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Monday, September 30, 2002
Youch, I hit post/publish and simultaneously received an e-mail from her. I wonder if her ears were burning.
9:21 PM


I'm kind of...not wanting to go out to lunch on Wednesday. Because I know she's going to tell me how much better he will be at my old job than I was, and I'm going to have to sit there and pretend not to be annoyed. I will have to listen to one of three formulations, if not all:

"He'll do a better job because he's got more computer skills." Well, fuck that noise. He's using the books *I* discarded to do tech support in his current position. There is no way he knows more about computer systems than I do, there just isn't. I wrote my first computer program 22 years ago, he just started learning about computer systems last year.

"He'll be better because he's more proactive and will seek out new tasks." Well, fuck that noise as well. I was the most proactive person around for the first 1.5 years. I looked around, some something that could be improved, and did it. Designed databases, bought new equipment, took on new responsibilities. I asked and asked and asked my boss to redefine my position because I was running out of work, to no avail.

"He'll be better because he's more suited to working with people." Okay, this would be a fair enough complaint if I didn't bend over backwards to get along with everyone on a professional level. Hell, I even had the occasional conversation with Charlie! What more could anyone ask from me? I challenge her to find one person (besides Problem Co-worker A) with whom I wasn't friendly, polite or helpful. There ain't none. More suited to working with people? He blushes if you say his name. He makes my social anxieties look minor. He breaks out in a rash if you say Happy Birthday to him, seriously.

And it's completely stupid to get angry over it, because I am SO GLAD to be out of that job, and I don't wish my predecessor ill, nor think that I'm irreplacable. But on the other hand, I shouldn't have to listen to a friend tell me why her boyfriend is more suited to a job I did better than anyone else who'd ever held it to date.
9:20 PM


I've been carrying around the faculty newsletter all day simply because it makes me laugh. Today's helpful teaching hint comes under the heading, "Advice from the Ancient Texts--The Bhagavad Gita." Here's what I need to think about in order to get through my teaching day:

You have the right to work, but for the work's sake only. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive for working. Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender.

I didn't understand the Bhagavad Gita in grad school, and I don't get it now.
5:47 PM

Sunday, September 29, 2002
Three more descriptive geometry problems, and I can go to bed.

Another mile a minute weekend. Well, it would have been nice to run a mile a minute, but it took considerly longer on Saturday.

I know I've run a faster 5K, but practice on Friday left my legs a little empty. Overall, it was really hard work, the entire second mile was uphill, and about half the rest of the race was, too, not exactly ideal for recovering from on-ice sprints. Somewhere between the one and two mile mark I noticed Yolanda running near me. I used her to pace myself, and we ran a pretty good race together, but she kicked my butt at the finish. I don't know where she found the energy. So, that's kind of humbling, getting out-kicked by a cancer survivor. I started to keep up with her, but after about three paces, I thought, "Look, you haven't thrown up yet, do you really want to do it right at the finish?"

And actually, we both got beat by a guy running in a walking cast. How much does that suck?

I felt like I worked hard and really pushed it, but my time didn't really reflect that. I don't know what my official time is, probably at least 1:00 above the time I tracked, because it took me awhile to get to the start line after the timer started. Then at least another minute was full of trying to dodge around the walkers. I don't know why they let the walkers and runners out at the same time. Next time (next Saturday!) I'll start closer to the front of the pack.

Sometime around the two-mile mark, I was thinking, "No fucking way am I doing this next weekend," but I guess I've changed my mind.

Saturday afternoon Catherine helped me take some more measurements, and I've been chained to the computer ever since. I should have charged more--not much more, but more--because the second floor of one of the houses was really, really strange. The drawings aren't as clean as I would have liked them, but I only had a couple of hours Friday to do the measurements. I tried to get ahold of the realtor over the weekend to see if he'd let me back inside, but no dice. So, Steve is just going to have to make do. I'd be willing to continue to refine them over the next couple of weeks, free of charge, but I don't think he should be too upset since I had essentially 3 days to do a 3-week job. Deadline is noon tomorrow, and I can't do anything else until I plot them. Can't plot them until tomorrow because my printer won't handle that size paper. So, I just get to lay awake and worry about them all night instead.

But, I'm kind of impressed with myself. In 24 hours I've produced three floor plans, two front elevations, and a site plan. That's a lot of work in not a lot of time.

I think I wouldn't mind doing measured drawings for a living, but I would put some sort of clause in my contract for each job that said the occupants of the home cannot be home when I need to measure, nor can the realtor stand by and chat with me. It's torture for an excessively shy person to try and work while at the same time trying to deal with strangers. I had to change my clothes after I finished measuring Friday morning, I was drenched with panicky sweat. Maybe I can work with a team next summer and make my team members do all the talking.

Sucks that it was beautiful fall weather today and I was inside working!
9:41 PM

Saturday, September 28, 2002
The "before" picture. I'm not showing the "after" picture.


6:19 PM

Friday, September 27, 2002
This is really interesting. I used to think every woman I knew had endometriosis, then I realized, no, it was just every woman in my family: my mom, her two sisters, all their first cousins, my sister, me. My aunt recently developed lupus, and my mom has scleroderma, both one of those "uh...yeah, I don't know how you got it" diseases. The older I get, the more allergies I develop. It seems rather coincidental, if you ask me, but I'm glad someone out there is doing research on this.

True story: when I was a sophomore in college, I was in so much pain during my cycle that I passed out in the shower of my dormitory. When I came to, I managed to get back in my bed, at which point my roommate went and got a friend and they took me to the emergency because I was basically incoherent. The doctor on call told me he could give something for the pain, but he hesitated to do so because I would become mentally dependent on it and would come running to the emergency room every time I had cramps. Lucky for him I was too sick to get up and kick him where it matters. He left me there in the examining room and never did anything for me. Eventually my friend came looking for me and took me home where I collapsed and stayed in bed for the next two days. That may have been the moment I became an ardent feminist.
10:34 PM


Wow double wow. I finally drove through Martinsville this evening. It looks like a bomb went off. A really, really big bomb. First it was just a few trees, then all the trees, then all the trees and all the buildings, and then it was just wasteland. At first I was pointing things out to Matty, "My god, there was a *huge* warehouse there, and it's gone. Oh, that was my favorite farm house, it used to have a barn, but I guess that's gone. Oh, wow, I've never even seen those houses before, there used to be a forest between them and the highway, and now they're gone, too. " And Matty was commenting back to me, "Look at that!" But then it seemed like all the words ran out and we just drove along in complete silence. It really was stunning. Just devastation. I really can't describe it, it was the type of awesome that makes you want to throw up.

So, I think it will work out to have Matty drive to practice with me. At first I wasn't sure, I tried to sound her out on a couple of things and she wouldn't commit. She's from North Dakota, and she mentioned UND's hockey program, so I said something vague about reading about their new rink, and she said yeah, it was big and fancy, and sounded a little positive about it, which made me doubt that I would get along with her. She didn't mention the controversy at all, so I wasn't sure how she felt.

So, we went to practice, and then afterward, I asked her a couple of leading questions and it turns out she feels the exact same way I do about the Fighting Sioux mascot (I should have come right out and asked her, but I'm a coward!). I thought for a second I was in trouble, she started out her sentence saying, "It's just a name," and I thought she would finish it by saying "so I don't see what everyone is so upset about," but she ended up saying, "so I don't see why they just can't do the right thing and change it." She is apparently from the area of the Spirit Lake Nation and has talked to some Dakota people who don't care about the name. She personally thinks that if it may hurt someone, it should go. And then she went on to talk about why she thinks that the free education Native Americans get at UND is equitable, that she didn't used to, but her mom talked to her about all the ways we oppress Native Americans, and doesn't she think it's time we started turning that around, etc., and she thought about it and agrees. Anyway, we had quite a talk about it, it turns out her mother did a study on retention rates for Dakota students in the K-12 system so she had a lot of interesting information.

And from there we went on to how stupid Bush is, she also voted Green Party (and used the same justification I did), we talked about the Gulf War, and what kind of issue would have to be at stake before we personally would pick up weapons (I quote, "If I had to protect someone I love, that would be one thing, but I'm not going to go to war just so someone can drive an SUV across America"), and just as we got back to her place, we hit on September 11, and had similar opinions.

As it turns out, Catherine was right and I was wrong. I discovered that politics mean a lot to me--if you have similar political ideas, I'll probably make you my friend. It doesn't matter if you're a Christian, or if you're an omnivore, or if you like to shop for shoes--I can overlook all of those if you think Bush is stupid. Well, and it helps if you like sports. That doesn't seem like too much to ask from a person.
9:57 PM


My god, my hand hurts. Clutching a pencil all day is exactly *not* what the doctor ordered. I think I got the interior measurements done. Well, I can already tell I missed a few, but I think I can make it work. It was the exam that really killed my hand. Two hours of scrawling. An hour and a half into it, I was like, "Fuck this, who cares about Kant's categorical imperative, anyway? Only, like, two people I know even know what it is, so why the hell am I doing this?" So I spent the last half hour writing impressions on consequentialist theories of philosophy rather than a full-fledged essay because I was just sick of writing about it.
2:59 PM

Thursday, September 26, 2002
I might moan about it, but running really is good for me. It's helping me build strength in my legs (good for those on-ice sprints) and helping lose some unnecessary weight. Mostly what's good about it, though, is that it's the perfect workout for a loner. I don't have to talk to anybody except to say, "Hey," to people going the opposite way on the rail-to-trail. Catherine and I run at different paces, so I don't even really chat with her.

This evening I did a quick run at Thomson Park. I love that place, no one ever uses it so it is like our own private park: our own bball hoops, our own tennis courts, our own .62 mile running track. Never anyone around, so it's always peaceful. I can run and watch the seasons change and never have to say "hey" to anyone on the trail.

On the other hand, it can get kind of creepy being out there by myself, especially now that it's started to get dark earlier. Well, I know a lot of it is just that I've had Jill on the brain for awhile now, and it makes me jumpy, but I don't like running through the woods up the quarry slope. The woods by the tennis courts aren't too scary, but the ones on the other side of the park seem more remote.

I have to go through a low income development to get to the park. I mean, it's not like I live in the projects or anything, but it is a low income development zone--to buy a house there your income can't exceed whatever the current maximum is designated by federal guidelines. They're really small, rectangular houses, very plain, they don't even come with porches. If you want a porch, you have to pour a slab-on-grade after you buy the house.

Anyway, most of them are kept pretty nice, and it seems like a nice place to live. A lot of families. But I'll tell you, I seem to live in the land of domestic violence. The last two times I've gone over to Thomson Park, I've had to pretend not to see two different fights. The first one seemed to involve a lot of people, but I didn't hang around to get the details. Tonight's ended with someone (the husband/boyfriend? I didn't turn my head) came out of the house and squealed out of the driveway in a car, with the woman yelling, "You'd better come back, and when you come back, you're gonna have to deal with me!"

