On Being a Bad Texan

I don't even know who I AM anymore: the last month of my 20s

2009-09-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

I joined a gym on Saturday.

Now, I have always hated to work out. hate hate hatehatehate. But lately I've discovered something that I hate more: looking at myself as I get out of the shower and being REMINDED that I'm almost 30. No woman wants to look in the mirror and think, "Oh, THAT's right, I have a birthday coming up." So, including the days I worked out at my hotel on the way home, I've worked out 6 of the past 7 days. Good for me. Ima tear up the Croatian beach next summer on my honeymoon.

So, what am I going to do on the last month of my 20s? Taking a cue from Erin Mount, one of my favorite bloggers, here are some goals for my last month of youth:

1. Don't buy clothes. I'm exempting ONE workout outfit that I have to buy, and also some leggings I just bought on bluefly today....so....no MORE clothes.

2. Turn in chapter two of my dissertation.

3. Learn 100 new Croatian words.

4. Go to the gym at least 4 times a week.

5. Save $400 for the aforementioned honeymoon

This ought not to be too much of a problem. My second chapter is really coming along nicely.

The Croatia everybody sees: Dubrovnik

2009-08-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

It seems like Croatia has become kind of a hot tourist destination in recent years, and the two sights that top the must-see lists are the medieval walled city of Dubrovnik and the "waterfall park" near the Bosnian border. Dubrovnik is a stop for a lot of cruises, and any quick once-over of Croatia hits Plitvice, so this may be about all of Croatia that a lot of people see. I've been to every corner of Croatia EXCEPT Istria (the little uvula between Italy and Slovenia), which has so many cultural wonders that mom and I couldn't narrow down our "must-see" list any more than about seven stops, so we put off Istria until it can have the three weeks it deserves.

Anyway, from the greater perspective of practically everything you CAN see in Croatia, here are my opinions on the "Top Two" (I'll write about Plitvicka Jezera another day).

Dubrovnik

All right, after that stunner, I'm going to start with the bad. I went to Dubrovnik at the end of May, more than three weeks before the official start of the season. And it was hot. It was crowded. It was expensive. I met some people from Knoxville at dinner. Dubrovnik is NOT "authentic Croatia": historically, it's not even PART of Croatia. In fact, come to think of it, Dubrovnik is the Texas of the Republic of Croatia...it used to be it's OWN republic, was fought over by everyone who could possibly stake a claim to it, and, through it all, valued its liberty and free spirit above all else. But now, you don't really even hear Croatian spoken there. The waiters don't even bother to greet you in Croatian; they start with the universal tourist's language: English. Cruise ships anchor nearby and erupt with swarms of cruisers who want to pay for things with euros and squash into the monasteries with their loud-spoken guides--often two or three crews at once--creating this multilingual cacophony throughout HOLY buildings. In these days of technological wonders, do we REALLY have to have screaming guides giving their spiel at sacred destinations? Can't you give them an MP3 or something?

Now that I've vented, here's the good: Dubrovnik is incredibly beautiful. The white streets sparkle, the trees are laden with oranges, the Adriatic glistens on three sides. Sailboats cruise by. The food is delicious. So is the wine. It's a cat-lovers paradise because there are cats and kittens everywhere, and, unlike their Greek counterparts, Croatian waiters don't get their speedos in a knot if you slip a kitty a bite of octopus under the table. There are a number of islands--notably the Elafitis--a very short ferry ride away, and there you can swim more peacefully, hike, or eye thousand-year-old chapels.

Weighing the positives and the negatives, Dubrovnik should be on your lifetime must-see list. BUT, and this is a big but, I wouldn't set foot anywhere near the touristy spots (i.e., all of it) between May and August. When I go again, I'm thinking October or March. There are better beaches in the Split archipelago, so swimming is not really the reason for going to Dubrovnik, although I do have to say that, until you've gone swimming in the Adriatic, you may as well have NEVER gone swimming. Even my mother, who doesn't really like to swim, wouldn't stay out of the water, even though it was COLD. I don't think there's a time of year when Dubrovnik wouldn't be beautiful, so go when you don't have to share it with twelve thousand tourists and you can have the locals more to yourself.

Dissertation Excerpt: toward imagining a less-abject religious identity for women

2009-08-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

In the Gospel of St. Luke Mary’s self-erasure is, like Margaret’s, not merely the blank slate of a young virgin or even the passive acceptance of suffering, for she verbally and willingly relinquishes control of her body and her future to the divine will: “And Mary said, ‘Behold, the handmaid of the Lord [Ecce Ancilla Domini]; be it unto me according to thy word’” (Luke 1.38). For John D. Caputo, Mary’s fiat is the religious emblem par excellence, for the ideal religious quest is characterized by a certain loss of self and embrasure of “the impossible.”[i] Because of this, willingly becoming a blank slate upon which God may write may be dangerous, but it is the only way to experience religion, for “The religious sense of life has to do with exposing oneself to the radical uncertainty and open-endedness of life, with what we are calling the absolute future, which is meaning-giving, salt-giving, risk-taking” (14). Caputo’s interpretation of the Annunciation is a quirky vision of risky, impassioned, experimental “religious sense” in which self-erasure doesn’t truly erase the self but rather is a moment of affirmation that creates the gateway to God and to a future of possibilities for the self that says yes:

When Mary was told by the Angel Gabriel that she would conceive and bring forth a child, the first thing that Mary said, according to the gospel of Luke, was what any expectant virgin mother might be expected to say: “what are you talking about? I guarantee you, that’s impossible” (loosely translated). To which Gabriel responded, with characteristic angelic composure, don’t worry, “nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). The second thing that Mary says is what made her famous: “here I am,” “fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum,” in short, “yes, oui-oui” (in Franco-Aramaic). (6)

When Mary speaks the fiat, she emblematizes Caputo’s understanding of what must take place when finite humanity encounters infinite divinity: the will of the human is surrendered. The implication of Caputo’s set-piece is that no other relationship between the human and the divine is possible because the divine is by definition unmasterable and thus cannot experience risk. The divine’s is the future that creates the unknowable, but it does not experience not-knowing: the divine is never unaware of future potentialities and therefore is never at risk. The overpowering of human will is not a conscious act of domination by the divine but a result of the ontological difference between the divine and the human: when the unmasterable future of divinity and the masterable malleability of the human collide, the necessary result is the reshaping of the human future. The risk of the relationship, then, is all Mary’s, for in order to dialogue with Gabriel, she must eventually submit to not-knowing while being fully known. The only power she has is the power of rejection; she cannot negotiate a less-risky relationship. The only way she can express her own will is to refuse a relationship with the divine. Within that relationship, her will is silenced.

