April 29, 2007

From the Jo's Easter Pet Parade and Costume Contest, my favorite contestants:


Hot Dog


Bjork Dog


Denim Jo's Dog

April 20, 2007

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, April 18, 2007:

The Court further pretends that its decision protects women. Women might come to regret their physician-counseled choice of an intact D&E and suffer from “[s]evere depression and loss of esteem,” the Court worries. Notably, the solution the Court approves is not to require doctors to inform women adequately of the different procedures they might choose, and the risks each entails. Instead, the Court shields women by denying them any choice in the matter. This way of protecting women recalls ancient notions about women’s place in society and under the Constitution — ideas that have long since been discredited.

Although today’s opinion does not go so far as to discard Roe or Casey, the Court — differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation — is hardly faithful to Casey’s invocations of “the rule of law” and the “principles of stare decisis.”

In candor, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and the Court’s defense of it, cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court — and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives. A decision of the character the Court makes today should not have staying power.

April 10, 2007

Happy Birthday Okazaki Fragment! On March 31, O.F. turned 12 years old. Thanks for being my familiar, and for keeping my lap warm all these years.

March 23, 2007

Build it and they will come



My mom's friend Sylvia who lives in Canada took this picture outside of Banff. They had to build the elk and deer their own crossing because after the highway was built there were lots of collisions (this was where their original path was before the humans invaded). Sylvia says it didn't take the animals long to learn that this was their "road."

I have often wished our government would spend the money to build these crossings. I heart Canada.

March 11, 2007

21-year-old Lily Allen, speaking to the AV Club, on the effect of how women musicians are portrayed in the media:

AVC: You've talked a lot about way women in rock tend to get patronized as "the female version of this male artist," instead of being written up for themselves. And you took on NME over a comment about how you can rock "even in stilettos." Why do you think there's so much of a problem finding positive ways to talk about female musicians?

LA: I don't know. I'm really saddened by the whole situation. It makes me really, really angry. I think that there's a view of… I think that as long as women are parading around on television, taking their clothes off to sell records, then guys will be able to take the piss out of us. That's what it comes down to. I have a little brother, Alfie, and he has a very poor view of women, and I think the only explanation… He's got three incredibly strong women surrounding him in his home life, yet he's so affected by the stuff he sees in the media and the way women are portrayed. And I think until TV programmers are more responsible about putting these slutty women on TV dancing around, that's the view that kids are going to have. Ultimately, that's my only explanation.

March 1, 2007

A couple of public service announcements:

I finally stopped in at Dominican Joe's, the new coffee shop in that corner strip mall at Riverside and S. Congress, and I highly recommend it! Reluctant Texan and I dropped in while walking back from the Barack Obama rally, and I was pleased to find that it was not a cheesy knock-off corporate coffee chain of some sort, but rather an independent venture that collaborates with a local non-profit to buy the coffee directly from the growers. Plus it has a calm atmosphere and plenty of tables, breakfast tacos if you get there early enough, and toasted bagels and cream cheese. From their website:

Dominican Joe's primary coffee is purchased from Makarios, an Austin-based non-profit organization doing educational development work in the Dominican Republic. Skipping the large corporate middle-man, Makarios works directly with farmers in the region and pays them higher wages and supports their communities in an effort to develop self-sustaining skills for the future.

One thing they fail to mention is that Makarios is a faith-based organization, so there may be some word-o-Jesus-spreadin' going on in the DR. Not sure how I feel about this.

The second promotional item is a cool-sounding SXSW day show taking place on Thursday March 15 at Lovejoy's. It's co-sponsored by Three Imaginary Girls.

February 18, 2007

Today I sadly report the theft of my bicycle. Sometime between 2:30 and 11:00pm on Friday, someone came up to our house, opened the front gate (the entire front yard is fenced), walked up to the porch, and took my bike. Just like that. No, it wasn't locked up, and for almost two years it didn't need to be. The other thing is that with our schedules, there is almost always someone home, and we don't have regular schedules. I am home all but two days a week! The one evening I go out to have some beers after a meeting this happens (Puritanical analysis: I'm being punished for not working hard enough!). Luckily M.'s bike was at work.

I totally blame irritating developer-dude who, for the past several months, has brought scads of construction crews onto the property at all hours of the day most days of the week. I figure this has multiplied the number of people who know our little house even exists, because you can't really see it from the street if you're just driving by. We talked all winter about how we needed to move my bike to the storage garage - of course! And last Fall I just got a full tune-up and a new front fork put on it, with a new headlight too. Needless to say I have been very depressed about this - as I do tend to form unhealthy attachments to inanimate objects. I bought this bike in 1996 from a little shop in Moscow, Idaho. The longer I have something, the harder it is for me to let go of it - it becomes a source of pride a la "I've had this ______ for 17 years!"

