you can lead a horse to water ...

... but you can't make him get blood transfusions if he's really against it.

bad, bad, awful analogy. i know. what to say when confronted with the absurd?

according to this CNN story, a 14-year-old jehovah's witness boy in seattle with leukemia refused to get the blood transfusions necessary to save his life, and passed away last night. his doctors said if he had gotten the transfusions he would have had a 70% likelihood of survival.

i will rant another day. i will yell and go off on tangents and be angry at religion and make more insipid analogies. i will.

but today i'll just be sad.

so it goes.

oh DEAR.

when i asked my second class today if they had any good thanksgiving stories, one of my favorite students announced she got engaged. she had a gorgeous ring and was BEAMING. at first i thought, "holy christ, a freshman, ENGAGED? what has the world come to??" but of course i didn't say this and actually got a little misty -- turns out she's a senior and her fiancé is a med student at MUSC. and she said she'll be getting a job when she graduates in may to support them while he's in school. and OH YEAH: under "religious views" at her facebook page she wrote "I love jesus!!" (this was serious devotion, not sarcasm, btw).

maybe if i loved jesus more i would be married with a few kids by now. ah, hindsight ...

instead, it's 3:45 p.m. on a wednesday and i came home from teaching and replaced ill-fitting jeans with comfortable yoga pants (not unlike pajamas ...). i'm smoking, and contemplating drinking the gross lime gin in the freezer straight from the bottle. i've never done this, mind you, just considered it in moments such as these. [well, i just took a big swig. it's still as repulsive as it was with tonic two years ago when it went in the freezer. i don't really feel any better, just more like a cliché.]

on the upside, i got this today from a student:

I would just like to thank you for all the encouraging e-mails you
have sent us through out the semester. You have really made this
semester (which is my first at clemson) very insightful learning
experience. You are an awesome instructor and very caring for your
students. I don't think I would of gotten through my public speaking
class if I had another instructor. You words of encouragement helped
me get through my nervous habits and fearful "public speaking" Thanks
again so much!

oh well, i suppose i should be happy i've finally settled on a rewarding career, even if i am a clichéd, single old woman now who puts "loungewear" on in the afternoon, shows people pictures of her pets (rarely -- seriously, this is VERY rare), smokes, has completely stopped exercising, and now DRINKS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY.

[but did i mention i'm going to vacuum today? i'm not ALL nightmare and slovenly misery, see!]

[sigh.] i. can't. stop. myself. ...

this latest mcsweeney's, "SO, YOU'VE JUST FOUND DADDY'S METH LAB" is too good to not share. i laughed out loud. alone. (my gauge for how funny something is. since i never laugh "out loud alone" at my own blog, i take full responsibility for the fact it's not very funny).

in the meantime ...

i'm still waiting on a CD of pics from my completely phenomenal birthday weekend to do a hearty post about that, AND i'm hoping to also do something reflective and overly sentimental about my thanksgiving visit to florida (when i get pictures done, hopefully before the second coming of christ).

so in the meantime, i'm just randomly posting whatever i can to procrastinate grading papers. i don't even teach english anymore, and yet OMG the papers ... and the speeches ... and more papers ... sigh.

while taking a totally undeserved cigarette/web surfing break from grading "team process papers" ["I don't want to name names, but there was one member of our team who only came to one meeting and seemed to really not care about getting an A ..."], i came across this intriguing article by "polemicist" writer christopher hitchens on mitt romney's faith, and why it should be fair game to discuss as part of his campaign.

i've always been eerily fascinated by mormons, scientologists, and other "crazy" religions or groups, and i couldn't agree more with hitchens that romney's claim that it's "un-american" to bring up his faith is patently absurd. the whole concept of "faith" to me, is that it's a catch-all term to justify the belief in something that seems completely illogical and ... quite often, UNbelievable. and it's also a very convenient way to duck out of rational discussions. to say "my faith is a private matter," to me signals that you cannot explain it well. and if you can't explain your belief system [that has an undoubtedly strong influence on your political, social, psychological, (economic?), and personal attitudes/positions], then you either haven't thought everything through very well or have your own doubts about your "argument."