It may be contested that Caputo’s nebulous impossible is not the omnipotent will-ing force of the traditional Christian God and therefore “His” will does not subsume hers because the impossible does not will, strictly speaking, it simply exists as a function of human inability to know and control the future; moreover, men as well as women must relinquish their wills in order to have a relationship with the divine. The choice that Mary makes, then, is not to erase herself before the divine will but merely to accept her own finitude instead of denying it, a wise choice, for her denial would only be an impotent resistance against the inevitable, and this choice is certainly not gendered because a man confronted by the Angel of the Lord—Caputo’s example in The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida is Abraham—would be in the identical disempowered position. If, however, the Annunciation and fiat are emblematic of religion at its finest, the implications of Caputo’s set-piece exceed his intentions and take on a life of their own. Enshrining the fiat as the gateway to the true religious sense[ii] presents women with an abject pair of choices: the woman who rejects openness to the other retains agency but sacrifices the possibility of creative exchange with divine otherness; the woman who speaks the fiat retains her role as the one “highly favored” by God, but that role requires her to relinquish any possibility of participating in the creation of her own religious meaning because her “participation” consists of offering her body as a receptacle for the divine plan that was not shared with her and that she cannot understand. Whichever choice a woman makes, she receives her role instead of creating it.

Caputo’s model of the fiat is a useful starting point for developing a religious identity for women that affirms them as meaning-makers because it requires progression towards an as yet nonexistent future, a future in which religion will become more inclusive, less prescriptive. The very suggestion that women should have secondary roles in the important business of religious meaning-making would be rejected by Caputo outright, and it is clear that men as well as women may only experience religion by accepting Mary’s “feminized” role. In short, his emblem does not categorically enforce gendered religious roles. However, it does enforce those roles symbolically, for the woman’s role in Caputo’s set piece is to receive and submit, not to create, and the assignment of this part to a woman, however allegorically it is intended, cannot yet be divested of the oppression caused women when their submission was prescriptive rather than metaphorical. As the Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf has pointed out, feminist thinkers have just cause for objecting to a doctrine of self-erasure (“self-giving,” in Volf’s terminology) because the costs of such generosity have always been higher for women:

Giving was what women, as mothers and wives, were supposed to do so that men, as sons and husbands, could do all the taking. Many women tend to give so much of themselves that they are in danger of being left literally without a self. In response to such suspicions, one could argue that the problem does not lie in “self-donation,” but in that men conveniently exempt themselves from the demands they place on women. [ . . . ] What some feminist thinkers object to is not so much the idea of self-donation, but that in a world of violence self-donation would be held up as the Christian way. (25-26)

The purpose of Volf’s argument is to show that inter-human relationships should be based on reciprocal self-giving, but his caveat is still germane to Caputo’s model of the divine-human relationship because reciprocal or “equal” self-erasure can never signify the same to parties whose experience of self is profoundly disparate.

Therefore, Caputo’s model remains unsatisfactory because of its neglect of the real historical position of western women vis-à-vis religion: what may appear to be an adventurous reversal for a man becomes, for a woman, merely a repetition of her traditional religious role of silence and loss of self. Moreover, women have historically been

excluded from theological projects and ecumenical as well as local religious leadership; as Ruether writes, “The uniqueness of feminist theology lies not in its use of the criterion of experience but rather in its use of women’s experience, which has been almost entirely shut out of theological reflection in the past” (13). Although women have more influence now, the wild popularity of the 2005 inspirational book Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul,[i] by John and Stasi Eldredge, that claims all women have three core desires—to be romanced, to be part of a great adventure, and to be “the beauty”—suggests that the actual experience of religious women has not transformed mainstream Christianity. The Eldredges claim that when a woman denies that these desires are the most fundamental of her feminine soul, it is only the effect of the wounds in her heart; unsurprisingly, although Stasi is touted as coauthor, close inspection of the book reveals that most of the text was written by John. Caputo’s valorization of the fiat does nothing to overturn this silencing of women in the name of religion; instead, it assumes interchangeability of male and female in an arena where that has never been the case.

[i] The authors estimate that the book has already sold over a million copies (personal communication).

[i] By “the impossible” Caputo means “a reality beyond reality” (15), for

The religious sense of life kicks in when we are solicited by the voices of the impossible, by the possibility of the impossible, provoked by an unforeseeable and absolute future. Here is a realm where things do not bend to our knowledge or our will and we are not calling the shots. We are out of our element. This is God’s element, not ours, the element of the impossible. (13-14)

There is little difference, if any, between Caputo’s understanding of “God” and “the impossible”; the two are virtually synonymous.

[ii] Caputo writes that “We may and need to have many religions, and many ‘sacred scriptures,’ so long as all of them are true” (110); truth means “being truly religious, truly loving God” (111), or, in other words, lunging toward the impossible.

We can't ALL be like Madonna

2009-08-15T14:50:00.001-07:00

Right before I left, Croatian radio was advertising Madonna's upcoming show in Ljubljana, Slovenia, so I've really had her on the brain. Now that I'm back in the US, my renewed thirst for celebrity gossip led me to this picture:

Now, I'm all about older women enjoying their lives and whatnot, but, at 50, if you need a bikini wax in order to don your work clothes....you really might want to rethink some of your life choices.

And speaking of older women (not really), I went to a concert last night with my lovely friend Mary Catherine: probably the last Blue October show I will ever see. As anyone who knew me in my SFA days knows, back in my early 20's I (and MC too) were a very small (but vital) remove from being groupies. We saw Blue October three times in three weeks away back in the summer of aught-two. We've both met the band members, she more than I, but I've spoken with them all more than once. That was back in the days when they played the Anex in Nac or Elmo's in Tyler for a measly $5 cover charge...and played to crowds of sometimes no more than 20 people. She was in love with Justin; I was a Matt girl. Not coincidentally, our current partners bear marked resemblances to our band members of choice. We danced and swooned and sung along.

And last night in Houston at that Verizon Wireless joint, I realized that I don't want to stand on a hard concrete floor--even in sensible shoes--for five hours. I don't want to be crushed in a morass of sweaty drunk people flipping their hair into my face. I don't want to pay seven dollars for a crappy cocktail or four dollars for a bottle of water. I don't want to hear an entire concert that plays only two songs off their second album and NONE off their first. And I don't want to spend $35 for the privilege, either.

Don't get me wrong, I had a great time last night. Part of my ire is basically due to the fact that a band I always loved became--God forbid--loved by many other people (Well, and that I messed up the tendons in my feet walking around cobblestone streets in Old Navy flipflops). Good for Blue October. I bet they make a bit more money selling out the Verizon Center than they did playing for twenty people at Elmo's. But I want to hear "Sweet and Somber Pigeon Wings, " dammit!!

The upshot is that, at twenty-nine, I've become an old curmudgeon. But you know what? I don't mind. I don't have a pseudo-British accent or a standing appointment at the waxorama.

Back to blogging

2009-08-14T09:50:00.001-07:00

Well, my first year in Croatia is up, and now it's back to the old academic grind. I say "first year" in Croatia because I'm planning to move back there in May. I have this AMAZING online job teaching English for Everest University, so fortunately I have a lot more freedom when it comes to deciding where and how long to live somewhere. My adorable, perfect boyfriend Kristian lives in Osijek, a city in eastern Croatia, and he doesn't want to move here to the US, so I'm going there. I absolutely loved living in Europe anyway, so it's hardly a sacrifice!! Anyway, I guess that in keeping with the title of this blog, that really does make me a bad Texan....

Living in Europe has really defamiliarized the US, and so many things about the American lifestyle that I just took for granted before now are glaringly unusual to me. For instance, my brother and I went to Whole Foods the other night to have supper. I can't remember if all Whole Foods are like this, but this one has about a dozen cafeteria-like food counters: Indian, tacos, comfort food, salads, BBQ, sushi....and on and on. Plus, the counters are flanked by refrigerated shelves with more sandwiches, wraps, smoothies, and drinks of every conceivable variety. The whole place was crammed with hippies and yuppies.