The difference between living here and living on the east side is that people on the east side hide this kind of thing better. They have bigger houses so when they storm away from their spouse, it just means going to the family room. And the walls are probably framed with 2x6s so they're a little more soundproof. And people living in Hyde Park undoubtedly do not have the economic stresses in their lives that my neighbors do.
8:48 PM


You know you live in a bad neighborhood when the City sends you a letter saying that they are going to start offering scholarships to residents of underdeveloped neighborhoods, and would we be interested in a program that provided funds to attend career development-type classes? Thanks, I'm already over-educated. The two neighborhoods mentioned in the letter are the one from which we moved, and the one in which we live now.
8:25 PM


I obviously have serious issues.

I agreed to give a teammate a ride to practice on Friday, one of the women who just joined the team. She just e-mailed me and wrote:

"Thank you so much, I look forward to not only hockey but getting to know my teammates better (you)."

Which was a perfectly nice thing to say, but my first reaction was, "Whoa! Back off there, partner! What makes you think you're going to get to know me better?!"

I *am* a misanthrope.

The next time I bitch about not having anything in common with anyone around me, someone should hit me on the head with a brick and make me re-read this.

Addendum: Ha! Catherine read this and laughed. "Even that's too touchy-feely for you, huh? Well, I'm glad you like *me*. How did I get so lucky?"
2:48 PM


I have nothing useful to say.
1:59 PM

Wednesday, September 25, 2002
Lucy looks really awful. We need to make a decision. Do we put her through the pain of a bone biopsy, or not? If we do the biopsy, and she does have a tumor, there's no treatment, we just need to decide when to let her go. If we do the biopsy and it's not a tumor, we yank all her teeth, but she may recover or she may not. The antibiotics did seem to help a little, but her head is all swollen on one side and she can't breathe very easily. We want to do everything we can for her, on the other hand, I hate to make her suffer through a bone biopsy if it's not going to get her anywhere in the end.

I am so not getting any more pets.
10:21 PM


Explain me this: why does the campus bookstore sell soldering irons, but not graph paper?
3:37 PM


Oh, and someone bid on the job and sent a quotation of $1600! What a rip off! If it takes me more than four hours to do the interior measurements, that means I'm being inefficient and/or incompetent, and I would never consider charging for that.

What Steve doesn't know is that I would have done the job for free just to have another project in my portfolio. I thought I was overcharging at $400, maybe I need to start charging $100/hour or something.
1:05 PM


Paper cut season has begun. Youch.

Well, I got the job, which means I'm going to be stressed for the next five days. Mmm...really just stressed Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I can't get in to measure the houses until Friday a.m., so there's no point in worrying about it until then. Then I've got an exam to take Friday afternoon, then I have to pick up the registration papers for Saturday's run, pick up Matty, and race to practice. Then the run is...hm...sometime Saturday morning, and then I can do the exterior and site measurements Saturday afternoon. Then Saturday evening and Sunday I'll knock out the drawings and have them done by Monday a.m.

Which begs the question--exactly when am I going to prep for next week's classes, if I have practice this evening? Thursday evening, I guess. Thursday morning I must finish correcting all this homework before I collapse under the increasing weight of my briefcase. I just worked for two hours correcting, and I'm only about 1/2 way through this week's stack.
1:02 PM


Well, I spoke too soon. Or, I thought about speaking too soon. I meant to note down yesterday that I was all but recovered from poison ivy, in that I hadn't had to get up during the night and re-dose on benadryl the night before, but alas, I was up at 3:30 this morning fumbling around for my drugs. I wouldn't care so much, but it is impossible to get back to sleep after I wake up. Insomnia is insidious--you lay awake and think all these thoughts, and then when you get up in the morning, you realize you were completely wasting your time because you were far from lucid. Last night I spent a few hours alternately trying to come up with a solution to a 3D drafting problem (never figured it out) and writing e-mails in my head. I had a couple of things to say to a couple different friends, and I thought I had it all worked out, but after I cleared my head with a shower this morning, it was apparent that if I'd sent those e-mails, everyone involved--including myself--would think I was insane.

I saw two sun dogs this morning--autumn has officially arrived.
7:53 AM

Tuesday, September 24, 2002
I actually made dinner this evening. It wasn't much, but it did involve chopping fresh vegetables, so that should further my cause in the Be A Better Spouse contest. And I put the groceries away. And I'm going to do the dishes after I finish typing this.

A parting thought on Jonestown. I was 11 years old, in the sixth grade. We studied Jonestown in our block class (kind of like a homeroom class). We also studied the pope getting elected, dying, and a new pope getting elected (smoke through a chimney, wow). We did not, however, study the murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, which happened at right around the same time. Because, you know, mass murder and religion are perfectly acceptable parts of a public school curriculum, but hate crimes and queers...can't talk about any of those. That's 'cause everyone was running scared in front of the Briggs Initiative.

Speaking of Harvey Milk and Jim Jones, this is one heck of a primary source. That brass check web site is an odd one--part conspiracy theory, part progressive, part free speech agitation, part inciteful, part whack. How anybody can swing between talking about Jim Jones and a Critical Mass ride in a single breath is beyond me.


9:07 PM


That's not hockey!
2:12 PM


And probably when you're already angry and depressed, you shouldn't read old accounts of Jonestown on your lunch hour.

I swear to god someday I'm going to make good on my threat to burn all my worldly possessions and move out into the wilderness and never talk to any humans ever again.
12:50 PM


Well....fuck. Generally speaking, I'm against capital punishment, but if I had just five minutes alone in a room with the guy who did this, I'd show him what a baseball bat is good for. I've been suppressing rage over this for two years now, and all I can say is--how dare he? How dare he do this to Jill, not to mention her parents, her brother, and the rest of us? You want terrorism? Terrorism is hitting a woman because you're too fucking wasted to be driving, then killing her and dumping her body to hide the evidence. Terrorism is keeping your mouth shut when you know what your drinking buddies did last night, leaving her parents to wonder how much she had to suffer before she died. Terrorism is making Mr. Behrman sit on the bank of that creek bed while the dive teams fruitlessly searched for his daughter's body. Terrorism is making every woman in town afraid to walk, run or ride a bike by herself. Terrorism is making every woman in town think twice before putting on a walkman outside for fear that they won't hear a murderer sneaking up behind them.

For two years now, I've been saying, "I'm just going to believe that she died when they hit her. I don't want to know that she was alive, that she could have been saved, that they killed her to cover up." Why the fuck couldn't you just have left the scene of the accident? Why were you such a fucking coward that you had to kill her to protect yourself?

Yeah, you, me and a baseball bat, and then I'm going to take on each one of your buddies who helped you kill her.
8:07 AM

Monday, September 23, 2002
A bit of dilemma in class today, and maybe I made the wrong choice.

I have a video on framing that I wanted my students to watch. It's actually a good video, and shows them a lot of things I can't show them in class (would that I could frame an entire house in room C123, but that's not going to happen). I was particularly interested in the floor and wall framing parts, showing the sill sealer, the jack studs, the headers and trimmers at the windows. It was a good way for them to spend 45 minutes, especially right after I lecture on platform framing and floor joists.

But.

The video has two co-hosts, a man and woman. I think they used to have a show on cable. The thing is, the information in the video is good, but the woman is an absolutely incompetent carpenter. Everytime I watch the video, I am newly afraid she's going to bash her hand with a hammer or nail her foot to the floor with the power-actuated nail driver. So, I needed to make a decision--show them a video with basically good information but a basically incompetent woman, or try to come up with some other way to deliver the same information in as efficient a manner.

Well, I showed the video, and instantly everyone began laughing at the woman. The thing is, it was funny. The guy would place a piece of sheathing, and she would pull it down and align it with the bottom of the wall. While he was talking, he'd ease it back to where he wanted it, and she would pull it back down. After they did this three times, he finally said, "Robin, don't we want to align this with the top of the wall?" And she thought it about for a couple of seconds, and said, "Oh, yeah, that's what we were going to do." It cracks me up when I'm by myself, but do I really want all my (mostly male) students see this woman make mistake after mistake? And every time they showed her pounding a nail, three out of four blows missed the nail head. I can't keep from laughing at her, but I could hear the guys in the class joking sotto voice about how "she hammers like a girl!" and I knew I had made a mistake.

I probably set feminism back 40 years. But at least my students now know what jack stud and king studs are. There's some masculine framing language for you.
8:51 PM


Tell me something that my friends of color haven't already told me.
6:16 PM


So, the big topic of discussion today is, of course, the tornado. A 150-mile path cut by one F-3 tornado. This is how much my life has changed since leaving the west coast-I actually know what the Fujita scale is. I shouldn't have to worry about tornadoes when it's not even tornado season, and if you don't when tornado season is, you don't live in the Midwest! Sometimes I really just want to go back to some place where the weather is not quite so insane.

Most of my students are from out in the county, or Martinsville, or Ellettsville. These are the students that go to a tech college--they're Hoosiers born and bred, and live in the working class areas or out in the rural areas. So, most of my students have interesting tornado stories to tell, since this storm system seemed to have some sense of class structure when it went through Morgan and Monroe counties. I don't know if it's true or not, but the word always is, tornadoes like the perimeters of settled areas, and flat areas, which is why Bloomington usually squeaks by without too much damage. What that means is the tornadoes hit the trailer parks on the edge of town, and the flat areas where the farmers and poor people live.

B. came in around 5:00 to drop off his homework, and I asked him how bad his sister's apartment was. It's gone, he says. But she wasn't hurt? "She was home sleeping, because she works out at Cook? she's on that new 9-hour schedule so she was home trying to get some sleep? and her husband called up and told her to go the bank because he needed some money. She said she didn't want to because it was getting pretty bad out, but he said, "What are you, chicken?" so she went, which turned out to be a good thing because there's a tree where her apartment used to be. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff we dug out. We dug out a garage door opener? You know, the motor and drive chain and track? Buried in her living room." He said there are three apartments left in the building (across from the high school), but none of them are habitable.

M. lives between K-Mart and Walmart in Martinsville, the hardest hit area. His house is fine but none of the houses across the street are there anymore. That new warehouse out on 37? It's gone. That model home? It's still there, but it's displaced off the foundation about three feet. In a sick sort of way, I'm looking forward to driving to practice on Wednesday because my route follows exactly the tornado's path. I've seen plenty of pictures, but I'd like to go look at K-Mart, McDonald's, the Hill View Motel, Galyan's, etc., myself.

I am still amazed that no one got killed. It wasn't just that the wind sheared off telephone poles and trees, it sheared off cell phone towers. It brought down one of those grey electric pylon giants that march through clear cut land. How do you knock one of those over? It seems impossible.