The other part that's depressing is the feeling victimized - that someone had the audacity to walk up to our front door and take something that was mine. So now, just in time for SXSW and springtime riding opportunities, I have no bike. Saturday M. took me to Flip Happy Crepes to cheer me up, and then we went to Lowe's and bought a "No Trespassing" sign. I haven't hung it up yet, but I'm looking forward to making our house look like drug dealers live there.

February 11, 2007

Progress! Last week I met with my dissertation chair to go over my latest research results, and I am very close to being done with this portion of the dissertation saga. I need to make one more good two to three week push on the statistical modeling, and then I can return to the writing portion. I have a skeletal manuscript at this point (what I used for my proposal defense), and basically need to add two more chapters: results and discussion. Then beef up the current literature review and methodology chapters, and it's done! Ha ha! Not as easy as it sounds, but definitely doable in a 5-6 month time frame. Probably sooner if I applied myself, but isn't that just the way it always is with everything. I like to apply myself just enough so I get it done but don't lose my mind in the process; plus it's nice to just sit around or do errands in the middle of the week and bask in the last few months of freedom and the simple gift of having so many hours in the week that are mine. I think the only casualty after this is all done will be my social skills - writing a dissertation means I spend an awful lot of time alone (no offense to Okazaki Fragment, Stella Bean, Pepe, and Frankie).

February 6, 2007

The movie about The Gits is coming to the SXSW film festival in a few weeks. This movie has been in the works for a long time, and premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2005. I got an email a year ago about 7 Year Bitch and the remaining members of The Gits wanting to play a show in Austin when the movie was released here, but haven't heard anything since. Seems highly unlikely, a 7 Year Bitch reunion? I think I could die pretty happy after that.

January 30, 2007

It's starting. The thinly and not-so-thinly veiled misogynistic commentary about Hillary Clinton. The culprit I am pointing out at this time is not surprising, yet disappointing - Jon Stewart. Watching The Daily Show is basically like taking a bath in super-charged masculinity every night, but still I watch it. I suppose it's still a breath of fresh air in the current climate, but it rarely fails to alienate me. Last night it was so apparent, the way they covered Clinton vs. the way they covered Obama. Dredging up stereotypes about how women like to "talk" and men don't want to have to listen to women "talk." How Clinton's campaign isn't going to appeal to men because it will somehow remind them of their nagging wives?? Good god.

And another thing, what's the deal with media outlets referring to her as "Mrs." Clinton instead of Senator Clinton? Gets on my nerves.

January 29, 2007

I'm going to Anchorage and Missoula in June for two weeks. Now I have something to look forward to and a self-imposed deadline for getting most of my dissertation stuff done before I leave. Yay!

My neck is killing me today - did I sleep on it funny? I don't really know, but I'm sort of dreading what Pilates is going to do to it today.

January 23, 2007

I really liked this article in the American Prospect called The Mommy Mantra: What female politicians lose when they brand themselves as mothers. Using recent public appearances by Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton as examples, the author explains that the Mommy Mantra is "the idea that what qualifies women for politics isn't their intelligence, their experience, their policy proposals, or even their character, but rather their inherent identities as feminine caretakers."

An excerpt:

"When Clinton and Pelosi claim political capital due to their experience as mothers and homemakers, they are selling their ambitious selves -- and, indeed, all women -- far short. Women don't deserve to be in politics because we're more compassionate or nurturing than men. We deserve to be there because we are human beings, and especially because we are human beings who, regardless of our choices about if and how to become mothers, continue to live under a social and political system that denies us many of the same options men have enjoyed for generations."

January 12, 2007

A new comic from Marshall, starring the one and only Pepe*, making its internet debut here at I'm Just Shy:



* Based on a true story

January 4, 2007

Well, hello there 2007. When I was growing up, I never thought much past the year 2000, so I figure the rest is a bonus. I had a couple of weeks off over the holidays, allowing me to finally tackle that pile of bank statements and various other administrative tasks, organize my office, make Silver Zephyr's mom's butternut ball cookies, cat-sit Reluctant Texan's four cats, finally watch the first few episodes of the first season of Six Feet Under, type up one section of my mom's English translation of her father's family history (which was hand-written in Spanish ten years ago) and generally contemplate life.

New Year's Eve day I spent entirely on the phone catching up with old friends. It's comforting to talk to people who've known you a long time, because they have a certain perspective on who you are - they remind me of who I am when I've forgotten. My godson and pseudo-nephew Kenton turned 1 year old on New Year's Day. I sent him the first ten books of the Beatrix Potter series, the first installment of his personal library that should be complete by the time he's old enough to read.

For 2007, I have a singular goal, which I will approach with a laser-like focus: finish my dissertation research!! Yes, yes, you've all heard it before. And you will hear it many more times until it is done. My secondary goal is the trite "exercise more," which I am already closer to than in years past as I have signed up for six weeks of pilates starting January 22. Hopefully it won't bother my knee too much - I'm told I have patella-femoral syndrome, aka runner's knee. How I have runner's knee 14 years after I stopped running competitively, I have no earthly idea.

