In my Children's Lit class today, I decided to break from the syllabus. You should have seen the horror on their faces. I asked if they were "married to the syllabus," and they responded with snide comments about romance, engagements, and the whole lot.
No, I didn't go forward with the assigned reading about a Puerto Rican girl struggling to keep her identity--and full Spanish name--in her English school on the mainland. I chose, instead, to read from Cofer's collection of short stories about hispanic youths entitled An Island Like You. In the story "Beauty Lessons," flat-chested Sandra searches for some healthy self-worth despite several problematic models of womanhood: her best friend that dates older, rich men; her aunt that cakes her face with makeup and wears heels to the grocery store; and the popular girl in school who dies her hair blonde to look more American.
As I informed them that I would read to them--something which I wish someone would do for me--their eyes lit up. They did not recline or put their heads on the walls behind their desks. Many of them mothers to young children, I saw this as being a welcome role reversal. Taking a cue from my former life as a drama nerd, I used my intonation adequately, shifted voices to cue dialogue in the text, and sat quietly under my "spotlight," created with the simple gesture of turning out their lights and leaving on mine.
Not only did the after discussion give me a teacher hard on, I about jumped with glee when my 300 lb. monster football player said, "Maybe Sandra is just struggling to examine her own strengths against a world of weakness. Her refusal to wait for Paco to ask her out was like taking on a male role. I like that."
These are the days I feel so happy to be in a classroom. It is as if my students taking an active role in their education and honing their critical thinking skills could very well fix the planet. No wrong can touch me today. Even the bitch that uses the room after me gave a pleasant "hello" upon my relinquishment of the dry erase board.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
NC-17 Mindthink and the Reason I'll NEVER Take Oral Contraceptives Again
Ever since I got off the pill, my mind is on X-rated overload. Of course, some days are worse than others, but I've found that taking away some of the estrogen really upped my dude-factor.
I was watching Secretary the other day, and though most of the sexual tension between James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal is veiled and merely alluded in the first half of the flick, damn their sexual innuendos got my hormones pumping. It reminds me of when I was in my early teen years and my family got the Internet, thus giving me access to porn for the first time in my life. As a young, Southern Baptist "leader," I thought oral sex meant talking dirty on the telephone. Watching live "Sin City Sex Cam" really taught me a thing or two about the ins and outs of lust.
So now that my libido is ageing steadily everyday, I find myself learning about the things that turn me on, and sharing them with my more than willing husband, who doesn't need to learn anything more about women's needs, if you get me. Jealous?
I was watching Secretary the other day, and though most of the sexual tension between James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal is veiled and merely alluded in the first half of the flick, damn their sexual innuendos got my hormones pumping. It reminds me of when I was in my early teen years and my family got the Internet, thus giving me access to porn for the first time in my life. As a young, Southern Baptist "leader," I thought oral sex meant talking dirty on the telephone. Watching live "Sin City Sex Cam" really taught me a thing or two about the ins and outs of lust.
So now that my libido is ageing steadily everyday, I find myself learning about the things that turn me on, and sharing them with my more than willing husband, who doesn't need to learn anything more about women's needs, if you get me. Jealous?
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Friday Fright Night
I'm getting really giddy about my Halloween party this Friday night. Not only do I love giving trick-or-treaters their candy, and we have an abundance of treat-seekers in this neighborhood, the adults only costume party is slowly becoming an annual tradition at our humble abode. I'm going to dim down the antique chandeliers, light up the fireplace, turn up the mood music--The Smiths, Of Montreal, and The Cure work perfectly--and lay out a spread of tasty drinking food while all of my beautiful and intelligent costume-clad friends mingle together in the home I love. What could be sweeter?
The Bunny and I went today to complete the costume, which he changed a million times, but now he has settled on something sexy. I've been sworn to secrecy. Let's just say that if I weren't already married to him, I'd do him.
I can't say I find much frightening about Halloween anymore. The most frightening thing at this moment is how big my ass has gotten as the mound of candy in my premature treat bowl slowly wanes. This, still, is not even as frightening as the fact that I emailed my dissertation prospectus to my professors over a week ago, and not one of them has yet to respond. Christ. I'll never get out of grad school.
Come Friday, as the sun fades and echos of cute little bunnies and spidermen come dancing up my walk, I'll be slipping into my tarted-up Halloween costume and hitting the cheap wine. Pictures to follow..
The Bunny and I went today to complete the costume, which he changed a million times, but now he has settled on something sexy. I've been sworn to secrecy. Let's just say that if I weren't already married to him, I'd do him.
I can't say I find much frightening about Halloween anymore. The most frightening thing at this moment is how big my ass has gotten as the mound of candy in my premature treat bowl slowly wanes. This, still, is not even as frightening as the fact that I emailed my dissertation prospectus to my professors over a week ago, and not one of them has yet to respond. Christ. I'll never get out of grad school.
