Because Some Things, You Just Don't Post to Facebook

It's been years, thankfully, since I've had a UTI, but surprise! Here it is! Hey there, old friend! I wasn't really looking for you, and yet here you are!

Gee, it's been a long time. I thought I was getting really good at making sure that I drank enough, avoiding e coli, peeing before and after sex. You know, all of the things that I'm supposed to do, and do consciously, just to avoid you. But apparently something went wrong, because here you are. And here you stay, despite the fact that I've now drunk half my body weight in cranberry juice, shelled out $22 at the natural food store for cranberry pills, and halved my coffee consumption. In fact, you seem to be a particularly tenacious version of yourself, since none of this is putting a dent in you. Which is odd, because in the many many times that you've come to visit in the past, I could basically cut you down to size in a matter of hours. But you're apparently moving your furniture in and stocking the fridge---you're thinking you're here to stay, I imagine.

It's not that I don't enjoy having you around. Really. I mean, I'm probably better hydrated than I've ever been in my life. And hell, I'm really clean. The kind of clean that comes from scalding hot baths at 2:30 in the morning in an attempt to flush you. Nothing says "good morning" like urethral-pain insomnia!

So, thanks to you, I'm going to renew my relationship with my doctor. Hooray! You and me will just have to sit here and stare at the phone together until the office opens at 9. I suppose we can sing a few verses of Kumbaya if you'd like. Since we're such close pals and all, having spent the last 36 hours together, do you think you could prep for my two classes today?

External Validation (or early onset Alzheimer's)

I tried to log in to the U's secure site today to look at a document, and found that I'd forgotten my school ID number.

I like to think that this is the sign of a summer vacation well spent.

I'll ignore its potentiality as a sign of my genetic inheritance sneaking up on me.

What NOT to Do After Finishing an Article

Oh, so many things not to do. Consider the following:

Minutes after finishing an article, DO NOT:

1. Save and send to the editor.
2. Write a 100 word biography.
3. Hit "send" without attaching the latter.
4. Write new email apologizing for not attaching your bio, and then send AGAIN without attaching.
5. Throw clothes in a suitcase for a weekend in the Big City with your husband's family.
6. Get in the shower and try to shave your legs quickly, thus necessitating extra time spent staunching the bleeding.
7. Drive in a frenzy to the train station, park in the overnight lot, do a funky run/walk through the parking lot to the station, only to arrive 20 minutes before the train leaves.
8. Get to the city, walk to hotel, check into two very expensive hotel rooms for husband's family.
9. ***do all of the above without eating.***

In the days following finishing an article, DO NOT:

1. Spend two days in the biggest tourist destination in America with four children.
2. Take them to the tallest tourist attraction in said city, which involves several thousand people all trying to get up or down in 6 tiny elevators.
3. Forget to do research on kid-friendly restaurants in said city.
4. Drag them all through the major, massive train station in said city with their panoply of luggage, and then onto the train, to convey them back to Urbania.

In the calm psychic space that follows from finishing an article, DO NOT:

1. Try to become a different person around your husband's family, who are genetically pre-disposed to being happy, positive people who see the best in everything while you are genetically determined to be an evil, cynical Eeyore.
2. Try to convince yourself that you like children.
3. Be overly mindful of your relatives' Christian values, because you can't control where the Museum of Sex is, nor the fact that its window displays feature hippos and rhinoceri humping, sometimes in groups of threes.
4. Obsess about your own fears of bacteria, as everything you consume is available for others to taste, sip, or try.
5. Imagine that any semblance of a time table will be cohered to.
6. Continue to collapse into bed every night, with the thought that it's only a few more days, and you can tough it out.

And WHY should you NOT DO any of these things? Because they depress your immune system, yo, and then you end up with a sore throat and body aches. On the positive side, this does excuse one from visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is DEFINITELY on the NOT DO list. One bullet dodged, many more to go.

Savage Idols

Over the holiday weekend, Senor Fluff and I took a drive around the surrounding countryside---you know, while we still have meager petroleum resources to flaunt. [Let me note, for the record, that we drive a 3 year old Japanese car with 20,000 miles on it. We are not in the same class as the Hummer-driving jackhole I saw the other day with a bumpersticker that read: "Buy a hybrid---I need your gas!" Fuckwad. If there were ever a need for a consumer-grade rocket launcher, that would be it...]

Digression aside, after we had exhausted an ipod playlist, we listened dug into the stream of podcasts that I've been downloading forever, but seldom listen to. For the first time, then, I had the great pleasure of listening to Savage Love in audio form.