Garry of Garry's Marathon was apparently the most serious injury, and that's bad enough. A wall fell on him. Still, as Catherine points out, its comforting to know an entire building can fall on you and you still might make it out alive.
5:57 PM


No internet access at work due to storm damage. One of my students didn't show up this morning, but left a message saying he was still out picking up his sister's stuff because her apartment was destroyed on Friday. In Ellettsville alone, 28 houses destroyed, 39 more uninhabitable, 101 with minor damage. Apparently they're still counting in Martinsville, Greewood, Homecroft, Indy, etc.
11:52 AM


Well, I won't be upset if I don't get the job, but it does seem kind of silly to call me up and tell me my bid was too *low*. Jesus, try to give a non-profit a break and look what it gets me. I'm sorry, but there's no way on earth that it should take more than an hour or two to knock out a floor plan, site plan and elevation. Anyone who is charging you for more is ripping you off.
10:16 AM

Sunday, September 22, 2002
This is what else I'm talking about tonight:

I never read the Smithsonian, even though my in-laws buy us a subscription for Christmas every year. I started flipping through this month's issue, though, searching for the article on "The Oldest City in the Americas." I never made it there, because I got sidetracked reading "Latino Legacies."

Okay, I get that the Institution is trying to do the right thing and be more inclusive, so I guess I shouldn't bitch at them. But, three sentences into the article, I was already shaking my head.

"Too often we forget: the history of the United States may date formally from 1776, but the history of America was already centuries old by then. There was a Hispanic presence on the continent for more than 200 years before 13 colonies on the eastern coast declared their independence from England. Indeed, the Spaniards wasted little time in colonizing the new territories Columbus revealed with his voyages. They had already claimed portions of Central and South America when, in 1565, they established St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent settlement in territory that would one day be part of the United States."

I kept reading, thinking surely the author would eventually get around to saying something about the indigenous people, but it never happened. So, according to the Smithsonian, history began when Europeans colonized the Americas. That is so fucked. Didn't this guy have to read Bartolome de las Casas in college? My freshman history students weren't that clueless.

An unrelated observation: I just finished reading an article on John C. Calhoun ("He Started the Civil War" was the subtitle). The more I read about the Civil War, the more insight I gain into contemporary politics. It's kind of interesting that most Americans know less about the Civil War than they do about...well, Americans don't know much about anything in history, but that's not the point. The point is, none of us know anything about the Civil War, but it's not all that difficult to draw a direct path from the war through Reconstruction into the 20th c. and up to today.

The debate between state's rights v. federal power resonates today. I'm generally a federalist, but every once in awhile, I hear myself saying things that make me sound like a Republican agitating for state's rights. Then this evening I read Calhoun's arguments for "state interposition," and it makes me a little uneasy. Jefferson and Madison wrote up the first argument for state interposition to protest something or other they didn't like, basing their argument on the social contract theory of Hobbes and Locke (which, generally speaking, I don't have too much of a problem with). But the basic argument was that "because representatives of the States had written the constitution, the power of constitutional interpretation rested with the states. So if a state believed the federal gov't was violating the terms of the national charter, it had the right to interpose itself between its people and the federal gov't to provide protection from tyranny."

The article goes on to summarize Calhoun's interpretation of Jefferson and Madison. He claims that "the Constitution of the United States is, in fact, a compact, to which each State is a party...[since] the States...formed the compact, acting as Sovereign and independent communities..., the several States, or parties, have a right to judge of its infractions."

The scary part is, this actually makes sense to me. I haven't completely thought it through, or even read Calhoun's entire manifesto (A Disquisition on Government), but state interposition doesn't sound like such a misreading of the Constitution as it stood in the beginning of the 19th c. It's troublesome to suddenly start sympathizing with Southern politics. I liked it better when I was in high school and we were taught, "Hey, the South sucks. End of story."

What I really find interesting is how much of the state right's v. federal power argument still lingers today. My family are rabid state's rights supporters, while I tend toward wanting a strong (and hey, not corrupt and full of crooks) federal gov't. What would the U.S. look like if power was decentralized and handed back to State legislatures? Would we end up Balkanized and at war with our neighboring states, or could we have evolved into a loose confederacy like the EU? Inquiring minds want to know.
10:27 PM


Okay, even though I haven't seen the movie, this is what I'm talking about, kids.
9:11 PM


Ah, but happiness is a new bottle of benadryl.
6:16 PM


C'est vrai--on days that I actually sit down and focus on the task at hand, I end up with nothing to complain about in my journal.
5:14 PM

Saturday, September 21, 2002
A good evening in front of the television. We finally got around to watching Show Me Love (the Swedish title is much better: Fucking Åmål). It's kind of old, it came out in 1998, but it takes me awhile to get around to watching movies. It takes even longer if I have to track them down and purchase them. God knows Blockbuster wouldn't carry the last four movies I bought: Fire, Chutney Popcorn, Better Than Chocolate, and Show Me Love. I have to say that generally speaking, movies with lesbian content started to improve in the mid-1990s and have slowly been getting more watchable (don't even get me started on that Claire of the Moon crap). At least the dyke isn't always a psycho murderer these days. I will admit, though, we overlook a lot of plot/production flaws just for the privilege of seeing some sort of reflection of our own lives on the screen. Hmm...that sounds like I'm complaining of lesbian invisibility in the media, and I'm not, because I'd rather be invisible than the subject of a joke on Friends or on the cover of People magazine as this month's trendy look.

Well, after that, we stumbled across Aaron McGruder on C-SPAN. It was a recording of the talk he gave 9/10/02 at Emory on free speech. Man, he's just a baby! He's not old enough to be that informed. I really enjoyed his challenge to the left, and his comparison of Condoleezza Rice to Darth Vader. And I could swear he was advocating a coup, overthrowing the U.S. government. It surprises me he's not in jail on sedition charges.
10:37 PM


Patriotism Means No Questions
7:16 PM


This afternoon, Catherine and I went "shopping" in our garage. In other words, we dug out all the bins of clothes we'd buried in there and tried them on until I found 8 or 10 pairs of long pants that fit. Okay, so they are not the oh-so-fashionable hip huggers that the kids are wearing. This is the good thing about being old, I don't have to wear the hideous styles of today. Anyway, I've suddenly gone from one pair of long pants to almost a dozen.

And we found the dress I bought to take to London, and it's as stunning as ever. It's too bad, I only ever wore it once, the night we got thrown out of Christopher Forbes' house. I'll never wear it again. Luckily, it now looks great on Catherine, and she might wear it to the Bill Blass opening.

We got a little sidetracked rummaging through bins of books we'd put there for storage, and I found a bin of old letters and junk. You know you and your partner on solid ground when you can spend the afternoon together in the garage reading old love letters from failed relationships to each other. Catherine was so mean! She read me some of the love poems John wrote to her, then handed me one and said, "Oh, I can't believe this, this is the one John gave me right before I broke up with him." It practically dripped with tears of eternal devotion to their relationship. And then she goes and breaks his heart.

However, if I started calling her "Kitty" like John did, she'd probably break up with me, too.

I found an envelope that my mom must have sent me at one point with all my report cards, K-12. But, luckily I know better than to sit down and relive my rather pitiful early academic career. I did pretty good in kindergarten, though. Everyone will be glad to know that I could count to 100 by the end of the school year.
5:25 PM


When I left the house for a run this morning, the neighbors were already going at it, at least three of them screaming at the top of their lungs. Just as I was stepping onto the back steps, the wife/mother came out of the house, still yelling bloody murder. I eased back inside our house so she couldn't really see me. She moved the car from the driveway into the garage, yelling the entire time, then went back into the house.

Right after she went inside, I heard the husband/father yelling something, and another female voice yelling, then there were four loud slamming noises. Then a fifth, which shook the windows of their house, and suddenly everything was quiet.

And I'm hovering there on the threshold, wondering, do I call the police? Was that someone throwing encyclopedias at the walls, or someone bashing a head against the wall? Should I just ignore it?

I don't want to get involved, I don't want the police to come and say someone reported a disturbance, because they'll know it was us, it couldn't be anyone else. And I don't want them to come storming over here intent on teaching us to mind our own business. It just doesn't feel safe.

But mostly what I thought when I was standing here--and I can't believe this is the first time in 35 years that this has ever occurred to me--was how ashamed I would have been if my neighbors had heard our family when things like this happened. And then I realized, the neighbors probably did hear us. In fact, there was no way the neighbors couldn't have known what was happening in our house. So, there I was this morning, feeling completely ashamed some 20-25 years after the fact.

Tried to puzzle through some of it all while I was running, how I felt, what I felt, why I felt. I really feel like I should do something, but I don't know what to do, except call the police and try to get a social worker in there. When I got home, Catherine asked me what I thought that would solve. What would have happened if someone had sent the police to our house?

Well, I know what would have happened. Some how it all would have been my fault, and the minute the police left, my brother would have clubbed me in the head. End of story.

But, you know, the truth is, every day, I hoped (and in those days, I even prayed) that someone would come rescue me. Maybe it would have backfired and I would have gotten hurt even more, but really, all I wanted was for someone to at least *try* and protect me, even if they failed in the end. I mean, I very clearly remember the day when I realized that nothing would ever change, that no one would ever help me, that my parents would never protect me. I was devastated when I finally understood nothing was going to ever change. I don't want anyone to be that miserable, even complete strangers that frighten me, and it makes me ache for them. Or maybe I'm aching for myself, I'm not sure. Either way, I guess, it hurts.
5:07 PM


1-3/4" headline in today's paper: TORNADO

"Wow," says Catherine, "that's bigger than September 11th."

Wow indeed. It took Jenny and Catherine two and a half hours to make it here from the airport. It's usually a fifty minute trip, but the police were stopping every car at the turn off to Martinsville to check I.D. Catherine said 67 was lined with abandoned cars, and they were routed through Spencer. That meant they had to come in through Ellettsville. Catherine said it looked like a war zone.

Thank goodness we bought a house in the southwest part of town, not the northwest. We went through one tornado right after we moved here, and I'm still upset over it, I really don't need to experiece anything like that again.

Also thank goodness I was depressed yesterday, and stayed home to read, because if I had followed my original plans, I would have been in Galyan's yesterday when the tornado touched down. The last two weeks I've gone up to practice early, gone to Galyan's, then across the street to Borders. Yesterday I was going to go even earlier so I could arrive at the rink an hour early to get my skates sharpened. I probably would have been more or less fine, but my car would have been upside down in the parking lot like everyone else's. The tornadoes took exactly the path I take between Bloomington and Indy, through Martinsville, up along Southport, Stop 11, Stop 12, etc. So, thank you, psyche, for weighing me down yesterday.

Also thank goodness that MistyD was on vacation yesterday and not at work, since work doesn't exist anymore.

I called Henry in the afternoon, and he said their place is fine except for no power. He was waiting for Erika to make it home.

After it was all over, I burst into tears, of course.

Catherine's trying to sleep. I've reverted to my insomniac ways this week, but I have to say, spending a wakeful night curled against the back of the woman you love isn't such a bad fate.
7:23 AM

Friday, September 20, 2002
I'm quite amazed there was only one person killed today.

I'm assuming since I haven't heard from Catherine that she's still on her way home. She may not even know the roads are closed, although hopefully the airline pilot will say something. I truly believe cell phones are evil, but this is one of those times I wish she had one so I could at least leave her a message.
7:33 PM


I'm stunned by how awful it is.

