It’s time:
Camus’s take on the US, via John Doe and Exene’s uncertain harmony.
Baby, take a walk outside
4 07 2016Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: Fourth of July, life, USA, X
Categories : Music, Musing
Another day draws away
16 06 2016So I’m currently unemployed—which sucks—so one might think I’d be gettin’ all kinds of work done.
One has not met me, I see.
No, I’m one of those folks that if I have 5 things to do, I get 5 things done; 10, and maybe 8, maybe all ten.
But one thing? Two? Nope. Or 5 things, or ten, with no particular deadline? That’d be a no.
I’ve had posts in mind, but, clearly, haven’t written them. I have notes and files from this past semester that need to be sorted before the fall; they remain unsorted. Notes to prepare for my July class? Ha ha ha.
Okay, I did manage (today, finally), to enter books I purchased this past semester into my Filemaker database, and, finally, to figure out how to export it all to an Excel file (very easy). And I began sorting through those entries, highlighting those which lacked info (ISBN, say, or publisher) or which, because I may no longer own them or were duplicates, should be deleted.
(Which, shees, some of those books I clearly got rid of either before I left Minneapolis or before I left Somerville, but I still felt a pang seeing those titles. Did I really get rid of the Wonnacott & Wonnacott stats books, or are they in my folks’ attic? Whyyyy didn’t I keep the Shively? Honestly, I haven’t needed or even thought about those books for years, but here I am, panging after them. Pitiful.)
So, yeah. That I managed to pull my nose out of my naval long enough to do ONE THING today could mean I’m on an upswing. . . or that I’ll say, Okey-dokey, that was enough for this week.
TUNE IN, then, for another exciting episode of Will she or won’t she?
Or not.
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Tags: life, procrastination, unemployment
Categories : Musing
Burn, baby, burn
28 04 2016I am notably flexible when it comes to paper deadlines—and that is biting me in the ass this week.
I give my students a due date, then, a week or two before the due date, tell them that if anyone wants more time, s/he needs only email me prior to that due date and I’ll give them a week extension, no questions asked. (More than a week requires an explanation.)
It’s easy enough to do: I don’t have TAs so I don’t have to worry about disrupting someone else’s schedule, and my classes are small enough (35 or under) that, even with multiple classes, I can get the grading done.
Why not just make the deadline the week-later date? Well, then I’d have to be a bitch about deadlines, lay on penalties, and otherwise stress out all concerned. This way, I have the flexibility to offer my students flexibility—something which is appreciated by all concerned.
Anyway, this usually works out fine, but I am currently grading papers and projects for all of my classes and, well, that’s where the ass-biting comes in. It’s actually more of an minor ass-nibbling, as I’m on spring break so do have the time to grade (while also still having some time to break).
Still, all that grading is officially the reason why I’m not writing much on my blog this week.
All of that said (she said in a very long preamble), I couldn’t pass up this exquisite put-down:
Sven Mary, the attorney for accused Paris bomb suspect Salah Abdeslam, said his client had “the intelligence of an empty ashtray”.
Not just an ashtray—an empty ashtray.
Beautiful.
h/t The Stranger
Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: blogging, burn, flexibility, grading, life, Salah Abdeslam, Sven Mary
Categories : Musing
Well, something’s lost but something’s gained
20 04 2016This is the year we all turn 50.
School-year, I mean, so some of us got a head start last fall, but as of this past weekend, only one us is still waiting on her birthday.
B. had left a message for me on my birthday saying Hey, let’s all get together in Chicago in April, and mirabilis dictu, we all got together in Chicago in April.
We’re old now—one of us is soon to be a grandmother—and we have the wrinkles and dyed hair to prove it. And yes, there were discussions of creaking bones and medical tests and demurrals from that last glass of beer or wine. And yes, we talked about high school classmates and who died, who divorced, who married whose ex, and of old crushes and friends who’ve fallen away.
But mostly we talked and walked and laughed. We walked to Millennium Park and the Navy Pier, took distorted pictures of ourselves in the Bean (I have no idea what it’s actually called), wandered through the old Chicago Public Library building and decided that paying 10 bucks to get married by a justice of the peace in one of its splendid halls would be a very good deal. We took an architectural tour via the Chicago River (we were all terribly impressed with the tour guide) and wandered around the WGN building gazing at and occasionally patting the embedded stones from around the world.
We ate Chicago-style pizza.
