The best present of all.

The. Mother. Fucking. Semester. Is. Over.

I flew back to Baltimore on Thursday, which meant stress, booze, and Xanax, because that's the cocktail I use to manage my severe flying phobia. I woke up the next morning, hung over from... life. And in an epic marathon finish, I wrote 19 pages on Friday, over the span of about 17 hours. The quality was about what you'd expect from such a showing, but I was damned if I was going to take an incomplete. It was the least human I've ever been in my life. I was a paper-writing shell of a person, filled with Badiou and self-loathing where my soul and organs used to be. My poor dear Rachael got off work (her last day of the year), and had to celebrate by watching me write.

BUT I'M DONE! Semester wrap-up to follow, at such point as I have regular internet access. Happy holidays to all, and to all a strong scotch.

Peace and joy,
J.

Glorious Email Irony!

This semester has been nothing if not a series of triumphs and crushing blows to the ego. The self-esteem roller coaster that is grad school in a top 20 program has ultimately left me with one pervasive feeling: It is possible, though perhaps not likely, that I am a capable and intelligent person. I think that's what they want all of us to feel. When you brainwash someone, you have to break them down mentally and physically to the point where they're lying on the floor drooling and have completely resigned themselves to the combat boot on their windpipe. And that's where I am right now, two days left in the semester, bone tired, sick-feeling, with one last fucking paper to write, resigned to the fact that it's going to suck and the best my professors will think of me is, "Oh, her? I think I remember her. No... let's not kick her out of the program... not yet." So I'm a shivering empty vessel, which is how they've managed to implant their ideology: you're smart... maybe. I'm starting to see that the life of an academic is feeling that way forever.

Despite the fact that I've reached the 'acceptance stage,' I cannot really continue writing this post. I've finished with two classes, done all but my last touch-ups on a third, and have one entire term paper to write... by Friday. Oh, and I'm flying home Thursday. Which is tomorrow. It's gonna be a photo finish, kids. So, unless you happen to have a term paper out there on Badiou that I can have... No? Damn. In that case, I will just leave you with what I myself received this morning: a letter telling me I've been admitted to the grad program in English. Apparently my file never got processed, so just at the moment when I'm most considering quitting to become a... well, anything else, I get officially admitted. Just in time that I can't claim non-departmental status to get out of writing my papers, just in time to remind me that several months ago this was the thing I wanted most. Just in time to say, Hey, Jessie! You chose to do this for the rest of your life!

Dear Jessie,

Your request to change your major area of study to English has been approved. We have notified the Office of the Registrar to make the changes effective Fall 2007. If this information is not correct, please notify us.

Sincerely,

XXXXXX XXXXXX
Office of Graduate Admissions

...Maybe I should notify them...

Meat lockers and feelings of inadequacy.

Apparently in the county where my mom lives in West Virginia, the public schools close in honor of the first day of deer-hunting season. And they don't just close that day... they get the whole week off. What the shit...

I finished a paper! [Momentary pause for cheering!] ...And now I have to write two more in 15 days, and I have almost no work done on either of them. [Resuming regularly-scheduled puking into a bucket.]

But as always, grad school is best measured in small victories. And the fact that I got a seminar paper done, it didn't suck really bad, I kinda liked the topic, and it was reasonably within the page count (that's usually a huge problem for me)--that, friends, is what we call a minor triumph. However, handing it in today was highly anticlimactic. The professor's "Thanks" followed by setting it on her desk was a real pin in my delirious balloon of giddiness. Also a downer was then going right back to the library to collect books for my next one. And then thinking of the horrifying possibility that I could actually get a paper back while I'm still writing other ones. Shudder. Nothing like a prof's scrawled "what are you even doing in grad school" to keep your confidence up in the darkest depths of finals week.

But we all know professors aren't that on the ball. I will probably never see the paper again. The much more likely but equally unfortunate scenario I thought of is that she will now think I turned it in early because I think it's perfect. That there's no point keeping it for ten more days, because even given that amount of time, I could find nothing wrong with my work. And this, of course, will inspire my professor to scoff loudly and set about proving me wrong. See, if you turn it in the day it's due, and there's a crap-load wrong with it, you get the benefit of the doubt that you know what that crap-load is, you just didn't have time to fix it. Oh well. It's in, and I'm moving on.

Wilkie Collins, Duleep Singh, and the anxieties of the colonial body, here I come. Hooray..?

