A vacation from the vacation --- now with Books!

Evidently being back at school requires a post-vacation recovery period before beginning any useful work. Actually, no, it doesn't ---- this is supposed to be The Summer of Progress and Productivity, not the Summer of Sloth, you cog! I still haven't dumped crap off at school or even gotten the groceries yet, much less leaped back into my writing. Sigh. I did miss my cats though. You'll be glad to know they are as cute and as annoying as ever.

Instead of doing work or even doing preparatory work I have started a book (for pleasure reading! Oh my!) and watched a movie. But, isn't that the exact same thing you were doing at your parents' house, you ask? Why yes, it was. But for some reason it's more pleasant doing it here, where I am not constantly being interrupted. On the other hand, my day here has been devoid of human contact, which can get old pretty fast.

So I have started reading Chang-Rae Lee's novel Native Speaker, which so far is fabulous and wonderful and you should all go read it immediately if not sooner. You may wonder why I am reading this particular novel, and I suppose it is as good a time as any to tell you all about the Bookcase of Shame (not to be confused with the bookcase of theory which Timido is hiding behind in that picture). Several friends had raved and sang the praises of joy of Lee's "new" novel, Aloft, back in 05, and I read some intriguing reviews of it that made me want to get it. But when I looked on the aforementioned Bookcase of Shame, I noticed that I already owned his first novel and had never cracked it. So I promptly avoided having anything else to do with the topic for the next two years or so. You see, I buy books constantly and compulsively, like a crack addict or shoewhore (and if you think I can't drop that kind of money in a single bookstore outing, you sooo don't know me). I'm the reason your undergrad classes can't get their books ---- because I go in "just to look around at what other people are teaching" before the quarter starts and poach everything that looks good. And I mean everything, from theory to sociology textbooks and random history books to novels that have nothing to do with my time period or continent or language (as witness Lee) to anything feminist or racial-studies related. And I don't have the time to read these books ---- not surprisingly, when I do have the energy to read something in the evening, I pull a dissertation-related library book off the pile. And so, one of my bookcases gradually filled with unread books, those dense little packets of obligation and anxiety, until, with the exception of the bottom shelf which holds all my grad seminar readers for ballast, the Bookcase of Shame became full. (Jeez, you'd think I studied Dickens, or Henry James, with the way I herniate a sentence like that. But anyway.)

Finally I had to have an intervention with myself. This was not when I started moving unread books to the auxiliary bookcase in the bedroom, or even started packing them in moving boxes in the closet, but was the humiliating (and heretofore secret) moment when I realized I was preparing for a visit to my parents' by packing shopping bags of unread books to hide in their house. At this point I cut myself off cold turkey ---- no going inside a bookstore! Close all my online accounts! The only book buying I can do is for my dissertation! (You should be amazed that I spent so much of my Berkeley trip inside bookstores and did not buy anything, but an unfortunate side effect is that entire stores now feel like the experience of contemplating the Bookcase of Shame.)

All this means that I cannot buy new books without reading some of the backlog. Hence, my experience of "new fiction" is novels that are ten years old and that I bought at least five or six years ago. I feel incredibly out of it --- whole literary empires have taken root, grown, flourished, and built monuments in the desert only to have them crumble down to a shattered visage and be forgotten by the next generation of literary scholars in the time I have been on my self-imposed moratorium from books. Strangely, this corresponds with my sense of frozen stasis in grad school ---- I'm still 22, of course, and nothing has quite cured me of the notion that somewhere out there it's still the mid-90s and the Smashing Pumpkins is touring. Don't try to tell me otherwise; they claim that sleepers are dangerous to awake.

I Heart BART

Good thing I hadn't planned to go visit Lake Tahoe. I'm still planning an actual adventure-type trip, but out-of-state relatives are suddenly descending on the family household, so I may postpone it a short (or even long) while.

But today I took a little side trip to Berzerkeley and had a fine old time. Really, I love public transportation, when it is convenient and not crowded, and when you never have to wait more than 10 minutes for a train (both directions I walked out onto the platform and the train I wanted pulled up right then). My only complaint is that it really should go everywhere; it especially should ring the whole Bay Area (otherwise why is it called Bay Area Rapid Transit?). And if San Francisco and San Jose are the two largest cities in the area (perhaps the nation?), it's only logical that they should be connected conveniently, right?