Compare this to Croatia. There's no Croatian Whole Foods, and if you went to a large grocery store looking for dinner, you might have two or three kinds of pre-made sandwiches, maybe a couple kinds of salad or meat concoctions at the deli. If you went to a bakery, you could choose between slices of one or two types of pizza and a couple of non-sweet pastries like burek, a rolled-up phyllo filled with either meat or cheese. Almost all restaurants have basically the same thing: a few pasta dishes, a few different kinds and cuts of meat, and pizza. Several of those dishes the restaurant doesn't have that day (usually the vegetarian options)...a fact you don't know til you order, so it's wise to have a second choice prepared. If you want cereal, you have about 10 kinds to choose from, 8 of which are variations of muesli. The problem there, for me, is almost never making a choice between desirable things: it's being able to find one thing that is more or less what I want.

Back to Whole Foods. I wandered around the counters, absolutely unable to choose. How could I decide whether I wanted Indian food or sushi or tacos, and even if I could decide, how could I choose between the already-prepared and packaged sushi and the 20 varieties of made-to-order? I went to the refridgerated shelves and picked up a wrap....and it didn't have a price on it. Did I really want to payan unspecified price for some tiny wrapped sandwich? Was it three dollars? eight dollars? Was I that hungry? The one thing that seemed certain to me was that I wanted a root beer. There were 10-15 kinds of root beer. So I snatched up the one with the coolest-looking lable and gave it to my brother to pay: he was already finished and almost all the way through the--LONG--line in the time it took me to choose a beverage. Wow.

I'm not even sure what to make of my experience. I felt crowded, overwhelmed, and unwilling to spend $10 on something that I wasn't SURE was JUST what I wanted. All I had for dinner was that root beer...and it WAS tasty. For $2 it better be.

Update and New Blog

2008-07-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hi, any-remaining-blog-readers!

I'm leaving for Croatia on July 29th...that's 11 days...but who's counting! I've gotten ALMOST everything ready. I'm almost packed, I've had every sweater I own dry cleaned ($99: ouch!) and I've stockpiled the two personal products I don't think I can find Croatian substitutes for and can't live without: deodorant and leave-in conditioner for my hair. I can say "where are the tampons?" (Gdje su tampon?) and "The bathroom is out of toilet paper" (kupaonica nema toaletni papir!), and "I don't understand; I'm an American," or, in hostile situations, "I don't understand; I'm Canadian." (Ne razumijem; ja sam amerikanka/Kanadjanka").

I guess I'm ready. I need new shoes and a headset so I can Skype. I have to figure out how to squeeze a couple more books into my backpack. I still have to rip about 40 CDs to my new laptop. I'm trying really, really hard not to worry about my visa or about whether I'll get an assistantship when I come back or have to pay my own tuition ($15000-ish). I'm absolutely refusing to think about how badly I'm going to miss my friends, how little I'll be able to talk to my brother on the phone anymore, or whether or not my grandmother is going to recognize me when I get back (she may have Alzheimers).

I'm not losing my hair anymore: turns out it was a side effect of my medication. When I got off of that, my hair quit falling out and my wig got stuck under my bed. This cute engineer in Columbus bought me dinner. I'm still gorgeous, right? Right?!?!?!

And here's my new blog: http://lace-making.blogspot.com/ I won't be posting on this blog until I get back next summer. Be in touch. See you in December.

Doctorz Sux0rz

2008-05-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

So, I went to the dermatologist today to look at my hair. She stayed with me for all of about 8 minutes (goodbye, fifty bucks), peered at my scalp, and said that I have no new hair growing and she doesn't know why it's falling out and there's nothing she can do. Wow, great bedside manner, woman. She said it is probably one of three things: 1)my iron deficiency, 2) the Celexa I'm taking, 3) or the fact that I had a fever for 5 days in January, which mayhave shocked my body into stopping hair production. She said probably it's the iron deficiency, which is what everyone has been saying, so we'll just go with that.

But then, just in case the words "no new hair is growing on your head" weren't horrifying enough, she said that if my hair hasn't started growing in 2 months, we'd need to do a biopsy. A biopsy of WHAT? There's no such thing as HAIR cancer!!!!! As IF that's not enough horror for one 8 minute period, she pointed out that Croatia doesn't have especially good health care, so I'll have to find a doctor in Germany. I hope by all that's holy that CBF's insurance policy is good. Carol says it is.

I'm going to my usual doctor on Tuesday for hepatitus shots ("jabs," as Taryn calls them!), and I'm going to get her to do a blood test to see how my iron levels are. If they're closer to normal (and good heavens, I have been taking some horse pills and eating a lot of red meat, so they BETTER be improving!) I'm going to go off my Celexa.

Man, this blog has been a real downer lately. On a cheerier note, I had a great time at the beach, got all tan and relaxed and gorged myself on raw oysters every night. I'm STILL really, really excited about moving overseas, even if I'm bald and have to wear my "date hair" (i.e. MILF wig). Better to be bald in Europe than bald in Knoxville. The new house Jessie and I are moving to is ADORABLE, and I'm turning in my revised first chapter tonight. 42 pages drafted now.

Wig is a st00pid word

2008-05-14T14:22:00.000-07:00

but i just spent $300 on one.

No, i haven't got bald patches yet. But it had gotten to the point where every time i washed my hair and lost a handful i would spend twenty minutes in tears because i thought I'd be hideous. So I finally decided to go ahead and buy a wig so if (probably WHEN) I need one, I'll already be comfortable with it.

And it's cute, as you can see from the picture. Naturally, I bought a straight one with bangs...a style my own hair would NEVER be coaxed into, and I like it. I am wearing it to church tonight because I'm hoping I will feel like less of a freak once I realize that people are not going to care that I don't have the same hair...it looks real enough, I think, that no one can tell.

But here's a list of the things you should NEVER say to a young woman who's losing her hair:

1: Well, now you know how I feel!! (from a man: being a bald man is not nearly as much of a stigma as being a bald woman. Ask yourself, guys, would YOU be attracted to a woman with no hair? unlikely)

2. Oh, it isn't going to all fall out. No one can tell it's thinner (of course you can't: I HAD incredibly thick hair. but I have half as much hair as I did a month ago, and believe me, this time next month EVERYONE will be able to tell)

3. Yeah, I had iron deficiency. I fainted once. (really, you fainted? Did you go around ugly for months and months, feeling undesirable and unwanted? doubtful)

4. Your wig is cute, but I liked your real hair better (guess what, Einstein, so did I!!)

Basically, I have enough stress in my life right now: working on my dissertation, being kicked out of my house, and moving to another country where I don't speak the language. I didn't need this; I didn't need to feel ugly and unattractive too. I have to stand up in front of church groups (I'm going to speak at Mission Friends tonight) and that's hard to do when you just want to hide under the bed.

The one thing anyone has said that made me feel better was when I was complaining to my old college friend JD. He loves long hair, and he was mournful that I had had to cut four inches off mine (in preparation for the buzz cut it'll prolly be getting before long). I said, "It really, really sucks. I'm not going to be hot forever." And he said, "Yes, you will be." That's the only thing anyone could have said to make me feel less miserable...to feel like there was someone to whom I'd be beautiful even without my hair.