December 29, 2006

Images from the holidays

December 28, 2006

I read this interesting article today in the Seattle Times, which helped me understand why cashmere has become so much more suspiciously affordable in the last few years.

That low-priced cashmere sweater has a hidden cost

December 14, 2006

Last night I witnessed what may have been the first ever dramatization of a dissertation defense on primetime television. On the Fox show "Bones," the young forensic anthropology doctoral student was shown sitting in a small, hard wooden chair in front of a panel of scary-looking professors who were of course seated on a raised platform to make them look even more scary. Our young scientist passed, though not before a terse professor asked him how he expected anyone to take him seriously as a Ph.D. scientist looking the way he does (young and sloppy). So, what does that mean? You guessed it: Makeover!!!

P.S. I only started watching Bones because of my loyalty to all ex-Buffy actors, but I actually kinda like it too!

December 11, 2006

I found out that my current employer (one of them) doesn't have any more non-resident tuition waivers, which I need in order to avoid paying an extra $1000 for three credits. My eye just started twitching.

December 5, 2006

I am copying excerpts from this piece of advice here so I can refer to it every now and then when I'm feeling discouraged - like now. I especially like the "isolate yourself totally from the stream of yammering humanity."

(From the Ms. Mentor advice column, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/8/06)

Question: Writing dissertation. Must be last person on earth, never see anyone anymore unless teaching. Does that count as seeing people? Think not. Need a laugh. Pray each night to write damn thing and finally finish Ph.D. without turning into bloviator. However, noticing that friends and family glaze over quite soon after asking about research. Hate to bloviate. Thus, no pronouns. Plan to eliminate other parts of speech as needed, maybe take vow of silence. Good?

Answer: Maybe. Maybe not.

Ms. Mentor obviously captivated by your writing style. Impressed by your efforts at minimalism. Thinks it's catching, but will try to extricate self and talk more ordinarily. (What is normal among academics? Discuss.)

Everyone knows dissertation stress. What you're doing will never be finished, or it will be laughable and absurd. In a just world, you would be hanged as an academic fraud and your remains fed to feral dogs (they'd call it recycling). Your B.A. would be yanked and your records deleted. Your high school would post your weaselly, smiling graduate photo on its Wall of Shame.

Or you could ignore all those febrile fantasies, decide to do a good-enough dissertation, and finish it — or not.

Half of A.B.D.'s (All But Dissertationers) never finish, but they are not failures. They've chosen other things — such as a social life, or children, or a career that doesn't require years of poverty (and maybe chastity) before a tenure-track job perhaps materializes in a Remote Village.

Writer's block is fear — fear of getting something wrong, not getting an A, being unmasked as an impostor at last. Every writer except the most doltish of hacks approaches a blank page or screen with trepidation, and the hardest word to write is the first.

Do not get on the Internet.

Turn off all phones and put your cellphone where you cannot see it light up, vibrate, and dance.

Write by hand — as Ms. Mentor writes her first drafts — so as to sneak up on the work. Tell yourself, as Anne Lamott recommends in Bird by Bird, that you're about to write a "shitty first draft."

If you can isolate yourself totally from the stream of yammering humanity, do it for the first draft. Lock yourself in your carrel. Hide out in mountain caves. Let beauty-school students practice pedicures on you while you scribble.

Encourage roommates to surprise you with treats, but only on Fridays after 5 p.m. Ignore their grumbling. Put your fingers in your ears and chant, "La la la la la." True friends will understand.

Many people, of course, won't, and the Dissertation Era (which Ms. Mentor hopes will not be a Dissertation Decade for you, as it sometimes is for unfortunate literary scholars who must work as adjuncts in three places and grade thousands of compositions while grinding out their great opuses) may mean giving up on those people who, well, aren't into you.

Except for family members whose caprices are inescapable, you do not need narcissists who tell you their love problems incessantly (unless their stories are vivid, lurid, and ever-changing, and you can use them in your chapters about neurotic behavior). You do not need broken-winged people, addicts, or whiners who have to sleep on your couch for a few days to "get my head together." You do not need people who "will be great" once they get over their bigotries or their resentments of you ("Why are you always writing? Let's go get a beer and forget your silly homework.").

Anyone whose moods get you down, or who picks a fight when you're trying to finish a chapter, or who disparages your work, does not belong in your life.

Find a writing critique group, if you have a strong ego. If you're not sure, convene a group of friends in which all of you make deadlines for one another and meet once a week to celebrate what everyone has written, taught, sold, or cooked. Have lots of chocolate.

Yes, give up useless parts of speech, especially adverbs. They are the softeners, the wimps of the grammatical world. You need to be ruthless, self-protective, fierce, whatever your mode.