Now if I were my friend the cool scientist grad student, I would complain about BART a lot more, because she is actually cool and goes to shows and out to bars and cool indie places all across SF and Oakland and Bk, which is a problem when the BART trains stop at 10 pm. But I turn into a pumpkin about then and really can't handle going out places like that without some backup, so BART works perfect for me and my shopping-sightseeing-lunch eating itinerary.

I also love Berkeley because you can walk everywhere (for god's sake, don't drive! The only place worse is SF! And definitely don't try to park. Ever. Anywhere in the area.) and people-watch as you wander, and the people are interesting. And not just in the subcultural (punk, goth, indie, hipster) kind of way --- they are sprinkled in with different varieties of more mainstream looks and "ordinary" people --- I just love the diversity of everything and everyone. You just don't see different looking and dressing people where I usually am.

So I got semi-lost about three different times but it was a pleasant and lovely experience (when I usually visit Berkeley I'm doing labor stuff and have appointments and co-workers, which adds stress to the whole getting-lost experience, but this time it did not matter). The city looks like it's on the grid system but it has sneaky turning streets here and there, so I found myself in a residential area with all these cool old victorian houses (some ramshackle, some well-preserved, one a vivid sky blue all over) with wild and overgrown gardens. Beautiful! So I got my architecture fix.

Then I finally figured out where they put Telegraph Ave and did some thrift-store shopping and got CDs at Rasputin Records. Very fun. I'm very ambivalent (overthinking?) about most things and while I theoretically love the vintage indie style, I usually feel very self conscious, like everyone is staring at me and laughing, when I wear anything that is not completely boring. So I may buy clothing with patterns, but then never actually wear them. I may do that this time too, but at 5 or 6 bucks per item, I won't worry like I do when I buy an expensive store piece that is a little unusual. By the time I thought of jewelry shopping, though, I had tramped around the whole place and was tired. So no shiny baubles this time.

I had delicious chicken tikka masala at a little place where you bused your own plates and drinks, and eyed the cute grad student talking at a table behind me. Or postdoc; he could have been a postdoc. I couldn't quite catch all the conversation because I was simultaneously appreciating the techno music in hindi that was blasting through the restaurant. My only regret was that I tend to eat at the same places because the food is good, but everywhere I walked I saw intriguing food options both informal and fancy.

I also toured as many bookstores as I could find (I have misplaced Revolution Books somehow --- what street is that on?). Cody's Books appears to be closed, which is sad, and Moe's for some reason made me feel oppressed and overwhelmed with the sheer amount of interesting books I know nothing about --- do you ever get that sad feeling that here is an area you feel marginally conversant about but you realize you are completely ignorant in it and have not kept up with current stuff because you are reading obscure crap for your dissertation? Seriously, I want a publishing moratorium on all new fiction and scholarship for 5 years, so I can, if not catch up, at least make a dent in my reading piles. Bleah. On the other hand, I love being in a city that has so many bookstores --- I kept seeing more and more little places as I walked.

I wanted to take pictures of stuff --- like the "Smash the State" scratched into the sidewalk concrete, or peoples' fantastic costumes, or some gorgeous gardens, or the Granola Dude sailing along on a bike against traffic, on a cell phone, loudly telling the caller, "I'm calling you while on a bike right now." But I didn't want to look like a tourist schmuck --- and explaining to passersby, "No really, I want to put pics of my day on my blog" sounds even lamer, so you'll have to make do.

And so, here I am back in Ultimate Suburbia, tired but pleased. If only I could finish my dissertation up here instead! And no, even if it was feasible, I wouldn't finish because I'd be too distracted. But I would be having fun, me and my snazzy new wardrobe.

8 random things about a Cog

Ouch! Tag, I'm it! Adjunct Whore at Narratives has tagged me for a meme. Here are the rules:

• I have to post these rules before I give you the facts about me.
• Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. Did I tell you all that I had my head shaved recently? Well, part of it. A small section. I had a thing (wart, mole, cyst, Bump of Generosity, whatever) that has been bugging me, and the dermatologist who looked at it said that it looked safe (i.e. non-cancerous) but if I was picking at it, that was enough reason to remove it. (He doesn't want me scratching my head raw, evidently.) They're going to biopsy it just to be on the safe side but I'm not worried. You can hardly notice the shaved-ness. If I had the guts, or could be sure I wouldn't look too Uncle Fester-like, I would just go for broke and shave my head completely.