Well, in addition to Jessie's cat Chaplin...I'm pretty sure his love for me is unconditional :)

how Iron-ic

2008-05-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

(sorry, couldn't help myself)

I've always wished I had different hair...mine is too thick, unmaneagable, won't do side-swept bangs, wouldn't do that Jennifer Aniston cut back in the 90's....

And now I'm extremely iron-deficient and my hair is falling out. Literally, and I mean by the handful. You can't tell by looking yet, because my hair is so thick I can lose a lot and still have twice as much hair as your everyday sorority girl. But if it keeps up at this rate there will be a wig in my near future and I'm not kidding. My hair's thinner all right...just not in the way I wanted.

I went to the doctor and I'm taking a lot of iron, and drinking a lot of orange juice to help me absorb the iron. And I have freaking MORNING sickness because the iron has upset my stomach....if I am going to be throwing up in the morning I want the sex and the baby to go along with it!!

Sorry to complain...but it's scary to me to be so sick that my hair is falling out only three months before i leave the country. and scary that I might look like a complete freak in just a few weeks. I'm trying not to worry about it, and trying to convince myself that things will be O-KAY if I have thin hair for a while. it's not like i'll have thin hair forever...I'll take my pills and it'll grow back just like it's always been....

But i don't feel okay about it. Like Char says...we won't be hawt forever.

I feel GUILTY!!!

2008-04-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

I bet you wanna know why. Did I get schlonkered on a weeknight again? No, I'm the SOUL of moderation (although I admit to drinking a glass of wine tonight with my three-cheese tortellini with wilted spinach, and to purchasing said wine because it was called "Smoking Loon"). Did I punch someone in the mouth? No, that's for Saturday. Did I squander $900 on a new computer? Yes, but I don't feel guilty about THAT.

I tutored a Korean guy in the writing center this week who gave me this fancy pen from Korea and said I should come to Korea and visit his parents. I just ran into him in the grocery store, and, yep, he asked me what I was doing this weekend, and when I intimated that I had plans Friday and Saturday nights (which, thankfully, I do, so I didn't lie), just out-and-out asked for my number. And I said I was about to spend the summer in Texas and then leave the country. Also, more than 50% true. But I felt TERRIBLE....there's nothing wrong with this guy: he's nice-looking, friendly and nice, and a PhD student. I just don't feel like giving my number to some random guy and then going on a date with a virtual stranger! But I HATE to reject people, because there's NO way to do it kindly except to say you've got a boyfriend, which is essentially what I've been doing with a certain oddball coworker who I don't want to have to turn down outright because, bless his heart, he's a nice guy but pretty weird. Where is this boyfriend, though, since I never bring him to parties or seem to actually go out with him? oh.....he......lives in......CROATIA, let's say.

I think lying is wrong.....but is it really untrue to personify rejection and fabricate a boyfriend? It isn't so much an attempt to deceive as an attempt to salvage someone else's feelings. Just call rejection "boyfriend" instead of "No you can't have my number because I don't want to date you."

There Will Be Blood

2008-04-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

I'd postponed seeing this movie because I'd heard it was very long and kinda dragged. I didn't think so, and I have a super-short attention span, so it must be good. I don't have anything smart to say about it, so I'll just make the suggestion that you should see it, especially if you liked No Country for Old Men, which is undoubtedly better, but still in the same family.

What I DO have to say is much better than any movie review though. Before There Will Be Blood, I saw a trailer for a movie set in NYC. It was about a photographer trying to capture "the heart of the City," so he took pictures in the subway at night. He happened to get a picture of a woman just as a serial killer sneaked up behind her and lopped off her head with an ax. The photographer begins to photograph many of the killer's beheadings, and we learn that the bodies are never found. There are some scenes in a meat locker.

The name of this quality film? Midnight Meat Train.

Secret Margarita recipe

2008-04-06T05:30:00.000-07:00

Kara and others have asked for this, so I'll pass it along for 2 reasons: a total of about 6 people read this blog, and these things are too time-consuming and expensive to make for most people to bother. =D I'd never make them if Jessie didn't also love margaritas so she helps me pay for everything, and plus we have people over fairly often.

Two warnings: if you make the true ultimate margarita, expect to spend $80-$100. I've got instructions for the discount version, but tequila is not a liquor that you can skimp on without sacrificing the right flavor. And these things are potent: a normal margarita-glass full has five shots, which, if you do the math, is close to two shots of pure alcohol.

RECIPE:

You need three ingredients: tequila, triple sec (orange liqueur), and homemade sweet 'n sour

sweet 'n sour

you'll need sugar, water, 14 lemons and/or limes, and a juicer. Have a few extra lemons and limes on hand, just in case. I just have one of those $5 hand juicers...it's a pain, but cheap and good for the forearms! (actually I usually complain until Jessie helps juice the limes). Purists argue that "true" margaritas use limes juice instead of sweet 'n sour...but only a real hardcore tequila fan is going to drink that. I do agree that a "margarita" that isn't made with real juice is not a real margarita; it's some sort of froofy carpet-bagger drink.

Anyway, start by mixing three cups of water, one cup of sugar, and the fruit juice (I personally like 8 limes and 6 lemons, but any combination will be good). Because you can't predict the amount of juice you'll get from the fruit, and because everyone likes a different level of tangyness, there's some editing to be done here. Taste it, and add sugar and or fruit juice until it tastes the way you want. I end up adding another half to three-quarter cup of sugar. The thing to remember is that you do NOT want it to be too sweet, because the sugar will overpower the other ingredients and you won't get that layered flavor. Err on the side of sourness.

Triple Sec

You can buy a bottle of plain ol triple sec for less than ten dollars, and if you need to skimp on an ingredient this is your best choice. DeKuyper is a respectable discount brand: don't buy that garbage in the brown bottle. Another no-no is Grand Marnier, which isn't true triple sec. IIRC, it's actually a cognac, which has too much of its own taste and will, again, mess up your margarita. It'll be good, but it won't be a margarita, and it certainly won't be THE margarita!

If, however, you're going for THE margarita, buy Patron orange liqueur or Cointreau.

Tequila

now for the best part! Buy 100% blue agave tequila. I know, it costs more, but overcome the temptation to buy anything cheap. Here's the deal: your cheaper "tequilas" are only 51% true "tequila." Jose Cuervo, for instance, is 49% vodka that is dyed to make it look like the real deal. Nasty. The color of true tequila means that it's aged; the color in Cuervo is added to make frat boys think they're hardcore. If you are making THE margarita for yourself, to sip at home in a classy manner (we like to drink ours while watching original Sci-Fi channel movies, like Ice Spiders and MegaSnake), absolutely do not buy fake tequila. If you must go for quantity over quality, like if you're having guests and don't want them to drink up several hundred dollars of your liquor, buy Sauza. It ain't the real thing, but it's the best approximation I've found.

Real tequila comes in five varieties based on how long it's been aged. You want Reposado, which is the second-youngest variety. I've used older tequila, but it's too smooth. Good margarita tequila needs to have some angles. My favorite of all time is Don Carranza, an extremely inexpensive tequila that's aged in oak barrels and has a nice wood-ish flavor. I don't know if you can get this many places though: I've only bought it once, and that was in Austin, but I'm trying to find it in K-town.