Everyone knows Dan Savage, right? The guy who writes the sex column for Seattle's The Stranger, occasionally appears on This American Life and Bill Maher's Real Time? I know that he squicks some people, but I lurve him, lurve him. [And I particularly love listening to him talk about the positions, accoutrements, and psychological issues surrounding anal sex while driving through the most Stepford of East Coast towns---but that's a different story.]

I find myself at times shocked, delighted, and moved by Savage, and if the size and variety of his audience is any indication, I don't think I'm alone. And as I try to put my finger on what it is of his that does it for me (does everyone who writes about Dan Savage begin to realize that all of her metaphors sound dirty?), I think it's his bizarre combination of incredible ability to withhold judgment about those things that American society is often SOOO judgy about, while at the same time having very definite ideas about what he thinks is healthy and "right." For instance, in the podcast I listened to, he fielded a call about disability and sex, in which he addressed the idea that "everyone wants to feel like an object sometimes." Whoa. Beware the lightning strike of disapprobation and ethical reproach! And yet he delivers this statement as if it is the most banal of ideas, the most basic of concepts. Earlier in the show, however, he responds to a 23 year old man asking about sex on his wedding night with a rant about how no one, gay or straight, should be getting married at 23. Amen, brother!

It could just be the case that I tend to agree with Savage's bent, however, it's perhaps more the case that I adore his ability to embody what I have always imagined to be opposite impulses: the avoidance of judgmental behavior and firm beliefs. Savage does a fabulous job negotiating between these two positions. If there is some sort of complicated emotional calculus that underpins it, I'd love to know the formula.

Come to think of it, the other person that combines these traits well? Tim Gunn. Should I be worried that my two idols of ethical behavior are gay men in the media?

Zombie, Minus Hunger for Brains

As you can imagine, I finally got over my "I'm bored now and need to work," and thus managed to fritter away the rest of my time at my parents' house by eating, seeing a number of summer blockbusters (all of which were mildly disappointing), and doing the occasional sudoku puzzle. And on my return home (to the sweatbath that is the Northeast right now), I have undertaken the requisite zombie time that is a consistent feature of my west-to-east travels.

I don't know what kind of f'ed up circadian rhythm problem I have, but at least it's predictable: going east to west, it takes me two days to get onto a regular sleep schedule. After a day or so of getting up at 5 EST and falling into bed at 8EST, I fall quite happily and naturally onto a more reasonable (and adult) time frame---say up at 7, asleep by midnight? Coming back, however, is a more painful experience. I'm now on day two of a planned and semi-rigid sleep adjustment schedule, which required caffeine ingestion by 7:30 so as to assure semi-wakefulness. This is despite the fact that I'm going to bed at 3 a.m., give or take an hour. The heat and humidity are enough to make me Mrs. McGrumperson, but with sleep-deprivation, you can multiply that by a factor of 10. I'm wandering around the house glassy-eyed, pulled to soft, flat surfaces. No brains for me, thank you very much, but I'd say that any outside observer might be reminded of Shaun of the Dead. Get out your cricket bats, just to be safe.

I've never understood why it's so easy following the sun, and so difficult following the jet stream. What the hell? It's three hours, either way. I tend to chalk it up to having spent 22 years of my life on the left coast, but then again, I have a habit of using that as a reason for everything that I don't want to change...

Despite that, things must be accomplished! I'm setting the bar rather low today, thank you very much: a trip to Target; some easy, entry-level reading for an article; sending some overdue emails and a perhaps a trip to the Apple store to exchange an item that was purchased during my trip. [Note to self: when the horoscope expressly makes the point that you should not buy any big ticket items, particularly electronics, listen, will you?!!]

Jazz Hands

If you see a crazy woman driving around your city singing at the top of her lungs in her (thankfully) enclosed car, it's probably me. Wave hi, or feel free to join in.

I have no idea what's spurred this, but I've been obsessively listening to a particular pop culture musical all weekend long, and loving it. I put it on repeat while I cooked for some friends and cleaned the bathroom. I warbled along in the car on the way to and from my dentist appointment this morning. I've been singing it to myself for days, trying to remember the lyrics.

It could very well be that I've lost my damn mind, as this is my 18th week of teaching, or some such nonsense like that. [Three more days and counting.] It could also be that I'm atavistically returning to my high school fixations. Don't tell me it never occurred to you that I was a total drama queen in high school. [Only in high school, you ask?] Indeed. Loved the musical theatre, despite the fact that it was totally ridiculous, and if the constituent population was any indication, totally gay. I was, as Tyler Durden reminds us, the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the universe. I even yodeled, you'll be delighted to know.