Oh, and: 7 more inches of snow last night. If you're keeping track, we've got a solid 10 on the ground right now, according to the local news, with a couple more coming tomorrow. Current temp: 0, feels like 0. If you're going to be miserable, you might as well be miserable in a meat locker, that's what I say!

I get to bitch because I don't plan on doing anything about it... that's how it works, right?

If I had forgotten how bad snow removal in Madison is, it's all flooding back now. After this weekend's three-inch snowfall, the major roads are sort of clear, and the side roads haven't been touched. I don't really understand how, in a climate where it snows regularly, all winter, every winter, they're not ready for it. Although you couldn't really say that the plows and salt trucks (which are bad for the environment anyway--they should use sand) are behind, persay. It's not that they get caught unawares by the storm and can't keep up with it. That would be pretty pitiful anyhow, considering it only snowed three inches.

No, it's not so much an inability to deal with the snow as an unwillingness. Last night, after the storm was well over, all of the cross streets on the Isthmus were still completely white. And since there had been sleet, they were also covered in ice. The precipitation had stopped, but... were there plows out? Nope. It seems the city just decides which three major streets they're going to plow, and then they pack it it for the day. Mission accomplished! As of this morning, the bus lane on University Avenue, the major downtown campus artery, was still buried under an inch of snow and ice. And if you live on a side street, forget it, you're fucked. The people who live on the little roads going up from Gorham to Lake Mendota might have some of the prettiest houses and the nicest views, but during the most minor of snowfalls, they also live on an icy white slip-n-slide of death.

I wonder if the state thinks that Wisconsinites are just so rugged and hardy that they'll take care of it themselves. Sure, they must all have tire chains and four-wheel drive and personal plows--they're outdoorsmen! Maybe that's true in the more rural parts of the state, but here in Madison we're a bunch of crunchy, liberal, latte-drinking students. You need to plow us out! In the last twelve hours, I have seen three incapacitated vehicles, one the result of an accident, and two that had skidded into banks of snow and gotten stuck. There were policemen there helping, but not a plow within earshot. Oh, yeah, and all three of these accidents were within six blocks of my apartment.

For the love of god, people... THREE INCHES!

Snow = :-) Cold = :-(

My blog started out last year as a record of how I was adapting to all things Wisconsin. Living in the Midwest, handling grad school, restraining the urge to commit suicide due to the mid-winter tundra. As a staunch opponent of winter, I often treated my blog as more of a weather-logue, and I have gotten away from that this year. I wouldn't want anyone to think that it's because I approve of winter any more than I ever have before. No, quite the opposite. The last several days have involved a whole lot of "Holy Fuck"s muttered into the scarf wrapped around my mouth. And it's not even that bad yet. This morning was a measly 15 ("feels like" 2).

So in honor of the 100% (!) chance of 3-6 inches of snow this weekend*, a weather recap: This fall has been quite gentle. Aside from the occasional wicked swings (a couple of 80-degree days in October), the daily temperatures have followed a steady drop-off that has hewn closely to recorded averages. Still... there's a degree or two, I think it's about 33, where suddenly it's cold. Damn cold. The wind kicks off the lake, and even when I'm crossing the street in front of HCW I'm thinking maybe it's just not worth going in today.

That happened. And I'm sad. Expect many more snow totals and wind chills in posts to come. Also, page counts. It's snow season and term paper season. Everything is happy!

* Source: weather.com, a notorious coterie of liars and charlatans.

Why am I insane?

Sometimes when I come home to my apartment, and my boyfriend's not home, I get freaked out that some creepy stranger is lying in wait for me. There are any number of sneaky nooks a bad guy could camp out in, but invariably it's the bathtub that pushes me over the edge, and I have to pull back the curtain and check. It's irrational, yes, but there's just all that space in there. And everybody knows baddies hide behind curtains. But I wondered tonight what I would actually do if I poked my head around the curtain and there was a large stranger standing in my tub. The answer? Instantaneously stop living. Dead. The big graduate school in the sky.

So, maybe it would be slightly better, even if there was a creepy dude in my shower, to ignore him and hope he decides to leave?

Am I missing something? Should I not write blog posts after midnight?

Why is it that in bad movies and TV shows, when someone gets locked in a freezer by a villain (usually a meat freezer of some sort), he doesn't jog in place or do jumping jacks? Wouldn't this help? Or is this yet another exposure of my very tenuous grasp of Science?

Proof that grad school gets inside of you... in a bad way.

Many of you know this story by now, and for that I apologize. But it's too good not to record.