Come Friday, as the sun fades and echos of cute little bunnies and spidermen come dancing up my walk, I'll be slipping into my tarted-up Halloween costume and hitting the cheap wine. Pictures to follow..
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Pumpkin Carving
In preparation for Friday's Halloween Party, the usual folks gathered at our home for some wholesome pumpkin carving. Well, never you mind that two separate renderings of a penis made their way onto the face of said gourd--though the artistic interpretations took completely different routes given the cartoon nature of Winnie's heart-shaped ejaculations--but the end goal, anyways, is a mass of pumpkins, one not overtaking the other.
The autumn season runs over my bones, and I'm already starting to anticipate Thanksgiving Dinner, which is, for this foodie, quite possibly the merriest day of the year. In Lowe's yesterday, I danced around to the tunes of the maniacal animated Santas with drums and penguins with sunglasses with an indulgent and preemptive push for the holiday season. I'm counting down until the end of this semester, so that I might forsake the world of academia for a little one-on-one with my beloved gas oven. The holidays give me a reason to bake. I need not feel guilty for splurging on Madagascar vanilla extract or scouring the bins at TJ Maxx for some forgotten good quality cardamon. It is sanctioned by the crowning of November through the New Year.
Last night ended with a little cozying up to the fire by the light of the flame and the purple lights that I hung for the impending party. We tested out the ambiance, and as it is more than sufficient, I say bring on the costume party, and with it, the cap off to my holiday season.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Aching in My Lady Parts
As a happily married late-20s woman, who already has domestic proclivities, you can believe I'm thinking about babies every other week. One moment I'm damn glad I can go to the Tavern in the middle of the work week with my dorky teacher friends--SB and Louis--for wine and paper grading, but the next moment, I'm thinking about breast feeding, and how it must be the singular most beautiful act.
While I was feverishly typing away at my dissertation prospectus this Sunday, I sat upstairs in Dusty's room behind his desk at the window. It gave me the needed change of scenery, and I was privy to the entire first half of my street through the bubbled glass of our antique window panes. I'd seen three little boys biking up and down the street, and I'd half tuned them out when this blood-curdling scream erupted after a loud "THUMP." Oh Jesus.. All I thought was that a child had been hit by a car. I scrambled down the staircase and out my front door to the sidewalk. Lying in front of Mr. Thomas' hedges that frame the big white house beside mine was a tiny little boy with the cutest corn rows and a stud in his ear. Seriously, he was so small, but his style was already so fresh. Ha.. Anyways, the boy was okay, but his friends, slightly bigger and wise, I suppose, said, "He need to man up." I couldn't help myself. The mommy instinct I take with my dogs/students/friends kicked in. I gathered him in my arms, stood him up, brushed him off, and did a pretend exercise meant to "shake the pain away."
All of that rapper style on a tiny little body made for one adorable little baby child. Still, with no helmet and across busy Highland Avenue away from his home, I had to wonder about his safety just getting back to his house.
Maybe it was the "yes, Mams" and "Oooh! Is that your dog in the doorway? He's a wolf!" that made me think I certainly hope to brush my own baby off one day when he or she has a little bike mishap. I sent them biking home with ice water in solo cups and the admonishment against tossing trash in the street or crossing the road without looking.
The next day, the two little 5-year-old neighbor kids were out playing together--two different boys. I see them quite frequently, and Monday, they were also near Mr. Thomas' hedges--which are, evidently, the site of all childhood joys and sorrows on my avenue--but this time they were using them as a barrier behind which they could "protect the neighborhood" with their red and green "pistols." I brought them rice krispies treats. Hell, what's a girl to do when she's on the fast track to professionalism, but her ovaries won't stop chatting it up deep inside?
While I was feverishly typing away at my dissertation prospectus this Sunday, I sat upstairs in Dusty's room behind his desk at the window. It gave me the needed change of scenery, and I was privy to the entire first half of my street through the bubbled glass of our antique window panes. I'd seen three little boys biking up and down the street, and I'd half tuned them out when this blood-curdling scream erupted after a loud "THUMP." Oh Jesus.. All I thought was that a child had been hit by a car. I scrambled down the staircase and out my front door to the sidewalk. Lying in front of Mr. Thomas' hedges that frame the big white house beside mine was a tiny little boy with the cutest corn rows and a stud in his ear. Seriously, he was so small, but his style was already so fresh. Ha.. Anyways, the boy was okay, but his friends, slightly bigger and wise, I suppose, said, "He need to man up." I couldn't help myself. The mommy instinct I take with my dogs/students/friends kicked in. I gathered him in my arms, stood him up, brushed him off, and did a pretend exercise meant to "shake the pain away."
