines too soon/too long, remains unanswered of course. Clearly, if you were really "the one," you'd be able to read his fucking mind.

Why are women still expected to forgo sexual expression as a means of pleasing ourselves, and instead to view it only as a crude tool to gratify and, by extension entrap, men? Why is it still only about what he wants/feels comfortable with/respects/is repelled or scared by? And if the timing is so goddamn delicate for him, why can't he simply be expected to say what he wants? "Sorry, I don't want to have sex yet." There, is that so hard?

The Wish List

2005-06-13T10:44:00.000-07:00

Recently Angela put a post entitled Are you the one? on the blog she shares with Katy (I can't seem to link to that exact post...but scroll down, you'll find it.) In it she asks people to respond with what their "non-negotiables" are in a partner.

I don't know what my non-negotiables are...but recent dating experience has left me with a list of "strongly worded suggestions" Here goes:

1. My recent doomed relationship with someone I'll refer to here only as The Professor made me realize how much I'd like to date another academic. Yeah...I know...most people I know would rather sit through the Patch Adams director's cut than date an academic, because academics are generally weird, pretentious, and boring. Still, when you find one that isn't boring or too pretentious (weird I can usually handle,) you realize how nice it is to be with someone who shares your same social world--especially when you work in similar fields. You share the same interests, the same life's work, the same career anxieties and long term goals, and the same fucked up work schedule. Plus you tend to know a lot of the same people and you can pass hours together, cuddled under the covers, talking smack about them.

2. I would like to date someone who is a reader, but that is not required.

3. My partner would have to be politically left of center, but it would be very nice if he/she were not a smackable, self-righteous hippie...or vegan.

4. He or she would have to have a good sense of humor. Preferably a dark, sarcastic one. One of my exe's constantly told jokes she had picked up from mass emails with subject lines like "FW:FW:FW:35 more lawyer jokes." That does not count as a sense of humor. Daisy used to like to ask people if they "wanted to see her pussy" and then she would pull up her sleeve to reveal a crude tattoo of a cat. That also does not count.

5. Its fine if you have very good taste in music, including a carefully cultivated appreciation of cutting edge indie rock, West-coast hip hop, lounge music or whatever, but you shouldn't feel that gives you the right to look down on me or subject me to pedantic lectures about, or forced listening sessions featuring, your favorite bands. In exchange for shutting up about it, you are more than welcome to select the musical accompaniment to almost all of our shared activities and you are welcome to present me with mixed CDs, if you like. Who knows, I might come to like your favorite music. Or, I might not.

6. I'd really like to date someone who's a decent conversationalist and can tell funny stories well. I'd also like it if that person were interested in what I had to say, asked me questions about my day, and didn't insist on setting the topic of all of our conversations so that he gets to control them. I use "he" here, because this is particularly a problem with men. (see Pamela Fishman, 1978, who found that men are more likely to interrupt female conversational partners, more likely to insist on controlling topics of conversation, and less likely to respond to conversational topics that women broach versus those of other men--meaning, when women broached topics men were more likely to ignore them or respond monosyllabically. Women, she found, were expected to listen to men more attentively than men listen to women and work to "draw men out" or facilitate further conversation on the conversational topics they (the men) had already broached.)

7. It would be nice if I could date someone who actually liked sex.

8. You cannot be allergic to cats. I have two. Also, I am not shutting them out of my room at night. Cats like to cuddle with you at night and early in the morning. That is what they are for, in fact.

9. She/he can't be super judgemental about my body...actually, this is more often also a problem with men. Yeah, I'm not super fit...fuck you, look at yourself in the mirror sometime, you balding walrus...

Okay, that's all the pent up frustration I can deal with right now....

i found out what "polyfi" means.......

2005-06-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, so after recieving that kind invite from the gentleman in Texas and his blushing "not fiancee" here in Madison, I googled "polyfi" to find out more about it. It is, indeed, a form of polyamory. But not just any polyamory...

This from Polyblog your online resource for all things Polyamory.

In it's most basic form, polyfidelity is a closed group relationship. Where all the people in the triad, quad, circle, whatever you want to call it, only have relationships with those in their family group. Polyfidelity is like monogamy, but with more than two people. It's the one of the few types of polyamorous relationship in which I'd want children to be involved. It doesn't do a child any good, in my opinion, to see a parade of lovers, whether their parent is married, divorced, single, whatever.

Polyamory has a lot of different flavors, like ice cream. Everyone likes ice cream, but most everyone has a different favorite flavor.