My boyfriend--I won't name him, even though you all know who I mean (somehow it seems to jive with standards of so-called 'professionalism' to blog anonymously, and adhering to this norm lets me delude myself into believing I'd ever have enough readers for my blog to affect my professional life... plus this is not the most flattering story I've told about him, though it is funny)--My boyfriend often does not meet his goals. Let me not suggest that he's not highly productive and successful. Because he is. But he's also capable of astounding feats of procrastination, self-delusion, and deferral. These two things add up to the mystique of his spontaneous success, which though I find it irksome I have to admit has some basis in reality. The reality of naps, youtube, and facebook video games. And the reality of generally brilliant performance as a student. I know. It needs to be studied.

Despite his occasional (frequent) lapses into the unproductive, he always approaches his day with a surge of panic-induced optimism. Today is the day I do all the shit! (he says). But because of said lapses, he also occasionally (frequently) ends his day in a fit of remorse and self-flagellation. These moments are invariably punctuated by two phrases, said aloud, while muttering around the apartment at night, trying to collect the fragments of his lost time. "Tomorrow is going to be a huge day." And "I cannot have any more days like this one."

But on with the story at hand. A few nights ago I awoke around 4 A.M. to the sounds of my boyfriend talking in his sleep. He doesn't do this very often, and it's usually just like anyone else talking in his sleep: gibberish making border raids on the coherent. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself... everyone in my Weds. seminar gets that one.) He mumbles a couple of words that, strung together, start to sound like sense, and then there's grunting and a list of prepositions. You know how it goes. The other night was no different, except that he was particularly loud and enunciating particularly well. There was a certain intentionality to his speech, garbled as it was. I was about to go back to sleep when, amidst the babble one sentence emerged, clear as a distress signal in the noise, a cry for help from the subconscious: "I can't have any more days like this!" Dead asleep, his voice yet had the tone of resignation and panic that accompanies the lucid versions of this statement.

And then, before he once again sunk below the surface of coherence, he made two fists and flailed them about above his body. Not to this point have I seen such a powerful testament to the fixed and thorough permeation of our souls by the monster graduate school.

On a related note, two graduate student characters in a story I wrote recently have the following exchange about grad school:

"It's like paying someone to poke you in the face with a screwdriver and call you stupid."
"It's like being a prostitute and getting paid in I.O.U.s"

I hereby put out the call to finish the sentence, "Graduate school is like ______."

Hmmm.

O excellent! I love Jessie better than figs.

See original quote and generate more

Get your own quotes:

Reading theories of tourism... touring the internet... same thing.

I've got some questions I'd like answered.

1.) How does doing literary criticism fit into your personal ethics? (No, I'm not going to elaborate that question at all.)

2a.) Do you know where I can get cheap frames and mats?
2b.) Or alternately, do you know of a cheap and easy mounting technique that meets archival standards and doesn't require expensive equipment? I've got some digital prints and I could frame them, but I'm interested in learning how to mount them. I'd prefer a backing with some depth to it, not something very flat.

As a reward for answering either of these questions, check out this sweet base-jumping video. You can check it out even if you don't answer my questions, but I'm watching you. Seriously.

Happy Sunday.

Don't mess with my secret lair!

There's a place on campus where I particularly like to go to read. I'm not going to say where that is (even though most of you know already) because it's a small space and within that small space, there's just one seating apparatus that I like. One seat on the whole of this campus. It's comfy, it has a view of the lake, and it's next to an outlet. I know! Shockingly, I usually don't have to fight for it, either. This is the major reason I'm not telling you where it is. There are lots of other comfy seating arrangements in this... room... but a serious lack of outlets in general. So I more or less understand when someone needs to use it. (Though I'd be lying if I said no irrational rage bubbles up anyway, kind of like when someone sits on the seat on the 81 bus that I always take--of course they don't know, but they somehow should). But yesterday, yesterday!, before I had my computer out and plugged in, some dude took the last outlet spot for his computer and then took a ninety-minute nap on the floor! Oh, my inner Miss Manners was tee-ohed! If that seat were not so cradlingly comfortable and the view not so soothingly serene... I swear I would have done something drastic, like... unplug his machine. Yeah, I know.

Steve Carell, did you mean to get on the career elevator to the basement?

Coupla things. I posted a ranting blog about etiquette several months back. I'd like to add something to the list of holding doors, taking bus seats, and getting up from classes: ELEVATORS.