God only knows what's bringing all of this on. Just be happy that you're not within earshot.

Hot Night Ahead

O ho, yes indeedy, I has me a hot night ahead. I came home from class, fed the cats, worked out (not in any real way, you understand, just enough to get some of the stress hormone out of my system). Now my big plans include: putting on flip flops and fetching some take out for dinner; watching Season Six episodes of Buffy until Gray's Anatomy comes on; watching G.A., and then more episodes of former; falling exhausted into bed. If I get ambitious, a shower and lackadaisical teeth-brushing may be in order. Look out world, she's on a roll!

In the hours of intensive brain turning-off that lay ahead of me, there will be NONE of the following: thinking about my course; thinking about writing a grant; obsessing about my end of year review; grousing about available classroom technology; fixating on a single negative student evaluation out of 55; anything resembling my job.

Senor Fluff is out of town and I just finished my first week of intensive summer school. Give me a break, will you?

Sunshine-y Day

It is certainly sunny and beautiful here in the Northeast---for about another day, before the rain descends. All of my neighbors are out, taking advantage of the weather, so the air is rent with the sounds of lawnmowers, weedwhackers, and anything else lawn and garden-related. It must be all of the Vitamin D that's fueling our collective sense of anticipation of good things coming up.

That same sense is being echoed in our household, it seems. I start my summer class tomorrow, and I'm sure that there's a hint of dread about that, but it's tempered by the short duration (8 days!), and decent paycheck that accompanies it. Check back in with me three days from now and see if I'm still in that psychic space.

I get the feeling that Senor Fluff is also feeling the springtime magic. I know it's been a hard year for him: new job; new job turns into another new job; new job requires that he suddenly know all sorts of things he didn't previously know; new job means new responsibilities, higher profile, more chances to screw up publicly and disappoint people who he feels believed in him in the first place. A hard row to hoe, and let's face it: Senora Fluff is not exactly Little Miss Mary Sunshine to come home to after a hard day.

So how do I know that he's finding his way out of the new job funk? Well, this morning I came downstairs to a significant clue. For many people, their spouses' well-being is probably demarcated by a change in discourse, outward or marked enthusiasm, engagement in hobbies or social activities. Senor Fluff's interior can be a bit harder to chart, so I like to wait for the obvious, which I document, for your enjoyment, below:

That's my man---frustrated artist. I want to assume that all of you awake to impromptu mixed-media sculptures, but if not, here's to the weirdness that is the Fluff-household in spring.

Embiggening the World

Over the past few weeks, I've found myself having a series of interactions that are pretty far outside my comfort zone, all to positive effect:

1. Via a certain infamous social networking system, I located one of my most favorite people from college and have scheduled a phone conversation with her.
2. I've had a former student who is now in graduate school email me to talk about a book that she'd been assigned a presentation on. Sick to death of typing, I told her to call me at home so we could chat about it.
3. I've had a publisher contact me about one of my class blogs and ask me if I would review a book for them.
4. I know this guy (let's call him Smokey), vaguely through a book project I've worked on. He's someone that I had a great conversation with last summer, but never followed up on. On a whim, I've asked him to discuss the design for my monster seminar in the fall, and now we're carrying on a delightful little correspondence that is exactly what I hoped it would be: smart, funny, and giving me good ideas.
   

I think I've written, in the past, about the ways that I tend to keep my social circle pretty small. As in, it was my mother, Senor Fluff, Yogini for a good number of years. I think a couple of my colleagues have worked hard to bust me out of that---all to the good (heads up, Dr. Marxy and Frenchie!). Left to my own devices, however, I'm all too often mired in a tiny set of social relations, and drained by interactions with others. Because hanging out with people who don't know you? Socially awkward and painful. High chances that I will say something and make an ass of myself, or they will say something that will make me disappointed. There's a line from a song by The Story that goes "And in the end you choose someone, somewhere/ Others fade from view/ And the world outside your life exhausts you..." Yup. That's it, in a nutshell.

But then I found myself at a soiree at a colleague's house---someone I like very much, and would like to know better---and I found it almost impossible not to talk to him about work---and not even the good things about work (yes, Virginia, they do exist), but the crap business and outrages of work. What else did we really have in common? [It doesn't help that he's a slow talker and I'm a nervous bunny rabbit.] Horrors!! I don't want to be this person, for whom human interaction revolves around work.