Mmmmmmm...sweet, creamy Polyamory. I want two scoops....no, make that three

While I would agree with the writer that most people (at least most people of European descent, who are less likely to be lactose intolerant) do enjoy the occasional serving of ice cream...most people most definately do not like "ice cream" when "ice cream" actually means "ideological commitment to non-monogamy." As food metaphors go, I think "Clamato," that distinctive tomato and bi-valve flavored juice drink sold at supermarkets, would actually be a better metaphor for swinging, wife swapping, polyfi, sport fucking, or whatever else your people call it. Most people definately do not like Clamato. I, myself, enjoy neither Clamato or "Clamato"...but thanks for asking.

Polyamory is the new pink

2005-06-06T11:01:00.000-07:00

Another bizarre email from the online dating community. This one from an ambiguously coupled man in South Texas and his ambiguously bi "not-fiancee" here in Madison.

Err, okay, this is easily going to be the silliest message I've ever sent anyone in my life.

No, I'm sure I've done worse. this month though at least!

Anyway, I'm not from up there, my not-fiancee is (weird story), and I was browsing around up there because we both have a fairly alterntiave bent, but also because she's always complaining she doesn't know any appropriately cool semi geeky people up there.

Anyway, came across yours, we both giggled profusely (you're an odd one), and I thought I'd say 'hi' at least! You're utterly fascinating. And no, we're not one of those 'couples looking for a sisterwife' types (though we're weirdly polyfi), it's just that you seemed really nifty and nifty types should unite and take over the world!

Err, but I ramble. I'd love to say hi, and so would (blank), either or both really. Plus you deserved some kind of compliment for combining amusing, eccentric, and sexy together so well.

Anyway, if you want to chat, either or both of us would love to

"Polyfi?" Is that like polyamory?

Ew. ew...ew..ewewewewew.

Straight is the new pink

2005-06-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

Recently, every bisexual woman i know (granted, I think there are only three of them) has experienced a temporary loss of interest in women and started dating men instead. I include myself among them.

Ordinarily, this is the sort of thing I'd never say (or write) in mixed company, because it makes people like Dan Savage, Pat Robertson, and my ex-girlfriend Dorothy's mother seem right.....that bisexuality isn't "real," that people can choose to be straight if they try hard enough...yadda yadda. Fact is, after sampling from the meager buffet of options available to me, I don't think there's a single box left in the Midwest I want to chow. Make of that what you will.

There were times in my life that I actively squelched attraction to men when i felt it, because i worried that it made me a bad lesbian (well...technically, if the criteria for being a lesbian is that you prefer sex with women, it does make me a bad lesbian.) Now, though...fuck it. My sexuality does not belong to the collective

Trolling the internet...

2005-02-23T20:49:00.000-08:00

So, because I'm a glutton for punishment and am smarting somewhat from being rejected both by the Chubby Ewok and G.I. Joe the erstwhile professional killer, I've decided to dive back into online dating. I'm now emailing with some dude from up north who, while seemingly acceptable in most respects, just informed me that he's a mime. A MIME. Well, a street magician and "balloon bender" replete with whimsical clothing in the garishly colored multi-feathered hat/patchwork vest line. Maybe he talks during his act, I don't actually know.

Should 33 year-old single men even be allowed to roam the city streets in clown costumes looking for children? I mean, turn that into a "Law and Order: SVU" episode and the script practically writes itself.

I guess I'll have drinks with him anyway. Seems rude not to. Now he'd know it was over the mime thing.

not so great expectations

2005-02-22T13:02:00.000-08:00

Finally I have come to terms with the fact, dating wise, that I simply do not have loads to offer. I'm weird, loud, and kind of irritating. Moroever I do not, to put it mildly, have what you could ever call a sweet disposition. Also, I'm not all that hot. As I get older, I get less hot. I also get progressively chubbier. Chubby is, in our culture, the "anti-hot." You can be shockingly homely and still be considered hot if you are really thin. I am not really thin.

I went on a blind date two weeks ago with a guy who was enormously overweight and also painfully short. He was Ewok-like in his proportions, except he topped 250 pounds, easy, even without shoes. His personal ad, nonetheless, specified a strict weight-range for any potential female who might wish to respond to it. I haven't heard back from him, which is fine 'cause I didn't actually like him, but I must face the very real possibility that he did not follow up with me because he decided I was too fat for him.

Oh and I have been blown-off by G.I.Joe who is back in Milwaukee after the French Foreign Legion decided they didn't want him. G.I. Joe decided that the occaisonal hook-up with me, which basically consisted of binge drinking and lying there like a slug for a lot of unreciprocated backrubs, wasn't working for him. Backrubs and drinking. What, exactly, isn't working about that?