This is a tri-fold problem for the general public. First are the people who walk up to the elevators where you're waiting, look at you for a second, and then reach out and push the button that's already lit up. There seems to be some bizarre human elevator-related anxiety. If I don't push the button myself, how can I be sure that it's going to come?? The light could be stuck in the "on" position! This person waiting could be stoned or retarded or in a waking coma! How could I live with myself if I didn't take every possible precaution against being skipped by one or possibly more elevator cars?! Basically what I'm saying is don't be a douche.

Secondly, you get on in the order you arrived. This is a special problem in the HCW elevator lobby. Yes, it's a tiny portico, and people aren't very good about moving all the way in. And yes, the elevators don't come very frequently, so people tend to stack up waiting. I do understand why you need to come inside and why it's impossible to form a line for the elevator. But try to remember that when you need to come and shove your way into the room and stand right in front of the elevator, it's because there are too many people waiting. People who got there before you. DON'T BE THE FIRST ONE ON THE ELEVATOR. In other words, don't be a douche.

Finally, when the doors finally open, and it's actually your turn to get on an elevator, try to restrain yourself from pushing past the people trying to get off. The elevator is not going to leave without you. The riders will exit, which will hold the doors open, and then they will stay open long enough for you to board in a restrained fashion. It's not like getting on the subway where you only have a few precious seconds to beat the closing of the doors, and where you may actually risk life and limb to do so in some cities like Moscow, where the doors don't have object sensors and I saw a man get stuck, Winnie-the-pooh style, and have to be yanked through by his fellow passengers while the train was departing. Elevators don't do that. The doors take forever to close and if they start to... you can put your hand out, and they'll open! Stop pushing your way on to elevators!

People, don't be a douche.

But on to much more pressing matters. Is it pretty much just accepted at this point that Steve Carell is trying to climb up inside of Jim Carrey, or at least his career? Aside from the fact that he took on the sequel to Carrey's Bruce Almighty, he's clearly going for the guy-with-infantile-but-of-the-moment-sense-of-humor-proves-his-chops-through-touching-but-lighthearted-role-and-captures-all-demographics thing. Even the title Dan in Real Life figuratively evokes The Truman Show. But I'm trying to picture SC in a role as heartbreaking as Carrey's in Eternal Sunshine, and I can't get there. Probably I would have said the same thing about Jim Carrey at the time, but all I keep seeing is Brick Tamland's vacant, constipated expression. And you know what? That's timeless. I don't still find The Mask funny, but I bet Anchorman's sense of humor will stand the test of time. So what I'm saying, Steve, is don't make any poor decisions. Well, any poorer than you already have.

Too many italics in that last graph. Tired fingers. Ciao.

It's good to finally know what you want.

Some of you who've known me for awhile (and many of you who haven't) will know me as the girl with one foot out the door. It seems I can be happy doing almost anything--a great virtue, I'm told--but my attention span for any particular activity is quite short. This probably explains how, since I graduated college in June 2004, a mere three years ago, I have accomplished (or half-accomplished) the following:

* employed as an academic adviser by the UD honors program (six months)
* employed as a waitress at TGIF (eighteen months--and it kills me that this will be the longest entry)
* drove across the country and back
* spent a summer learning Russian (in Moscow)
* spent a summer backpacking in South America
* moved three times
* earned an associate's degree in photography
* completed half of an M.A. in journalism (one year)
* applied for and accepted a doctoral program in English

Yes that's right, folks. Three years. I'm like an avocational floozy. Where is this going, you ask? Surely she's not doing it again... she's not once more hauling out the old bag of excuses--poorly informed past choices; lack of life experience; this time it feels right; I can't go on living unless it's as a taxidermist; &cta. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but it's true. I've dipped my big toe in the Ph.D. program and I now see what was wrong about everything I've heretofore decided to do...

It was all about doing something. Yep, this time it's for SURE. I know I've got it nailed. I'm dropping out of school (again) to do nothing. It's going to be great. I'm going to sleep in all day, and watch movies until Kevin comes home and makes me dinner. I'm going to drink beer in the shower and go for long sits in the park. I know it's the right choice, because... well, it just feels right. Like nothing I've done before.

"I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of Undergrad Jessie"

Oh, hello. It's you again. What are you doing here? Me? Oh, no. I haven't been hanging around this whole time waiting for you, no. I have stuff to do. I'm cool.