i don't mean to imply that everyone needs to justify (to me, to the rest of us) their personal religious views ... this would be excruciating, to have to listen to EVERYONE'S belief system spelled out in detail by those who can and are willing ... but i think it's not too much to ask a presidential candidate.

here's a quick excerpt from the article i'm referring to:

Most journalists have tacitly agreed that it's off-limits to ask the former governor about the tenets of the Mormon cult. Nor do they get much luck if they do ask: When Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation inquired whether Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden is or was or will be in the great state of Missouri, he was told by Romney to go ask the Mormons! However, we do have the governor in an off-guard moment in Iowa, saying that "The [Mormon] Church says that Christ appears and splits the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. … And then, over a thousand years of the millennium, that the world is reigned in two places, Jerusalem and Missouri. … The law will come from Missouri, and the other will be from Jerusalem."

danny's song

for whatever ungodly reason, for like a week i've had danny's song in my head (the loggins & messina version, not anne murray's). it's a great song, definitely, but i'm at that crazy point now where i can't stop singing it and it also is making me teary. [for christ's sake, what is wrong with me??]

anyhoo, i tried to find a nice version at youtube, and to my dismay there are NO nice versions, but certainly some hysterical ones.

there are the concert versions, which i don't really like because the audience singing annoys me.

then there are the crazy versions, where as-of-yet-only-discovered-at-youtube musicians play their own rendition. my favorite here is this asian dude in sunglasses and headphones (because he's a PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN, duh. they all wear headphones when they sing, everyone knows that) who plays it in front of a black screen/anne murray/kenny loggins photo montage. [this home-video version isn't too bad despite the recording echo and the arm hair that probably frightens children.]

and there's a wacky early cher version that is an excellent example of why '70s fashion (and aesthetics in general) is best left underneath the rock it was dragged out from under (what was with the neck ruffles??). something about cher's voice exacerbates my desire to put my head in a vice, i can't really explain.

however, the best youtube version, hands down (both in quality AND hilariousness) is this version, recorded in a kitchen by a group of four filipino guys. they have very pretty voices! (one or two do, anyway). you get to watch one swallow pills with a sip of water at the beginning! they slur through the english at points where they don't know the words! some random little kid runs in the background and then puts his face in the camera! the tall one (i think) has this super high michael-jackson-esque voice that giggles in self-consciousness when he messes up!

someone needs to sign those guys to a record label, asap. (it's telling that their homemade quartet is prettier than cher's and much, much better than this lame/weird harvard choir version.)

just another one of those "underground world" dreams ...

this is the second of these dreams i've had in a few days. it's me and the dogs running away from someone and ending up taking some harry-potter-esque portal to an underground world, one where the "ceiling" isn't sky, but earth (and very, very high), and there's no sun but there are muted trees and plants everywhere, abandoned houses and cars, paths, streams ... classrooms? yes, i had to teach a class in a scary building that resembled a burnt-out shell of a building. having the dogs with me helped, and the students loved them (although they kept running away).

i met a woman teacher whose husband moved around this world in a viking ship on land there. i don't know how it sailed ... but since i saw beowolf a week ago, this might be where this is coming from. (i'm like that, it's lame: i see a movie or read a book, then [surprise!] i dream something similar. i think my subconscious must not be very creative). anyhoo, the woman lived there permanently and was very friendly, but what very few other people lived in this world came and went. i guess i was moving there soon?

[ahem.] also, people and things had magic powers. there was a chase scene involving uh, magic stuff ... and i ... fought off the bad magic [cough], and then the lady took me to a nuclear stream (don't ask) that was very blue and couldn't take me any further because i was crossing back into our normal world over a wooden bridge. colors were very bright again on this new path and the dogs were bounding around everywhere, never minding anything ... but i knew i would go back to weird-underground-world again soon, and that was OK. strange as it seems, i found the strange new world oddly comforting despite it being very gray and a little scary.

ok, dream interpreters, what is this suddenly (recurring?) dream all about? my subconscious apparently revels in science fiction much more than i do ...

lock yourself indoors, buy duct tape and bottled water

unfortunately, this is serious business on my campus:

ALERT: Unusual animal sightings reported to police

University police are asking students, faculty and staff to avoid contact with wild animals that may have wandered onto campus.