I bought Milagro last night, and that is very good. I know I was hard on Jose Cuervo before, but their 100% agave tequila is tasty and inexpensive. I think it's call Traditionale or something. These are all under $40 for a fifth...Reposado is one of the cheaper 100% agave tequilas, but you can't get it for under $30. Our liquor store has brands that go up close to $100, but I haven't a clue how they taste. :D Try one and let me know, lol.

Proportions

traditionally, a margarita is 3 parts tequila, 2 parts triple sec, and one part lime juice. Pretty hardcore. I mix 3 parts tequila, two parts triple sec, and two parts sweet'n sour. I will warn you, however, that you may have guests who don't like the taste of tequila (babies), in which case you should either give them the wine coolers they secretly crave, or bring out the Sauza, fill the glass half full with the tequila/triple sec/sweet 'n sour mix, and then fill it on up with sweet' n sour. Don't give them your good tequila. It'll be like throwing your pearls before swine.

Your sweet 'n sour should be chilled beforehand, so I recommend not putting ice in the shaker because it'll water down your margarita. If you must have frozen margaritas, you are a carpetbagger and should just find a resort with a tiki hut to pose in front of.

The goal with THE margarita is the same as that of a good bottle of wine: the flavors should be layered. As such, it may be a bit of an acquired taste, especially if you're used to the kind of margaritas they serve at Applebees. now, I like my Senor Taco $14 margarita pitchers as much as anyone, but we really must have some standards.

BEST MARGARITA EVER!!!!!

2008-04-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

Nothing is more humiliating for a Texas hostess than to serve her guests bad margaritas. But that's what I did on Monday: Steve and Misty came over to watch 30 Days of Night, so for the first time this year I made a pitcher of my fabulous homemade sweet 'n sour with hand-squeezed lime and lemon juice. Unfortunately, over the winter I'd forgotten the proportions, so the margaritas were watery and disgusting. I mean, I drank mine, but I didn't want a second one.

The very next day I bought more lemons and limes to repair the damage, and yesterday I crafted the apotheosis of sweet 'n sours. Jessie will confirm my assertion that the ensuing margaritas were the best IN THE UNIVERSE.

I had two within about 45 minutes, forgetting that each one has about four shots, and I began to realize that I lurv everyone. Jessie was saying something to me that I don't remember, but I remember thinking, "I sure do lurv Jessie!" Then I took myself off to bed--with my phone--to do some drunk-texting....which is actually not as bad an idea as it sounds because I only had nice things to say, on account of my feelings of universal lurv. I really don't understand angry, hateful drunks, because I am a repulsively happy one. I'd never text someone I dislike and threaten to punch him in the face or something.

Anyway, I still felt pretty pleased with myself when I woke up this morning. I looked in the mirror and thought, "damn, I'm hot first thing in the morning! and look how flat my stomach is!"

So this is all well and good, but I have a ton of dissertating to do and I CANNOT drink two margaritas every night! Ever since the Halloween debacle I've drastically cut back on the drinking...I had two occasions last semester where I kinda transgressed my limits, but last night was the first time this semester that I drank more than I should have. I obviously don't think drinking is wrong, and the Croatian Baptists SURE don't, but I need to be much more moderate!

So, here's the rule: I cannot drink more than one of my margaritas in a row...except on certain special occasions like the 80's party and my going-away party. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to love everybody without the help of tequila!

I, too, will make a shameless plea for money...

2008-04-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I'm moving to Croatia in July to spend a year working with the Croatian Baptist Church. I'll be doing a number of things: teaching English, working with their youth group, being a "dorm mother" for underprivileged teenagers at a boarding school, and helping run day camps for gypsy kids.

Sadly, my church has not raised enough money to fund me very well: there's enough for me to go, and I probably won't starve or anything, but there's not really money for me to visit home at Christmas or, you know, buy toothpaste.

SO, I'm going to do some fundraising myself, visiting some churches and asking for money, and writing people I know and asking them to help fund me. It's tax-deductible of course, since you'd be sending money to FBC Knoxville, which has an account set up for me.

If you think you might be interested in supporting my trip, email your mailing address to seoesfenix@gmail.com, or facebook or myspace me. I'll send you my funding letter and brochure, so you'll be on my mailing list even if you aren't able to send money now, or at all. Soon I'll have a blog on the FBC website, so you can keep an eye on me there.

I won't be including this little fact in my brochure, but I'm going to get the Croatian word for peacemaker tattooed onto my foot. Not because I think I'm a peacemaker, but because that's my goal in spite of being the exact opposite of my fractious personality :) Few places in recent memory have been such a site for war and destruction as the Balkan countries, and what I want out of this year is to show my solidarity with non-American Christians who have had a difficult and painful history, as well as to figure out how to be less at war with myself as a female Christian intellectual in a milieu that prescribes a rather different identity for women. I believe that peace is a state that does not suddenly appear out of simply protesting war, and that faith is a practice that is not one-size-fits all: peace and faith have to be made, and that's what I'm going to Croatia to learn how to do.

keep texting, you entitled **** and see what you get

2008-04-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

Normally I love working as a tutor at the writing center. I usually like getting to talk to people, and sometimes I even read something interesting. Today I read a research paper about Siberian tigers and I learned that tiger populations are measured by the Russian Census and that the male tiger's penis has a bone in it and spines all over it. Oddly, I was just thinking on my way to work today that if I could be an animal, I'd want to be a tiger or a dolphin. I believe I'd opt for the dolphin.

But then I worked with this obnoxious kid who was texting on his phone during most of our session. Normally I read a paragraph and then discuss it with the kid, but when I began discussing the intro paragraph he at first ignored me and then gradually gazed up from his phone with a "leave me the hell alone you slave" look on his face.

I considered informing him that he could put his phone away or he could read the paper himself. However, whether this was good or bad fortune for him, his paper was about James Joyce, one of the three or four writers I would willingly discuss with a lamppost. He was arguing (lulz) that Joyce wrote "Araby" to criticize Ireland's immorality. That's right, James Joyce, hater of priests, writer of c- and f-words, frequenter of prostitutes, eschewer of marriage, and proponent of his lover Nora shitting in bed while he "plugged" her....deplored Ireland's immorality.

So, instead of really trying to help the lil bastard I just rambled to him about James Joyce for a while until I got tired of that. Then I said, "well, work on your thesis, and good luck!" as brightly and fakely as possible....and that was that :)

The Writing Center rocks.

Thank You, Dr. Obvious

2008-03-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

A psychological study concludes that relationships in which the woman is significantly more attractive than the man tend to be more successful. Where was this groundbreaking study conducted, you ask? The University of Tennessee.

Psychologists found that men who believe that they are more attractive than their partner tend to offer "less emotional and practical support." Here's a short description of the study, if you're interested. Just in case, you know, you've never been on a date or something.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23428823-5006007,00.html

Your tuition dollars at work, fellow Vols. At least now I'll have something to cite when I argue with Jessie about my conviction that virtually all romantic relationships are based on an economy of power. What's happening here is that women purchase the emotional support--the intimacy--they desire with, that's right, their appearance. Men provide this intimacy not because they love their partner or wish to care for her needs, but because they would be unlikely to find anyone better were she to get fed up and leave them.