But since we're both here, let's talk. I haven't blogged in a thousand years. Literally. But now that I have a soul-crushing amount of schoolwork again, I'm going to need all the procrastination devices I can get. I thought a good way to kick it off might be to cover my spectacular weekend. Yeah, I know. Snoozefest. Everyone blogs about her fucking weekend. But you know what? My weekend was cooler than yours.

Exhibit A: It was my birthday. Which I share with one of the coolest grad students in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of English. Oh, hell. I'll say it. One of the coolest people in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of English. Yeah, that's right. Kristiane is a goddess. Not only did we celebrate with a giant table full of tikka masala and vindaloo... not ONLY did we throw a fantastic party complete with cake and car bombs and Coolio and me being called a "birthday whore"... No, not only all of those things. But my long-lost and darling-beloved Erinn showed up unannounced at dinner. IN THE FLESH! No, she wasn't naked. Well, she was half-naked, but that's beside the point. Her sneaky (and covered) little ass just waltzed on into Maharani in Madison like she never left. Like a cold-blooded gangsta.

Exhibit B: Erinn made apple tart. Yeah.

Exhibit C: I got to have dinner last night at a prof's house in the arboretum (read: smack in the middle of nature) with a Pulitzer prize-winning author. I will leave him (Damn, I've revealed his gender! Damn, I've done it again!) nameless. But if you ever get to hang out with a famous author who's a little flamboyant and wears tight black t-shirts and gets a little tipsy and starts slamming all of his least-favorite contemporary authors, you'll know just who I mean. Did you know that reading Don DeLillo is like being rammed by a huge dick? Me neither. (For the record, that's apparently a good thing. I'll spare the good names of the authors he eviscerated, because they were some of my favorites. :-X)

So, all of that makes the fact that I'm completely screwed this week somewhat bearable. Also the knowledge that my weekend was better than yours. That helps ease the pain a little, too.

I typically hate memes, but this one was cool. And I'm supposed to be writing a paper, so... you know.

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OH MY GOD SO AWESOME.

This story involves everything I love. The 19th century. Pre-Raphaelite art. Fucked-up children's lit. Wombats.

Read on.

From the Wikipedia page on Dante Gabriel Rossetti:

During this time, Rossetti acquired an obsession for exotic animals, and in particular wombats. He would frequently ask friends to meet him at the "Wombat's Lair" at the London Zoo in Regent's Park, and would spend hours there himself. Finally, in September 1869, he was to acquire the first of two pet wombats. This shortlived wombat, named "Top", was often brought to the dinner table and allowed to sleep in the large centrepiece of the dinner table during meals. Indeed, this is said to have inspired the dormouse from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Lest you think this is a case of Wikipedia hacking, like the Eric-discovered description of Machiavelli's philosophy as "testiculogical" (as opposed to "teleological"), here's an article on the very subject.

I'm peeing and dying of joy at the same time.

It's April, isn't it? My calendar, can someone check... it's working, right?

I don't ask a lot from Madison. I know more or less what I'm getting into. The winters pain me deeply, but I smile and put on four coats because I chose to move here, and I'm a big person (personally, not physically... though, with four coats on...).

But look, Madison. In return you could at least live up to your average temperatures. It's April now. And I have the internet, so you're not fooling me. The average high is supposed to be in the upper 50's. That's not exactly fucking balmy, but compared to the last four months it's certainly liveable. Jacket weather, that's all I'm asking. But the ten-day forecast doesn't go above 48. Lots of highs in the 30s, lots of lows in the 20s. And... snow.

COME THE FUCK ON.

I know I was warned about this, too. Everyone reading this who's been in Madison for a couple of years is saying: "Oh, isn't that precious. The new girl is still upset about the slow spring." Well, YES. YES I AM. I don't like winter very much. I steeled myself for it, and I handled it. It's spring. I'M DONE HANDLING IT NOW.

Playing Magic in the library over spring break is like masturbating to a chess competition.

A guy sitting in a booth in the library cafe is on his cell phone, talking loudly. It's spring break, and there are only about six of us sad sacks in here doing work, so his conversation is more or less filling the room. I was tuning him out pretty well until I just heard him say:

"Yeah, last night was pretty cool. We just played a bunch of Magic. I brought my big deck over to show people, and yeah, everyone was pretty impressed with what I could do with it."

If you're imagining the guy saying this with a kind of Napoleon Dynamite voice, you're pretty close. I'm not judging Magic players (okay, I am a little bit). But I am judging someone who gets his self-validation from reporting his skill at it. And who also uses the word "deck" a little too much like the word "penis."