Police Chief Johnson Link said a contract security officer spotted
what he thought looked like a panther Thursday near the Calhoun
Mansion. Police officers later spotted the animal near Earle and
Fluor Daniel halls.

Link said the department contacted a wildlife expert who said it's
unlikely the animal is a panther, but that it could be a cougar, a
dog or some other animal.

Link said people on campus should avoid the animal in case it has
rabies or some other disease.

"For your own safety it's best to stay away from any wild animal,"
Link said. "Call police at 555-2222 if you spot an unusual animal on
campus or one that's not acting normally."

mcsweeney's + blog = procrastination

i love these (scroll down).
[click on title links below for full text of exchanges. (from mcsweeney's). grandma thinks i'm grading papers here on my laptop, and instead i'm blogging. i will grade two speeches, then shower. see, the shower is a reward for grading a little. just as parents aren't supposed to "reward with food," likewise i know shouldn't reward myself with food, cigarettes (another favorite of mine), and hygiene. i can already see how this reward-punishment cycle sets me up for future OCD-ish cleanliness: i'll accomplish something spectacular then spend a day scrubbing in the shower? or worse, i'll procrastinate for days (weeks?) and accumulate so much funk i'll lose friends and the dogs will run away from me when i go to pet them? sigh. i'm also hungry.]

new one: HOW SOMEONE WITH AN AMERICAN PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION WHO DIDN'T REALLY PAY MUCH ATTENTION IN CLASS BUT LEARNED JUST ENOUGH TO PASS EXAMS IMAGINES THE FIRST THANKSGIVING.

PILGRIM: We came here on the Mayflower. It is that big ship over there. It has nothing to do with the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. That is something else completely.

INDIAN: We are having a powwow; it is like a meeting.

(PILGRIM takes a bite of food.)

PILGRIM: This is good. What is it?

INDIAN: That is corn. It is also called maize.

PILGRIM: Yes, like a labyrinth.

INDIAN: (Mumbles something inaudible about David Bowie.)

old one: CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN FAMOUS PEOPLE AS IMAGINED BY SOMEONE WITH AN AMERICAN PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION WHO DIDN'T PAY TOO MUCH ATTENTION IN SCHOOL BUT WHO DID JUST ENOUGH TO PASS THE EXAMS.

Richard Nixon and Winston Churchill

NIXON: Hello, I see you're smoking a cigar and wearing a large hat.

CHURCHILL: So I am, young chap. Could I interest you in a cigar?

NIXON: Sure, I think I smoke cigars ... maybe ... I don't know.

(CHURCHILL hands a cigar to NIXON, who bites off the tip and lights it.)

NIXON: We were probably alive at the same time.

CHURCHILL: Indeed, my boy, indeed. I had something to do with World War II and I think maybe you fought in it.

NIXON: I'm not sure if I did.

CHURCHILL: There's not that much more about me that everyone knows.

NIXON: I once held up my hands and formed two peace signs. I was either about to get onto a plane or get off of one.

CHURCHILL: I have seen the photo, because I think there were cameras when I was alive.

though young, i'm weary

Rooms

Though I love this traveling life and yearn
like ships docked, I long
for rooms to open with my bare hands,
and there discover the wonderful, say
a ship's prow rearing, and a ladder
of rope thrown down.
Though young, I'm weary;
I'm all rooms at present, all doors
fastened against me;
but once admitted start craving
and swell for a fine, listing ocean-going prow
no man in creation can build me.

- Kathleen Jamie

thanksgiving!

i have much to be thankful for this year, i know. i did a little post about this awhile back, and will probably write something more along those lines when i get back from visiting my wonderful grandmother and relatives in florida.

mostly this fall, this fall of relationship disasters and life-changing decisions, i'm just so grateful for my wonderful friends and family, who nurture me through every train-wreck and poor judgment call like i'm a normal, sane person. i'm grateful for those people. everything else is secondary.