Jenna is fine, her parents are fine. I can't get ahold of Stephanie. The news is showing photos of the area around her house, though, and it looks really, really bad.
4:09 PM


An immediate update:

Looks like I'm not getting through Martinsville. Extensive damage, cars overturned, flooding. And it looks even worse in Indy. Well, and I'd have to go through Southport, too, and that isn't going to happen. But Circle Centre actually looks okay.
2:56 PM


I'm a little freaked, but it seems to be over. I pretty much sweat through my shirt. Fear has a way of doing that to you.

Right after I shut down the computer at noon we got upgraded to a tornado warning. I find tornado sirens a little unnerving, tornadic thunderstorms even more so. Anyway, everything looks more or less okay outside, a few branches down is all. Well, and one side of my driveway is gone. I think I can drive along the edge of the neighbor's yard but it doesn't look like I'm going anywhere today, anyway. All the roads out of town are closed because of tornado touchdowns. The sherrif's department is estimating 10-12 houses hit in Ellettsville, and apparently there was a touch down at the high school or somewhere in that area. I'm supposed to go to practice, but 37 is closed because of storm damage, so there's no way to get to Indy from here. And apparently there's extensive storm damage at Circle Centre (a collapsed roof?), which is where I park the car across from the rink, so I'm not sure if I can even get to the rink. We'll see.

Downgraded from a warning to a watch, so everything should be fine now. I just have to wait for my nerves to calm down.
2:49 PM


Oh. And a flooded basement is the least of my worries. Turns out the plumber didn't do a very good job at backfilling when he connected us up to the city sewer last month. A rather daunting sinkhole has opened up in our driveway. I surrounded it with sawhorses (I'm going to be pissed if someone stops and steals them). If it gets any bigger, our driveway will be impassable. I don't know if I should call the plumber and make him come back and fix it, or just call Bob Rogers and pay him to do the job right. And no, I can't fill it myself because I'm not allowed to touch anything in our garage--I'm not sure I should have even picked up the sawhorses. We'll find out.

Tornado warning in effect for the rest of the day. Hopefully the sawhorses won't blow away.
12:06 PM


Okay, I feel a little better. I spent the morning with Descartes, Berkeley and friends--those crazy kids. I think I've pounded those troublesome emotions back into the dark corner from whence they came.

I also went shopping and bought Catherine a bunch of stuff I know she doesn't need but will hopefully like.

Waiting for her arrival:

A Carl Larsson calendar (proving that I pay attention to her stories about Sweden)
A box of stationery (cute, cute mice)
Two Civil War magazines (she'll like the Antietam articles)
Bookmark (happy monkey)

And because no one ran out and bought me that oh-so-special bookmark I demanded a few days ago, I picked up one for myself as well. It's a rather loopy-looking plastic tiger. Cute, but I won't be heartbroken when I lose it. I saw another one that I really liked, but I knew I would be sad when I lost it (yeah, I know that completely contradicts what I wrote a few days ago--if I ever entirely understood the way my mind worked, the world would probably come to an end).

I also picked up a collection of short prose by Sartre to keep me company the rest of the afternoon. I do feel a little guilty for taking solace in the writing of all these dead white men, but I don't have the energy to diversify my philosophy readings right now.

What I should do is send an e-mail to all my friends and ask them to list five books that I should read before I die. Except Doyle would probably send me five titles on molecular biology or something and then I'd be toast.
12:01 PM


I wish Catherine would hurry up and come home, because I could really use a hug.

I had the most bitter of days yesterday. I was completely inept at teaching in grad school, I don't know what made me think I should give it another try.

I tripped over a branch in the path while I was running yesterday evening, and scraped up my leg.

I completely burned my hand making dinner last night. But, hey, what's one more ugly, festering wound?

Lucy is completely stressing me out, she won't take her medicine and I'm having a hard time force feeding her.

It stormed all night and I didn't get any sleep. I look completely haggard.

It's pouring down rain, so I'm sure Salt Creek is flooded again. Not to mention my basement.
9:14 AM

Thursday, September 19, 2002
I was so distracted by the time I got home that I left the mail on the back porch. I just now remembered it. Richard sent us a nice card, addressed to the "Nouveaux Hoosiers." Very funny. And we got two letters from Yong Stanley. And two photos! That makes three photos this year. He looks healthy still.

I can't exactly remember why I started looking for an organization through which I could sponsor a child. Something or other that happened in the world prompted me, but I no longer recall what it was. It took a lot of searching to find an organization that wasn't linked to a particular government, political organization or church. I did not want to be involved in some creepy missionary work.

We actually asked to sponsor a girl, and for awhile we had a cute little girl from Nicaragua, but it turned she wasn't an orphan after all (!) and she went back to live with her family. We asked for another girl, and ended up with Stanley. At first we didn't if he was a boy or a girl. He sort of looked like a boy in his photograph, but not really, because he and his mom have the same hairstyle (ie., shaved head). And the volunteer translator kept writing about a "she." We had to wait a couple years for him to grow up a little to figure out he really was a boy.

I'm really enjoying writing to him, even if he's writing back through a translator. It reminds me of when Ubendran and I first started writing to each other when we were twelve. Yong Stanley Chia's letter crack me up, they are so utterly charming.

Dear Parents,

Accept greetings from Fundong village. I am L. F. a community volunteer from Fundong Village writing for Yong Stanley who is still learning how to read and write.

He says, I should thank you for the nice gift of 3 toys you sent to him. He says, he will show these toys to his friends and play with them along with the twins once Kevin and Kilian who now are trying to crawl can stand erect.

Stanley says, I should tell you they are all doing fine. He says, I should ask you whether you are fine too?

He says that, they are on holidays now though the end of this year's examination did not favour him. He says he is going back to the same class in which he was last year, but promises to do well next year.

He says, I should tell you that they are in the heart of rainy season and places are very cold. He says, that you should greet all your friends on his behalf. He says, goodbye.


Dear Catherine and Susan,

Greetings from Fundong village. I am L. F. a community volunteer from Fundong Village writing for Stanley Chia who is still learning how to read and write.

He says, I should thank you for having him and his family in heart. He says he has received a gift from you. This gift is made up of a globe. Stanley says, he will use this globe to learn about the world. Stanley says, he will take this globe to school, so as to learn together with his friends. At school he says, he will allow their teacher to teach them about your country and other countries.

Stanley says, they are on holiday. During the morning hours he helps his parents to carry home harvested maize from the farms, some days he goes for clearing of new farms. In the afternoon, he says, he goes to the sponsored children club. Stanley says they are 58 in their club. He says, they are taught by two animators. He says, these animators teach them how to read and write, how to draw, how to debate, how to tell stories, and they also do sports.

Stanley says, they are in the heart of rainy season and rain falls every day, bringing a lot of cold.

Till you exchange with him again he is sending you warm greetings and that of his family. Goodby from Yong Stanley Chia.

I'm going to be very sad when he gets too old to sponsor. I know a lot of people actually travel to meet their sponsored child, but traveling to Cameroon seems a little daunting.
8:28 PM


Aristotle would have been seriously disappointed in me today. And I guess that's all I have to say about that.
7:32 PM


Maybe I'll just declare a moratorium on reading e-mail. I'd probably be a lot more relaxed.

Someone I consider a pretty good friend just sent me a "funny" list called "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly." This list included things like:

Good: Your wife's not talking to you.
Bad: She wants a divorce.
Ugly: She's a lawyer.

I'm not even going to go into what's wrong with that set of entries. The one that really caught my attention was:

Good: Your son is dating someone new.
Bad: It's another man.
Ugly: He's your best friend.


Why would anyone think I would appreciate this? I know, I know. I need to develop a sense of humor, but, really, I have no interest in circulating a joke that suggests it's a bad thing for my son to be gay. Honestly, I wish people (especially my friends) would take five seconds and think about how often humor is used to perpetuate myths and stereotypes.

9:59 AM


Overslept.

Catherine called just as I was turning out the lights last night, so I was up way beyond the time I should have been in bed. She had a good day yesterday, did some fun stuff in the afternoon. I wouldn't want to put words in her mouth, but I think she regrets ever dealing w/the museum. It's supposed to open on Monday, and they only have one gallery hung--the rest are just unpainted plywood rooms. That's not a good thing. Plus, they don't have the photos they borrowed from her collection properly mounted, there's no climate control, and they had candles burning along the walls last night. What were they thinking?

One guy came up to Catherine during the reception and told her if she stopped by his studio today, he'd tell her all the things that are wrong with her book. I would have spit on him, but she was apparently polite.

On the plus side, Annie Sprinkle was there, and she told Catherine that she'd try to visit the collection in 2003, and would even try to work out a speaking engagement to coincide with the big Women's Sexuality exhibit opening next year. And Catherine visited a good gallery yesterday that might be able to do some work with her on the George Platt Lyne's collection, so she feels like the trip was worth it just for those two things. Too bad the museum is turning out to be so lame.
9:15 AM

Wednesday, September 18, 2002
Practice went okay. It's going to be hard on my old bones doing a Wednesday and a Friday practice. I'm not even going to think about what's going to happen when I start skating on Sundays, too.

I have tons to say about Jill, but I don't have the energy to sort through it right now. It's bed time, and the one thing I shouldn't be doing before retiring is analyzing today's news.
11:02 PM


My mom cracks me up. Everyone's parents should go back to school at the age of sixty.
10:51 PM


Yesterday I had an e-mail exchange with a friend about my misanthropic tendencies, and I was only partly joking. The evidence supporting my case has arrived in an e-mail. A new member of our team sent me an e-mail suggesting that we carpool to practice. There are now three women from Bloomington commuting to Indy to play hockey, and wouldn't it make sense for us all to ride together instead of taking two or three cars?

Yeah, it would make sense. It's not like I love driving or anything, and it would save me some gas money. But. I don't want to do it. I don't want to spend an hour and 15 minutes in the car with an unknown quantity. Yeah, yeah, maybe if I spent some time with these two women, they wouldn't be unknowns. I loved driving to practice with Beth, but I knew ahead of time we had a lot in common--we were both in the same grad program at IU, I had known her already for a couple years, and I knew she was smart. After Beth moved to Ft. Wayne, I briefly tried driving up with another teammate. Nice enough woman, but our personalities just didn't mix. I was exhausted by the time I arrived at the rink.

So, I'll probably break down and commute with one or both of these teammates, even though I really don't want to, because heaven forbid that J.R. wouldn't be friendly and accommodating. I know what Susan wants to do, but that wench J.R. keeps mucking things up.
12:06 PM


I look like a leper. In a tie.
8:45 AM

Tuesday, September 17, 2002
My legs are tired, I ran 4.5 miles on a hilly course this afternoon.

The trail I usually run on isn't marked for distance, so I've been more or less guessing on my total mileage for every run. Today I decided to run on the trail at the Y (a .9 mile loop) so I could compare my times and get a little better idea on what I've been running. Turns out I was pretty close with my guess, based on time, it's about four miles to the creek and back.