Some writers are gushers, bloviators who spew everything in their first drafts and then pick out the best chunks. But you may be a bleeder, a one-word-at-a-time agonizer (as Red Smith said, you sit at your desk "and open a vein"). Or you may be a Beavisite, converting all long jargonized theoretical explications into the simplest of language: "Cool" or "It sucks."

Now all you have to do is explain yourself to the world.

Good.

November 17, 2006

Picture of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts (or in this case, Blackheart) during their first song Tuesday night. Stubb's was pretty full, with the typical, wonderful motley crue of multi-generational fans she attracts. They played several songs off the new album "Sinner," and they were nice fun Joan Jett songs - a mix of covers and little-heard songs from previous albums, along with a couple originals like "Riddles" and "Change the World." While she played her standard "...We're Going to Make it After All" from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I felt like I was really going to finish my dissertation. I'm sorry, I find ways to derive inspiration from even the cheesy songs she plays! Everyday People? Check. Favorite song on the setlist? Love is Pain from the I Love Rock 'n Roll album. But damn, Crimson & Clover kicked ass too. Maybe that was the best.

This was my fourth time seeing her; I was trying to recount the other times so I wouldn't forget (this is why I need a diary):
1. 1998, at Parker's Casino in Shoreline, WA. Waited in line for an hour to meet her after the show and then chickened out. Surprise opening act: Fastbacks! By far the best of the four.
2. 2000, at the grand opening of the Experience Music Project in Seattle. Great grand opening weekend, stupid museum.
3. 2004, at a warehouse in East Austin at 2am during SXSW. Silver Zephyr was there!

Eagles of Death Metal opened, a garage-rock type band from I'm guessing California. Check out the 'stache on that guy! (below) I think a lot of people are curious about them because the drummer is/was in Queens of the Stone Age. They were all right. They surprised me by singing falsetto about half the time.

November 15, 2006

This is exactly why I feel absolutely no compulsion to go see the Borat movie. I'm glad someone had the ovaries to put into print what I'm sure many people think about this style of humor, but are afraid of being labeled as humorless, uptight, too sensitive, and the like.

November 13, 2006

This is where I'll be tomorrow evening:

"Joan Jett is still a badass. The 48-year-old has managed to outlast many of her male punk counterparts, look good doing it, and still put out viable albums. Sinner, Jett’s first since Clinton was president, finds her hellbent for leather pants, with muscle from longtime band the Blackhearts. Is she still pissed? Just drive through “Riddles,” and order three-chord punk with a side of political doublespeak..." more from the Austin Chronicle preview.

In other news, I will be putting myself on a strict self-disciplined regimen for the next approximately 16 weeks. If I want to actually try to graduate next May, I need to have a full draft of my dissertation by March 1st. That leaves three weeks - until March 22 - for revisions, one month for the other four committee members to review, and then defend the last week in April. I looked up all the deadlines and was dismayed to learn that you have to submit the final, formatted, approved dealio to the graduate school by May 4th. Why does the semester have to end so freaking early? Sheesh!

So anyway, I'm under the impression, however mistaken it may be, that I can do this. Or at least get damn close. I'm dropping one of my jobs to buy myself more hours in the week, with the trade-off of barely eeking out a living. (I seize every opportunity to use the word "eek"). Sixteen weeks! Sixteen weeks! I can do it!

Rumsfeld is gone!

November 8, 2006

Today is a good day. Twelve long years it's been, with the last six being particularly hard. I stayed up watching the results last night til my eyes crossed - I didn't want to go to bed! My favorite moment was impulsively calling my mom in Montana to celebrate Nancy Pelosi becoming Speaker of the House-elect. The most powerful position ever held by a woman! I had tears in my eyes.

We also added two women to the Senate (and didn't lose any), a few more to the House, and overall twenty new pro-choice House members. An informative overview of what this all means can be found here. The people of South Dakota gave a big F-U to the misogynist christian industrial complex (I'm trying to coin a new term here, akin to the 'military industrial complex,' or the 'prison industrial complex.' Help me out! And grassroots organizers in Arizona defeated a hetero-marriage amendment.

I don't want to worry yet about what comes next, I just want to bask for a while as the clouds have finally parted a bit.

Yay!

October 27. 2006

Chris Bell is the only candidate for governor who signed the NARAL Pro-choice Texas Prevention First Pledge, which says that if elected he will "work toward the common-ground goals of supporting access to family-planning services, making birth control, including the “morning-after” pill, more affordable and accessible, and teaching our young people honest, realistic sex-education."

This makes my decision pretty clear.

October 25, 2006

Sandy West, Runaways drummer, died last Saturday. That's her on the far right.