"How easily we can forget how precious life is! So long as we can remember, we've just been here, being alive. Unlike other things for which we have a good comparison—black to white, day to night, good to bad—we are so immersed in life that we can see it only in the context of itself. We don't see life as compared to anything, to not-being, for example, to never having been born. Life just is.

But life itself is a gift. It's a compliment just being born: to feel, breathe, think, play, dance, sing, work, make love, for this particular lifetime.

Today, let's give thanks for life. For life itself. For simply being born!"

- Daphne Rose Kingma

awesome student email exchange:

from a potential student:

"My name is John Smith and I have currently requested to be in one of your Labs for COMM 150 next semester. It was closed and I need this class to move on so is there any way you can like make sure that i get in?? Any help is much appreciated."

my reply:

Hi John,

A) I teach six COMM 150 labs, so I don't know which one you're talking about. Three of these are already over the capacity and so I won't be adding any more students to those.

B) "So is there any way you can like, ask nicely?"

:) Sylvia Carlson

from john:

"I'm really bad at formalities, i know that, so i'm sorry about the niceness. I'm working on it though and i'm gettin better. The lab is section 2, 4:40 to 6:20 on Mondays, but i'm not picky about time and day. So let me try this again.... I would very much greatly appreciate being added to any lab. I can cut grass quite well, i'm somewhat of a handyman so i can fix anything you need fixed, i have a garden at my house which is only 15 minutes away and we grow very nice tomatoes and would be happy to bring you some. Basicly i'll do anything to get into one. So please, is there anything that you can do? Thank you kindly."

so:

how cool is that?? i've never had a student attempt to bribe me with tomatoes or handy-work before. i do love tomatoes, christ i love them. and there are certainly always things that need to be fixed in this crazy house. anyway, i wrote him back and said he was sweet and wonderful and of course i'm happy to add him, etc., but it would probably be unethical for me to take his tomatoes ...

update -- i just got this email back from john:

I thank thee very kindly. and if you took the tomatoes it would be our little secret.

another explanation for weight loss?

i mean, besides the fact that i'm smoking more than a year ago since i'm not trapped on the third floor of an office building, i'm eating better, and i hike all over campus (usually lugging a heavy bag crammed with a laptop, student papers, flavored water ... then because i'm too lazy to wait for THE SLOWEST ELEVATOR IN THE UNIVERSE IN STRODE TOWER [seconded by the next-slowest-elevator-in-existence in daniel hall], i climb many stairs):

i'm getting much more sleep? (now i'm averaging somewhere between 7-8 hours a night i bet. when i got up at 5-5:30 a.m. each day for stupid marketing job with long commute, it was more like 5-7 hrs.)

yep. according to an slate's "your health this week," adults who get less sleep are more likely to be overweight, and a recent study of children aged 9-12 (see here for real study abstract) confirmed that the same holds true even for kids: they're more likely to be overweight the less sleep they get.

first: i think every adult would like to sleep eight hours a night, it just becomes next-to-impossible for many working adults, especially those with kids.

second: what kind of kooky neglectful parents don't mandate their kids GET 9-10 hours of sleep a night? maybe this was why i was such a freakishly underweight child?? because i had a strict bedtime until [cough, ahem] the middle of junior high? i mean, kids have to get up early for school, so parents therefore have to MAKE THEM get in bed early. don't parents WANT to have some peace and quiet to themselves each night, anyway? huh.

well, as usual i'm full of helpful parenting advice though have NO children of my own, i know. and you know, maybe some parents WANT obese children. maybe overweight parents with skinny kids wish their kids looked more like them and shared their distaste for exercise, healthy food, going to bed early?