I really don't like to run. I enjoy being out in the fresh air, and I've enjoyed watching the changes from season to season. I started running in March, so I've been outside for the end of winter, the one week of spring, and all of summer. Now the greens have drained to yellow and the path is carpeted with decaying leaves, and that's pretty nice. But as for the running...I can't say it's my favorite form of exercise. It's effective, but tedious.

Well, the real point of running at the Y today was to time a 5K to see what I could expect to happen during the runs for which I've registered. I should be able to do 5K in about 31 minutes, but since I have practice the night before and my legs will be tired, I think 33-35 minutes is a little more likely. But since this is the first road race I've entered in....oh...15 years? I think I should be nice to myself and aim for a slow 40 minutes. Who knows what's going to happen when I get in a big group of people--I might feel pushed to go out too fast and then blow up in the second mile and have to crawl to the finish. I'm not worried about finishing, really, 5K is an easy distance. Today I ran 4.5 miles and only stopped because it was getting dark, so 3.1 miles should be a piece of cake. Still, all those people....

Oh. Now that I really think about it, it's been 16 years. I last ran a race on St. Patrick's Day, 1986. And I hated every minute of it, as I recall, and I swore I'd never enter another run again. 16 years is almost never, isn't it?
10:12 PM


This is how pathetic I am. This evening I started to make myself supper, and I realized I haven't yet learned how to use our new stove. We got it several months ago, and apparently I've never seen the need to cook since the time of purchase. I couldn't even figure out how to turn the thing on--there was a "start" button next to the "off" button, which seemed like it should fire it up, but no such luck. I just wildly pressed buttons until it finally came to life. I wont be cooking anymore this week, so that's all good.

But as I'm fussing with the stove, it occurs to me that I also don't know how to set the alarm clock. It's my clock radio, for god's sake, I've had it for fifteen years. But Catherine always gets up earlier than I do, so for the past ten years, she has been setting the alarm. On the rare occasion that she goes out of town, I have to get a crash course in alarm setting, only this time I forgot to ask for it.

But--and this is why I love Catherine--when she called me this evening, and I mentioned that I needed to figure out the alarm clock before I got too sleepy to make sense out of it, she told me that she supposed that I would want to get up at 6:30 and set it for me before she left. How sweet is that?
10:02 PM


Because we live in a fucked up world.
8:38 AM

Monday, September 16, 2002
The real point: I'm going to be short-tempered until Catherine gets home from New York.
11:00 PM


Good afternoon:

I am writing to let your department know that as a runner and a track fan, I am disappointed in the conduct of some members of the IU men's cross country team. This weekend, I had the misfortune of sharing a public running trail with a group of young men wearing IU running shorts. I assume these men were members of the cross country team based on their attire and the season.

Let me say this: I don't know why one runner in particular had his shorts around his ankles, or why he was squatting in the middle of the trail. I actually don't want to know why he was doing this. However, there is absolutely no reason I should ever have to see the bare butt of an IU athlete in a public place. Furthermore, if your athletes feel the need to relieve themselves during a run, could you please ask them to at least step off the trail? Again, I believe I should be able to complete my own workout without having young men emptying their bladders in front of me. If they want to use their own back yard as a urinal, that's fine with me, but I really don't appreciate them using a perfectly nice trail bed as a toilet.

Sincerely,


2:36 PM


Well.

I could have handled that better. I'll comfort myself with the thought that next time I'll be prepared.

I was printing something out in the CAD lab, and a group of students was talking behind me. None of them were my own students, and they probably didn't know I was instructor since I just logged into the machine closest to the door instead of the instructor's machine.

They were all talking about taking physics and statics, and one guy said his physics teacher is queer as a three dollar bill. The other guy said, "You must have Ben, he is a big queer." Then the first kid said, "Yeah, we all took a vote and he's definitely queer." Unfortunately, I turned around and said the first thing that came to mind which was, "Dude, Ben is married and has a little kid." I like Ben a lot, and I'm not ashamed of my impulse to defend him, but I'm ashamed of what I said to do it. As if it was important that I prove he's not gay, that I offer evidence that he's *normal*. If I'd taken five seconds to assess the situation, maybe I would have responded differently. I'm not sure exactly what I should have said, though. I can think of a couple of flip responses that I wouldn't hesitate to spout off to a colleague, but I'm not sure what an adjunct faculty member is supposed to say to a student.

The things I need to learn.
1:45 PM


But I will say, that JR chick is really starting to piss me off.
11:39 AM


And I have a lot of hockey things to rant about, but I promised myself I'd wait until I see how I feel after practice on Wednesday before I started complaining.
11:37 AM


I have so many things I want to bitch about I don't even know where to start. That may be a sign that I need an attitude adjustment.

I know you went to med school so you supposedly know more than me about this, but I *really* don't think you know what you're talking about. Last time, you were saying, "No, not carpal tunnel." The time before that, "Yes, it's carpal tunnel." The time before that, "No, not carpal tunnel." Now it's back to "Yes, it's carpal tunnel."

Let me explain something, dude. There is no way on god's green earth I'm going to let you slice into my palm with such an exhibition of indecision. Especially when you shrug and say, "Maybe it will help, and maybe it won't." That's supposed to make me want to give up using my hand for a month? You can't even give me a diagnosis, much less a prognosis. Fuck that noise.

And listen, maybe you should skim over my chart, or at least listen to me re-cap the situation. How can you hear me say, "Well, the injection really messed up my wrist, I haven't been able to use it at all since you injected it, I have no mobility and I can't grip anything" and then turn around three minutes later and say, "Well, the injections are working well, so..." What part of "you fucked up my wrist" are you interpreting as "working well"? I'd really like to know.
11:28 AM

Sunday, September 15, 2002
When Bush is talking about running, he doesn't sound like the jerk I know he is. I bet he got in trouble from his advisors over his "Tobacco, bad food and lack of exercise" comment. Maybe he knows Big Tobacco isn't likely to read a running magazine.

The most interesting running article of the month isn't online, it's in the October issue of Running Times. "The Talent of Moving Feet: Kenyan Women Having it All" covers the new group of Kenyan women who are currently dominating the long distance races, and the conflicts they each needed to resolve between their desire to run and their desire to be Kenyan.
8:28 PM


I've turned into such a food puritan that I even annoy myself when I'm eating.

It's been a long time developing. Maybe it's been five years or so since I started thinking about trying to eat more nutritionally sound meals, something like that. But it kicked into high gear when Dad has his heart attack in February, right? No, before that. I gave up Coke in November, and had been making a good effort at eating more vegetables before February. But sitting in the cardiac ICU definitely motivated me to really think about what I eat.

And just when I was starting to relax a little, and thinking about adding french fries back into my diet occasionally, Mark died. I've been a complete freak since then. No question.

Well, I guess I shouldn't be upset about the fact that all I eat anymore is healthy food, that's not such a bad habit. But really, sometimes I think enough is enough. I often go out to lunch and think, "Oh, today I will eat potato chips with my veggie sandwich," or "Yup, I'm gonna have those fries," but something always gets in the way. Usually it's the people ahead of me in line that keep me from eating junk food. I can't even count how many times I've had to watch the food prep guy make a pepperoni-salami-cold cut w/bacon sandwich with cheese, mayo and vinegar and oil. Even if I wasn't a vegetarian, I couldn't eat that without thinking about my arteries hardening. Last week it was a guy who ordered a foot long meatball sandwich w/extra cheese and mayo that kept me from breaking my no potato chip rule.

Today, I made a conscious decision to go eat french fries, because that's what I wanted to eat. But on the way, I had to pull over and let an ambulance go by, and that got me thinking that I should call Dad and see how he was doing, and that got me thinking about heart disease, and pretty soon I was skipping the fries and going for the same old boring veggie sandwich.

And I felt bad about it! That's what I don't get. I feel completely guilty about eating right, like somehow I'm passing judgement on what everyone else is eating. I'm really not, I'm only obsessing about what I myself eat. I do care what my friends eat, because I don't want anyone else to die on me, but I would never actually say that out loud (except to Catherine because I have a particularly strong interest in her longevity).

I know there was a point to this entry, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was besides telling myself it's okay to not eat that garlic bread and almond rice that's going to come with my dinner this evening.
4:11 PM


This week my students get to learn about platform framing, starting with the mudsill and floor joists. This means they also have to start learning about hardwood, softwood and fasteners. Some interesting things I picked up while I was out today:

1 1x3x4 - Southern Yellow Pine
1 1x3x4 - Douglas Fir
1 1/4x2x2 - Red Oak
1 1/4x2x2 - Poplar

1 joist hanger
25 7/16" steel plywood clips

1 box 8d 1-1/2" bright common nails
1 box 4d 1-1/2" bright finish nails
1 box 6d 2" electro galvanized finish nails
1 box 1 1/2" electro galvanized roofing nails

What I'm ever going to do with one pound of roofing nails, I don't know.
3:43 PM


Smart, for a change. I think laying low yesterday helped.
10:27 AM

Saturday, September 14, 2002
Sometimes I think Francis makes all this stuff up.
10:43 PM


Why you should never use imdb.com for movie reviews:

"I would just like to say that this is a great movie. And you don't have to be a lesbian to watch this movie. It's not just about two girls getting it on but it also has a good story in it. But if you don't like seeing two girls doing the wild thing than you shouldn't watch this movie!"

And that was supposed to help me decide which video to buy....how?
10:24 PM


Well....I'm up and out of bed, and I guess that's the best I'm going to do for now. I'm pretty sure I'm just tired, I haven't had more than a few hours of sleep a night ever since I touched that damned plant. I got up early this morning and tried to run, and only made it 30 minutes. Later I took Catherine into town so she could go shopping with Erika. We stopped to have coffee beforehand, and by the time that was over, I was feeling pretty sick and ready to go home and back to bed.

This has really got to run its course and work its way out of my body so I can get something done. Pretty much I spent the afternoon curled up in bed feeling sorry for myself (suck it up, dude! you're such a wimp!). I don't have a fever, but if I don't feel better by Monday, I guess I'll call Dr. Florini and see what she says.

Hmm...but Catherine bought a nice outfit for her trip next week, so it was a good thing she took Erika shopping instead of me. She looks fantastic, but she also looks like some woman I've never met. I bet all the chickies hit on her at the opening.
7:38 PM

Friday, September 13, 2002
I haven't wanted to put this in words because I'm afraid I'm going to jinx it, but I think Lucy might be getting better. She came out from behind the couch last night and ate dinner, but immediately threw it up and went back behind the couch. She came out this morning and ate breakfast, and managed to keep it down. She's back behind the couch again. She looks awful, even worse than her usual ragamuffin self, but maybe if she keeps eating, she will recover.
11:04 AM

Thursday, September 12, 2002
Why I love my wife:

Instead of insisting we come straight home after running our errands after work, she let me hang out in the concrete aisle at Lowe's and compare the various permutations of Quikrete, just because.

Can't buy that kind of love.
7:58 PM


I knew this day was coming, so I dressed appropriately.