October 20, 2006

Celebrity Sighting at South Congress Cafe

Yesterday M. was craving crab cakes so we went there for lunch around 1:00. There was one of those signs on the door indicating that if we went inside we were granting permission to be filmed for an upcoming episode for a new show to be tentatively called "Giada's Weekend Getaways." We look at each other quizically, say "huh?" and then M. looks in the window and proclaims, "there she is!"

So we went in to wait for a table. They end up seating us right next to her table, though out of camera shot. The tables that were within the camera angle were filled with extras!! I thought that was pretty weak. But M. thought maybe they had to do that so the people sitting around her on camera wouldn't constantly be turning to look at her. Like we were.

She was tasting the carrotcake french toast. The funniest part was when they were done shooting, the sound operator guy sauntered around to her half-eaten plate and helped himself to a bite. Hee hee! A quick search reveals the series will premiere on Jan. 12.

And yes, her head really is that big in real life.

October 5, 2006

How come no one ever told me about Chango's? Motivated by a glowing review in the Fearless Critic, I decided to check them out last week and have been back twice. Chango's is to Manuel's what El Chilito is to El Chile, so it's quality stuff. I have had the del mar taco, which has marinated & grilled mahi mahi (you can request shrimp too), but my favorite is the al pastor. Holy macatoli! Served simply with lime, cilantro, onion and pineapple, it doesn't need any hot sauce. Everything is fresh, healthy, and the best thing: self-serve aguas frescas with apparently free refills.

There's nothing in the restaurant that explicitly says you can have free refills, but I read about it in the Fearless Critic review so I tried it and was not tackled by an employee (unlike the time I tried to sneak some free ice tea at taco bell in the Texas Union building four years ago). And oh the selection! Canteloupe, Watermelon, Coconut for god's sake, Honeydew, and of course Horchata.

Chango's is locally owned and has two locations in Austin. And note to Silver Zephyr: according to their website, "Chango's" roughly translated means "little monkeys."

October 2, 2006

The recent barrage of girl-hating has my stomach lurching and me just generally feeling helpless and angry and ultimately depressed.

There was the woman dragged to death by her husband in Colorado, the girls singled out, sexually assaulted, and one executed at a Colorado high school, and the girls singled out and three executed at a Pennsylvania school today. These sacks of shit seem to always kill themselves afterward.

And, in other news, the House of Representatives approved a bill that would make it a federal crime to evade one state's parental consent laws by taking a minor to another state for an abortion. The Senate passed the similar "Teen Endangerment Act" in July, so all that's left now is to work out the final version for the president to sign. Yippee.

September 27, 2006

Always wanted to know what your ecological footprint is? I have. I have tried to live my life by one basic mantra: to somehow justify or at least modify the space and resources I am taking up on the planet (by being a middle class white person living in the United States) by contributing something back to the world and being conscious of the waste that I create. Some may call it white liberal guilt, I call it rational. What that something is, is heretofore unidentified, unless little things count, but that's another subject (that I really don't want to talk about anyway).

This nice website will tell you what your ecological footprint is in the world. Apparently the average for people in the U.S. is "24" or "25." Mine was a "9," but I think I fudged on my car's gas mileage. My footprint is much more to my liking now that I don't commute 60 miles roundtrip, and I ride the bus twice a week. Anyway, try it out if you want!

September 6, 2006

My 35th birthday fell on Labor Day this year, marking the traditional end of summer as well as my youth, as I dryly and somewhat morosely put it to a colleague yesterday. The end of one’s youth being a completely arbitrary point, of course. And I don’t really think of my youth as over, but the rest of society seems to. One of the most depressing-yet-strangely-liberating realities of turning 35 is that I am no longer in the coveted target demographic for marketers, 18 – 34. It is this growing irrelevancy to the mass market that depresses me, because I’ve always liked the fact that as a 20-something and early-30-something the world kind of revolves around you. Once the mid-30’s hit, it becomes abundantly clear that there is a whole crop of young up-and-comers behind you, who are probably smarter, more creative, and have more energy than you. Of course I’ve been on the other end of this tension and still am to a large degree because everyone in my field is 5 to 25 years older than me, and when I started out as a 25-year old with a master’s degree, well, I struggled to be taken seriously and was constantly asked by consulting clients if I was “in school.” Ten years later, I still don’t seem to be “old enough” to garner any sort of credibility with senior colleagues. But I digress.

Aging out of the target demographic should be freeing! Free to be me! A certain power comes with not being in the crosshairs of the marketing machine. Similar to my experience ducking the patriarchy in my early 20s by not shaving my legs, not wearing makeup, and cropping off all my hair. That sudden invisibility to men was both scary and exciting. I also take heart by looking to women I know who are pushing 40 and 50, and swear they feel like they’re 18 on the inside – though this also means the aging process doesn’t get any less weird-feeling the older you get. And as my mom said, there are plenty of cool, happenin’ women in their 80s to whom I am but a mere baby.

P.S. I highly recommend the black pepper sorbet with strawberries at Uchi.