All of that rapper style on a tiny little body made for one adorable little baby child. Still, with no helmet and across busy Highland Avenue away from his home, I had to wonder about his safety just getting back to his house.
Maybe it was the "yes, Mams" and "Oooh! Is that your dog in the doorway? He's a wolf!" that made me think I certainly hope to brush my own baby off one day when he or she has a little bike mishap. I sent them biking home with ice water in solo cups and the admonishment against tossing trash in the street or crossing the road without looking.
The next day, the two little 5-year-old neighbor kids were out playing together--two different boys. I see them quite frequently, and Monday, they were also near Mr. Thomas' hedges--which are, evidently, the site of all childhood joys and sorrows on my avenue--but this time they were using them as a barrier behind which they could "protect the neighborhood" with their red and green "pistols." I brought them rice krispies treats. Hell, what's a girl to do when she's on the fast track to professionalism, but her ovaries won't stop chatting it up deep inside?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Weekend in Tunica
I'll admit that I underestimated the glitz of Tunica. Not only was the high-rise hotel at which we stayed, Gold Strike, the nicest place I'd ever spent the night, all of the food was tasty, the liquor was top shelf and free, and though the dance floor at the top of the building could have been bigger, the go-go dancers were supple and not, as far as I could see, coked up to do their jobs, which is really all I expect out of any weekend.
The dynamic was set up to be awkward from the moment the night began. Jen, Rachel, Winnie, and I, luckily, shared a room, while everyone else schlepped it in some much older, and smaller, hotel room down the road. It was perfect being with these girls, and I certainly would have went home earlier given the alternative. Due to Rachel's husband's big spending practices in Tunica, every door to every VIP lounge was opened to us all night. Damn, is this what it's like to be rich? One place in the casino next to ours was a lovely "club" with deep, comfy chairs, fireplaces, and plasma screen TVs--mostly on Fox News, how appropriate!--and endless "light" buffets of cheeses, crackers, fruit, and sweets. I'm sure we were the only people under 35 in the whole joint, but it was fun as hell to get drunk for free, eat for free, and sit in chairs that should have been reserved for people who lost more than $5 in the nickel slots, as did I.
All of the stereotypes were true: There were plenty of rich, old white men just looking to pay our meal tickets. I tried to not make any eye contact all night long, and successfully, for the first time in a long string of nights out on the town, managed to keep my ass from being slapped, etc. Well, it got slapped a bit, but only by the people who accompanied me on this trip. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of other golddiggers there--for where else do golddiggers go but the Gold Strike?--so I would have been competing with a whole strain of young, eager females, most younger than me now, who were greedily looking to slide into the pockets of a random Tunica sugardaddy.
When the other girls finally did show up at our suite for the lingerie shower for Jessica, they were catty, bitch-faced, and slutted up in the style of all dried up ol' divorcees/bitter wives with husbands in Iraq and/or at the office too late every night/three+ children. You get the picture. My greatest triumph was the knowledge that the bitchiest girl of all, who drifted past me as if I were invisible when I opened the door for her to enter our room, now has the chunkiest damn kneecaps. She leaned prune-faced against the bar, bags under her eyes, and glowered at me and the crowd. I suppose we are all, eternally, in this state of high school politics, at least that's what inevitably happens when you fill a room full of girls all from the same small, white homogeneous town.
Between two sexually frustrated ageing party girls either making out or snorting crushed xanax in the bathroom, and the pouting absence of one bridesmaid, who claimed she couldn't come around because we "were mean to her," one would assume the night was a bust. That assumption would be false. Jess had a great time--as she expressed in drunken tears on several occasions--and that is really all that matters. It was her night, and she lived it up. Anytime someone wants to whirl me away to a flashing, blinging, world of free liquor, all night dance parties, and cash passing and burning like joints, okay, I'll go. Just give me a few more months to recover from this spin on the dance floor.
Rachel posing with one of the Diamond Club "party animals" where we sipped free booze and ate copious amounts of buffet cheese.
Winnie talks to everyone. This was one of her "friends" that we met in some backroom for big spenders. He claimed to be wearing his own label. Okay, I just laughed out loud when I typed that.. but, yeah, he said it.
Umm, maybe the best picture ever. I'll never tell who designer man has slung over his thigh.
If the party were split down the middle between asshats and awesomeness, we'd be Team Awesomeness, obviously. Team Asshats never made it into my camera.
The view from our suite.
Winnie enjoying the lounge area of our room. I watched a lot of good Saturday morning Tween Tv on that couch the next day.
Me with a good dinner wine buzz
Jen and Rachel in the Geriatric Club looking hot and way under the average age of the party animals around us.
Me, Winnie, and Larry King, courtesy of the only non-Fox news TV in the whole joint.