Did we REALLY need to conduct research to prove this?

Seeing this fact spelled out for me is profoundly unsettling. Anyone who knows me very well knows that I choose the guys that I date first and foremost because of their intellectual and spiritual qualities (I know, I know, Zebraface, Dr. Croatia, and whatnot: they were smart TOO, I say!!! And how was I to know they were evil until they proved it to me?). So the reason that I'm bothered by this study is not that I'm afraid I'll never be able to date good-looking guys because I lack the capital. I want someone I can travel with and talk to about theology and aesthetics, so as long as he's got everything in the right place and doesn't need Levitra yet, I don't care what he looks like. Hawt is nice and all, but happiness is better, right? I mean, I believed when I was a teenager that most really good-looking guys are also nice people, but I hope I'm wiser in general. now than when I was 18. Otherwise, I'd be plowing down mailboxes with my truck and eating ice cream for breakfast. Actually, I wouldn't have a problem with eating ice cream for breakfast, but see, I KNOW better, that's the difference.

And it isn't that I think attractiveness and good personality are mutually exclusive, but in my experience it's a hawt guy who is more likely to think that a girl will be wholly fulfilled if he burns her a CD and bats his eyelashes. It's not that they've got bad personalities or that they're all jerks; it's that they tend to think they're entitled to what they want. The study doesn't mention if more attractive women do the same thing in marriages: ignore their partners' needs because they CAN. I'm sure it works both ways to a large extent, but that oversight does make me wonder if perhaps most men are fulfilled by simply HAVING a good-looking woman who sleeps with them...whether or not she's got anything in common with them, has a good character, or is interesting to talk to. I'd hate to have to list the smart men I've known who marry women with cotton for brains. Oh hell....does that mean that women have to buy not only fulfillment but also intelligent conversation with their faces? That's just sucktacular: I guess I'd better get a tenure-track job so I can afford plastic surgery unless I want the extent of my intellectual nourishment to come from my students.

What upsets me is that I want relationships--not only my own, but relationships in general--to be based on caring and generosity, not market value. Can't the fact that something hurts me be a reason enough not to do it? Can't the fact that he likes something be reason enough for me to give it? I don't want to measure and quantify, or receive gifts or affection because I "earned" them instead of because I'm loved. But by and large, it seems that love is a marketplace. now THAT would be a good song. XD

My mom always says that the most cynical people are the ones who start out the most idealistic. She's bound to be right: I don't think I'd be so troubled by the sexual economy if I didn't envision something better.

I dunno, maybe I would. Ever since I first saw this study on CNN, I've been unwillingly thinking back to past relationships and trying to figure out the power dynamic.

Clearly I need to quit thinking and go play some video games.

Proljece

2008-03-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

This is the first day that's felt like spring. It's warm and windy, the trees are blooming and I worked in my garden, and I bought coffee because Lent is over! I LOVE Spring: May and June are my favorite months of the year because I'm not teaching and the weather's warm enough to drag out my skanky sundresses and laze around reading and writing all day and drinking margaritas every night. May is the Great Gulf Shores Poker Weekend, and June I go to Memphis to get commissioned, and in July....I leave the country! Wow, it all came crashing down.

Deep down, I dreaded spring this year because it means that I'm about to leave. As long as the weather was still cold, July was a long way away....but now I really can't be in denial about it anymore. SO I found another means of denial: I played video games all day.

This trip scares me. I want to go for sure, and I'm thankful for the opportunity, and I've always wanted to live in Europe and learn another language....but security and routine seem very alluring right now. I've lived in the same city with the same job for 5 years, had the same house, church, roommate, and pets for about three years.

This is one of those endeavors that I've chosen to do and I wouldn't back out of if I could, but it's also a situation where I'm going to have to just make myself step out on a rickety limb and stand there until it starts to feel normal. I've never wanted to settle for some ordinary, boring, crappy life...but after I get back from Croatia and finish my PhD, God willing, I want to get a stable job, a house with a nice yard, an Aussie Shepherd, and a hybrid, and spend my time just enjoying life instead of doing ridiculous things like getting a PhD or moving alone to another continent. It's weird, I've never liked Knoxville that much, but after having spent five years here, longer than I've lived anywhere as an adult, I've begun to appreciate the simple pleasures a bit more: knowing everyone I work with, having a familiar church, playing cards with the same people every week. I think I have to come to terms with one simple fact: deep down, I'm damn boring! :)

Texas Donuts and Freewheeling Ponies

2008-03-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

Round Rock donuts are like crack, that's all. They have a secret ingredient--i suspect sweet potato--that makes them X-tra good...now that Krispy Kreme has de-trans-fatified their donuts, Round Rock's are the best anywhere.

so I went there yesterday, but when I tried to open the door it was blocked by a particularly obese man who was getting a drink out of the cooler. I wound up in line behind him, and when he reached the cash register, he saw the sign there that offered special VIP discounts to people who spent more than $40.00 there a month.

He turned to me and said, "I bet if someone spent $40 in here a month, they'd have to go through the door sideways!"

Not only did this guy look like he spent well over $40 a month there, he'd been BLOCKING THE DOOR WHEN I CAME IN!!!!!! All I could think was, "do NOT say something tacky like the time you told your coworker he should dress up like the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons when he goes to a comic book convention."

I just smiled and said something inane, which I've noticed is usually the best response when strange men say something absurd in an effort to talk to me, and I managed to scoot out to my car without saying anything offensive.

To complete the randomness of the day, when I got to my parents house, there was a Shetland Pony sauntering down the road. I'm used to seeing all of the following at their house: wild hogs, bobcats, rabbits, deer, escaped cattle, snakes, roadrunners, possums, skunks, raccoons, and even the occasional fox. But I've never seen a Shetland pony. Paul suggested that perhaps the pony might just like to stroll around sampling various pastures, and began to summon it by shouting, "Here, pony!!!" The pony was unmoved.

My dad said last night that the pony actually DOES go around sampling various pastures because there's nothing to eat in its pen.

Again, it has to be said.....

2008-03-11T20:28:00.000-07:00

Recently the author of the 1969 book The Doctor's Case Against the Pill passed away. The book highlighted the dangerous side effects of high-estrogen birth control pills. According to Time, this book launched the women's health movement. Her name?

Barbara Seaman.

Representation, part 1: Why I <3 Hillary Clinton

2008-03-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

I know that most of you reading this are Obama fanatics, and that you blame me for him not winning Tennessee, so I'd like to preface this blog by stating once and for all that I voted for him in the Tennessee primary. I didn't vote for Hillary, who I prefer and who I'm convinced would make a better president than Obama, because I don't think she would beat McCain. I agree with my roommate that nothing will lure the republicans out of the woodwork like the opportunity to vote against a Clinton, and John McCain frightens and offends me for a reason that I'll ramble about some other time. I'll vote essentially to keep him out of office. That's a decision I didn't make in 2004, to vote for Kerry as a vote against Bush, and I've regretted it for almost four years.

But on to why I will be moved to the point of tears if by some miracle Hillary Clinton is our next president. On Tuesday I watched Mike Huckabee's concession speech, where he stood holding the microphone while his silent wife stood to his right, her shoulder a bit behind his and her head nodding sadly while she hung on his every word. I watched McCain's victory speech, while his bright-yellow trophy wife stood to his left, her shoulder slightly behind his, nodding and simpering. And THEN I watched Hillary Clinton standing front and center, not behind anyone, and holding a microphone and speaking for herself.