Look, I know this sounds like pitiful whining, but life is just easier when you accept the basic truth and stop getting your hopes up unnecessarily. I am not that hot and I'm irritating. Whatever. You thinking you might want to go out with me? You can probably do better.

Things I am not psyched about

2005-01-18T21:37:00.000-08:00

1. One of my cats puked on a copy of this German magazine that I bought at Borders because it had a news article related to my thesis. I hadn't read the article yet, 'cause it takes me about three days to read a long magazine feature in German. Now the magazine has cat vomit all over it, but I have to keep it and read it anyway after the vomit dries because foreign magazines cost, like, nine bucks at Borders.

2. I had this sort-of date planned with this guy from another grad program here who I met through my Nerve ad. Not to sound all elitist or anything, but its been awhile since I've had a date with someone who successfully completed college (or even high school) so I guess I was looking forward to it. I mean...I'm getting my Phd, so I suppose I thought another grad student and I would have more in common is all. I talked to this woman who knows him today, though, and turns out he's a total sex offender. She said he "talks mostly to breasts" and is "really uncomfortable to spend more than a short time with," although on the up-side she described him as "nice-ish." I suppose I should find a way to get out of it now.

3. I bought a whole bunch of plain yogurt because I was going to eat healthy and lose weight by mixing up giant containers of my own yogurt with fruit and granola and eating them for lunch everyday. Well, newsflash, I didn't ever get around to it, and I had to throw all of that yogurt out today because it was waaay past its sell by date and was making my fridge smell really bad.

A True American Hero

2005-01-07T12:59:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm just going to use my blog space for TMI about my sex life, such as it is, 'cause basically my interests are limited to stuff like sex, vomit, man boobs, and flatulence anyway..so if you don't like it, or you're one of my Professors (or, God Forbid, my Mother) please feel free to hit the return icon...NOW.

So on December 23 at approximately 3am Central Time (4am Pennsylvania Time where I happened to be) I get a phone call from my sort-of-ex(alias G.I. Joe.) I did not answer my cell, figuring that it was equally likely that he was in Madison looking for a hook-up or that he was in Madison and needed someone to bail him out of jail...either way, I wasn't around and didn't want to hear about it.

G.I.Joe is a guy I dated for about 6 weeks after deciding to open my Internet Personal Ad search criteria back up to include men. He broke up with me in October because, and I swear to God he wasn't joking, he'd decided to pursue a "soldiering career" in the French Foreign Legion. That makes me the world's only lesbian to have been dumped in favor of a calling to become a foreign mercenary, I'm fairly certain.

Right so, after Christmas he sends me an email apologizing for the, as he called it, "pre-Christmas Booty Call" explaining that he forgot I was out of town. Considering that G.I.Joe is presently touring the Midwest with some of his old Army pals getting into barfights for old times sake until he ships off to France at the end of the month, I didn't even realize he'd BE in Madison on the 23rd, nor did he bother to inform me in the normal way--like, um, an email or call while the sun was up a few days ahead of time. No, instead he calls me in the middle of the night, probably with the request that I come collect him from whatever bar he was currently too drunk to walk back to his hotel from. Well, well, well, Santa done came early to my house this year and here I clean missed him.

If 3am drunken hook-up with an ex-Army officer who's most cherished aspiration is to become a hired goon for the French Government and who refers to sex as "booty call" isn't really your thing...well, who's "thing" is that really? I mean, who reads that and thinks "Wow, sign me up for some of that?" Precisely no one. As it turned out I ended up getting fairly used to it because G.I. Joe generally refused to have sex unless he was really drunk, insisted that the room be pitch dark, viewed foreplay as utterly beside the point, and was generally incapable of attaining orgasm with a partner. Meaning that, after about 15 minutes of dry thrusting, he'd whine "AW, IT'S NO USE!" roll off, curl up in a ball, and ask if his sexual dysfunction made me "mad at him" in a truely pathetic whimper, and then proceed to fall fast asleep. This made him absolutely identical in almost all respects (except for the military fetish) to my last girlfriend, Daisy, who also refused to have sex unless she was really drunk, insisted that the room be pitch black, viewed foreplay as utterly beside the point, and was generally incapable of having orgasm with a partner. At least G.I.Joe, unlike ex-girlfriend, did not beg off sex using chronically infected nipple jewelry as an excuse. On the other hand, at least Daisy did not freak and spring instantly from sound sleep into full attack position every time one of my cats jumped on or off my bed. Honestly, I view it as a total trade-off. Feel free to post comments criticizing me for putting up with bad sex with total lunatics only if YOUR sex life is BETTER.