Kirk and Tom both alternate their dress between shirt and ties, and polo shirts, so I do the same. This week, I wore polo shirts M-W because I couldn't stand a stiff collar against my poison ivy rash. Today, I consciously thought, "I can't wear polo shirts on T/R anymore. I'm going to lose control of my architectural design class if I don't draw the line between me and them right now."

So, back to the shirt and tie today.

I like the kids in my architectural design class, but the boys are kind of squirrelly. I've had to stop talking a couple of times already this semester and ask them to focus on me, not their private conversations. So far, it's been okay, but I don't want it to get out of control. Today, I had to ask two of the male students to stop screwing around with their computers and pay attention. It worked for about 30 seconds, after which point they started laughing and talking again about whatever it was J. was doing on his screen. Two minutes later, J. interrupts what I'm saying and asks if I want to see his garage design. No, and you need to start paying attention. Giggling continued, so I stopped and told them to turn their monitors off. I think I used the words "completely inappropriate" to describe their behavior. They sobered up a bit, but the instant I was done lecturing, J. told me he wanted to show me his garage.

Said garage was a 3-D surface model. Do you have a floor plan for this garage, J.? No? Then I suggest you start working on the assignment. It was a nice model, though.

So, I'm sitting at the lectern, listening to the four boys in the class *not* work while the two women in the class try to get something done, and I hear T. talking about his garage, and how it's going to have a second story, and how he's going to put a jacuzzi in it, blah, blah, blah. I remind him that he's not allowed to make the garage habitable or he'll exceed the 2000 sq.ft. of habitable space limit. "But you said I could have a two-story garage!" And I explain that, yes, it can be two story, but that I also said it has to be storage space, or a workshop, or a garden room, but not a family room or office. No more habitable space. "But you--!" No, T., no habitable space. "But I want--" No. The assignment is to keep it under 2000 sq.ft, no habitable space. "But--!" This is not a matter for negotiation, T. You can do that garage if you want, but it won't meet the requirements of the assignment.

He kept trying to protest, and I finally said, "Look, I'm the instructor, and I'm the one handing out the grades. I gave you the assignment, and I expect you to complete it. End of discussion."

T. pouted the rest of class, muttering to himself. I felt a little bad, because he looked like he might cry, but I had to draw the line or be crushed. Tom and Kirk seem to have a natural sense of authority that I just don't have, I've got to establish it. I wanted to explain to him, "Hey, I don't want to be a hard ass, but I need to teach you how to design for a client, not for yourself. This is going to help you in the long run, and I really do know what I'm doing," but no male teacher would have to justify his reasons for his decisions, so I don't see why I should have to justify mine.

It's too bad, because they actually make me laugh when they're more or less behaving themselves. I like the casual atmosphere, and that I can just kind of chat my way through the lecture material without being so formal. There's only six students, so formality isn't really possible. But, on the other hand, I have to maintain order, and this is the only way I know how to do it.


4:53 PM


Okay, Linda is officially forgiven. It may take her three years to actually send e-mail, but when she does finally cough one up, it's a good one. I remember now why I try so hard to emulate her.

I love this bit about her latest travels:

"One of my favorite moments was the interview - through a translator - with a woman who had never married. Of course, being unmarried is not a favorable state in this very Catholic community. But she is very independent and lives with a wry sense of humor. What was fun about our interview, though, was our being pulled into reality. The village is small, with two streets that just run to end as they go up a hill and paths that lead to the remainder of the houses. It is easy to become romantic and think that this is a place outside of time. So, when we came to the coffee and cake part of the interview - a necessary component of
every visit from the perspectives of the people in Slovakia - this little elderly woman says, "What would you like, regular coffee, decaf, or CAPUCCINO? Then, after having poured coffee, she walks to her small refrigerator and pulls out an aerosol can of whipped cream for the coffee. Followed by a recognition that aerosol cans are bad for the environment but she occasionally buys it for a treat for her nephew. Then she asks how the U.S. could be so ignorant about environmental issues and asks what is going on with President Bush and Iraq. Of course this last point came up with every conversation in Slovakia; they are frightened about the craziness of the current administration....and of course, we agreed."

Linda was my mainstay during the Gulf War, and was probably the first person to show me how to control my anger and frustration and re-direct it into research and writing. Maybe intellectualizing my emotions isn't always the healthiest option--maybe I should just accept that I feel bad or good and let it go at that--but I still appreciate the fact that she gave me a lot of tools to cope with an increasingly fucked up world (how's that for academic language?). So what if she's the world's worst correspondent?
8:48 AM

Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Here's my obligatory 9/11 post.

Ordinarily, I teach on Wednesday mornings from 8-10, but classes were let out today so students could attend a memorial ceremony on the front plaza. I can see it out the window while I'm typing. There are two fire trucks with fire officials in dress uniforms standing at attention in front of them. That makes me tear up, but only because of Mark, not because of September 11.

In the September issue of Runner's World, there is an article about a 9/11 widow whose husband worked in the WTC. The magazine editor, in his introductory column in the issue, wrote about the decision to find one person out of the running community who had a story that needed to be told, and they picked this particular woman, Lynn Pescherine. Her husband, Michael, was a bond broker in the World Trade Center. A senior writer for the magazine said it was tough to make a choice, because "the guys, and they were mostly guys, who worked in the Twin Towers, were young, athletic, competent, vibrant, and overachieving." How to pick from such a large yet select group of people?

I eventually got around to reading the article and learning more about Michael Pescherine. From all accounts, he sounds like he was a nice guy. But you know....there's no way on earth he and I would ever travel the same social circles, much less the same political circles. This same statement could be made about almost anyone working a white collar job in the Trade Center--they were working for an economy in which I have no faith. Stock brokers, bond brokers, international fincance and trade workers, lawyers, these are people with whom--for the most part--I have nothing in common. A partial list of former WTC offices:

Aon Corp.
Bank of America
Cantor Fitzgerald and eSpeed
Carr Future
Deutsche Bank
Empire Cross/Blue Shield
Fiduciary Trust Co. International
Fuji Bank
Keefe Bruyette & Woods
Kemper Insurance Co.,
Lee Hecht Harrison
Marsh & McLennan (includes related businesses of Mercer, Guy Carpenter, Seabury & Smith and MMC Enterprise RiskMaxcor Financial Group
Morgan Stanley,
Pitney Bowes
Thacher, Proffitt, & Wood

I know there was at least one architecture firm in the building, but it's likely I would even take issue with their work--was it environmentally sustainable, socially responsible design, or did they have another WTC on their drawing boards when the building went down? I don't know.

My point is: it is difficult to reconcile the revulsion I feel for the United States' role in global economics, and the tacit demand that I mourn the demolition of the WTC. Of course I am not happy about the loss of life, I wouldn't wish such a death on anybody. And I feel doubly sorry for Ms. Pescherine, having to suddenly look forward to a life of raising a child on her own. I couldn't do it. I know Shawn says having a baby gives her something to focus on, to get her through the day, but all I can think of is how exhausting it must be to be a single parent.

That being said, I also have a hard time summoning up any meanginful feelings of loss. It is safe to say that if I had met a lot of WTC inhabitants when they were still alive, I would have walked away with a feeling of contempt for their profession and the choices they made to support that profession. On a very basic level, I find it hard to mourn an abstract figure for whom I probably had little respect to begin with. So, I've read the article in Runner's World, and it's sad, but I can't help but think that it's all about a world to which I don't belong (or don't want to belong). I can't identify with a lot of the people involved, and I'm not sure that's entirely a bad thing.


9:11 AM

Tuesday, September 10, 2002
Damn.

We've tried everything we can think of to get Lucy to eat. She's just not getting better. She can't breathe, she won't eat or drink, and we have to force feed her the medications that don't seem to be helping.

I've promised Catherine--and I mean it--that we are not getting any more pets. I can't handle the end times. I can't pick up anymore little bodies, and I can't dig any more graves. I just won't do this again. Once Lucy and Jack are gone, Catherine's just going to have to be content with my company, and my company alone.
9:22 PM


A month ago I was a picture of good health. I have the photographs to prove it.

Today, I feel like death after it's been buried under the crumbling foundation of a burned-out, vermin-infested crack house for ten days.

Who knew plant allergies could be so bad?

The contact burns from where I touched the plant are starting to look better (meaning that the welts look a little else angry now that they've started to weep). But every day I get new blisters popping up to burn and itch. Well, forget every day, how about every hour? I've got blisters where there weren't any a few hours ago. I've got a welt on my right arm, surrounded by hundreds of tiny blisters extending from my elbow down to my fingers and over my palm. I've got it between the fingers of my left hand. My neck is a rash of blisters, front and back. I've got it on my earlobes. I've got it on my stomach. I've got it on my scalp. I've got contact welts on both legs and my right ankle, and clusters of blisters behind my knees, on my calves, on my shins. I've got it on my back. I've got it places that can't be mentioned in public. And it doesn't just itch, it burns. I might as well douse myself in fuel and light the match.

It's keeping me awake at night. I've overdosed on benadryl to no avail. I've got some goopy green organic stuff that doesn't seem to help. I've tried Ivarest, calamine lotion, cortisone, and ice. When I do finally fall asleep and make the mistake of rolling over in my sleep, I wake up as the sheet tears away from where it has been sticking to blisters on some part of my body.

I sound like a whiner (if someone whines in a forest, and there's no one around to hear it...) but if I whined at the volume this stuff really deserves, I'd be screaming at this point. It's driving me absolutely fucking crazy, and it is definitely doing the "it will get worse before it gets better" routine on me.

Woe is me.
2:52 PM

Monday, September 09, 2002
The cat cracks me up.
8:31 PM


It amazes me that we still have to read things like this. It amazes me that Americans are so freaking uniformed that people have to tell them things like this. We should all know this by now, and we should be worried. But, damn, since it's only Africa....who cares, right?
7:53 PM


More importantly, if I'd cleaned out the car, that bottle of ibuprofen probably wouldn't still be in the jockey box.
7:42 PM


You know, dear, if I ever cleaned out the car like I promised, I wouldn't be able to rummage through the stuff in the trunk to find a tampon in an emergency situation. That's my excuse this morning!

In other news, I am going to flay myself. It would have to feel better than this stupid poison ivy rash.
11:22 AM

Sunday, September 08, 2002
Way to go, Sam. You made her cry, and what, exactly, did that accomplish?

It is definitely not a good idea to make your wife cry.

All important issues should be tabled if you're in the car coming back from taking the cat to the emergency vet's office. Or, maybe that's the explanation--it's easier to argue over stupid things then think about what might be going on with the cat. Either way, you should learn how to bite your tongue, Sam, even if (especially if) you think you're right.

I guess all couples argue at some point, and at least we're consistent, we argue about the same damn thing every time. But at least we only do it once a year, instead of once an hour, like the neighbors.