So I'm slowly, ever so slowly, venturing out into new pastures (hmmm. bad metaphor? does that make us all cows?). In truth, it scares the beejeesus out of me. It's not like the fear of social awkwardness and disappointment and self-ass-making have gone away. It's just now governed by the idea that the world is a big big place, potentially full of wonder and joy and the quirkiness that makes people fun, and that I've been actively, but unconsciously, engaged in making it very very small for a long time. And that if keep that up, I'll be a wizened, cranky old hag much sooner than I will be otherwise. That's the model that I see in a certain type of academic woman, and one that I'm hell-bent on trying to avoid.

I'll let you know how the experiment goes.

Bodily Functions

With that title, this post could be all kinds of gnarly, but I'll spare you. It's a beautiful day outside, I only have two more drafts of my grad students' papers to read, and I'm looking forward to seeing a friend later this evening. Yeehaw!

Now, there's certainly no end to the amount of things that I need to do: I owe letters of recommendation to 3 students; multiple short reading responses and group drafts to a class, etc., etc. However, it's also the case that for the next week or so, there should be a lull, thanks to my awesome revelation that I was going to be exhausted and a basket case by the time I got done with article/conference/diss advisor.

So I'm just about the reap the rewards of my stupendous (no irony, for once) planning. For the final two weeks of the semester, two of my classes are workshopping and working on final projects. The third is watching a movie, discussing said movie, and studying for their final exam. All of which is making me feel like I can take a deep breath and start loving the world and everyone in it.

The true sign of this, however, is just at the end of my fingers. For the past two months, I've been biting not just my fingernails down to the quick, but also the skin around my fingernails. Yup, I know: totally gross. Disgusting habit. Makes me prone to illness. I get it, but that's what anxiety and oral fixation equal in my world. Y'all just be happy I never took to smoking.

That being the case, I realized today that I have fingernails. They clack on the keyboard, they get stuff stuck under them, and they scratch my itches quite nicely.

Until earlier today, at which point I was idly scratching my hip and I took off a mole. Can you believe it?!! Just sliced that little bugger right off. It was hanging by a little piece of skin. Once I cleared the blood away, I had to just take a deep breath and pull the rest of it off. Say it with me: "EEEEEEEWWWWWW!"

So there you have it. That's what I get for being semi-relaxed---bodily disfigurement. Does anyone know if a mole removed so inexpertly comes back?

Recap

All right, just because you've all been on tenterhooks since my last post, here's the skinny on my diss advisor (Herein known as Z.) and his visit.

First things first: I worked myself up into a tizzy for nothing. By the time I had met him at the airport and gotten him squared away in the car to drive to him to his lodgings, I remembered that I had always wanted to get a chance to hang out with him, because he's so fun to talk to. I checked him in, chatted awhile, and then promptly went home and spent 2 hours writing the introduction for his lecture. This, of course, guaranteed that I spent the next day---all 13 hours of it---hanging out with him in serious sleep deprivation mode. C'est la vie.

Z. had everything to say about his own projects, about mine, about the students and colleagues that he met, advice about my upcoming tenure bid, about the ways to negotiate the tense relations with some of my colleagues. With reference to the latter, in fact, he told me a couple of hair-raising stories about his own experiences at my alma mater in his days as a junior faculty member. Words to the wise: academia never changes. Same insults, different mouths.

But here's the big moment, and the one that I've been turning around and around in my mind since he left yesterday: he thanked the College and the department and me for inviting him, and then proceeded to call me "the single most brilliant graduate student he'd ever worked with." Holy of the holiest of craps, my friends. My friend Hz, who was sitting next to me, insists that I didn't move for the next 20 minutes. That might be because all of the blood in my body rushed to my feet. I felt a bit faint, for sure.

So, what to do in the face of that kind of compliment? I've been trying to come to terms with it in some authentic way. Let's face it: I'm charming and can rub a few brain cells together, but the "most brilliant"? Hardly. At the same time, I don't want to entirely discard the comment---not just because it feels awesome, but also because Z's not an idiot or a liar. He does indeed think that I've got something going on, even if it's hyperbolic.

This is the story I'm telling myself now, and it's the best I can do to make sense of the situation. What I see now that I didn't see when I was a graduate student is this: Z and I have interlocking neuroses, which enable us to think that the other hung the moon. The first match looks like this: I met Z at a time when he was persona non grata in my department (truly, I had to hunt him down). I think the fact that I chose him, in opposition to the movers and shakers, was deeply gratifying to him. On my end, that meant that he was invested in helping me more fully realize what I wanted to do, as opposed to guiding me into a project that fit his own schema perfectly. The second match is more personal, and probably sicker in a way that embarrasses me to articulate. Z. has, as I often say, a passel of daughters. In fact, when he was working with me, he had a college-aged daughter who was quite rebellious. She couldn't have been much younger than me, really (maybe 7 years?). And as for me, let's face it: I've got father issues. In ways that have only recently come to light for me. And I'll spare y'all the dramaz. But unconditional positive regard from man 20 years my elder? Oh, it made my heart sing.