2. I'm the youngest in the family. By a lot. So when I make jokes about my parents not getting that crazy newfangled rock-n-roll and how shocked they were by the appearance of Elvis on the scene, um, I'm actually not kidding.

3. I have a passel of nieces and nephews. They've passed the cute stage but not really become people yet. Except for the eldest, who is a music ed major at a local Cal State school. Can I tell you how depressing it was to teach last year, looking at my students who were her age and remembering when she was born? Yeah, good times.

4. I'm a child of the desert. I have technically lived in many states as a baby and was born in the City of Brotherly Love, but all the places I remember living have been in the southwest. Now having traveled around a bit more, I can actually say that it's true when those obnoxious people tell you "it's hot, but at least it's a dry heat." Humidity is a foreign element to me (I can just see where I will get a t-t job eventually, eh?) ---- I just love the way you can step out the door in the desert and instantly all moisture is wicked off your body and out of the inside of your nose. Ahh! That's not to say I haven't seen my share of snow; it's really the mugginess that I dread.

5. Favorite slightly disgusting thing to eat: stale popcorn, especially the cheddar-dusted kind. What could be better than some popcorn for breakfast the next morning after movie night (that is, if there is anything left)? It squeaks on your teeth --- how could you not love that?

6. And while we're on movies: I am incredibly strange and uptight about planning movie-watching. I have to be in "the movie-watching mood"; I can never just turn on the tv or throw in a movie without a lot of mental preparation. Seriously: we're talking a day or two of lead-up. Sad and weird but true. (this may explain why I can only watch plot-free tv shows while flipping around.)

7. I have been barefoot for most of my life. I'll put on some shoes if you really want me to, but otherwise I'm putting some slip ons somewhere near my feet so that I can pretend I had them on just a minute ago. This is regardless of weather, although if it's actually snowing I will probably have something on. However, I constantly lust after big difficult-to-put-on boots, the more leather and lacings and doo-dads the better. I know it is a love that will not work, for I can never be bothered to lace anything up or struggle putting it on, but the passion is there nonetheless.

8. Favorite color: loud. What do you mean that's not a color? I have to pick just one? Look, if it's not fire engine red, or electric blue, or a vivid green or any loud shade of what-have-you, I'm not interested. Patterns, now that's a different story. I'll go unearth one of my favorite childhood photos to demonstrate to everyone why I am terrified of patterns and clashing.

Now I'm supposed to tag people but I think everyone has gone already. Aiiiiggghh! Someone tag themselves and let me avoid the agony of indecision, people!

Random bullets of crappy tv

So, I'm in the lovely little town of Ultimate Suburbia, doin' nuttin'. My parents' hobbies include eating lunch, crabbing about the way the world is, and eating dinner. And also fighting over where they should eat lunch or dinner. Should we go to the Chili's or the Applebees? The Olive Garden or the Elephant Bar? The Tony Roma's that used to be the Outback Steakhouse that's right across the street from the Chevy's that used to be the El Torito? You can see there's so much to do here; the town has so much character. And, being retired, my parents tend to wake up with the birds and want lunch at 11 am, dinner at 5, and they were in bed by 9. Lovely.

However, I had lunch with my sister and got to see a small portion of her latest home remodeling disaster special project underway, which involves staining, varnishing and installing some fancy doors with trim. Do you know how easy it is to saw through stuff underneath your projects if you place it on the floor or carpet? Heh.

The nicest part of visiting family is recharging the thinking parts of my brain by doing completely mindless fun stuff. I mean, seeing family is fine and all, but the real lure is the television. For some reason I can't even get the free network channels at my grad school apartment, and I don't want to pay for cable and the internet (think of the procrastination! The money! ---- Yay! ---- No, stop that!) It's weird to go from tv abstinence to complete bingeing ---- hello, commercials! Hello, crappy gender conventions and cheesy materialism! I forget sometimes I'm in a protected little bubble so it's great to be reminded by home cleaner commercials with stay-at-home moms indulgently smiling on naughty, messy little boys they need to clean up after while clean docile little girls follow after the moms and learn how to scrub and tidy. So with one day of basking in the mindlessness, so far, I have noticed the following:

• My secret vice would be all those fixit-remodel-DIY-home/face/body makeover shows. I don't know if that means I will become one of those obnoxious home-obsessed remodelers when I finally have a job and spare money, or, that, like the health-and-fitness shows I watch, it means I only want to experience these things secondhand. (Watch triathalons for hours? Fine. Actually get up off the couch? You've got to be kidding.) The fact that I have bought nice pots for outside my front door, but killed off several generations of the plants in them, indicates I might vacillate between the two positions crazily.
• Baby animals are cute, but can you actually watch an entire show of them being rescued, even while channel surfing? Even with only limited tv access I find the format too predictable. I think over at Acephalous Scott said a similar thing about science shows. My mom has a weakness for all the "secrets of the Bible revealed!" type shows; even though they promise that mysteries will be revealed or debunked, they end up telling you obvious nuggets of common wisdom.
• I haven't seen a new episode of The Simpsons for years; even when I had tv reception last year I only watched the weekday reruns while cooking dinner. I just saw a "current" episode and it made me throw up in my mouth a little. Oh, talent and funniness, where have you gone? Couldn't you go out with a bang, like a rock star snuffed out in mid-fame and glory, rather than hanging around to become a coked-out tired caricature of yourself?
• Speaking of, I see that they are trying to capitalize on the success of the Ozzy Osbourne reality show by doing one on Gene Simmons of Kiss. Gene, Gene, see above bullet.
• Evidently it is not enough to bring back 70s fashion and the nasty home decor accents that my mom is unearthing from closets with the triumphant exclamation that orange shag or dark wood furniture is back; I flipped past more than one episode each of: The Jeffersons, Dukes of Hazard, Little House on the Prarie, and Good Times. Clocking in at one episode each so far would be The Brady Bunch and The Andy Griffith Show. And these weren't the cable networks or RetroTVLand or whatever, either. I wonder what this does to the circulation of cultural values and gender attitudes; just think, we might have to not only deal with the assumptions fostered by contemporary pop culture but the "rerun effect" in our teaching.
• I see that the same city council meeting as the last time I was here still appears to be in progress, according to the public access station. The local community college is still presenting student-acted and directed shows and shorts, which are often, in their sheer zaniness, the best thing on the tube at any one time.
• Forget driving a three-ton-extendicab-megatruck with heated seats to prove how big your dick is. That's so last year. Now you need to be driving a backhoe --- as you dig and install your own Forever Illusion pool yourself. Oh wait --- no, that's the contractor waggling his backhoe around back there for you. You'll just have to make do with the size of the Forever Illusion you buy, so get a doozy.
• Even with no regular access to a tv for almost a year now, I can still i.d. the Law and Order episode and its killer within about five minutes of tuning in.

I could do a whole series of bullets about What Not to Wear, which I am deeply ambivalent about, and the whole "makeover" phenomenon besides, so I may, if you're good, devote an entire post to the subject later. Just get me a set of those snap-together tupperware containers and send me three easy payments of only $19.95...

Time to get the heck outta Dodge

So, I have graded, and turned grades in, and returned library books, and cleaned out various offices and workspaces, and made huge inroads into that stack of ILL books, and done various other end-of-year tidying things, and I have come to this grand conclusion:

I need to get the hell outta here.

It's this weird compulsion, this need to run away as soon as the quarter's over, and I have suffered from it since undergrad ---- a bad case of the stir-crazies, high-energy ADD-style jumpiness, and I just need to go. Usually, a week at my parents' in Ultimate Suburbia cures me of the travel-willies and makes me happy to be back here working and writing ---- as being bored out of one's mind while simultaneously being treated like a twelve-year-old tends to do. But this time I feel inspired; what if I actually went somewhere, besides my usual pilgrimage? Dissertation Buddy is going to Europe to give a conference paper and see her Long-Distance Love, which leaves me slightly envious (I am not touring Europe nor do I have a LDL, nor even an NDL. Sigh.) ---- and not only do I have to amuse myself while she's gone, but I've also been thinking about her travel philosophy vs. mine.

She will just travel places on her own, whereas I, for some reason, see travel ---- like eating out or going to the movies or special events ---- as something that must be justified by family or a significant other. But that means I sit around in my house being boring whenever I have no family or SO around. I should get out more and just do stuff; screw this waiting around for a special occasion or special person! (Note to self: hey idiot, if you left the house occasionally you might meet people and therefore find someone to travel with. Try it.)