Why I am not an entirely bad person

2004-12-11T23:41:00.000-08:00

I got a call this morning from some friends of mine who have an infant. Apparently said infant came home from daycare with a strain of the flu that causes projectile vomiting and simultaneous turbo rectal discharge. Within 24 hours all three members of the family were hurling and crapping nonstop while begging to die. However, when you have an infant, turns out you can't just go to bed for three days, because a baby, sick or healthy, will not allow it.

So, right. So they call me and ask me to come over and take care of the kid for a few hours so they could get some sleep, AND I SAID YES. Despite the fact that it is finals week, and I have 80 papers to grade and two papers of my own to write (for rather unsympathetic professors, might I add.) I said "yes," and I went right over there into the house of the Evil Vomit Flu and picked up that germ covered baby and hung out with him for the afternoon. Now I will get it, and I will be totally fucked as a result, and I knew that ahead of time, but I did it anyway. Shit, this is really going to suck.

Little red flags

2004-12-10T14:48:00.000-08:00

A posting from my adventures in online dating. In case you emailed my Nerve.com ad in the last year, were wondering why I didn't respond back, and happen to be reading my blog just now (highly unlikely, I know.) Why, indeed, didn't I write back?

1. Does your Nerve ad specify that you were searching for your "Heavy Metal Queen?" Were you yourself wearing a RATT T-shirt in your profile photo? Well, I'm not so fond of heavy metal myself, but thanks for thinking of me!

2. In the box that says "Zodiac Sign" did you actually ENTER your Zodiac sign? Moreover, did you provide more detail such as "born under a Virgo moon with Libra rising?" Yeah..um...astrology is pretty gay.

3. Did your ad include a photo of your cock? That might have had something to do with it.

4. Under the part that says "If I could be anywhere at the moment I'd be..." did you write "A turd in the litter box, because that's what I'd like to be: an island of shit surrounded by pussy"? Damn! Who taught you how to sweet-talk girls there, sport?

5. Do you have a really impressive Personals "Likes and Interests" CV full of vigorous outdoor activities, an interest in cutting edge Indie rock, and a love of well-rounded creative pursuits like writing poetry, playing the guitar, and cooking gourmet vegetarian meals? Yeah, I hate all that shit.

6. Did you, for some unfathomable reason, list your occupation as "Peace Warrior?" Is that what they call making espresso drinks these days? Because, unless I'm very much mistaken, you're that chick who works at Starbucks.

...so, yeah, did that answer your question?

The Low-Point, II

2004-11-29T12:32:00.000-08:00

On the subject of low-points.... I've been musing on graduate school, and the worst ever moment of it. This is a challenging exercise, though, for, like potato chips, its awfully hard to stop at just one.

Should it be taking Intro Statistics for the fourth time and just barely passing? Oh! Or how about the time, "Z" (a clever pseudonym) asked to borrow my finished problem set in 361 supposedly so she could "see how I'd solved all the problems," but instead she made a shitty copy of it and turned it in as her own? Oh, and I didn't find out about it until we BOTH got accused of cheating, 'cause, um, turns out when the two dumbest kids in the class cheat off of each other its usually super easy to catch them at it (in our case because we(I)had gotten, like, EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM WRONG...but all in the same uniquely fucked up way. Also, because she didn't bother to show any work, she just turned in a blank page with all of my final answers.) Yeah, that was awesome!

Or, how about the time I really needed a car, but I couldn't afford one because I make about 11Ks a year....so I bought one off of "socgradchat" for two hundred dollars and it didn't have an exhaust system so the cab filled up with Carbon Monoxide whenever it was driven? Yeah, that was bitchin'! I drove it anyway, even though the fumes made me sick to my stomach, because I'm poor and it's not like a little Carbon Monoxide ever killed anyone...Oh, no wait...IT SO TOTALLY HAS! Yeah, also, I need to go into about $8,000 in student loan debt every year just to make ends meet. That rules. Plus, whenever I talk to someone from financial aid, I usually end up crying, because they've lost my check, or because they've decided that I can't have any money anymore because I've gone past ten semesters, or whatever. That sure is embarrassing...

Heh. right.

So my faithful reader(s?) what's your grad school low point? Post a comment. I want the details of your sad and pointless lives, as much as you no doubt enjoy perusing mine.

The low point

2004-11-27T23:46:00.000-08:00

I'm listening to Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed on tape tonight. I've already read Nickel and Dimed in its original paper form, but I liked it and I like books on tape. I especially like re-reading books I've already read, so the whole experience is like, "stuff I like" cubed.

Anyway, its at the part were she says how her "low point" working for the Merry Maids was when one of her co-workers was forced to continue working on a badly injured ankle: cleaning bathrooms while hopping on one foot and crying.