I know the point will be made that women now have all the same freedoms as men: we can vote and work outside the home, obtain divorces and restraining orders, enter any profession, become pastors and presidents, bring home the bacon and wear the pants and etc etc. Practically speaking, we're equals.

But as Virginia Woolf noted so perspicaciously almost eighty years ago, the Angel in the House is hard to kill for the very reason that she is a phantom existing only in our minds. She's an idea, an ideology, and one that's reinforced every time a white male president tells us that a vote for the democrats is a vote for the terrorists, every time we watch one television commercial after another in which women are cooking dinner or grocery shopping while the husband is at work, and every time we hear insulting comments made about Eli Manning's fiancee because she isn't Gisele Bunchen. Nothing shows forth our underlying cultural values like the leaders we choose and the techniques businesses use to get our money and the strategies women feel like they need to employ to be attractive to men. I take a pretty bleak view of human motivation: if you want to know what someone really believes, find out how they negotiate money, sex, and power.

That doesn't mean I believe that women are pawns in the hands of their environment; obviously we have minds of our own and can resist our circumstances. And yet, you it's exhausting to be constantly resisting such a massive influx of negative input, and images are very, very powerful: we're visual creatures, and to a certain degree what we see is what we accept as possible and right. I for one am fed up with hearing another rich white man informing me about what I should think about my faith or how I should clothe my body or define my role in the public sphere, fed up with seeing wives stand silently behind their powerful husbands, fed up with women's power being discussed in terms of their "influence" instead of actual decision-making prerogative, and particularly fed up with having our country led by people with the identical cookie-cutter set of experiences.

Obviously, this isn't a rational argument for why Hillary would make the best president (although I do have one of those); it's only an emotional explanation of why I can't wait to see a woman in charge of our country. I won't ever vote for a woman just because she's a woman, but I do hope and pray that if I ever have a daughter she's going to look at the television and see a woman president, not just hear that it's possible.

A Friday for the Ages

2008-03-07T14:45:00.000-08:00

You know how sometimes you have one of those days that provides you with an anecdote you'll remember all your life? I had one of those. I won't put the story on the internet in order to protect the (not-so) innocent, but just imagine what's just about the worst thing that could happen in a one-on-one teacher student meeting. Ask me when you see me. You will lol in horrified horror.

I'm exhausted, but this is poker night and I've got my lucky can of Bawls cola. I see pocket aces in my future.

Last night Jessie and I watched House of Wax. That's right, with Paris Hilton. It was dreadful, and yet HILARIOUS. It's often been said around the poker table that being a fly on the wall in our house would be an interesting experiment, and that is never so true as when two English teachers watch bad TV. We did have the following conversation, which will interest virtually no one:

Jessie: "He was terribly burned in an accident that probably involved hot wax. A WAXident, if you will."
Me: "People who live in wax houses shouldn't start fires."

not crazy!!!

2008-03-04T13:06:00.000-08:00

I know you'll all be disappointed, all 1.7 of you who read my blog, but I'm actually not crazy. Today I had a psych evaluation and a 567-question personality test as part of CBF's (Cooperative Baptist Fellowship) Exploratory conference that I'm at this week in Atlanta. This is to see if I'm going to Croatia as a CBF affiliate.

Today we left the motel at 6:15 for a two-hour drive and our tests. That's right, 6:15. I got up at 5:20. If anything'll make ya crazy...that would be it.

This test was hilarious. My favorite question was, "When you're with a group of people, do you ever hear some very strange things?" Some other good ones: "Do you sometimes feel a fullness in your nose and throat?" "Have you ever participated in unusual sexual behavior?" "Do ghosts or spirits tell you what to do?" bahahahahaha!

anyway, I haven't gotten the test results yet, but the man who did my counseling session suggested that I'm not crazy. I guess there's still time for the test to prove him otherwise.

dissertation woes, part 2

2008-02-28T14:12:00.000-08:00

countdown to due date: 23.5 hours.

Well, I'm essentially done with the first draft. i've been writing since 10 AM with one hour off for lunch and some vidja games (just say it aloud; you'll see what I mean). And that's without coffee. I'm awesome. and exhausted. Here's a weird fact about my work process: after I've been writing a long time I feel like I need to go wash my hair, so that's what I'm about to do. Never mind the voicemails and the papers that need to be graded. I can't believe how drained I feel after sitting on the couch all day!!!

But holy moly this draft is rough. I can't even tell if I'm proving my thesis, which is why I'm turning it in in it's current state. Teresa was kind enough to read some of it, and I'm going to look over her notes later tonight and fix some stuff, but the ending, which she hasn't seen because I just wrote it 20 minutes ago, is way too abrupt. It's like I got to 35 pages and was like that's it, that's all I got!!

I'm being a little negative because I'm tired and I feel like I've been working my ass off for six weeks on a document that isn't good enough. But honestly I'm so unbelievably excited to have something that is recognizable as a chapter, and by tomorrow I'm going to be downright euphoric!! and thank God for Ben Lee, one of my professors, who told me a couple of weeks ago that everyone's dissertation is bad. Then he said, "Well, not BAD, just not as good as a book manuscript has to be. It's just what you write to get them to give you your PhD." Which was, ironically, inspiring. I tend to expect too much of myself and be critical when I don't meet my own unrealistic expectations, so it was helpful to be reminded that even the finished dissertation is only going to be the first draft of my first--perhaps only--book. so the first draft of the first chapter is like a draft of a draft of a draft. :-)

campus weirdness

2008-02-25T16:55:00.000-08:00

Today I overheard the following conversation between two girls:

"You know how you drink your own urine?"
"yeah"
"Because you like how it tastes?"
"yeah."

No doubt that's some obscure in-joke I don't understand. But ew.

Plus, I saw a kid in starbucks today with an ENORMOUS Rambo hunting knife in his pocket. I mean like the handle had to have been five inches. The kind you use for gutting wild beasts, if you're into that sort of thing. I left my office hours early.

I'm sorry, but it has to be said:

2008-02-19T16:27:00.000-08:00

I talked to a student today in the writing center who's doing an ethnographic research project on strip clubs. It's for a gender class. Luckily, he's a smart, smart guy, so the material was handled in a very mature and sleaze-free way

But part of his notes consisted of a fairly-descriptive account of his "three for the price of one" lapdance.

And I couldn't help but think, "Now that's what I call hands-on research!"

*Edit* When I told Joel that terrible joke, his response was, "No, you gotta pay extra for that."

We'll see what kind of news this is

2008-02-18T05:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia. Kosovo is the region in the south of Serbia that borders Albania, and 90% of its population is ethnically Albanian. Croatia borders Serbia on the northwest. Serbia vows it'll never let Kosovo go, and Kosovo vows it'll never be ruled from Belgrade again. Today, 162 countries were asked to recognize Kosovo as a multiethnic, democratic nation. Australia has recognized them; Spain, China, and Russia say they won't; the U.S., Ireland, Britain, and France seem disposed to recognize Kosovo's independence.