I resolve:

to do the dishes a little more often
to do the laundry a little more often
to pick up around the house a little more often
to sweep and mop the kitchen floor every once in awhile
to pull up the living room carpet and refinish the floors
to keep the office a little cleaner

This isn't a conditional list, like "I'll do this if you agree to turn the #$&*$ television off when I'm around." It's a list to do just because it would make her life easier.
9:04 PM

Saturday, September 07, 2002
Mmm...that King Carlos V sure is a tasty guy.
10:18 PM


I just spent a good chunk of my evening reading a good chunk of Arlene Stein's The Stranger Next Door: The Story of a Small Community's Battle over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights. I picked it up when I saw it was about the Oregon Citizen's Alliance and Measure 9. Both C. and I thought it would be a good read since Measure 9 played such an important role in our lives when we lived in Oregon.

Well, okay, it's readable. But the author lacks credibility. She refuses to the name town about which she's writing; instead she makes up this "Timbertown" moniker and peppers the pages with anecdotes about its residents (who may or may not be real). I can see changing the names of individuals to respect their privacy, but writing a chronicle of a town's struggle with a civil rights movement, then disguising the town with a false name and location is completely stupid. For one thing, she uses city documents as sources at several points in the narrative, but cites them as having come from "Timbertown." As a scholar, I would like to check her sources and see if my assessment of the documents matches hers. But I can't, because she won't tell us what the town's name is. She undermines her own authority, and it's really a waste of time to read it, since there's no way to really think critically about her sources.
9:46 PM


One of these days, someone is going to shoot someone else in the house next door, and I'm going to turn to Catherine and say, "I am SO GLAD I never got involved with those people."

They have been arguing non-stop for four years. Their house isn't even that close to ours, and we can hear them screaming at each other. We noticed them the day after we moved in--Catherine went out to eat breakfast on the screen porch but had to come back in because it was so unpleasant. And we pretty much haven't been able to spend time outside on the porch since we moved in, because we just don't want to listen to it.

This morning, Catherine went out to the porch to let the cats in at 7 a.m., and the neighbors were already screaming at each other. I went out at 8:30 to grab some clothes off the rack, and they were still fighting. Catherine thinks the teenage son is going to be the one who breaks and buys a gun and kills his parents. I'm putting my money on the dad. Well, sometimes I think the mom will crack, she already seems distinctly odd. Either way, I don't want to be around when it happens.

We are definitely putting that fence back in.
2:51 PM


First practice went just fine.

Dragged myself out of bed this morning to do the breast cancer walk. I think the walk is much shorter than it used to be, it hardly took anytime at all.

Ran some errands, had lunch, then we went to the volleyball game. Volleyball is such a weird sport. It's populated by sorority girls--I've never seen a straighter, whiter bunch of girls in my life--and it's full of frilly, girly things. For instance, after every point, each player plasters a faux Miss America smile on her face, the players on the floor all touch fingertips, and then they give a single clap. Too stupid. On the other hand, they're also trying to ram the ball down the other team's throat with as much force as possible. It's a game for schizophrenics.

This is the first season IU has used the librero position, and that made it a little different. The sport has completely changed since the last time I played, the rotations have changed, the scoring has changed, the substitution rules have been completely rewritten. It's a much faster game. The traditionalist part of me is kind of sad, but the fidgety part of me is just as glad she doesn't have to sit in an un-airconditioned gym for any longer than possible.

I am big on good sportsmanship. We've only been to two IU events since school started, and both experiences were marred by boorish fans. Both times it was the young, college male being completely obnoxious that ruined the experience for us. We actually left the soccer game early because this group of six boys planted themselves in front of us and proceeded to obscenely heckle the players on the opposite team. Today, this group of boys was harrassing the players on the Evansville team, yelling and holding up signs saying things like "You suck!" One of them even got up and yelled at them as the teams were changing sides after the first game. He came out to the court as they walked by and yelled in their faces, saying, "Come on! Give us a game! You suck!" Well, the Evansville fans were pissed off at this kid, and even the announcer was, like, "Dude, sit down."

I don't understand what these kids think they're doing. Did they behave this way in high school? Didn't anyone ever tell them that sportsmanship counts? They're an embarrassment to the university.
2:43 PM

Friday, September 06, 2002
Decided to take the Wise Woman's advice and try Mozilla. I have missed the little dragon! I've been suffering through Netscape 4's inability to read css because I can't stand Netscape 6. I've been assured this will be better, but I can say right now, it's jacked my blogger screen. But if that's the worst that happens, I will be a very lucky person indeed.

I used to really like HotJava, but then it was put on the end-of-life list by Sun. I tried Opera for awhile, but it never handled AV files very smoothly.

You know you're old when you lay awake at night and fondly remember old browsers you have known. DejaVu gives me the opportunity to go look at the interface for my first favorite web browser, NCSA Mosaic. Sometimes I even yearn for the days of Gopher, when I felt like a great adventurer everytime I found a new cache of goods on a previously undiscovered server at some obscure European university.

These days, the web lets everyone in, not just the geeks. And sometimes I think that rots.
1:47 PM


Well, today's the big day. I'm going to have a light lunch with Diane (less to throw up afterward), and head up to Indy. I always hate the first day. I'm worried I haven't trained hard enough. I've been chastising myself all week for eating unhealthy things--that's not how I was supposed to end the preseason!

And I absolutely dread putting on equipment over this poison ivy rash. It's going to be hell.

Positive thinking. You made it through camp, you can make it through the first practice.
10:16 AM

Thursday, September 05, 2002
Hot damn. Yugoslavia followed Argentina's example and opened up a can of whoop-ass on our butts. I am evilly gleeful.
10:54 PM


I swear, Catherine has seen Hoosiers twenty times already, but she still cried three times while we were watching it this evening.
10:41 PM


Whew. Two weeks down.

I am so tired.
8:24 PM


Yay, Argentina! I knew you could do it! Way to kick our butt! That's what happens when a *team* meets up with a bunch of *showboats*. The *team* dominates.

Maybe the U.S. ought to get over itself already and realize the world takes its national teams a whole heck of a lot more seriously than it does. The U.S. seems to think that any ragtag group of players can beat any world team simply because they're American. Well, ha ha. The U.S. is wrong!
8:56 AM

Wednesday, September 04, 2002
What I say when they ask:

Oh, I don't know, maybe....I hadn't really noticed...Well, maybe...A few pounds...I don't know, I don't pay much attention...Yeah, a few pounds, I gave up Coke....well, you know, hockey...Yeah, I gave up Coke...and I started running a little more often....nah, I don't think so, not in the last couple months...nah, it's leveled off...well, maybe a few pounds...yeah, you know, all that Coke....I don't know....Really....yeah, maybe a few pounds.

I refuse to buy into America's fat phobia. I refuse to support the diet industry in any way. I refuse to judge people on the way they look, the way they eat, the way they move. And it kills me to have to admit I've lost weight because frankly I want to be an example of a feminist who is not ashamed to look like a real human being. And my weight loss is really and truly not about appearance. Hell, I usually don't even remember to look in a mirror before leaving the house in the morning. What do I care what my waist looks like?

My doctor didn't care one way or another about my weight. Bloodwork? Solid. Pulse/heart rate? Just fine. Level of exercise? Way more than your average American. Diet? Eating as responsibly as I could manage. Extra weight? Yeah, just like every other woman in my family. The doctor shrugs, I shrug.

Still. Even though I was in "good enough" shape, I wasn't fit enough to really call myself an athlete. I could get along fine on the ice, but I thought I could be better. I could be stronger and faster, and I could be tougher. And maybe it would help if I was leaner, if I converted some extra fat into muscle. How to do that? Do I want to do that? Do I want to sell out, become thinner? Even if I know my goal is to be an impact player on my team, will anyone else know that, or will they think I'm just pursuing some ideal body in an effort to look more attractive to...whom? Men? I don't want to be one more woman trying to force my body into a smaller package, erase myself, make sure I don't take up too much space.

I hate losing weight and by doing so, tacitly encouraging other women to do it. I hate being a weight-loss example. When another woman comments on my weight loss, and asks how I did it, I have a choice between flippancy and honesty. The flip answer: Yeah, it's amazing what happens when you give up the Coke habit, man! The honest answer: losing weight, getting fit, it's a 24-hour-a-day job. You must dedicate your life to eating like an athlete, training like an athlete, thinking like an athlete. No deviation from the plan, you must become obsessed.

I want to be flip, I usually am, but if I don't tell the truth, I'm afraid I'm just leading one more woman down the path of bitter disappointment. If I make a joke and make it look easy, and then they can't do it easily, didn't I just set them up for a fall? Maybe it would be better to be honest.

The truth: it's fucking hard, especially in our world of french fries, vending machines and mechanized transport. It's about planning every day around your meals. It's about getting up early so you can make a lunch that fits in your caloric plan for the day. It's about leaving your wallet at home so you won't be tempted to make a late afternoon run to Taco Bell. It's about changing jobs so you have a work day structured enough to support your eating regimen. It's about having a partner who loves you enough to support your moratorium on eating at Italian restaurants. It's about putting off your favorite new hobby in favor of running for the calorie burning. It's about forcing yourself to eat a tomato and zucchini even though you think they're disgusting. It's about thinking seven days ahead in your food consumption so can make sure you have enough protein. It's about calling your wife at 2 p.m. and demanding she tell you what's for dinner because half way through the afternoon, you suddenly panic and wonder if you've eaten too much already and would you be able to eat dinner?

It's freaking hard. There's a reason Americans are overweight--they're not idiots. I don't know about the kids of our nation, but let me tell you, no smart adult will ever work this hard for something so stupid. I work harder than the hunters and gatherers had to work, I swear. I study every label, I contemplate every mouthful. I run seven days a week, I lift weights, and I stickhandle. I sweat through so many t-shirts we have to keep the washing machine going constantly every evening. What reasonable adult has the time or inclination to do this? It's a stupid way to spend one's life, really, really stupid. And if I didn't see that changing my body was helping my game, there's no way on earth I would be doing it. 'Cause I ain't stupid (poison ivy evidence aside).

All of this is just a very long-winded way to get myself to admit out loud that I'm ashamed of losing weight. I feel like I'm selling out and betraying the women of the world. I'm ashamed my former co-workers felt inspired by my weight loss and started thinking about their own ideal weight goals. I feel ashamed everytime someone asks me how much I've lost (I lie, and say I don't know), and I feel ashamed everytime someone asks how much more I want to lose (I tell the truth and say I don't know. I'll feel it when I get there, when I can bench press my own weight, when my mile pace is under ten minutes, when I can skate waves and not puke). I'm more ashamed of myself now when I weigh less than I was when I weighed a lot.

Damned if you, damned if you don't.



9:52 PM


Damn, Susan. Don't forget to call Beth.

Again.
9:04 PM


Sometimes running can really work to empty my brain; unfortunately, today was not one of those days. It was just fifty-one minutes of unpleasantness.
8:59 PM


I'm covered from top to bottom with liquid benadryl. Damn annoying, particularly the bits between my fingers and on my face. My right eye has a welt under it, it looks like someone popped me one (that's what I get for mouthing off!). Good thing I already own a lot of ice packs.
8:47 PM


Punk Kittens.
8:45 PM

Tuesday, September 03, 2002
I think what I really need is a bookmark (or two) that I like so much I will try very hard not to lose it. A bookmark that means something to me. I used to have one that I liked, and I held onto it for at least two years. It's probably stuck in some old book in the basement and will never see daylight again. From here, I can see three books in which I have marked my place with a straw wrapper. All the books I got for my birthday came w/flimsy store bookmarks, and I have lost them all, already. I need a bookmark to which I can get attached.