The latter dynamic was ridiculously clear when he was here. From the "let's sit down, you're wearing heels" to the moment leaving the restaurant when he first asked me if I had my coat, and then helped me on with it---it's such a dad move.

So, while I'm riding the high of his comment (and let's face it, I'm going to put that quote on as many things as I can. I might tattoo it on my arm, in fact), I'm also aware of the ways in which mentoring relations are deeply invested by all of the various psychic wounds we bring to our work. I'm lucky that it's such a positive spin on all of mine, and I hope that it's the same for Z.

I'm off to read papers til I puke. And try to strategically avoid re-creating any bizarre childhood dramas with my own students.

Note to Self, #768

Dear Self---

When possible, try to avoid letting your mouth run out ahead of your brain. Get that kid out of the street before it gets hit by a car! If you need a reminder of why not to do this, think about this moment, when you tied yourself in knots of social anxiety because six months ago, like a total meathead, you volunteered to invite your dissertation advisor to campus for a lecture. Sure, it might have seemed like a good idea at the time, and yes, he's a wonderful person and a great person for the students to meet. BUT. Remember that it makes you batshit crazy to worry about hanging out with him all day, and that he's going to finally figure out what a sham you are. Then you'll have to worry about having written a truly crap, embarrassing introduction for his lecture, which neither hews to the form of the official introduction, neither does it get at what you really want him to know about the impact that he's had. And the fact that he'll still be nice about it, no matter what kind of disaster it is will simply serve to make you feel worse, because there's nothing like having someone you adore watching you make an ass of yourself.

In short, remember this moment when you were the architect of your own freakitude, and zip it.

Love,
Fluff

P.S. One more thing: try not to schedule too many nerve-wracking, high stakes events in the same week. Honestly. Article + conference paper + advisor? What are the chances you can survive that kind of thing without totally fucking up? Really. Get some sense...

My Morning, Animated Edition

Have you ever wondered what daybreak looks like at the Fluff household? Behold, the brilliance of animation, and its ability to hit the nail (and the owner) on the head:

Why Not Just Say "Don't Get Out of Bed?"

Here's a choice quote from my horrorscope for the day:

That's it. The end of an era. The last act in a long drama. There's no going back.

Jeebus. Thanks. Bed is looking better and better all the time. As if I don't have melodramatic tendencies to begin with? Like I need some sort of astrological omen to make me more paranoid?

If you want me, I'll be laying in bed reading the latest issue of Elle, with Amy Adams on the cover.

Or else having lunch with Senor Fluff's graduate school girlfriend. Just the thing to do on a day with a horoscope like the one above.

Undergarment-Related Mishap

It's somehow warm enough today that I can wear a dress without tights. Hooray! Or so I thought. Obviously, I've never attempted this particular combination of wool dress/microfiber underwear before, or I would have known better. Somewhat akin to the combination of bleach and ammonia, these two have decided to hang onto each other and try to kill me---death via wedgie. Every three steps seems to lodge the latter firmly in my ass. This is what German friends used to call A.E.U.: ass eats underwear.

I have to teach in two hours, and I find myself with the following dilemma: I could suck it up (since that's what my nether regions have decided to do), and go to class, and be distracted by the urge to yank on my undies for the three hour discussion. Or, I could simply take them off. Anyone ever taught commando? I have to imagine that it's pretty distracting in and of itself, and I have distinct and colorful day-mares about falling and showing my class the full monty. Which, of course, is what they would think I do all the time, and then I would be known as the panty-less professor.

Ah, decisions, decisions. Stay tuned, next week, for more AEU tales!

Meme-o-rama

So the ever-fabulous (even while preggers) Ms. Kate has tagged me for a meme. And I'm still remiss on the one that Sisyphus tagged me for oh so long ago! So, this one first, and then I'll double back. Here are the tasks set before me:


1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. (see above)

2. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself. (see below)

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. (hmm. I really hate this, and I swear I don't know if there are 7 people left in the blogosphere who haven't done this. I'll poke around...)

4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. (see immediately above)


Seven random or weird things about me? Piece of cake.