The dynamic was set up to be awkward from the moment the night began. Jen, Rachel, Winnie, and I, luckily, shared a room, while everyone else schlepped it in some much older, and smaller, hotel room down the road. It was perfect being with these girls, and I certainly would have went home earlier given the alternative. Due to Rachel's husband's big spending practices in Tunica, every door to every VIP lounge was opened to us all night. Damn, is this what it's like to be rich? One place in the casino next to ours was a lovely "club" with deep, comfy chairs, fireplaces, and plasma screen TVs--mostly on Fox News, how appropriate!--and endless "light" buffets of cheeses, crackers, fruit, and sweets. I'm sure we were the only people under 35 in the whole joint, but it was fun as hell to get drunk for free, eat for free, and sit in chairs that should have been reserved for people who lost more than $5 in the nickel slots, as did I.
All of the stereotypes were true: There were plenty of rich, old white men just looking to pay our meal tickets. I tried to not make any eye contact all night long, and successfully, for the first time in a long string of nights out on the town, managed to keep my ass from being slapped, etc. Well, it got slapped a bit, but only by the people who accompanied me on this trip. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of other golddiggers there--for where else do golddiggers go but the Gold Strike?--so I would have been competing with a whole strain of young, eager females, most younger than me now, who were greedily looking to slide into the pockets of a random Tunica sugardaddy.
When the other girls finally did show up at our suite for the lingerie shower for Jessica, they were catty, bitch-faced, and slutted up in the style of all dried up ol' divorcees/bitter wives with husbands in Iraq and/or at the office too late every night/three+ children. You get the picture. My greatest triumph was the knowledge that the bitchiest girl of all, who drifted past me as if I were invisible when I opened the door for her to enter our room, now has the chunkiest damn kneecaps. She leaned prune-faced against the bar, bags under her eyes, and glowered at me and the crowd. I suppose we are all, eternally, in this state of high school politics, at least that's what inevitably happens when you fill a room full of girls all from the same small, white homogeneous town.
Between two sexually frustrated ageing party girls either making out or snorting crushed xanax in the bathroom, and the pouting absence of one bridesmaid, who claimed she couldn't come around because we "were mean to her," one would assume the night was a bust. That assumption would be false. Jess had a great time--as she expressed in drunken tears on several occasions--and that is really all that matters. It was her night, and she lived it up. Anytime someone wants to whirl me away to a flashing, blinging, world of free liquor, all night dance parties, and cash passing and burning like joints, okay, I'll go. Just give me a few more months to recover from this spin on the dance floor.
Rachel posing with one of the Diamond Club "party animals" where we sipped free booze and ate copious amounts of buffet cheese.
Winnie talks to everyone. This was one of her "friends" that we met in some backroom for big spenders. He claimed to be wearing his own label. Okay, I just laughed out loud when I typed that.. but, yeah, he said it.
Umm, maybe the best picture ever. I'll never tell who designer man has slung over his thigh. 
If the party were split down the middle between asshats and awesomeness, we'd be Team Awesomeness, obviously. Team Asshats never made it into my camera.
The view from our suite.
Winnie enjoying the lounge area of our room. I watched a lot of good Saturday morning Tween Tv on that couch the next day.
Me with a good dinner wine buzz
Jen and Rachel in the Geriatric Club looking hot and way under the average age of the party animals around us.
Me, Winnie, and Larry King, courtesy of the only non-Fox news TV in the whole joint.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Bedtime Philosophy
The Dustbunny's mom has a peculiar habit of keeping food way past its expiration date. I'm not talking about a quart of milk that lingers in the fridge a week after its best buy date. No, it's much more dramatic than that..
Once we had salad over at his mom's house. She provided us with a bottle of ranch dressing that expired in 2002. This was last summer.
So it was no surprise yesterday when the Bunny, upon digging in his mother's pantry for some lunch while stopping by the home office to do paperwork, found a can of mixed bean salad that he clearly remembered from a decade ago.
When the Bunny was 18, he went on tour with his band around the states. As a staunch vegan, his mother was concerned that he might not be able to find food--which is a hilarious concept since the basis of a vegan diet is comprised by our culture's most basic, whole foods--and she bought him a sack of groceries to take on the trip. One of these food items, that didn't make it in the lunch pack, was this can of mixed beans that he encountered yesterday.
In bed last night, he relayed this story to me, and we both had a good chuckle since this habit of Dustbunny's mom is something about which we joke quite often. His revelatory words to me:
"Jesus. Those beans were bought and canned before children who are fully talking and engaging in school now were born."
(A minute passes.)
"Good God! I mean, those beans were totally existing during the Clinton administration."
(Another minute passes, and I'm drifting off to sleep.)
"Wow..So, like, these are pre-9/11 beans."
(Another few minutes, and I'm getting a bit pissed.)
"Man, just think about it. Those beans were totally sitting in my mom's pantry back when you were still a virgin."