Just finished Madelyn Arnold's A Year of Full Moons. I love southern literature. Not the tedious stuff, like Faulkner, but the stuff written by women. My favorite southern author (after Dorothy Allison, and I suppose I'd have to consider Barbara Kingsolver southern, but I didn't like her last book so maybe it doesn't matter) is Michael Lee West. Her books are funny and terrible at the same time, not sure whether to laugh or cover my mouth in horror half the time.

Anyway, anytime I get to feeling bad about my childhood or my family, all I have to do is read a book like A Year of Full Moons and I instantly feel better: there are a lot of people out there more fucked up then me! Yay! I may have liked this book more than the average reader might because it is set in Kentucky, or "Kentuckiana," that crossroads between Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. As the protagonist of the novel notes, there isn't any difference between Kentucky and Indiana--southern Indiana was settled by Kentuckians. Arnold has a very keen sense of place and time, and I appreciate her showing me what it was like around here fifty years ago.

A passage I liked:

Dizzy. Delighted. My God, delighted. She lifted her left arm and slowly, not to parody herself, flexed it. Strong enough for a youth of sixteen. Well, thirteen. It made a lump in her throat. To put on those trousers (zipping them up), lift the collar, and fit on that tie; to shape that hair and that bone structure, was as if to step into armor. She turned this way and that. It was true that she was broad shouldered but that was natural, dressed like this. She put a cigarette in her teeth, took it out and she was Protected. In Armor. And women would most naturally drop their eyes if she stared at them, like a woman drops her eyes when a man...naturally.

Men and boys could be her friends. Working together, as none but males and old women knew how to do. To have parents proud to have produced her. Proud. Thank God I'm not a woman...

She was stepping into the ring for the very first time, and the thrill amazed her.

The door behind her---

Jerking around, she saw someone jumping back. "Ellie," she said. She turned away.

At first Jos felt nothing but awkward. Ellie's shoulders were shaking--had she upset her? What was the matter? Was she upset? Or horrified? Disgusted?

No. She was--

Suddenly the clothes weren't strong at all. She was nude and obscene. "Ellie," she stammered. "I was trying that makeup you mentioned. Dressing up for Halloween--I don't have the knack, I guess."

Ellie turned and tried to look square at her. Abruptly turned and her shoulders went back to shaking.

She was laughing.

"Ellie, I was just playing. I mean honestly, you don't think I know how silly this looks?"

At that moment what she said became true, and as soon as Ellie had gone, Jos ripped off the "costume" and threw some slacks on and scooted off.

Been there, done that.
10:59 PM


Stupid really is as stupid does. Exhibit A: me.

I know I shouldn't do yard work, I really do know that. And I know that if I'm going to go out and work in the yard, I definitely shouldn't work in the side yard. And if I absolutely have to be in the side yard, I definitely shouldn't be around any of the trees. I know this, I know it very well. And yet, here I am, covered in poison ivy rash. Even as I was trimming brush under the trees, I was thinking, "You know, you're going to get poison ivy, and then I'm going to make you write in your journal--the public one, not the private one--about how stupid you are." So, there you go. Even though I know I just have to walk near it to be hit with it, even though I know that every exposure is worse than the previous one, I still did it, even though I knew it was stupid!

My whole freaking face itches.
9:20 PM


Well....I ran a red light this evening. This is rather disconcerting as I just don't do that sort of thing. Ever. I am the world's most conservative driver. I last ran a red light in 1989, the only red light I've ever run previous to this evening. Except, well, I ran a stop sign the morning after Mark died, but it was a little understandable as I'd been up all night and really shouldn't have been driving, my mind was completely elsewhere. But now I've run a stop light *and* a stop sign in the space of a month, and both times Catherine was in the car. I could have killed her, or I could have killed someone else.

I don't mind driving, but sometimes it seems unfair that I'm the only one who has to drive. If something ever happens to us in the car, I will always be the one at the wheel. It can kind of weigh you down if you think that it is always going to be your decision that makes or breaks the deal on the road. I'm not sure I want this kind of responsibility. Some day I'm going to run a light and Catherine's going to get hurt and then life will really start sucking.

Okay, maybe I'm over-reacting.

Today on the way to the Y, I nearly killed a kid (not my fault this time!). I was going through an intersection, luckily *not* speeding, and he tried to pull out in front of me on his scooter. He was cutting through a parking lot, trying to avoid stopping at his red light, and apparently thought his scooter could beat my car. Well, I saw him, and backed off the speed, but his tire caught on the edge of the pavement, and next thing I know, I'm sliding to a stop and he's under his scooter in front of my bumper. Scared the crap out of me. No helmet, of course. He ripped the hell out of the back of his shirt, but seemed more or less okay. Madder than a mad hornet.

Automobiles are death machines.
9:17 PM

Monday, September 02, 2002
To continue my conversation with Catherine in my head:

I think Marx didn't have it quite right--he was to eager to get to the industrialized proletariat. He was a man of the times, watching Europe, and England in particular, rush toward a love affair with machinery. Somewhere in there he forgot that all the serfs weren't bound for the factory, that some of them had to stay on the land. I know the Soviets collapsed the agricultural laborers and the kulaki into the proletariat category, but it doesn't quite seem to work for me.

A hundred and fifty some years removed from Marx, we still have some sort of laboring classes, but there is a huge division between unionized labor in Detroit and destitute farmers in rural locations. Displaced agricultural workers (and/or bankrupted former owners) don't exactly fit in the contemporary notion of "working class," but neither do they clearly fit into the middle class. Take my relatives--my parents--for example. Financially, there is no way they could locate themselves in even the lower middle class, living on a fixed income and whatever hourly work my dad can pull in. They're not railroaders anymore, they're not factory workers, they're just not laborers, not working class, but then again, they're definitely not "poor white trash" (photo evidence to the contrary).

Okay, we were poor when I was in junior high and high school, especially, but I don't ever remember being hungry. I have no idea how my parents fed and clothed four kids all that time. We weren't dressed like everyone else, but we were clean! And more importantly, our last names weren't Raschka, Hehner, or Wallace, so even if we looked a little odd, we didn't get beat up on sight, just out of town tradition. I desperately wanted to be middle class--like Kendra, whose dad owned Roy's Rexall. All that money! All those clothes! All those friends!

I think my parents aspired to the middle class, too. Not just the money part of being middle class, but the social structure (living in a subdivision, driving a family car, commuting to work, mom at home taking care of domestic chores). Certainly, during my first three years of college, financially they had every right to expect to be living a life of wanton American consumerism. But the middle class kept them out. My dad had the money, he had a city (Seattle) job that was fairly high-up in the corporate ladder (controller of a major bank), but the big boys didn't exactly give him the respect he thought he deserved. They would work with him, but they sure wouldn't nominate him for a membership in the country club, and I think that is one reason why my dad is bitter today. He did the "right thing," he moved to the city, made the money, but it didn't take him anywhere good.

So, back to the farm, back to poverty, back to not being able to keep the farm, looking forward to social security because at least that is *some* income even if it isn't enough to pull them above the poverty line. I don't know, even if gov't cheese was still available--I have no idea--my parents wouldn't take the hand out. My mom would take it when she had four kids to feed, but now when it's just them and my brother, I doubt she'd consider using the foodbank or something.

Hmmm...if I continue thinking about this, it is just going to turn into a diatribe against my siblings for not helping my parents out financially (or in any other way. Geez, Carl, could you get up out of your recliner and walk to the post office for your parents every once in awhile?) and Catherine has heard it over and over for the past week, so I guess I'll give it a rest. Too close to bedtime to get worked up!
11:03 PM


In all my life, I have never seen anyone so pleased with a dust mop.
10:39 PM

Sunday, September 01, 2002
When Catherine went out to get the paper this morning, she found my birthday presents on the front porch. In my birthday card, my mom tucked this photo of me. Tell me we're not white trash! Not only is the the scene just classic poor white folk, but the photo itself is all mangled like someone stuck it in their pocket and forgot about it for a couple weeks.


6:36 PM


Whew. I haven't stopped moving in two days. Not even sure I held completely still while I was sleeping.

Went by my old office Friday afternoon to turn in my door key. It seems they have missed me in the past few weeks. I was a bit pleased to note that Carolyn looked distinctly disappointed that she had to run to a meeting just as I showed up. That's the problem with that place, too many damn meetings.

An e-mail from Diane yesterday afternoon:

OK so could Fran love you any more than she does? She hollered out when you came in today and she was just telling Monique that you came in and saying how great it was to see you and how great you looked - blah blah. It is really sweet.

Probably it's just that all the computers have been breaking and they have no one to fix them.

Spent the afternoon doing homework, then took Catherine out to dinner. After that, we went to the first sporting event of the new year, a men's soccer game. Next weekend there's volleyball. We could have gone to a football game yesterday, but I'm currently really angry with the athletics department, so they can't have my $26 for a ticket.

Well, we have a better sporting even to attend yesterday, anyway. We both spent the morning in front of the computer (damn that philosophy class, anyway), then drove up to Indy to go to the World Basketball Championships. For the same price we'd pay to see our pathetic football team play William and Mary, we got to see New Zealand v. Argentina and USA v. China.

I hate the way American men play basketball. Any man who thinks it acceptable to do a tomahawk dunk in the final minute of the game when his team is winning by twenty points will never be allowed to play on my team. I'm not against using a dunk to make a point every once in awhile, I understand the psychology. But there is a point where it becomes absolutely shameful, and actually, the USA team reached that point during warm-ups. Players who dunk when a lay-up would be safer are out for the glory, not the game. So, here I am, cheering for human-rights-abusing, environment-destroying, dissident-persecuting China instead of my own country, because I hate to be associated with poor sportsmanship.

Got home after midnight, then dragged ourselves out of bed this morning to run errands. Got a pair of jeans, hopefully they'll fit me for awhile--now I have two pair of long pants! Spent a long time at Lowe's checking out cabinets, solid surfacing, self-venting microwaves, etc. Got some ideas about what we want, but I'm not totally sold on solid surfacing or tile. Then the bulk of the afternoon was spent touring open houses to look at kitchens. There was one with an unfinished basements I'm going to encourage my students to go look at. It had a great example of light wood framed walls, and also synthetic beams.

Right now I'm working on a new design for my main webpage, almost got it, I think. I'm so sick of orange, I never even update it because I can't stand to look at it. I need to digest my tacos before I go running. The evening is reserved for prepping my AutoCAD classes, if I can pull myself away from working on my web page.

Ah....I love long weekends.

6:24 PM


C: You're really brave, honey.

S: Not, not brave, just impulsive.

C: But impulsive in a good way. Most people when they're impulsive get pregnant or go to jail. You get a degree and a job.
5:34 PM