1. I'm an inveterate nail biter. I know that it's gross, unsightly, and a bacteriological nightmare, but it really makes me feel better. When I can control it, I try to only bite my thumbnails, because if I bite one of the others, then I'll have to chew all of them down to the same height. Top three nail-biting contexts? Watching movies (preferably in the theater), reading student papers, and writing. Painting my nails holds this off a teeny bit; I'll peel the polish before I bite the nail itself.
2. In high school, I did a LOT of musical theater. My favorite musical, at the time, was West Side Story, and so I begged and pleaded with the drama teacher to do it in my senior year. Instead, she picked The Sound of Music. Because what's more musical than Nazis and nuns? Being the sarcastic little chit that I was, my most-repeated joke of the year was that I had always wanted to play Maria, but I wasn't specific enough. There were also, if I remember correctly, lots of jokes at the time about how no one knew exactly where Fraulein Maria was from, and thus it was technically explainable that you'd have an Asian American nun in the middle of Austria pre-WWII.
3. My yodel, developed for the above context, is not nearly as good now as it was 15 years ago. Pity.
4. I was in a rather serious car accident in the months before I went to graduate school. I totalled my car and slammed my head into the windshield (and thus my brain into the front of my skull at about 60 mph). This had all sorts of interesting effects: shards of glass continued to push their way out of my skin for the next few months (I'd wake up in the morning and find blood all over my pillow. Apparently glass will slowly work its way to the surface of your skin over time.); I lost my ability to conjugate verbs; I ended up with a monster hospital bill that my parents paid out of pocket because I didn't have health insurance. A week after my accident, I still had a black eye, but let my roommates talk me into going to a bar. A woman approached me in the bathroom and said: "You know, honey, you don't have to let him do this to you." What, stop in an intersection?
5. I love to talk about myself (hello, disease of bloggers everywhere!), but am terrified that I'm a self-centered egomaniac and that everyone I know is sick to death of it. Thus, I have a tendency to avoid telling things about myself to new friends, and I'll dodge direct questions for a long time.
6. It's been a really long time since I've been a total bitch to someone. I regret this in some ways, because I'm really really good at it. Really. A good insult is an art form, and the ones that shut other people down entirely? Genius. I feel as if my ethics are getting in the way of the development of one of my most formidable talents. I'm hiding my light under a bushel.
7. I find certain sounds to be enormous turn-ons, and smells to be turn-offs. I know that some people get off on touch and taste, but give me Chris Isaac singing Blue Spanish Sky any day of the week. Meanwhile, I'm convinced that one of the major reasons that Senor Fluff and I are still together is because the way he smells doesn't turn my stomach. I can't say the same for most of the people that I've dated.

Now, seven others? Lee is always my go-to meme girl; it appears that Sisyphus hasn't yet done her meme duty to the blogosphere, and neither has Flavia; Beth might do it musically, and Ashley might be crafty about it; the Dandelion Diva might do it in the garden. And now I'm officially stuck. There's an open spot on the roster! Anyone interested?

It's a Small World

Now that you've all got that evil ear worm eating your brain...mwah haha!

I was looking at a few journals online the other day, and I had what I guess is an inevitable experience: I saw the name of someone I used to date. Hey, it happens, right? We manage to accumulate a certain number of people in our own personal stable. Of course, I thought that I could dodge that bullet; Senor Fluff and I met my first year of graduate school, so there wasn't a lot of weird flirting, drunken parties, having to face someone in a seminar on Dickens that you've gotten with the night before. Okay, there was some of that, but I suppose since we're married and all, it's okay now.

But this journal article? Written by my college boyfriend. Not the sweet and pathetic guy that I dated for three years, that I drove to Nebraska to be with the summer after he graduated, that I eventually had to break up with because he couldn't deal with the fact that I read more theory than him (true. sad, but true). No, I could manage that; hell, that college boyfriend came to my wedding and got tanked. This college boyfriend was the one that I had a weird clandestine relationship with because he worked at the university; the one that wooed me with avant garde poetry and film; the one that my mother hated and I should have known better because he was 12 years older than me. He needs a pseudonym, no? Let's go with Batshit Crazy, or BC for short, because when I think of him, that's the phrase that always comes to me. I've never in my life been so totally confused by someone. You combine that with a 21 year old's idea of romantic love, and it's just trouble. I went to the UK for a month, and he wrote me amazing letters that magically appeared at every place I stayed. On my way back to the West Coast, he met me in New York and we wandered around in Park Slope in the snow, and he said it was like a honeymoon. [Note to men everywhere: do NOT tell a girl that anything is like a honeymoon. Ever. Total mindfuck, even if she's not interested in marriage. Which I wasn't.] We went back West, I met his parents, hung out with his sister in San Francisco, and then he sat on the bed in my apartment and read me a letter in which he told me that we had to break up before he slept with different woman later that night.