And the loud cell phone conversation brings me to a social etiquette rant I've been meaning to go on for a little while. There are literally thousands of breaches of social responsibility that I could go on about. Leaving a wet counter in the bathroom. Farting in an elevator. Not tipping. Dropping a deuce so large it won't flush and then just walking away. But here, I will focus on three, ordered from least annoying to most homicide-inducing.

1.) Getting your stuff together to leave a class while the professor is still talking. Yeah, we're all attuned to the impending-freedom clues, buddy. It's not just you who has a super-psychic sixth sense or a specialness-goblin whispering in your ear to alert you to the code. When the professor's voice lifts a little, when she starts talking about what's due next week, when the second hand is moments away from colliding with the big 12... We all get it. Here's the thing. You think you're being all quiet and sneaky, soundlessly shifting your papers back inside your folder, maybe closing your water bottle top. But the next thing you know, you find you need to scooch your chair back a little. Now we're talking audible sound. And then everyone else around you starts doing it, and before you know it, the professor is completely drowned out. What's the big deal, right? She's just doing a syllabus-drone that everyone knows is literally seconds away from becoming a see-you-next-week closer. IT'S FUCKING RUDE, THAT'S WHY. You know why it's rude? Because you don't have anywhere to be. Universities design time between classes for just this reason! You'll make it to your bio lab, I swear! I will grant that 0.5% of students in any given class have an immediate and pressing appointment. But you probably don't. And you signed up for the class. So sit the fuck down and attend it. You are not more important or valuable than your professor. You just aren't.

2.) Taking up two seats on the bus. Okay, look. The bus is small and often of a temperature that's an ill match with the season. And above all, no one likes to touch strangers. We just don't. I, especially, do not like to touch strangers. Some of us do, and they probably ride the bus in the middle of the day, but we're not dealing with those folks in this particular case. No, I'm talking to people who--like me and the rest of the world--don't like to touch strangers but who go to inconsiderate lengths to be sure that other people will have to touch strangers before they will. You know the bus game. People fill the bus in a checkerboard pattern, taking all the seats that don't have anyone next to them (much like urinal selection, I'm also told) until this is no longer possible. Then people have to start sitting next to other people. Some try to avoid having their neighboring seat taken by placing a backpack or shopping bag there and then becoming "absorbed" in some kind of reading material or window-gazing and pretending not to notice that the bus is filling up. You know what? Just because you went shopping doesn't earn you an extra seat. The bus is actually quite often used to take people to the store. And I don't think they built it with 25 EXTRA SEATS FOR TOTE BAGS. You are not more special than other people. You're not. Other riders simply move to the aisle, leaving their window seat open but inaccessible. Listen, the likelihood is that eventually the bus will fill up and you will have to touch a stranger. All your delaying does is cause kind people like myself, who also don't want to touch strangers, to pay the price of touching them first. I'm not sure if this makes me so mad because it's rude or because I secretly wish I had the stones to do this, because I hate strangers so much. BUT OH MY GOD MOVE OVER.

3.) Poor door-holding etiquette. This comes in two forms. First are the people who walk through a door in front of you without looking back to see if there's someone behind them to hold the door for. This results in the familiar door-slamming-shut-just-out-of-your-reach problem which is actually worse than walking up to a closed door, because you do this awkward little lurch to get to the door, but then you miss it, making you both mad and embarrassed. No good. Far worse, however, is the second type. This takes the form of a person--oft-accompanied by a cell phone stapled to the side of the head--walking behind you. You, being the considerate sort of chap you are, hold the door open for the person walking behind you, waiting that extra second or two for said person to reach out their very own hand and take the door as they pass through it. Only, this particular douchebag doesn't put her hand out. No, no. She just walks on through the door, past you, and out into the world (or library) without even looking at you, much less saying thank you. This one baffles me. Are there really people in the world who have no trouble using their fellow human beings, who are simply extending a kindness they are not obligated to extend but do, as butlers? I have particular trouble handling the several-years-younger-than-me, several-brains-stupider-than-me fucking chippy talking on a cell phone and wearing a puffy coat that's wider than it is long ASSUMING I am there to hold her doors. ONE OF THESE TIMES I AM GOING TO CHASE YOU AND STAB YOU IN THE NECK AND YOU WON'T HEAR ME COMING BECAUSE YOU'LL BE LISTENING TO YOUR DADDY TELL RACIST JOKES ABOUT YOUR ACTUAL BUTLER WHILE YOU WAIT FOR AN OPENING TO ASK FOR MORE MONEY TO BUY A NEW, PUFFIER COAT. Agh.