[chip off of the old ... you know. put that kid to bed, lady. stop hugging him, do something about your eyebrows and two chins, and get some sleep! (might help those eye bags, too, over time).]

best song of [my] year

i've sent the link to this bright eyes song and video to some of you already ... i've been in love with it for months and months. and every now and then i listen to it and it's like the first time i heard it: i get all teary-eyed and choked up. bright eyes isn't my favorite band, but maybe this is my favorite song (and video). ever.

because in spite of everything, i'm still a sucker for love.

bright eyes - "first day of my life"

smoke-free college campuses?

argh. i'm wrestling with this one. according to this CNN article, more and more college campuses are going smoke-free. from the end of the article:

That's welcome news for some of his nonsmoking classmates. "I'm not forced to be around all of the smokers," says freshman Matthew Bradford, 19. "I'm not breathing it in all of the time, and it's nice to get some fresh air when you get out of class."

on the one hand, yes, no one likes walking through a cloud of smoke. and cigarette butts all over the ground ARE ugly, to be sure. and it's nice of the college to tell people how to live their lives by making it harder for them to smoke (thereby increasing the likelihood they'll quit? or just be super pissy all the time??) on campus, in general.

but on the other hand, (MY hand, my SMOKING hand), banning smoking in outdoor areas is a little ridiculous -- refer above to the stupid freshman's quote. YEAH, those two seconds it takes you to walk past a smoker must be SHEER HELL, kiddo. it sucks you can't breathe fresh air outside, because those one or two people smoking in the vicinity of a door are totally blocking your access to fresh air until you walk past them. (don't make eye contact!! they might talk to you and then you'd have to make polite conversation in a giant smoke cloud outside when you really just want to get away and get some healthy FRESH air, maybe have time to pick up a chai latte and PowerBar before your next class).

as i've come to realize over the years, there's no justification for smoking. no excuses. it's just plain bad.

but do i regret smoking?

i wonder.

i always come back to the conversations i've had over cigarettes, both with smokers and with non-smokers alike (those hardy souls who brave taking in a little secondhand smoke). i have very fond memories of smoking in college, huddled together with the other english majors outside before classes, talking about this paper or that prof, or this visiting writer. and late at night in bars after poetry readings or in someone's backyard after a few drinks. i have even more fond memories of traveling alone in foreign countries and new cities, meeting people outside or in and talking for a bit (making friends, in some instances), all because of a shared addiction to nicotine. even in the last few years as smokers are increasingly forced outside (OK by me, smoke inside is a whole different thing from smoke outside), i've bonded with strangers at airports, cafes, parties. with the busboys and other servers when the restaurant where i was waitressing slowed down. with my parents, [gulp!] it's true.

smoking is a slow, stupid way to kill yourself. there's no denying that.

but it's quiet outside at night, you know. and smokers, one or two, possibly three, would be the ones looking up at the stars and making some small connection in this lonely world, separate from everyone else who's just dying in a different way.

Volleyball is an awesome sport and your mother and I are getting a divorce

Sorry, I see you've spilled your chocolate milk. I got a little overexcited. It's just that you think you've told your teenage son everything and then something like volleyball slips through the cracks and it ...

Your mother is a sex addict.

I'll just say it. I'm not trying to vilify her. I'm just being truthful. It would take at least an entire ... I don't know ... a whole sports team of some kind to satisfy the woman. And it seems that the years of therapy have never really clicked. That's the trouble with multiple-personality patients. They can just use one of their personalities to feign progress. It's a real problem in the field, I'm told.

[sigh. i love mcsweeney's. go there to read the whole piece.]

i'm 30 (!)

so far, i've been 30 for a little over 24 hours, and honestly, i think i'm a little more relaxed.

i'll explain better what might have contributed to this strange sense of calm -- peacefulness? -- later with the pictures from this weekend.

but 30 is pretty damn fine for right now.

just fine ...

shocked?

huh. 1 in 4 americans say w. bush is the worst president ever.

really? this genius? this man of the people? the WORST?

check out this lovely clip from will ferrell of bush on global warming if you're not in the 25% of the population that thinks so poorly of bush. (yes, i know an SNL skit isn't the same as bush in reality. it's actually MORE ACCURATE, go figure).

migraine joys!

here are some wonderful things you get to experience waking up with a migraine:

1. nausea, followed by vomiting. the actual puking occurs in about one-third of all lucky migraine sufferers. what's so great about this for me, anyhow, is that i will continue to throw up all day long DESPITE THE FACT THERE'S NOTHING IN MY STOMACH. because any and everything gets vomited, drinking, oh, a sip of water is pointless. an ice chip on the tongue will come back up. and when there's nothing to come up, my stomach invariably finds something. like mucous. and bile. [today, for example, i counted my sessions over the toilet: 10. this includes three trips to the women's restroom nearest to the lecture hall i was teaching in, two of which were DURING CLASS. my students were a little freaked out. i canceled class number two today ...]