This makes me think about low points at various jobs I've had.

My low point working for the California PIRGs (a vast cluster-fuck of low points if any job ever was one) was one day when I was out canvassing. I was in a blind terror because I was 30 minutes from being picked up by my canvass supervisor, and at least $100 below my daily quota for the third day in a row. This made me suspect I was in danger of being fired, and I had spent all of my savings moving out to the Bay Area in the first place, so I'd have been super screwed if I found myself unemployed. At the very least I was guaranteed to be called out for a Cultural Revolution style round of self-criticism in front of all my supervisors, AGAIN, where I'd be made to discuss, AGAIN, why my attitude was interfering with my ability to raise the proper sums of money necessary to save some goddamn endangered salamander or whatever. Anyway, when someone was finally willing to come to the door and talk to me, it turned out to be an impoverished elderly man who was recovering from heart surgery. He really wanted to help, he pleaded, he just didn't have any money. He even brought out his prescriptions to show me how expensive his aftercare requirements were. I badgered him until he finally broke. He ended up giving me $10 and I walked away feeling like a pimp. "This is the worst thing I will ever to do to anyone, EVER," I swore. Probably, though, it wasn't.

My low point working for the Hotel and Restaurant Employee's Union in Las Vegas was when my supervisor threatened to fire me because he'd heard rumors I was talking to some of the other workers about organizing our own employee union. I informed him that he was a hypocrite, he countered with the accusation that I was inadequately committed to the cause. Maybe that was true, I ventured, but I just really wanted some sick leave and vacation time and it seemed gross in the extreme for a labor union not to offer its own staff this. He reminded me that I'd get myself fired talking like that. I agreed that this was probably the most likely outcome, but in the end I quit before anyone could get around to it.

My low point working at Wendy's in high school was the day that my boss offered to "use his influence" to get me moved from my deadly boring job behind the Pasta and Taco bar and "promoted to Fries." This was the same man who used to invite me to spend the weekends with him at his beach house. There was some not-so-subtle fine print on that promotion offer, I reasoned, and turned him down. Still, I lose sleep over it sometimes. Is there really some heinous little sub-economy out there in which women really DO trade sex for the opportunity to skim french fries out of boiling vats of grease? Shit, he wasn't even offering me a raise...just the right to stand over a cauldron of spitting molten-hot beef tallow every day. That might be THE utter low point. The low point of my personal working life AND the low point of woman-kind's entire historical experience of sexual harrassment. Not the worst experience of sexual harrassment, mind you, but the most insultingly shitty offer of quid-pro-quo "sex for benefits," EVER. So thanks, Micheal, you little toad....next time you want a blow job at LEAST offer up a quarter raise in the bargain, so I'd feel justified in filing a lawsuit. Fries, Jesus, you go to the EEOC with that shit and they'd just laugh at you.

Breasts

2004-11-22T23:23:00.000-08:00

It's 12:30am and I'm still awake. The reason I'm awake is that there is a program on TLC right now called "Men with Breasts." I'm not kidding, that's what its called. It features interviews with men who have gynocomastia, and close-up photos of their breasts.

Interestingly, you can't just lypo-suction away breasts because the tissue often grows back. Also, there is an anti-surgery movement afoot in the community of men with breasts, because many men feel that their breasts should be accepted and celebrated. I'll admit that I've laughed at man-breasts, but i shouldn't have. I now resolve not to make fun of men with breasts. And if i meet a breasted man who I like, I will probably date him and celebrate his breasts. There aren't enough breasts out there...like wildflowers blooming along the highway, who are we to question them where ever we may find them?

I'm probably going to want to delete this post in the morning.

Today's clothes

2004-11-22T20:38:00.000-08:00

Here's what I wore today, in case anyone wanted to know:

1 pair wool socks, beige.

Hideous "Merrill" type clodhopper slip-on shoes, shit brown. Very comfortable.

One pair of GAP Men's Jeans, 35x32. These are too big and have a medium size, almost perfectly square hole in the right shin. The hole has been there since June. I patched it once and the patch ripped out, so now its back to being a hole. It happened the first time I hung out with Georg in Germany. Georg is like this really hot guy that someone transplanted the brain of a Golden Retriever into. He's not stupid, he's just...exceptionally excited about everything all the time and you kind of want to throw a stick for him to chase whenever you see him. We were in this park with his friend Micheal, and there was this fenced-off construction area, and Georg was like "Hey, let's go climb that fence and play in there!" For some reason this seemed like a good idea to Micheal too, so before I knew it they'd both shimmied over the fence. Because I wanted Georg to like me, and because he seemed like the type who'd be into sporty spontaneous girls, I was like...construction site! great! what fun! So then I tried climbing over the fence too, but, of course, I'm not sporty. I'm clumsy and chubby. So I slipped going over the top, and sort of fell, except my pant leg got caught on the chain link. Then I couldn't go anywhere, because I didn't have the upper body strength to pull myself up and disentangle myself. So then I just hung there, insisting I was just fine, and I was coming down after I caught my breath. Of course I wasn't going anywhere, I was just hanging there like a big, fat purple-faced spider, until Micheal came over and pushed my ass up far enough that my pant leg came free. Then I was embarrassed, also bleeding. I still have a scar there, right under that hole. I need to buy new pants.