August 31, 2006

Mark your calendars, Jett-heads: Tuesday, Nov. 14 at Stubb's will have Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Eagles of Deathmetal, and the Riverboat Gamblers. Tickets are on sale now!

Today was my first day back as a graduate teaching assistant in two years. For some reason I remembered it as being not very labor-intensive; talk about rose-colored glasses or something. The professor who runs the class changed up his style a little and now has 5 short papers (multiplied by 104 students = 520 papers to grade), a fill-in-the-blank portion on exams (which means actually reading these answers as opposed to sending them to the testing center to be scanned), and occasional little in-class surveys that require me to go home and enter data and run frequencies. Yuk! I am already plotting how I can swing Spring semester financially without the TA gig.

My research fellowship is so far looking like it will be fun, interesting, and challenging. I'm going to have a cute office in the School of Public Affairs, a laptop, and opportunities to travel to conduct interviews and do archival research on a topic I have a professional stake in. I haven't really started yet though so I'm trying to ratchet it down to a cautious optimism.

August 28, 2006

Poopapalooza 06

Last week we found out from our esteemed developer-neighbor-dude that weeks ago during the demolition of the house next door to us, the sewer line was broken. So for the past few weeks we've been merrily using the facilities, as it were, without a care in the world, unknowingly contributing to a burgeoning cess pool down the hill. For the past week we were advised to "limit our usage," and every time I flushed I pictured the contents landing on the roof of some SUV speeding down Riverside Drive below. Luckily, esteemed developer-dude has temporarily moved into the other side of our duplex until some other dumb house of his is done, and the sewer backed up into his apartment (not ours, ha ha ha!). However, some white substance did bubble up a little out of a PVC pipe in our front yard. Gross! So tonight it finally got fixed, and we made him clean up our yard. Talk about environmental health hazard.

In other poopy news, about this same time over the weekend Frankie got a horrible case of the runs coupled with vomiting (she's okay now). The whole mess smelled like, well, gag-inducing poop. Also at this same general period in time, our backyard began to smell like hot dog poop baking in the sun, because esteemed developer-dude happens to have two big yellow labs who poop all over the damn place (big ones!) and he never picks up after them. They (the dogs that is) also strategically leave their "calling cards" right in front of our entrance gate about every other day.

Poop on you, developer-dude!

August 24, 2006

In an earlier post, I alluded to my disgust with the inherently misogynistic culture of the U.S. military. Robin Morgan recently wrote a short commentary in The Guardian that connects all this to the bigger picture.I do not believe the rape-murder of an Iraqi girl was an isolated incident. It seems almost weekly I read articles about yet more American servicewomen who have been assaulted by fellow soldiers (I actually know someone who this happened to), and it's common knowledge (isn't it?) that rape has routinely been used as a weapon in war. Also see Susan Brownmiller's excellent history of rape in the military in Against Our Will. Now, I'm going to have a drink.

Victory!

The political godbags at the FDA finally caved! Emergency contraception will be available without a prescription for women over 18. The sound of that sentence is just weird. It's like, am I really saying that in 2006? It's so 1960. I suppose now the battle will continue to focus on the whacko pharmacists who will try to either not stock Plan B or refuse to dispense it - as women will of course have to show I.D. before the pharmacy decides whether she can purchase it or not.

Thank you NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Dr. Susan Wood, and everyone else who worked so hard on this.

August 23, 2006

Just a few pictures from a week spent in south central Alaska...

A sight for sore eyes - mountains and water!


View from our train seat on the way to Seward


Aialik Glacier, in Kenai Fjords National Park (kayakers in foreground)


Alaskan sea lions


Humpback whale falling back to the water after breaching (you gotta enlarge this one to really see it)


M. freezing to death on a boat off the coast of the Kenai Penninsula


Back to Anchorage...


These are the "sound of music" hills I grew up with...the base of the Chugach mountain range




Going to the top of Alyeska, the ski resort 45 minutes south of Anchorage


This is classic - taken in Talkeetna, AK


The Pioneer Bar in downtown Anchorage - in the same location since 1917. Anything older than 1964 (when the earthquake hit) is old in Anchorage.

August 19, 2006

Some highlights from four days in Seattle

Our first night in town, leaving The Funhouse (sort of like Seattle's Beerland) where we visited with friends and listened to weird bands.



Mt. Rainier hovers over Seahawk Stadium and Safeco Field (where the Mariners play) in the distance...taken from Victor Steinbrueck park by Pike Place Market, where I used to eat my lunch in the old days.



Documenting our visit to Cupcake Royale in Ballard. I had the lavender frosting and M. had the orange. Legalize Frostitution!



My favorite dog in Seattle, Eve, with whom I used to live. Here she hangs with us at the Lava Lounge on Second Ave.



Rachel Flotard and Ben Hooker, Visqueen, playing on the Vera Stage at the Capitol Hill Block Party Friday July 28.