2. of course: pounding, relentless headache pain. i once came across a 1-10 pain index in an article written by someone who suffers from chronic pain. "migraine" ranked a 10, higher than having a compound fracture (think bone pushed out through your skin) and even childbirth. i think this might be a tad extreme, honestly. today's migraine was awful, certainly. i have had some that were much worse than the one today. but i think there must be worse things people endure. i hope not. [and for me, even if i had pain medication strong enough to help, it wouldn't stay down for more than two minutes ... maybe i need to look into getting my own injections i can do at home.]

so, uh, i guess that's it. just those two "joys" of having a migraine. naturally there is the crazy sensory overload -- all five senses are on high-alert when you have a migraine, which explains why people are sensitive to light, smell, the way stuff feels on your skin, sound ... taste (but since no one can eat while they have a migraine, i guess this last one gets ignored). all of these are true for me ... smells make me puke, sunlight hurts, and i can only tolerate cotton on my skin (wool sweater i contemplated this morning = too hot and WAY too scratchy). fresh air helps. stale, inside-air is BAD.

some other symptoms that seem to affect me: sweating (it's nice for me to be cold when i have a migraine. i always have a "winter-only" migraine fantasy idea of taking a sleeping bag outside in the cold and recovering that way), blocked sinuses, and occasionally (ahem!) diarrhea. i think the dizziness from the migraine is from not being able to eat or drink anything ON TOP of the nausea and nightmarish pain. today, teaching with the migraine: i tripped over my own feet TWICE. my students probably thought i was hungover, hmm. [sometimes the pain is so bad it makes me actually cry! total-baby admission, i know. it only happens with the really bad ones, and then only makes the pain worse.]

but it's over now. i had the migraine for about 10 hours today, not bad. i'm worn out, but like every other time a migraine fades and then disappears: i'm so happy to be alive! i'm euphoric i don't have a headache anymore. :) my head is actually sore (it will be tomorrow, too) from all the pain, but ibuprofen helps. and finally: I CAN EAT!

[cuteness alert: my dogs were GEMS with me on the couch with the migraine this entire afternoon. no barking, no stepping all over me (ok, there was a little of that at first, until i barked at them in some scratchy-freaky-witch voice that must've really alarmed them), no growling or farting, no humping each other ... they just curled up by my head as they're often wont to do and slept and cuddled like angels. i love them.]

houston!

here we are in bridget's beautiful backyard in houston! it was a wonderful weekend all around, just my kind of time (L-R: bridget, sylvia, alison). UPDATE:

ahh, houston. some refer to it as texas' "armpit," but i think that designation should be reserved for el paso. both because el paso seems to be geographically located more in an armpit (look at a map, it's true!), and because it's much less pretty than houston, which seemed really green and trendy to me when i was there.

my gorgeous, brilliant cousins showed me a lovely weekend in houston: we had good fish tacos the first night i got in, and the next day ali, myself, and their friend, emily, had brunch at a friendly, cool cafe (ali, what was it called?? i can't remember), then enjoyed ourselves poking around in fun shops in houston's cool "heights" neighborhood. we stopped to play with some animals at a big outdoor "adopt-a-pet" thing where i got to hold a kitten. who doesn't love kittens? i think from now on i'm going to try and find a kitten to snuggle with every time i visit a new city. also, we later got to take a nap at bridget's house that afternoon and i LOVE naps.