Reach out. And take the fucking door. You are not more special than me. And you won't look as cute with a broken nose.

Don't all three of these problems really boil down to people thinking they are more special or more entitled than other people? Maybe we should all take a generation off from telling our kids that they're special. And send them to summer camp on a socialist farm.

Just hold the door.

A thousand rescue St. Bernards, STAT.

Last night was the snow-pocalypse. Actually, this entire weekend is the snow-pocalypse. It snowed about 5 inches on Friday night, which was somehow the perfect backdrop for my getting slightly drunk at 6pm. The Department held its annual Graduate Student Conference on Friday, and somehow I got assigned to moderate the final panel and thus give the final little talk of the day. Who.. what? Guys, I don't know if you know this, but... there are a lot more, better candidates in the graduate school for this. Like people who have been here long enough to know things about the department. But I threw down some writerly skillz on that and delivered a speech most people seemed to like. And then three pints of Bass in an hour seemed like the way to go.

Which brings me back to the snow-pocalypse. I heard it was supposed to snow a lot this weekend. Specifically, Saturday. So when I exited the City Bar on Friday evening into swirling snow, I was a little surprised. But when it had snowed 5 inches, I thought, well, I guess the snow came early. Because though we have had consistent snowfall ever since the deep freeze ended two weeks ago, we haven't really gone above 6 inches in any one snow "event."

Oh, but the snow did not come early this weekend. It came three times. Last night was the actual snow event that people had been talking about, and it snowed another 9 inches. And by tomorrow we're supposed to get another 3. All told, that makes... 18 inches.

Friday night the snow was accompanied by one of those freaky, bright, daytime skies in the middle of the night. And it was radioactive yellow. Last night the snow brought thunder and lightning and blizzard-condition winds. SWEET. Wisconsin is trying to kill me. Snow-pocalypse style.

Also, my work is trying to kill me. In my lit class we have a paper due already, which is strange, because we've only read two novels thus far, so there's not much subject matter to choose from. And while trying to accomplish this head-scratching task I have two weeks of dense theory to read for the same class. Presumably this is to help me conceptualize my paper, but I don't know how I'm going to have TIME to write a paper when I have 275 pages of Fanon to get through and another 200 of Bhabha. And then, the week AFTER the paper is due... we don't have class. What.....

But my Critical and Cultural Studies class continues to rock hard. And I have to say, what I really like about this semester is reading the big names. As opposed to reading lots of articles where people cite Foucault and Anderson and Adorno, I'm actually reading those people all semester, which is great. I feel like I'm finally building up my smart-arsenal. And someday I will blow shit up.

Right.

Supa Bowl Weekend.

Current time: 7:31 pm
Current temp: -6
Current chill: -24

Damn.
I can't wait to see what it's like in another five hours.

Professionalism, Shprofessionalism.

Go look at the 10-day forecast for Madison. I'd cry, but my tears would freeze to my face in little icicles of sorrow.

I'm a teacher. A college teacher. That's so weird. I'm actually "teaching" right now. My students are doing group work, and I'm writing in my blog. I teach wearing ripped jeans, and sometimes I project Natalie Dee and Married to the Sea cartoons on the wall while my students are working. I think sometimes someone's going to come into the room and say, "Oh, no no no. You come with us. There's been a terrible mistake made here." But I got my evals back from last semester and they were very good. So at least I'm popular.

Super Bowl this weekend. Aaaaaaand I'm out of things to say.

Everything is frozen.

I'm starting to think that Wisconsin isn't playing around. The lake finally froze. I say finally because December and early January were unseasonably warm, so the freezing process was late in the year (avg. freeze date Dec. 20), not because it took a long time. Once it got going, it only took about 4 days. That's fast. And it's a big lake (almost 10,000 acres). Big up to Wikipedia for the factoids. One morning in December I rode past the lake on the bus and saw this low layer of mist rising up from the middle of the lake and rolling quickly out to the shores in waves. Two different people told me it was the lake "giving up its heat." The next day it was partially frozen. I imagine, if not for the following warm spell, it would have gone through that whole process in a couple of days. Like a big yawn and then it closes its mouth. But it took a month-long hiatus and was nice enough to wait for my return to this tundra wasteland.