Oh, WTF, my friends. WTF indeed. I will spare you the ensuing drama. Needless to say that it involved much rage on my part, and a good deal of time spent crying in my closet so as not to disturb my roommates. And the university did not look kindly on him deflowering students. Because to think that I was the only one was a laughable misperception on my part. Ugliness galore.

I had vague notions that he went on to get a PhD, and that he'd been teaching, on and off, on the coast. Other than snorting and scoffing a bit when I heard things through the grapevine (because, seriously? one trick pony.), I tried my best to ignore that we are technically in the same field. But seeing his name in print in a journal I read--that really took me by surprise.

So I read his fucking piece. And it seems laughable to me; the form is wrong, the argument is weak, the references are random. But I'm far from a reliable, objective reader. How I dearly wish I could publish a link to the article and ask y'all what you think. In the meantime, I suppose I'll have to nurse my apparently-still-quite active resentment by myself.

We Now Pronounce You...

Well, you asked for fall fashion, and I'm on it, I swear. But it will require pictures. And I can't locate my camera cord right now. But it's next on my list, I promise!

Since Ashley mentioned the joyous, drunken weeping occasion of my nuptials, I thought I'd go there. Last week marked the Fluff seventh anniversary. Seven, the mystical number. Seven, the year of the impending itch. Seven--but a blip in comparison to my grandparents 56 year marriage, but half the length of my parents'. Seven years, plus the three that we spent together prior to the event, makes a solid decade together, and nearly a third of my life. There's some math for you!

As much as I wanted to get married (and make no mistake, I was the one who had to talk Senor Fluff into it. I say "talk"--being gallant, he won't use the word "badger," which might be more appropriate), by the time it actually rolled around, I had some second thoughts. "Twenty-five is awfully young to get married," mused I. "Only prom queens and Mormons get married at 25!" [I'm not saying that I was a religiously-tolerant 25, am I now?] And if I admit it, 25 was young to get married; I was just finishing up my comprehensive exams, about to start the dissertation. Senor Fluff had just gotten his first tenure-track job in a teensy Mid-Atlantic conservative town. We had a small (and quite lovely) little ritual in my hometown, and then buggered off to a new place, where we knew no one and had to inhabit new roles. My advice? Not the way to begin your first year of marriage.

In many ways, I owe the fact that I'm not a young divorcee--a la Britney--to Senor Fluff. It might be because his own parents have been married for 30+ years, or because he's a huge fan of inertia (some of his old pals call him "Mr. Don't Fuck with It," in fact). In large measure, however, we're still together because he gently expects that I will discuss the things on which we disagree. My natural tendency is to throw things and stomp around the house, but it's nigh on impossible to do that when someone asks you to tell them what it is that's bothering you. Dammit.

A newly-married friend just wrote that "marriage is about sharing." I adamantly disagree. Forget sharing. I'm all about having something for yourself, and your spouse having his/her own things. I think marriage is about articulating and accepting difference. [You like to sit in a booth? I like to sit at a table. You hate eggplant? I love eggplant! You want hot dogs and tater tots? I want swanky French bistro food! You love Jim Jarmuch movies? I think they're boring as hell! Really? I never would have imagined!] Assume that you share the same ideas and you're dead in the water. Embrace the gulf between your own preferences and those of the person you live with--that's our game plan.

Until recently, I think I was unconsciously convinced that, eventually, I would end up divorced. It just seemed like the thing that happened. But perhaps by picking someone who refuses to let me play out either some Simpson/Lachey Newlyweds drama or my parents' "quiet lives of desperation" pattern, I've backed into something that promises to survive the long haul.

Of course, by writing that, I've probably jinxed myself.

Fall fashion coming up, y'all.

Afflicted, Part 2

Okay, god knows y'all (shout out to Paula Deen!) have heard enough whining here nowadays. "I don't want to write!" "I have the plague!" I'll try to rein it in forthwith. Since there's so little out on the net about the experience of pityriasis, however, I wanted to document the down and dirty (or down and spotty?) day-to-dayness of it. Warning: graphic descriptions ahead!