saturday night we all went to see american gangster at the alamo drafthouse/cinema, which despite being located in kind of a ghetto-y mall, was really fun. i forgot how nice it can be to eat dinner while watching a movie on a big screen (er, not on my laptop with a plate of bagels). you can even order candy off of the menu, and then it's brought to you! i wish i could do this everywhere (my office, my house, the local theater here, my bed ...)

sunday ali, bridget and i headed to the galleria, a fancy houston mall with upscale shops and AN ICE SKATING RINK. i spent too much money at j crew and we didn't ice skate (thank god). after shoe shopping we were worn out and went home to bridget's to watch 30 rock on DVD, which is my new favorite show, seriously. if it wasn't online at nbc, i'd have to consider getting a TV just for that and the office.

later sunday, ali and bird got pedicures while i got a manicure at a nail place by bridget's house. there was this little girl there, linda, an alarmingly overweight 6-year-old daughter of one of the manicurists, who was running around chirping in a blend of english and vietnamese. she had made up a little song about potato chips, her favorite food i guess, which she sang for a bit. then for a long time she just sat nearby and talked to herself, eating dry cereal and potato chips alternately. the lady who did my nails was nice enough to let me sit in a massaging chair by ali and bird (here, smiling because her feet and toenails have just been bathed, massaged, then painted).

all in all it was a fabulous weekend that ended way too quickly. makes me think how important it is to live in the vicinity of people you love. my twin cousins and i grew up together in minneapolis, and lived together on and off, so to me they're a bit like sisters. they seem like they've really got it all together, so i'm proud for them and only wish i lived closer to be there when their kids are born.

[also made me wish i had my own twin sister!]

favorite song(s) of the moment

from josh ritter's album "the historical conquests of josh ritter":

01. "to the dogs or whoever"
03. "right moves"
05. "open doors"

you can listen to numbers 3 + 5 by clicking here. i love these songs, and now by extension, josh ritter.

yesterday i was playing "open doors" kind of loud at the coffee shop drive-through window (not when i ordered! i had it off for that, then turned it on when i pulled up to retrieve coffee at the window, honest) and the guy who gave me my latte leaned way out the window and said, "what's the name of the band you're listening to?" i told him. he liked it. i almost gave him the CD, but i'm not ready to pass it on just yet. (coffee-shop-guy was very nice but had an abe lincoln beard. these are hideous, in case you're wondering. it was an unflattering style on abe, and remains so on everyone else as well. i think they're appropriate for costume balls ... where you go as abraham lincoln ...)

[my thanks again to dave for sharing this awesome music.]

this shouldn't surprise anyone

but apparently, teaching teenagers abstinence-only sex education (a conservative agenda item from the beginning of the bush presidency, and popular in "red" states) does little or nothing to curb teen sex.

wow, really?

huh. who would've predicted that?

[oh, i don't know ... anyone else (besides planned parenthood) that thinks rationally, maybe.]

it's always a little bittersweet when you find out you were right ... and you also find out hundreds of thousands teenage girls and boys were not able to learn about birth control and preventing STDs because bible-thumpers had their way with legislation. so it's a mixed bag.

on a different, but related note, i stumbled across this hilarious site promoting abstinence for boys. (since it comes from whitehouse.ORG, it's not real, people). "sex is for fags" has some lovely testimonials from members on its front page:

Zach P.: "Premarital sex isn't worth it! You can catch AIDS, or cancer, or testicle weevils, or a bad body image or rickets. You know what IS worth it? Making love to Jesus. Because you can't knock Him up and He'll never ask what you're thinking – cuz He already knows!"

Greg B.: "I joined Sex is for Fags after watching girls who put out turn my big brother into a major wuss. By learning to repress my urges, now I can to grow up and be what I always wanted: a prison guard or a priest."

[mrah, "sex is for fags" led me to its abstinence-only sister-site for girls, "iron hymen." go. read. snort.]

baby lust

it's looming.