Once we had salad over at his mom's house. She provided us with a bottle of ranch dressing that expired in 2002. This was last summer.
So it was no surprise yesterday when the Bunny, upon digging in his mother's pantry for some lunch while stopping by the home office to do paperwork, found a can of mixed bean salad that he clearly remembered from a decade ago.
When the Bunny was 18, he went on tour with his band around the states. As a staunch vegan, his mother was concerned that he might not be able to find food--which is a hilarious concept since the basis of a vegan diet is comprised by our culture's most basic, whole foods--and she bought him a sack of groceries to take on the trip. One of these food items, that didn't make it in the lunch pack, was this can of mixed beans that he encountered yesterday.
In bed last night, he relayed this story to me, and we both had a good chuckle since this habit of Dustbunny's mom is something about which we joke quite often. His revelatory words to me:
"Jesus. Those beans were bought and canned before children who are fully talking and engaging in school now were born."
(A minute passes.)
"Good God! I mean, those beans were totally existing during the Clinton administration."
(Another minute passes, and I'm drifting off to sleep.)
"Wow..So, like, these are pre-9/11 beans."
(Another few minutes, and I'm getting a bit pissed.)
"Man, just think about it. Those beans were totally sitting in my mom's pantry back when you were still a virgin."
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Bette and the Slots/Sluts
Tomorrow night I am doing two things I never thought I'd do: 1. Go to Tunica 2. Hang out with a bunch of bitches from high school.
Tomorrow night is my friend Jessica's overnight bachelorette party at a casino, and though my dear pals Rachel, Jennifer, and Winnie will be there, I'm not too keen on the rest of the guest list. Then again, I suppose they might feel the same way about me. In high school I was pretty much the same as I am now. I always had an old soul, a penchant for indie music, exotic food, and books. I was awkward but artistic, and I was much happier hunched up in the corner of my bedroom with a journal and a gel pen than going to a school-sponsored sporting event. Now that I am officially okay with the accomplishments of my 26-year-old self, I shouldn't be concerned with the feelings of the older "mean" girls who I detested a decade ago. Still, this is exactly the dynamic that has been set before me.
Though most everyone in the group is married/has been married, some of them are divorcees on the prowl for a new mate. They are living out the girlhood they missed in their early twenties, and, frankly, it's pretty fucking sad. No one with 2+ kids should act that trampy, single or not. God, do I sound like a jackass? I totally don't mean that life ends after motherhood, but I certainly see pitiful clawing at one's last years of being 20-something as pathetic. I can already see the 45+ white male crowd licking their chops in anticipation: "Ladies, come to Papa.."
In some ways, I'm going just to see how uncomfortable I can make everyone else. Not to mention, I've not had enough time lately with the above-mentioned friends, so this is a good opportunity for catching up. I've packed my hottest outfits--sexy but never slutty--and I'm going to push my shoulders back and hit the penny slots with a stiff something on the rocks. Some pics on the sly will be your prize when Mommy returns.
Tomorrow night is my friend Jessica's overnight bachelorette party at a casino, and though my dear pals Rachel, Jennifer, and Winnie will be there, I'm not too keen on the rest of the guest list. Then again, I suppose they might feel the same way about me. In high school I was pretty much the same as I am now. I always had an old soul, a penchant for indie music, exotic food, and books. I was awkward but artistic, and I was much happier hunched up in the corner of my bedroom with a journal and a gel pen than going to a school-sponsored sporting event. Now that I am officially okay with the accomplishments of my 26-year-old self, I shouldn't be concerned with the feelings of the older "mean" girls who I detested a decade ago. Still, this is exactly the dynamic that has been set before me.
Though most everyone in the group is married/has been married, some of them are divorcees on the prowl for a new mate. They are living out the girlhood they missed in their early twenties, and, frankly, it's pretty fucking sad. No one with 2+ kids should act that trampy, single or not. God, do I sound like a jackass? I totally don't mean that life ends after motherhood, but I certainly see pitiful clawing at one's last years of being 20-something as pathetic. I can already see the 45+ white male crowd licking their chops in anticipation: "Ladies, come to Papa.."