As of tomorrow, it will be three weeks since my symptoms first presented. Yesterday was my first day without significant itching---quite a relief. According to the numerous websites, a small minority of people experience the itching; most people just get the spots. Well, in most people the spots only occur on the trunk, but I've got them in significant quantities on the insides of my thighs (yummy. I'm sure there's a porn fetish in there somewhere), a few on the back of my knees and the insides of my elbows. The spots and the itching are also worse (more red, more inflamed, more prone to make me want to use a cheese grater to scratch) on my bathing suit parts. Extra points if you've figured out the common denominator here. My theory is that it's all the body parts that get hot and sweaty (I don't have necessarily super sweaty boobs, you understand. But 90 degree heat plus bra plus shirt=more warm than other places with a single layer). The upside to all of this is that people really stay away from you when you're scratching your crotch all the time. So good for us introverts.

There was a brief and shining moment just before week two when I thought I was in the clear; the spots had flattened out and started to peel (charming to look at, but certainly less itchy). That was when the second string appeared---all over my back and butt. Round two of scratching, except this time it was hard to reach. And sitting--say, in front of a computer--was no fun, as it aggravated the field of bumps on my ass. So, lots of laying on the stomach in front of the laptop.

I don't think it's unusual to have the second round of bumps, it's just depressing. I may have aggravated it in one of two ways: it was, for a few days, wretchedly hot and humid here. That could have set off the symptoms. I also caved in and went to the gym. Twice. It's probably not a coincidence that the most resilient itchy bumps are in the channel between my shoulder blades (you know, where you sweat).

Should this ever befall you (and if I had had a choice, I'd have gone with the locusts or the river of blood, for sure), a couple of cautions and suggestions. What I have done this past week is take doses of evening primrose oil, which has a compound that's good for skin. I read about that in Andrew Weil's column, and thought "what the hell?" It may be coincidence that the leprosy has dried up since I've been taking it, but there may be a connection. If at all possible, I'd avoid the heat and any kind of friction you can. I've never spent so much time without underwear on, but it was an absolute necessity. If I could have conquered my prudery and gone to work that way, I would have been more comfortable. One might also want to warn one's roommates and spouses that being itchy all the time makes one cranky. (Note the use of the third person here.) One might also want to warn one's spouse that no matter how cool he might think being called "Leopard Woman" is, it is definitively not.

So there you have it, folks. The anatomy of a skin condition. I'll let you know when it's totally disappeared, but all praise the gods Cortisone and Anti-histamine for their non-itch benevolence.

My Other Boyfriend

I'm sitting in my new office, still actively loving it. It apparently has some sort of magic capability to accept box after box of books and still have room for more. How does that work?! I'm emptying out shelves at home like an a deranged, opposite magpie, and still there's bookshelf space up in here. Maybbe they're all going into a different dimension--Borges library, perhaps. As I'm rearranging in wonder, I'm listening to Pandora, the savior of all of us who keep forgetting to download music onto office computers. Somehow, I built an Elvis Costello channel that brings up Toad the Wet Sprocket, The Rolling Stones, and The Finn Brothers. I have no idea what kind of freaky Music Genome connects those four, but it has led me into atavistic reveries about Neil Finn, my other boyfriend.

We're all on the same page here, right? Neil Finn, of Split Enz, Crowded House, The Finn Brothers, etc. He also does a particularly charming little duet with Jonatha Brooke on her CD Steady Pull, as well. I liked all of these bands separately (CH most enthusiastically), but it took me years to figure out that Finn was the consistent element across all of them. It must have been the duet that did it; I don't love the lyrics of the song, really (there's something about the way that they emote as they sing the word "uniform" that kills it for me), but I do clearly remember hearing it for the first time and thinking "I want Neil Finn to be my boyfriend."

Oh, come on. Like you've never had that thought? It doesn't have to be about NF specifically. Fill in the blank with your own crush. There you go. Now answer the question.

Right. So Finn. Here's the thing: I'm a sucker for the evocative lyric. "Walking round the room singing 'Stormy Weather'"? Check. "It never used to be that bad/neither was it great./Something in the middle then/Content and much too safe"? Check. Interesting, this longstanding crush I have. When I see a picture of Neil Finn, it doesn't really do anything for me (sorry Neil). But the lyric. Ain't that just what it's all about? (Hell, I'd crush on Joni Mitchell if she were only a baritone.) Are they cheesy? Sure enough. But they're just enough on this side of cliche that they make me go all jelly-kneed.

So imagine my surprise when I downloaded "Last One Standing" from iTunes. Catchy? Yep. Evocative? Indeed. But methinks my other boyfriend has gone over the edge, or else I'm losing my close-reading skillz. Because what on earth is this song about?! Lyrics are here and appear, at a glance, to be correct. Anyone who cares to further my illicit affair with a singer-songwriter by proposing an interpretation---the comment section is open.