Ms. Led wows the rag-tag crowd of old hippies, families, crazy people, elderly Scandinavians, and Block Party escapees at the Ballard Seafood Fest, Saturday July 29. The next night we met Lesli and Matt for a drink at the Whiskey Bar in Belltown.



The crazed throng gathered to see the one-time-only reunion of the Murder City Devils, Capitol Hill Block Party Saturday July 29.



Good-bye Seattle! The view from Elliott Bay

August 11, 2006

I am still organizing all the photos from our trip, but wanted to put this one up first. This is my godson/psuedo-nephew, 7 months old, of whom I am a huge fan. The picture was taken in Talkeetna, Alaska with Mt. McKinley a.k.a. Denali shrouded in clouds behind us.

August 3, 2006

Greetings from Alaska - once again I forgot to bring the card reader to upload pictures, but here's a quick update:

-M. is ready to pick up and move to Seattle (loves it).
-M. got sunburned in Seattle (ironic).
-Yesterday we rode the Alaska Railroad to Seward, and on a 6-hour ocean tour we saw sea otters floating on their backs, some shy seals, scads of sea lions, Aililik Glacier which is a humongous tidewater glacier that is calving huge chunks of ice into the bay, and three humpback whales, one of which breached (jumped out of the water) not once, but twice - super rare to see that. Also saw tufted and horned Puffins, and several eagles.

We miss our kitties and puppy and our friends, but not the 99 degrees. It's like 60 here today.

Carry on!

July 26, 2006

Missoula gets the Rolling Stones, too

This is the biggest thing to happen to Missoula, MT since...since...I think ever. Pearl Jam played a secret show there in 1993, and kicked off their tour there in 1998 (one of their members attended University of Montana), and Jesse Jackson came to town once to lead a labor march...nope - biggest thing ever.

July 24, 2006

Wrapping up things at the job this week so I can go on vacation with a clear head and looking towards the future. Upon my return, I just have to go in for one more day to do some human resources paperwork, and then I am cut loose. I don't know if I will write more about my many trying experiences there, because I am really ready to move on and forget that most of it happened. I did take away some useful lessons, though, which I may need to put into words to help me process and truly learn from it. But on to the vacation!!

In three days we're off to the northwest, with the kitty-monsters left in the capable hands of Reluctant Texan, and Frankie moving in with Watson over at "Camp Brushpile." A few things on our itinerary:

+The Moore Hotel, a low-budget vintage (as in old, not the hip new kind) hotel in Belltown, my old work neighborhood. It's the kind of place where you bring your own soap;

+The Capitol Hill Block Party, where some of this year's bands include the Murder City Devils, Band of Horses, Silversun Pickups, Smoosh, Visqueen, Schoolyard Heroes, Sera Cahoone, The Divorce, and The Emergency;

+Fremont, my old neighborhood, and the Ballard Seafood Fest, where we will see our friends Ms. Led perform;

+ Kenai Fjords National Park, where we hope to see sea otters and Puffins, Beautiful Downtown Talkeetna, where we will unfortunately miss the annual Moose Dropping Festival, and of course my stalwart hometown, Anchorage.

July 17, 2006

My week in Ann Arbor

I vacillated between "oh my god, i will never be able to do this (meaning my dissertation analysis)" and "i can totally do this." I kept hearing from the top sociological criminologist in the country that these data are very complex, and that it took him and his colleagues a year just to figure out one type of analytic approach. All of a sudden, I didn't feel so bad that I had stalled out a bit due to the intimidating nature of the data (said data being a 7-year survey of 6,000 Chicago youth ages 0 to 18 and their primary caregivers). The take home message: simplify. Got it.

My home for the week: Ann Arbor Bed & Breakfast, where every morning Pat had a feast of fresh fruit, assorted breads, yogurt, coffee, orange juice, and either an omelette or scramble of some sort complete with fresh herbs from the garden. Sigh. I have always been a breakfast person.

This bear was my constant companion, and watched Rockstar: Supernova with me. He agrees that Zayra is embarassing to watch.

On the left is University of Michigan's tower. I think it might even be less aesthetically pleasing than the UT Tower. Next to that is the very dramatic Michigan Union building, which seemed very old on the inside.

My daily walk to class (the red brick building below, which houses Interuniversity Consortium on Political and Social Research) took me down this street, University of Michigan's version of the Drag. Only this actually had shops and restaurants on it.

The Detroit airport sucks. I think this picture captures the utterly soul-killing space I had to occupy for over two and a half hours.

Almost home! Somewhere over north Texas.