30.

less than a week away now ... meaning it's pretty unlikely i will give birth to a baby while i'm in my 20s.

i spent the weekend with my twin cousins in houston. one is married and pregnant, and the other is married and soon-to-be pregnant. (more on this trip in a separate post). and in case you're wondering, everyone in the universe is either married with children or married and working on children. or single and not wanting children at the moment. i have one friend in my same boat (happy birthday today, ES!) and the good news for her is that she doesn't want a flock of kids like i've always wanted (4-5-6?).

i recall, in my freshman or sophomore year of college, making a list that detailed what i would've accomplished by age 30 -- it was a timeline of sorts. it got a little fuzzy because i had a lot on the list, but i figured some things would overlap. to the best of my memory, it looked something like this:

- by 23: graduate from college and get cool overseas job
- by 25: be in grad school and be married.
- by 27: finished with grad school and have baby number one.
- by 29: live in foreign country and have baby number two.
- by 30: be happy and have baby number three on the way.

sigh. kids are so idealistic aren't they? [sniff.]

well, i did live overseas a little bit, and i did get to travel some. i did go to grad school.

i just missed the whole part about getting married (not for lack of trying) and having 2-3 kids by now. the point was that since i knew i wanted a whole bunch of children, i knew i needed to start in my mid-late-20s. do women have 5 kids after (let's give me a nice window here) 32?

maybe i should've just married the crazy, older french-canadian guy who proposed to me quite suddenly at the end of my first sophomore semester in college. he said, "marry me and we'll move to france and live on my grandmother's lavender farm and have 10 children." (he was, erhm, leaving the next week. he knew i loved lavender). i actually thought about it for a moment, and then said i couldn't because i had to finish college. (i know. it's so ridiculous. i could've totally gone back to college later).

[i ran into this guy on campus in las cruces a couple years later. apparently when he got to france after a short period on said grandma's farm, he had joined a circus and spent a year traveling around with this circus. i like to imagine this was a wild gypsy circus. think of the stories you'd have for your ten kids if you did THAT.]

why do they always want to blame the spider?

an australian man is blaming a funnel-web spider bite for kidnapping and raping a woman in 1997. i know we hear this excuse A LOT, because it makes such perfect sense, but it never ceases to startle me.

i think of all the poor kidnapper-rapists who have been forced to commit acts of violence due to spider venom, and i get a little choked up. such nice people, you know, and then one-little-spider bite and suddenly against their will they kidnap and rape, sigh.

i think someone should definitely start an international Spider Bite Taskforce to look into this pressing issue, asap. i wonder if anyone even bothered to look into this when ted bundy was finally caught. it might've explained so much.

crabby "lecturer" post

"if you don't mind, please let me know what i missed in class today."

"sorry i missed class today can you tell me what i missed. [sic] thanks."

"i didn't come to class because it was my birthday. i attached the homework. can you tell me what i missed. [sic]"

"i know i missed class last week but i want to go home early to celebrate my birthday so don't think i'll be able to come this week either. can you tell me what i missed. [sic]"

"sorry i couldn't come to class today. your [sic] a great professor. i attached my paper here."

DAMN THEM ALL.

first: what is wrong with using a question mark? why is this so difficult?

second: unfortunately in Grown-Up World my dear freshmen, birthdays are no longer the holidays they were when you were a child. (maybe this is a shame -- i'm grumpy so don't really care). you have to come to class. you have to do homework. you still have to use question marks.

third: emailing me papers means i have to download them from webmail then print them out myself. this sucks for me for a variety of reasons. mainly because it's a hassle and it was your job to bring your paper to class like (almost) everyone else managed. why aren't more students embarrassed by this? they think it's totally fine.

fourth-and-most-important: whenever you miss class in college, it's up to you to first attempt to find out what you missed from a fellow student. if you've exhausted every single person in class and no one can tell you, then you pay a visit to your prof during their office hours. I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH ENERGY IN MY SOUL TO EXPLAIN TO YOU (and you, and you, and you, and I HAVE 150 STUDENTS) IN A FUCKING EMAIL WHAT OUR CLASS DID FOR 1.5 HOURS THAT DAY. christ.

whew. i feel better now. i really have explained this (albeit more delicately) in class, but everyone is an exception. i know. i know.