Now, here I have to mention that I tried really (well, pretty) hard not to be a tiresome New Yorker and comment on everything Second City, but when it came to the deep-dish pizza, I had to say “Chicago-style”. (B. did, however, agree with me that “pizza” really did mean New York pizza.)
Anyway, it was good.
The whole weekend was good. The conversation zipped around and around and we were all quite agreeable with one another. I swore too much and P. and T. competed with how many steps each took, and the four of us in line for the river tour weren’t entirely sure the other two would make it back from the bathroom in time, but as we parted on Sunday we all agreed we should do this again, maybe in Chicago, maybe in Milwaukee, but yes, definitely, we should get together to eat and drink and walk and talk and laugh and laugh and laugh, at ourselves and all we’ve been through and all that’s yet to come.
Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: 50, aging, Chicago, friends, life
Categories : Musing
Wide awake
6 04 2016Tuesdays wipe me out.
I teach 3 courses on Tuesday (for about 5 1/2h, total), which you’d think wouldn’t be that bad, and it’s not as if I’m up at the crack of dawn, but man, by the end of the day (~8:40), I have had it. Yeah, I manage to hustle to the train, but even if I have supremely good train mojo and make it home by 10, I am done.
I’m still tired today, and I’m not sure why: I went to bed slightly earlier than usual and got a decent night’s sleep, but man, I feel shriveled.
You’d think if I just went to bed early tonight, all would be well, right? Nope. In fact, as the evening stretches out, I’m actually perking up.
I’m not–or not, any longer—a severe night owl, but if I could get away with a 11am-2/3am wake schedule, yeah, I would.
Except, I could, and I don’t: I don’t teach until 2, so I could get up around 10:30, be on the train by 11:30, and get to campus in time to argue with Jtte for awhile before heading to class.
So why don’t I?
I mean, I’m not currently working my second job, so it’s not as if I need to be on a 9-5 schedule. And Athena knows I’m not getting much accomplished in the morning as it is.
No, I think the issue is that I think I should be on a normal (-ish) schedule and even though precisely no one would care that I’m not, it would seem like I’m slacking off if I a switched to a 2nd-and-a-half shift.
I also think I’m worried that I might have to return to a normal schedule at some point, and then, Oh no! WhatdoIdo?!
I’m not making any sense with myself. I do need to pick up some freelance work, but it’s not as if I couldn’t write—I’d rather write—at night instead of during the day.
And that’s just it: I’ve got me some writin’ to do, and writing requires night time.
Maybe that’s the excuse I need to break away from all of the non-judgement my friends and colleagues are not shoving my way and just, y’know, do what I can.
Because I’m a grown-ass woman, and this is something I actually can do.
Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: judgement, life, night owl, sleep, writing
Categories : Musing
Oodly oodly oodly oo
27 03 2016Hecate, I’ve been lazy.
I’m mean, I’m taking care of business teaching-wise, but when not prepping or not in class? Bupkis.
Oh, well I have been spending some time with my new phone (a Moto G, in case you’re interested) trying to figure out how it works. It’s quite seductive, really: shiny and new, and with far more power than my first three computers—nice, really.
But also, really: still a phone. My parents called earlier today and it took me about ten seconds to figure out how to answer the damn thing (don’t just hit the icon, but slide it over to the other icon); I also experimented while on the phone with my friend J., figuring out if the earbuds I’d bought for my other phone (which didn’t work because the phone was so, so old) would work (yes), how to look things up while on the phone (gotcha), and how to put it on speaker (failed at this, but I think I know how to do it now).
Oh, and I downloaded the only apps I’ll probably ever need: weather and MTA, and one which might be useful: Twitter. Hell, I might even start tweeting on the regular.
Anyway, it’s a phone, and it’s nice, and it works. As a phone.
~~~
Netflix put up the latest season of Crossing Lines, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch it. I’d more or less enjoyed the first two seasons, but it got increasingly, ecchhh, baroque? operatic? ridiculous? as it went on, and the last episode of the second season was, frankly, dumb.
Still, I was bored and thought, What the hell, let’s see how they get themselves out of that last episode jam. Whaddya know: not bad.
Only three of the original cast members returned, and the plotting is much cleaner. It’s still only okay, but now it’s okay+, as opposed to okay- and falling.
And it has Goran Višnjić who is, well, who is someone I always enjoy.