In some ways, I'm going just to see how uncomfortable I can make everyone else. Not to mention, I've not had enough time lately with the above-mentioned friends, so this is a good opportunity for catching up. I've packed my hottest outfits--sexy but never slutty--and I'm going to push my shoulders back and hit the penny slots with a stiff something on the rocks. Some pics on the sly will be your prize when Mommy returns.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Back from that Ol' Mountain Home
The Bunny and I are back from that sweet mountain air and the hills of the liquid corn folk that comprise the eastern half of my Southern existence. We did everything that one might expect of a weekend trip to Gatlinburg: walked miles up and down the Parkway stretch, passing grilled onions mingling with the taboo scent of polish sausage--yes, it smells good, but damn I love Wilbur too much to eat him--and we finally took the trip up the side of the mountain in a toy carriage disguised as a "safe" chair lift. In the tradition of our parents, we purchased the overpriced memento of the moment when we were suspended in the air, legs dangling, and eyes not quite knowing where to focus for the flash. I hope to perserve it juxtaposed against those in our family who have gone before us on the swinging, yellow deathtrap. We stopped off of Cades Cove on several instances, but the best time was when we were somewhat, um, incapacitated. It made me want to run amock at the endless foothills stretching up into yellow, red, burnished orange, and waning green. In fantasy talks of dropping off the grid into a life lived in the peaks, the Bunny and I reconnected and loved on one another for extended moments outside the sparkling lights of the Fanny Farkle's and Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. The food was horrible and the booze was overpriced. The air was a bit too hot--I, sadly, forsook my scarves and mittens for a tiny tank and the ocassional hoodie--but the spirit of kitsch kept us laughing at every turn. Over donuts in the Village, just down the corner from the tenth or eleventh "Old Timey Photo" shop, we had a hypothetical conversation about purchasing all of our loved ones' gifts right off the Gatlinburg streets: rebel flag tees, customized carved wooden placks, fake kitties with real fur, dangling fish/bear/livestock trinkets, and boxes of fudge danced like sugarplums in our heads. The rest can be found in photos:
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
AIG=SOBs
Anyone else hear about the amazing way AIG decided to use some of their bailout money? ABC News reported this morning that the company spent approximately $400,000+ to send their execs on luxurious spa vacations around the world. While people in my parents' age/socioeconomic bracket are worried that all of their saving for retirement might be a mirage by the time they need it, the rich are getting their backs rubbed and drinking the bubbly. Read more here.
Road Weary
The Bunny and I rode along with SB to Memphis yesterday. While SB met with her comps professor, the husband and I had some drinks at Tracks in a cozy corner of what used to be my favorite Memphis haunt. It's a little bittersweet because all of the people and things that I used to adore about Memphis are kind of moving slowly out of focus. I don't know anyone in this department anymore, and the fact that I no longer take classes and have my own private office doesn't help my chances of making
new friends. Then again, I kind of like it this way.
After Tracks, we all headed to Bombay House to de-virginize SB in the ways of Indian cuisine, which happens to be mine and the Bunny's favorite food of all time. Over copper bowls piled with Sag Paneer, Raita, Bhengan Bhartha, and Nov Rutan Korma, we devoured our feast and ended up with a bit of a food hangover:
(Thanks to SB for, lately, documenting all of the key moments in our lives.)
After coming to Memphis four days last week, and by the end of this week, I will have logged eight jaunts down I-40. To say the least, I'm pretty done with driving. A Fed-Ex trucker hauling two trailers jackknifed over a ravine and vaulted over a bridge to his death early Monday morning. This collision kept the interstate shut down or closed in one lane for about 12 hours. I was able to cut off onto a exit not far outside of Jackson to take the lovely back roads of Hwy. 70 home. As if I were on hidden camera, my momentum was cut short when I came upon a bike team hauling ass across the state of Tennessee to bring awareness to adoption. (I can't say I know why these two are related.) Still, all of my "fuck fuck fucking" didn't make them pedal any faster, and I proceeded to drive the multiple-mile stretch at a speed of 10 MPH.
I'll be back on I-40 this Saturday when the Bunny and I make that trip to the kitschy part of our Tennessee heritage: Gatlinburg and the Smokies. Amanda's suggestion that I should eat a Fanny Farkle's for her, if I ate corn dogs, that is, is well taken. I clearly remember my father sitting on the edge of a curb in downtown Gatlinburg devouring a mustard-slathered Fanny Farkle's dog and washing it down from the lip of a plastic Fanny Farkle's cup, which still sits in my parents' cupboard today.
I'll think of you all at the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, and in the tradition of both of our parents' honeymoons, the Bunny and I will be taking a flannel-shirt and blue jeans clad photo on the chair lift. We'll be pulling in around noon Saturday to our motor-inn-esque motel downtown, and, if we are lucky, we might just get matching airbrushed shirts that says "I'm His/Her's."
new friends. Then again, I kind of like it this way.
After Tracks, we all headed to Bombay House to de-virginize SB in the ways of Indian cuisine, which happens to be mine and the Bunny's favorite food of all time. Over copper bowls piled with Sag Paneer, Raita, Bhengan Bhartha, and Nov Rutan Korma, we devoured our feast and ended up with a bit of a food hangover:
(Thanks to SB for, lately, documenting all of the key moments in our lives.)