Green sweater, unflattering shade of neon green, actually. Wool.

Grannie panties, size 7, grey.

Uni-boob style beige sports bra.

Truely awful hair. Must get it cut but don't have the money, really. Worried my American Express card check is going to bounce. My checks often bounce.

The Third Sex(less)

2004-11-22T12:56:00.000-08:00

Why are you withholding sex? A poll for men.

2004-11-19T11:17:00.000-08:00

Considering that most of my sexual partners strongly dislike engaging in sex, I thought I might attempt to divine why. Are you a man who doesn't particularly like having sex? Are you a man who generally enjoys having sex, but doesn't seem to like having it with me? Are you a man or woman who also dates a non-sex-enjoying man? Well then please feel free to contribute.

Why are you withholding sex? Please pick any that apply.

1. Mommy told me not to.

2. Too drunk.

3. Canadian Viagra shipment intercepted.

4. Jesus might be watching.

5. Selling all possessions, moving to Paris to become hired killer.

6. Girlfriend's boobies don't look like ones on the pretty ladies in the magazine.

7. Discovered doling out sex is effective head-game similar to doling out affection.

8. Still in the market for someone Asian.

9. Smart girls are a real cock-block, you know?

10. Have yet to find a woman who appreciates finer points of the Scandinavian Death Metal movement.

11. Would rather spend the time with Gamecube, joint.

12. Want woman no shorter than 5'9, no heavier than 120 lbs, C-cup bra or larger. Prefer redheads. Send all responses to Ray276, c/o "Personals" Long Distance Trucker Magazine, PO Box 23, Tulsa OK, 27609

Are you deeply ambivalent about sex? Well, come date me.

2004-11-12T15:54:00.000-08:00

Something that's interesting about me is that no one I date ever wants to have sex with me. Some people knit or have distinctive baritone singing voices or speak many languages. I can psychologically castrate just about anybody merely by showing them my naked body. The effect may, moreover, be totally irreversible.

I used to think that this was because I tended to get into lesbian relationships....lesbians are Olympic League sex withholders. Really. Lesbians dole out sex like Republicans give bus money to panhandlers....grudgingly, infrequently, and with the exortation to 'learn how to start doing for yourself one of these days.'

Then I dated a few straight men. The result? Identical.

Yeah, it's me.

Mmm...old car smell

2004-11-12T13:49:00.000-08:00

When people get into my car, the first question they usually ask me is "Jessica, what's that smell?"

That's a really good question, and to save myself the bother of having to explain over and over again, I'm posting a guide to my car's unique odor on my blog. To start, calling it "a smell" would be a misnomer, its really a blend of smells. My car is a 1987 Chevy Nova, so it's been around the block a few times (tee hee, pun intended!) It's been owned by God-only-knows how many different people, and sometimes it seems like each and every one of them left a little something of themselves behind.

1. Cat piss. Yup, apparently one of its past owners had one, and he sure didn't like going for car rides!!

2. Old Lady. I don't know if I could even properly describe Old Lady Smell, let alone guess what its made up of. Baby powder...B.O impregnated polyester....Egg Beaters?

3. Mildew. Someone ripped out all the fabric covering the ceiling awhile back. Looks like people started scratching their initials into the foam beneath it too...(it's a regular time capsule. I thought I saw Abraham Lincoln's signature up there, har har!!) Well, mold set into all that exposed foam and now it kinda smells.

4. Carbon Monoxide.....oops! Did I catch you??? Carbon Monoxide is actually odorless!! Car exhaust (which is part CO) isn't though, and, since my car's exhaust pipes fell off at some point, a lot of the engine fumes make their way into the cabin.

5. Vomit. Your guess is as good as mine!

Well, there you have it. Till next time, happy driving!

Rather good things about Germany

2004-07-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

1. If you sleep with a German, even if its just a one-night stand, they will always make you breakfast the next morning. It won't be cold cereal, either. It will involve, at the very least, toast, a choice of jams, and probably an egg. I don't know why they do this.