~~~
Code Black, alas, fell off from it’s strong start. It’s still pretty good, but what was wrenching early on became sentimental later. And instead of letting the complications of the cases lead into the characters, now the characters are being wrung through unnecessary wringers to supply the drama.
Too bad.
Still, not too, too bad. It still had (the season ended in Feb) Marcia Gay Harding, Luis Guzmán, and Raza Jaffrey, after all, so if they bring it back later this year, yeah, I’ll check ‘er out.
~~~
Oh, and I don’t know that I’ll ever take a selfie. I was fiddlin’ around with the camera function on my phone, wondering, Hm, how does one take a selfie with this thing, when I noticed the little rotate-camera icon on the bottom and tapped it.
Ook, bad idea: Sunday morning, just out of bed, pre-fully-coffeed, laying on the loveseat with my neck and face all sorta scrunched and. . . yikes, it’s good I live alone.
Yeah, yeah, accept yourself and all that, but y’all know that my hippie streak only extends so far, right?
Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: Code Black, Crossing Lines, life, smartphone
Categories : Musing
Hanging on the telephone
18 03 2016So I’ve finally got a smartphone—budget, natch.
There will be much swearing in the Absurd household this weekend as I attempt to figure out how the damnable thing works.
Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: frustration, life, smartphone
Categories : Quick hits
Call me
2 03 2016So I’m in the process of looking for a cheap smartphone, and I gotta say, it is not making me happy.
Not just because “cheap” is more expensive than cheap should be, but also because I don’t really know what I’m looking for in terms of specs and plans.
Well, okay, it does look like the Moto G 3rd gen is the multiply-recommended cheap phone (~$200), but it’s not compatible with Verizon, so I’d have to find a new carrier.
I don’t mind leaving Verizon (brand loyalty for suckers and all that, plus I’m paying too goddamned much for them), and it looks like T-Mobile will work, but I’m not at all clear how to switch to T-Mobile on a phone I’m not currently using.
(And if you’re about to say “SIM card!” I can only respond, Yeah, I get that, except that I don’t get that.)
Yes, I know, I can work this all out—I’ve worked shit out before—but this is how I get (pissy, frustrated, incoherently swear-y) when I don’t get something.
But once I get it, I’m fine.
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Tags: frustration, ignorance, life, phones
Categories : Musing
Wake up little Susie
3 02 2016
Subways are not for sleeping, says the man who has a driver.
[Y]ou make yourself a very easy victim and much more susceptible to a crime, says the man with bodyguards.
Why would you put yourself at that risk? says the man who thinks that telling tired people not to sleep is a way to reduce crime.
Hey, you want to protect me? How about paying attention to the jerk-off who’s trying to rob me?*
*Note: I have never been robbed on the train.
All right, all right, I get it: people who are sleeping are sometimes crime victims. And, as the story details, nudging people who are sound asleep in an empty car to wake up and tuck their iPhones back into their pockets is. . . not a bad idea, actually.
But jeez, Bratton, do you have to be such a dick about it?
Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: life, New York City, sleep, subway, William Bratton
Categories : Rant
Don’t let those Sunday afternoons get away
24 01 2016It’s a snowy Sunday, so of course, the Jane Siberry song:
Last year we were told the city was going to get hit, so the governor—giving the mayor 15 minutes notice—shut the entire MTA system.
We got bupkes.
So I was a bit see-it-believe-it, but this is what it looked like at noon on Saturday.
A proper storm.
This was the fire escape around noon:
And then around 5:00:
So, some decent accumulation.
It kept up well into the evening, at which point I headed outside; this was the entrance to my building:
With the driving ban there were no cars on the streets, so I copied the other shadow figures I saw and trudged down the middle of the avenue:
One bodega, at least, remained open:
By morning the warm and the wind turned the fire escape sculptural:
Beneath the blue, I headed to the park; I was not the only one with that idea, as every slope was smoothed by saucers, skinny cross-country skiers slowly glided along side trails, and snowmen appeared in fields and on fence posts:
I’m a sucker for the melancholy view:
But as I was walking out of the park, behind a guy smoking some skunky weed, and listening to David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes wobble out of the speakers by the ice rink, I did come across some incongruous green:
It snows all across the north and the prairies; there’s nothing new about snow, there’s nothing special about snow in New York City.
Except it’s my city, and I like the snow, and I like the city.
And its incongruous green.
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Tags: life, New York City, snow
Categories : Musing
AbsurdBeats 