After coming to Memphis four days last week, and by the end of this week, I will have logged eight jaunts down I-40. To say the least, I'm pretty done with driving. A Fed-Ex trucker hauling two trailers jackknifed over a ravine and vaulted over a bridge to his death early Monday morning. This collision kept the interstate shut down or closed in one lane for about 12 hours. I was able to cut off onto a exit not far outside of Jackson to take the lovely back roads of Hwy. 70 home. As if I were on hidden camera, my momentum was cut short when I came upon a bike team hauling ass across the state of Tennessee to bring awareness to adoption. (I can't say I know why these two are related.) Still, all of my "fuck fuck fucking" didn't make them pedal any faster, and I proceeded to drive the multiple-mile stretch at a speed of 10 MPH.
I'll be back on I-40 this Saturday when the Bunny and I make that trip to the kitschy part of our Tennessee heritage: Gatlinburg and the Smokies. Amanda's suggestion that I should eat a Fanny Farkle's for her, if I ate corn dogs, that is, is well taken. I clearly remember my father sitting on the edge of a curb in downtown Gatlinburg devouring a mustard-slathered Fanny Farkle's dog and washing it down from the lip of a plastic Fanny Farkle's cup, which still sits in my parents' cupboard today.
I'll think of you all at the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum, and in the tradition of both of our parents' honeymoons, the Bunny and I will be taking a flannel-shirt and blue jeans clad photo on the chair lift. We'll be pulling in around noon Saturday to our motor-inn-esque motel downtown, and, if we are lucky, we might just get matching airbrushed shirts that says "I'm His/Her's."
Monday, October 6, 2008
One out of Every Tom, Dick, and Harry
Before our night out Saturday, I checked the headlines on my google homepage. From CNN.com came an article about why, other than for sex, men cheat. The most startling tidbit from the article was the fact that 1 in every 2.7 men will cheat, emotionally or physically, on their wives. Some problems arise when one tries to peg down the meaning of "cheating" or what constitutes the offense, but, nonetheless, I was speechless.
The thing is, I don't see the proclivity to cheat as ultimately a male trait. I imagine that the numbers for women who cheat would be equally surprising. Still, when I looked around the plank table flanked by all of my friends at the Tavern Saturday, I started to wonder which of us will, or has already, fall into this category. Which ones will survive it and which ones won't be able to move past it?
The article ended with tips on how to "affair-proof your marriage" and with "signs he is or soon might be cheating." Ways to affair-proof is to make your partner feel loved, appreciated, and sexually-fulfilled. This statement more than deserves a very early-2000s-esque "Thank you captain obvious." Signs he might be cheating include spending an increasing amount of time away from home, not answering his cell phone, and a declining sex life. Jesus. That covers about 70% of my married friends as we all struggle to create a domestic existence amidst pursuing careers/education/child-bearing, etc. Of course talk time, home time, and sex time will fall by the wayside, but I'm not sure it is the standard by which I measure my husband's fidelity. No, I'd say unusual bumps on my vagina would be the tell-tell.
The thing is, I don't see the proclivity to cheat as ultimately a male trait. I imagine that the numbers for women who cheat would be equally surprising. Still, when I looked around the plank table flanked by all of my friends at the Tavern Saturday, I started to wonder which of us will, or has already, fall into this category. Which ones will survive it and which ones won't be able to move past it?
The article ended with tips on how to "affair-proof your marriage" and with "signs he is or soon might be cheating." Ways to affair-proof is to make your partner feel loved, appreciated, and sexually-fulfilled. This statement more than deserves a very early-2000s-esque "Thank you captain obvious." Signs he might be cheating include spending an increasing amount of time away from home, not answering his cell phone, and a declining sex life. Jesus. That covers about 70% of my married friends as we all struggle to create a domestic existence amidst pursuing careers/education/child-bearing, etc. Of course talk time, home time, and sex time will fall by the wayside, but I'm not sure it is the standard by which I measure my husband's fidelity. No, I'd say unusual bumps on my vagina would be the tell-tell.
My Weekend at the Chalkboard
I'm always struggling to strike a fine balance between my predominately white upper-middle class Shelby Co. schools students and my inner-city, predominately black and lower class Memphis city schools students. If I were to simply say, "To hell with them if they can't keep up," so many of the students from the city schools, whose home lives and social circles already pit them against the odds for college, would fall back into the cracks of this PTSD-inducing land. (Just ask Elizabeth Vargas on 20/20.)
This moment of truth was tested last week as the deadline, late deadline, and seriously late deadline for my students' annotated bibliographies passed. If they did not turn in an annotated bibliography by the final deadline, they could not turn in a research paper, and, thus, would likely fail the course. I had two stragglers in my literary heritage class who did not get their work in in time. One guy, a young black male with the softest voice that does not match his urban-hard exterior, and a young, black female with the most beautiful smile and saddest eyes ever, have already taken a piece of my heart. I gave them my cell phone number for the weekend, emailed them a detailed checklist for how to access literary journals from the library's databases, and told them midnight on Sunday was their deadline. No excuses, no blame--they make it if they choose to make it.