Which brings me to the 10-day forecast. The average high over the next ten days is 18; the average low is 4. (This blog entry is full of data; it's so official-like.) There's a light snowfall every couple of days. The big snow from last week is still here. Everywhere. Deep. I've never lived someplace where it snows and then the snow... doesn't melt. It hasn't been above freezing in weeks. It doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon. I feel like I live inside of a giant freezer. You know that lumpy, white build-up of ice you get inside of freezers? That's what Wisconsin looks like right now.

Erinn's 25th birthday was Thursday, and I made a lot of fun of her for being old, rounding up to 30, being a quarter-century...however you want to look at it, she's ancient. To celebrate the occasion, we went bowling, ate cake, and almost died. That's right. Kevin almost got us hit by a train. I'm not talking about cutting across the tracks a few seconds before the barrier goes down, while the train is still a ways off. I'm talking about not realizing we were sitting in the middle of an intersection through which a train passes and trying to figure out which way to turn. He chose a right turn (thanks to the urging of our own Backseat Angry Dad, Eric) and four seconds later, in the rear-view, a thundering train passed a few feet from the spot we had just been occupying. A left turn would ACTUALLY HAVE KILLED US. But my point here is not that this was Kevin's fault. For all that Eric and Andy maintain there was ample warning, I only heard bells. Which are loud and can be heard from some ways off an actual train crossing. It was dark. I never saw tracks. If you're not familiar with the local streets, what's to tell you that the train is coming through your intersection and is about to murder you? Where's the little white mechanical barrier, Wisconsin? They're not expensive, and you know what? I OBEY THEM. Happy birthday, Erinn. I hope you like the near-death experience we got you. You can't exchange it.

Belly-up to the lazy buffet.

Snow. I'm officially calling this my first real Madison snowfall. We had a dusting right before my birthday (much too soon for a snowfall in my opinion) and a couple of two-inchers at the end of the semester. Then it got fucking cold and the lake began to freeze. But then it got all 40-degrees and dry for weeks on end. My return to the midwest has been hailed with real snow.

It's currently still snowing, though I can't really believe that the small blowing flakes are contributing any more to the accumulation, which seems to be about 5 inches. When I decided that I was moving to Wisconsin, I used this new-fangled internet thing--which I hear is full of all kinds of facts--to look up Madison's annual snowfall totals. When I found the answer to be 5 inches, I was doubtful. The midwest is supposed to be full of snow! But how could the internet lie to me?? Since it's now January 15th and our total for the winter thus far is about 7 inches, I feel a.) relieved that the midwest will live up to its white reputation (and oh, how that applies in more than one way) and also b.) disappointed that the internet is not, in fact, a digital Delphi.

Snow is sweet.

So, yes, I'm back in Madison. I won't say much about my vacation. Except that I was surprised by own capacity for regression into the state of a sullen, angsty, family-hating fifteen-year-old. And that it's a good thing it took me most of my time at home to figure out how to connect my laptop to the internet, for this saved me from posting a ridiculous blog rant about hating my life. All I will now say in retrospect is that going home for the holidays at this age is hard. And that growing up has done a lot to contribute to a changed perspective on my family. And that I wish I had brothers and sisters. It's strange to spend the holidays with just my mother, as much as I love her.

I've done jack shit with my vacation. I need to learn to be okay with that. I always schedule myself more things than I can reasonably do, which leads to the ridiculous practice of making to-do lists months in advance. During the semester, while I'm buried under academic readings, I begin to wish I were making more progress on other, less soul-sucking projects. There's not enough of a sense of completion involved in academic work. It's cyclical. So I make fantastical, optimistic lists of all the things I will actually "take care of" when I have my time to myself. Things like, finishing the blanket I started crocheting two years ago. Building my website. Reading books for fun. Scrapbooking. Then vacation comes around, I look at that list, and think, ".............no?"

This particular to-do list has looked much the same for YEARS. These projects are all unfortunate enough to fall in the interstices between semester busy-ness and post-semester laziness. I will never do them.

So I have spent three weeks watching television. I feel a bit bad about myself at the moment, actually. I have read .5 books. I think I will go home right now and read. Or maybe watch a movie...

I keep telling myself I need this. That I must build up a good store of waste-of-life-ness to counterbalance the draining level of productivity I must sustain for the next four months. But I think I'm lying to myself. Because I kind of feel like shit. I'm not usually like this. All my life I have denied myself vacation time, and now I'm freaking gorging at the all-you-can-eat lazy buffet. And I can't stop. Someone please call for help.