July 10, 2006

So far Ann Arbor is neato (getting to Ann Arbor from the Detroit airport is an expensive hassle though). The vibe reminds me a little of Missoula, with a little Austin mixed in. A cute laid back college town with lots of trees and historic houses. I sat out on my little balcony this evening, in perfect 80 degree weather with no mosquitoes. Oh the luxury! Unfortunately I forgot my gadget to upload pictures to my laptop, so I can't post pictures. There are about 6 people from Sweden staying at the bed and breakfast, who mostly ignore me and talk to each other in Swedish, and the proprieter is a little crazy in a good way. I'm gone from 8:15am to about 7pm each day at the workshop, about a 15 minute walk away. The other people in the workshop are really nice and I've already made friends with some cool women. People are actually interested in my dissertation research. Oh and I sat at a table with Rob Sampson and Felton Earls this afternoon. I was too tired by that time to ask any coherent questions though. That's my report for now!

P.S. Happy 72nd Birthday to my Dad, who doesn't read this blog.

July 7, 2006

Egads I was actually avoiding my own blog because I didn't want to look at that dude's mug anymore. And the nerve of him degrading the memory of Johnny Cash by wearing that tee shirt.

I think I've found my summer reality show - I'm having fun following Austin's own Patrice Pike on the show "Rockstar: SuperNova." Though I cannot for the life of me understand why she would actually want to be in a band with Tommy Lee. She won't win (if they pick a woman to front their band, they'll go for someone more "dirty"), but it is probably a good career move in terms of getting on national TV.

Sunday I go to Ann Arbor for a 5-day workshop having to do with my dissertation research. I'll have the whole thing done when I get back, right? Nah, I'm just hoping for some direction and motivation. I think I'm realizing how easy I have it as a doctoral candidate - why would I want to go mess up my cushy life by finishing?

July 3, 2006

Rapist and Murderer

What a fitting event to mark our annual holiday celebrating freedom and patriotism. This is exactly why I loathe the military. I'm willing to accept that we need a military, given the state of global relations, but please don't tell me to respect the military or hold them up on some sort of moral pedastal. My father, now 72, was an officer in the military for 30 years (most of those years as a reservist), and as a product of the 1940s and 1950s believes that the military (well, at least the Navy) is a bastion of high moral standards. It makes me sad that he clings to this notion of what the military should be or aspires to be, but can never attain. I don't know how he would explain this utter debasement of human life and dignity without acknowledging that it is a direct effect of the misogynistic culture of the military. Premeditated rape and murder is not "collateral damage."

June 27, 2006 pt. 2

No more Sleater-Kinney, my friends.

This just in:

"After eleven years as a band, Sleater-Kinney have decided to go on indefinite hiatus. The upcoming summer shows will be our last. As of now, there are no plans for future tours or recordings. We feel lucky to have had the support of many wonderful people over the years. We want to thank everyone who has worked with us, written kind words about us, performed with us, and inspired us. But mostly we want to extend our gratitude to our amazing fans. You have been a part of our story from the beginning. We could not have made our music without your enthusiasm, passion, and loyalty. It is you who have made the entire journey worthwhile.

With love and thanks,
Sleater-Kinney"

Their last show appears to be Lollapalooza in Chicago this summer.

UPDATE: I have it from a reliable source that their publicist says they are trying to schedule a Northwest show before the summer's out (none of their final shows were in the Northwest). I doubt they wanted freaking Lollapalooza to be their last show. Not that any of us will be able to go, but you know. It's still nice news.

UPDATE: Last show will be at the Crystal Ballroom, in Portland on August 11. A much more fitting departure. I will have just returned from the NW four days before that - booo.

June 27, 2006

So, it didn't take long for the so-called "Boy Crisis," which was widely touted by various media outlets and crack-pot post-feminists, to be de-bunked by actual longitudinal research on test scores, college readiness, and graduation rates.

From the Washington Post:

A study to be released today looking at long-term trends in test scores and academic success argues that widespread reports of U.S. boys being in crisis are greatly overstated and that young males in school are in many ways doing better than ever.

Any disparities have more to do with race and class than they do with sex differences, and much of the ballyhoo is familiar to those of us who came of age during the Backlash era of the late 80s/early 90s. The Washington Post article comments that indeed, the media backlash may be partly in response to Title IX reforms of the last 30 years - the benefits of which we're seeing now.

The Post article continues: [The report] concludes that much of the pessimism about young males seems to derive from inadequate research, sloppy analysis and discomfort with the fact that although the average boy is doing better, the average girl has gotten ahead of him.

June 24, 2006

Good news in the world of orcas: "K" and "L" pods have arrived in Puget Sound with two young 'uns. There are only 89 Puget Sound orca whales in existence right now (the two new babies are #88 and #89). Hooray!

In more self-involved news, M. and I roasted a red pepper for the first time last night. I held it over the gas flame with tongs til it got all black and charred, and then M. did the peeling. It always looked so complicated and messy on TV, but it really was quite fast and so much better than the jar kind. We added it to some chopped zuchinni (cooked until just tender), fresh basil and chives, garlic, olive oil, and a dash of balsamic vinegar.