The female student texted me all weekend. It became almost comic when, around midnight Saturday, I was at the Tavern and received an extended message about her inability to cite literary journals that were accessed online. Bleary eyed and inebriated, I'm glad I managed a "check your email" text and nothing more. She called me four times, the last at 9:30 last night, and, ultimately, it looks like she'll make it yet.
The male student, however, has not texted, called, emailed, or sent his work. If he shows up for class today, I'm going to be a bit sad knowing that he won't make it, in the end, and that I, hopefully, did everything I could, but sometimes it still isn't enough to beat the odds in this infested inner-city.
Friday morning I had a conference with a tiny female ROTC student. She wants to write her paper on Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour." The tale depicts Mrs. Mallard, who we never know by any other name, as she has just learned that her husband was killed in a train accident. She retreats to her room to "mourn," or so everyone presumes, but instead leans out the window, breathing in her first moments of real freedom, as she was a young wife to an older husband, and meditates on the fact that her life seems to just be beginning. As the end of this hour of reflection approaches, she leaves the room, begins to descend the staircase, and, at that very moment, her husband walks in unscathed. There was a miscommunication and he didn't die. Ambiguously, as the narrator attempts to show, Mrs. Mallard drops dead of the "joy that kills."
The young student kept saying that she did not believe that the woman died from disappointment at having her freedom revoked, as the text suggests, but instead posited a story of true tragedy based on a marriage that "couldn't have possibly been bad anyways. I mean, how bad can it be? Why would anyone ever long for freedom? It's just like those women in other countries who put themselves under the rule of overbearing men. They do it to themselves. My drill Sergeant said that when the U.S. tries to do good things in Iraq, those people stop us because they want to keep living in the dark."
I asked her if she thought women in the Congo asked to be raped or if women across the middle east wanted to have their genitals mutilated?
The conversation ended in a pregnant silence. How hard I try to be the kind of teacher to them in the way that my mother struck that fine balance between setting me free but letting me know that all her hopes in this world depended on my success and desire to drink it all up into my beating body.
This moment of truth was tested last week as the deadline, late deadline, and seriously late deadline for my students' annotated bibliographies passed. If they did not turn in an annotated bibliography by the final deadline, they could not turn in a research paper, and, thus, would likely fail the course. I had two stragglers in my literary heritage class who did not get their work in in time. One guy, a young black male with the softest voice that does not match his urban-hard exterior, and a young, black female with the most beautiful smile and saddest eyes ever, have already taken a piece of my heart. I gave them my cell phone number for the weekend, emailed them a detailed checklist for how to access literary journals from the library's databases, and told them midnight on Sunday was their deadline. No excuses, no blame--they make it if they choose to make it.
The female student texted me all weekend. It became almost comic when, around midnight Saturday, I was at the Tavern and received an extended message about her inability to cite literary journals that were accessed online. Bleary eyed and inebriated, I'm glad I managed a "check your email" text and nothing more. She called me four times, the last at 9:30 last night, and, ultimately, it looks like she'll make it yet.
The male student, however, has not texted, called, emailed, or sent his work. If he shows up for class today, I'm going to be a bit sad knowing that he won't make it, in the end, and that I, hopefully, did everything I could, but sometimes it still isn't enough to beat the odds in this infested inner-city.
Friday morning I had a conference with a tiny female ROTC student. She wants to write her paper on Chopin's short story "The Story of an Hour." The tale depicts Mrs. Mallard, who we never know by any other name, as she has just learned that her husband was killed in a train accident. She retreats to her room to "mourn," or so everyone presumes, but instead leans out the window, breathing in her first moments of real freedom, as she was a young wife to an older husband, and meditates on the fact that her life seems to just be beginning. As the end of this hour of reflection approaches, she leaves the room, begins to descend the staircase, and, at that very moment, her husband walks in unscathed. There was a miscommunication and he didn't die. Ambiguously, as the narrator attempts to show, Mrs. Mallard drops dead of the "joy that kills."
The young student kept saying that she did not believe that the woman died from disappointment at having her freedom revoked, as the text suggests, but instead posited a story of true tragedy based on a marriage that "couldn't have possibly been bad anyways. I mean, how bad can it be? Why would anyone ever long for freedom? It's just like those women in other countries who put themselves under the rule of overbearing men. They do it to themselves. My drill Sergeant said that when the U.S. tries to do good things in Iraq, those people stop us because they want to keep living in the dark."
I asked her if she thought women in the Congo asked to be raped or if women across the middle east wanted to have their genitals mutilated?
The conversation ended in a pregnant silence. How hard I try to be the kind of teacher to them in the way that my mother struck that fine balance between setting me free but letting me know that all her hopes in this world depended on my success and desire to drink it all up into my beating body.
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