2. People drink beer in movie theaters here. You could probably even bring in your own if you wanted. Also, one may select between sweet or salty popcorn at the concession stand.

3. You always get a little cookie with your coffee.

4. Germany, especially Berlin, is like porno for people who are really into history. Especially people who are into nasty, violent, voyeuristic history.  There are beautiful memorials all over the city, mostly to victims of the Holocaust, but here I'm referring specifically to the kind of history that hasn't been underwritten by grants. Most of the history on display here has just been lying around for the past 60 years or so because nobody ever bothered to get rid of it. This kind of thing ranges from the evidence of two world wars (the bullet scars that still pit the city's old building facades, and the occasional bombed out building--now reduced to a few crumbling brick walls surrounded by trees and occasionally hosting an informal Biergarten) to the rotting detritus of the DDR (murals of a beaming V.I. Lenin surrounded by happy factory workers, swathes of still standing Berlin Wall, the building where the Stasi used to torture suspected state enemies.... )

There are, of course, also the omnipresent 'concentration,' 'work' and 'death' camps (the Nazis were quite forthcoming about the function of each particular camp, its official name generally signifying whether a camp had been erected for the primary purpose of extracting slave labor from its detainees, Arbeitslager, or systematically killing them as quickly as possible, Vernichtungslager, i.e. extermination camp.)  These have generally been at least partially to fully preserved and one can find one to visit within driving or public transport range of virtually any German city (as well as many areas throughout the former Nazi-occupied lands.) Why, I ask myself, is all this information on my 'Rather good things about Germany list?' I suppose its because I appreciate a nation that, unlike the United States, has decided to remember and memorialize the dark corners of its own history.  The U. S. might have chosen to do the same with the uncountable deaths of Native-Americans, Africans under slavery, or the millions of civilians who died during the last century of our innumerable foreign wars and occupations.  We might have, but we don't.

5. Pretty much any pickle you eat here will be amazing. The same can be said for the cheese, although it'll also smell like a bad yeast infection.  That's okay, though. That's the hallmark of good cheese. Just try not to think about it.

6. Men can cry in public without shame. After a really important soccer match, the losing team will often all stand there and sob like a bunch of 13 year-old girls at a matinee showing of Titanic. I totally respect this.

7. Dachshunds! Dachshunds! Dachshunds! The quintessential German dog and the official pet, it would seem, of Berlin's retiree population. They're really goddamn cute, also super mean. If you get on a dachshund's bad side, it will try to fuck you up.

8. Its historical reputation aside, Germany is actually extremely politically progressive. For instance, there is no death penalty here. That's a good thing because, behind me in the Internet cafe in which I am now working, is a man who has been sitting at his own computer groaning and farting for about the last 20 minutes. He's looking at a site on mail order brides, unless I'm very much mistaken. After I finish writing this sentence, I might have to go over there and stab him in the back of the neck.

Return to the womb, plus soft jazz..

2004-07-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I went to this thing in Berlin called The Liquidrom. The Germans are all really into this thing, which is, as it turns out, a sort of big indoor swimming pool.....except in a really dark room fitted out with the sort of slow, multicolored light-show you get at roller rinks during the couples' skates. The pool itself was only about shoulder deep, warm, and filled with salt water. Weirder was the fact that it was equipped with underwater speakers, so that when you lay your head back into the water you hear this constant soft new age-y music: whale sounds mixed up with a little saxophone, that sort of thing. Also the salt content was high enough that it was supposed to make it really easy for you to just float without doing any work. It was very Uterine. Like being the fetus of Enya, maybe.

The idea behind all of this was that it was supposed to be relaxing, but I had a really hard time not laughing and constantly grabbing the people I was there with by the elbow and hissing "Christ can you believe this! This is hilarious! Its a room full of adult Germans bobbing in salt water to Adult Contemporary like giant pickles. Fuck, I'm shitting myself over here!" That was unfortunate because the acoustics of the room were such that random sounds tended to turn into strangely amplified echoes, so I had to shut up then and just bob.

The rest of The Liquidrom was one of those typical European spa/sauna things where you're supposed to intersperse time in a dry or steam sauna with sudden plunges into a tub filled with gonad-shatteringly cold water. That was actually fun and surprisingly relaxing in a way that the womb pool was not. Also there was this really cool hot tub modelled after a tidal pool outside in this little walled-in courtyard. It was surrounded by lawn chairs where you could order drinks or snacks and just lie in the sun. Doing that after watching the disco lights playing slowly across all those people floating together in the dark water, I could not possibly have loved Berlin more.