So I think I want to go somewhere new and exciting, or at least new, before or after the parental visit. The question is: where?

I don't know, so I put it to my readers for a vote (no fair voting me off the island instead.). Can you think of someplace cool I could visit? For money and time reasons, let's say places within California, and not super expensive (sure I'd like a stay at the Westin Bonaventure a la Jameson, but that's not really in my price range, you know?). Any suggestions? Locations? Advice?

Oh, and I may be posting intermittently, or constantly, while I'm away. It depends on how bored I am and whether I can get to a computer without my mom going "What's that? What are you writing? How does that relate to your dissertation?" Sheesh thanks mom. Way to make me feel 12.

Awww, yeah, she's got a lotta junk in her trunk!

It's true. See?

I am finally done with my grading! Now I will take take some time to return my home, car, and various other work spaces to some semblance of organization. One of the problems of picking up TAships wherever you can is that you often don't get an office, and you definitely don't get to keep it after the term is over, so my trunk has been my de facto office and storage space for the past year or so. We only have to keep unclaimed papers for a year, so I celebrated being done (and brain fried) by shredding or packing away all that junk in my trunk:


The shreddings filled a whole container, and I'm not done yet. I burnt out my cheap shredder first. By the time it's no longer overheated, I don't feel like shredding anymore. Oh well.


Now I've got to reorganize my library carrel-cubicle-thingy, oh, and clean my apt., and tackle all those dishes of crap in my sink, and ... ugh. Then I may go travel about a bit, or visit the family again, before settling down to my long winter's nap. gruelingly productive summer writing schedule.

It feels weird to read other academic blogs and notice that they've been in summer for a long while already. I'm teaching in the late summer session --- I checked schedules and saw that my summer teaching session starts later than some of your fall academic years. Freaky.

Congratulations! Have Some Whine!

First of all, congratulations to all our new Ph.Ds! Hooray for everyone who graduated today, especially you, and you, and you, and you, who all don't read my blog! ---- You'll feel the well-wishes and good karma wafting your way anyway. You all rock, as do all you graduates, and I hope you may have wonderful things come your way in the coming year. You are all invited to my graduation party next year (keep in mind that those might be Biblical years, which I believe are measured in millennia). And may everyone have funny hats in their future! (really, regardless of whether you are in a grad program or not, funny hats are a good thing.)


* * * *
And now, some self-indulgent complainery, if I may:

What idiot decided to put about 4 end-of-the-year parties _and_ the class norming session all on the same day? And then follow it with two days of graduation ceremony mayhem? And make me designated driver for all of them? Seriously, I like people but I am so done with being social right now. And I could not skip any of those parties as they are vital sources of gossip, which is as necessary to me as a fourth food group. The norming session did involve a dinner (tho' I could complain about all the crap I've eaten this past week ---- ugh and I've been throwing money around like water, what with grading in coffeeshops and getting little stuff for parties and graduates), but it was not supposed to involve actual hours and hours of norming! And we were supposed to bring already graded material to exchange ---- I'm looking at you, grad student, who I harbor suspicions of trying to get us to determine as many grades for you as possible. I was not faking the headache that finally got us out of there, I might add; I went to bed at ten and had to stay in bed most of the next day before that cleared up. Which means that I still have a cubic crapload of finals to grade and the course grades to determine. Augggghhh!

Yes, I would like to be done and get back to my work. I would like my clothes to fit again. I would like to spend more than an hour at home one day this next week and not have to worry about going out. I would like to not have to navigate directions to your place to pick you up at the same time as dodging aggressive traffic. And most importantly, I would like to be done and lecturing right now rather than taking another year to finish off these last couple chapters. One of the grads was from my cohort, but came in without a Master's. Sigh. Not to mention that the featured speaker got her undergrad degree in 2000, took a couple years off, and then just graduated with a degree in epidemiology-micro-psych- neuro-clinic-venti-something-or-other after starting here in '03. Double sigh.


Ah well. Someday I shall be king and payback will be mine! Heads will roll. And you better bet I will look snazzy while I'm doing it. Hats from the Silly Hat Tarot Deck here.