Keen anthropological observations, Vol 2

2004-07-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

More stuff I've learned in Germany

1. Apparently in Germany a fire alarm is just some random guy walking through the building blowing an air horn in people's faces. This happened at my school here the other day. I just stared at him until someone else came up to me and yelled "HALLO! Das ist Fire Alarm Drill!" and then gave me this look like I was retarded. And I wanted to say, "No, 'retarded' would be running through a burning building blowing a horn while the ceiling is falling on your head in flaming chunks. Haven't you assholes ever heard of an automated alarm system? They aren't that complicated to install, I seem to recall my elementary school even had one. Maybe I could give you their number and you could call them and ask them where they got it."

2. Germans are less shy about their bodies. For instance, they like sunbathing nude. On sunny, warm days (of which there have been very few, actually) Berlin's Tiergarten Park in the center of the city becomes a veritable sea of stippled, soft pink Teutonic flesh. Like great, blockish sea creatures spread out at the water's edge, they are. Great blockish sea creatures wearing Teva's with socks. Hey, they have no shame.

3. Georg, this super cute German guy that I met last year in Madison and hang out with here sometimes said that when he was in America last year he met some other German guys. He said their favorite game used to involve going over to this one person's house who had a Jacuzzi, piling into it together, and playing Das Boot. I am SO not making this up. He said this girl who was into him got all upset over this and told him she thought he was gay. I'm thinking, 'well, yeah, most grown men don't spend a lot of time sitting in the bathtub with each other and playing submarine unless they're gay, and even then.' Also, I realized that all of Americans' lurking suspicions about Germans in general can probably be encapsulated in, and verified by, the idea that they're all sitting in a hot tub together somewhere playing Das Boot

Keen anthropological observations, Vol 1

2004-07-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Here are some things I've learned about Germans after living in Berlin for a month and a half......

1. Even though 12 year olds can buy beer in Germany, you cannot buy things like aspirin, Tums, cold medicine, etc.. from anyone except a licensed Pharmacist. They have these things called 'Drogeries' all over the place in Germany, but, even though 'Drogerie' means 'store which sells drugs' there are no drugs in the Drogerie, only things like toilet paper and shampoo.

The 'Apotheke' is were you buy drugs and they aren't right out there on shelves either. No, you have to ask the Frau behind the counter for what you want. If your German is bad and none of the brand names are the same and you need to convey a complicated and colloquial term like 'Heartburn' you pretty much have no choice but to combine miming with the few words you do know. I pointed to various parts of my gastric tract and yelled the word for PAIN, until one of the other customers figured out what I was on about and translated for me. I have yet to be faced with something really embarrassing, like a yeast infection, but I'm certian its only a matter of time before I get to explain to some surly German pharmacist that 'The high on the leg place...how you say on the lady, Vagina? Yes, yes, Vagina...feeling like a campfire is there...also maybe with much scratching.'

2. 1980's style is really big again here, or maybe it never left....also, Germans are super rude. I went to get my haircut and before my hairstylist would even listen to me tell her what I wanted she went on and on about how the color of my hair was 'um..in English, harable? no..wait, horrible. Yes, horrible, it looks to me, just awful.' Before she even touched it she insisted on putting toner on it to get rid of the yellow, but then when we'd washed out the toner she announced that it was a little better but still 'really bad.' So I was like, fine, go ahead and color it too. Then when i told her how i wanted my hair cut, she told that was a terrible idea. So I was like, fine, do whatever you want. Anyway, I ended up with this totally tripped out 1980's spiky thing with crazy asymmetric bangs. Then the little Euro-fag who did the color stepped up, told me I was wrong about what I wanted there too, and proceeded to do this insane multi-toned bleach effect badger-stripe thing that is also totally rocking 80s and now I look just like that guy from A-Ha...which I'm actually kind of psyched about.

3. Germans are bossy. Yesterday I got into a fight at the laundromat with one of the women who worked there, because out of nowhere she just appeared at my side and started barking orders at me because, according to her, I had separated my colors incorrectly. Also, she felt I shouldn't be washing my jeans in hot water. She said all of these things to me as if she had caught me trying to stuff a bag of plastique or a newborn infant into one of her washing machines, like she was the national guardian of fabric welfare or something. I held my ground and explained, in German, that I liked my color separation the way it was and I always washed my jeans in hot water..and you'd think that a normal person would have dropped it at this point (or never started it to begin with) but she kept insisting that I really, really shouldn't be washing my jeans in hot water and I was like, well...I am. Finally she backed down on the water temperature thing, but then she stood over my shoulder during the whole soap addition part of the process as if she was waiting to have to wrestle my laundry detergent out of my hands should I suddenly start drinking it.