I don't know enough about that area's history to know exactly what I think about this secession, but Kosovo claims that they will affirm all six ethnic groups in the country, so maybe it's a good idea.

Allegedly, this is unlikely to lead to violence. But the history of violence in that area, just during my lifetime, suggests that anything could happen. SO, what this means to me is that my trip to Croatia could potentially get canceled: I haven't read what Croatia thinks about Kosovo's independence, but if they get drawn into another Balkan war, I probably won't be allowed over there. Keep an eye on this news...I may wind up living in Austin next year instead of Cakovec.

Things that I <3

2008-02-17T12:57:00.000-08:00

It is raining like crazy, and for some reason that has put me in an obnoxiously good mood. I happily admit to being a total nerd, but one of the benefits of that is that I get an inordinate amount of pleasure from certain artifacts and absurdities. Here they are:

1. The words "shantytown," pantywaist," and "quack."

2. My "Shakespeare got to get paid, son" T-shirt, and the fact that the picture and caption from the shirt appeared inexplicably as the background of one of the computers in the English lab. Neither of the obvious culprits, myself or Katherine Martin, my old TA, were responsible.

3. the novel Lolita. I recently bought a copy as a present for a friend, and I realized as I was standing in Barnes & Noble that I can flip to any page of that novel and start reading and absolutely fall in love with the English language. Nerdy, I know, but let it go. Here, I'm reaching for my copy, I'll demonstrate my point:

"A very elderly, almost mummy-like couple in a very new model were in the act of creeping out of one of the contiguous garages; from another a red hood protruded in somewhat cod-piece fashion; and nearer to our cabin, a strong and handsome young man with a shock of black hair and blue eyes was putting a portable refrigerator into a station wagon. For some reason he gave me a sheepish grin as I passed" (213).

Just the phrase "red hood protruded" makes me happy.

4. The movie No Country for Old Men. I'm still in awe of that movie. People are sick of me talking about it. Javier Barden's line, "You've been putting it up all your life; you just didn't know it," was, on its own, worth the $8.50 I paid to hear it. Twice.

5. Random flowers in winter. On Thursday the restaurant I had dinner at (Tai) was giving every woman a red rose, and not a crappy-looking one, a beautiful perfect one. I put it on the kitchen counter in a hurricane glass and now I smell it every morning. Getting a flower from a restaurant is like hearing your favorite song on the radio in a strange city: it may not mean as much as playing the CD in your car, but the unexpected intrusion is...defamiliarized.

6. Referencing The Simpsons in front of Harry, because he always gets it!

7. Yelling "LOL," "Oh-Em-GEE!" W007!"or "Double-yoo-tee-eff!!" when I get my hand in Texas Hold-em.

The Ruins (with spoilers)

2008-02-07T09:06:00.000-08:00

This weekend I read the novel that the upcoming film is based on, and I was extremely disappointed. I'm giving away the ending here, but since I doubt that more than 10 people total will ever see the movie, it doesn't matter.

It's about a group of recent college graduates who visit Mexico and get trapped at a Mayan ruin because whenever someone touches the ruin, the natives won't let them leave. One by one they all die. Nobody survives, and in the end the search party also gets trapped at the ruin and the cycle starts all over again.

Now, I picked up the book because I wanted something pulpy and horrifying. But The Ruins is just not horrifying enough, and this is why: the people get killed by a man-eating vine. I just feel that there's something inherently funny about a man-eating plant. Plus, this plant can talk because the flowers have little mouths, and they speak German. That's right. Every now and then, the vine pops out with first-semester quality sentences: Wo ist Jeff? Jeff ist da. Jeff ist gestorben! Now, I admit that being reminded of all the hours I spent in the language lab freshman year listening to tapes is a little horrifying, but frankly, when I visualize myself repeating simple sentences after a big red German-speaking flower in the basement of the modern languages building, I just laugh.

This plant plays tricks, too. When the kids conceal Amy's corpse in a sleeping bag, the vine worms its way into the bag, eats Amy, and then squirms around in the bag speaking in Amy's voice until the kids imagine she's alive and rush over to free her, only to rip open the bag and find a pile of Amy's bones. And then the plant laughs at them. And by this time, I'm on the plant's side. Those kids are idiots!

There are only six people who get trapped in the ruin, and that's not enough horrifying death to sustain a three-hundred page novel. Plus, this vine often just strangles people, and that isn't nearly gruesome enough. I wanted some cheap gory thrills, and instead I got talking flowers.

Maybe if I want cheap, I should just go see Strange Wilderness.

blame it on the flu.....

2008-01-28T08:41:00.000-08:00

I had a dream the other night that consisted of me having a conversation with someone and thinking, "I could have made such a snappy comeback right there if I could have quoted The Waste Land."

So, still in the dream, I made the conscious decision to memorize The Waste Land in its entirety.

Normally I don't remember my dreams, but I remembered this one because the next day i actually woke up and thought, "well, I'd better get to work on memorizing The Waste Land" before it suddenly occurred to me, "WHY would I want to do that?"

Flu-ishness

2008-01-25T13:04:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to have the best weekend ever. Drinking margaritas by the pitcher with my GA from last semester, poker night, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail at the Tennessee Theater.

And now I have the flu. I don't think I've had the flu since I was in the 6th grade. I actually had a fever, and now I can't go play cards tonight. I'm going to sit around the house alone, nursing my toxicity. And yes, I feel like whining about it! I've been in bed ALL day and I'm bored, but I feel too bad to do anything.

I've always mocked people who make such a big deal about getting flu shots....but I spose I saved up some bad karma for myself. this is NOT funny at all!

Damn you, JCrew

2008-01-24T11:21:00.000-08:00

On Monday I got a surprise package from my mom with a pair of shearling-lined kelly green leather gloves from JCrew. It was sooooo nice of her, because she knew I'd really been wanting this particular pair but thought they were too expensive. Of course they're too expensive: JCrew is for yuppies like my brother.

Anyway, the first day I wore them they were sooooo warm, but by the end of the day the seams had split on BOTH middle fingers.

I know, I know. But the only person I ever flip off is my stupid brother. It isn't like I wore those fingers out or anything. Anyway, because I'm such a pawn of the fashion industry, I'm getting a new pair instead of a refund. They're GREEN, see! And lined with shearling!!

But I swear, no new clothes anymore unless they come from Goodwill. I don't want to saunter into Croatia in a bunch of overpriced yuppie clothes like a rich spoiled American.

Cloverfield

2008-01-21T16:30:00.000-08:00

so, what a great monster movie. Definitely the best I've seen since The Host...well, it's the ONLY monster movie I've seen since The Host except for I am Legend, which was pretty crappy. No offense if you liked it or think Will Smith is actually a good actor. I spose that really empathetic people would be affected by raindrops running down the cheeks of a cardboard cutout, a visual that has about the same emotional depth as Will Smith trying to cry.

Anyway, I like movies about New York, especially if AN ENORMOUS MONSTER IS TERRORIZING IT!!!

If you go see it, and you should....sit through the credits. That is all.

In other news from the long weekend: I <3 Eli Manning. Now there's someone it's easy to empathize with.

dissertation woes, part 1,

2008-01-17T10:46:00.000-08:00

Countdown to first chapter due date: 29 days

I've been working pretty well this week: not great, but not bad for the first week back on the job. But I've realized three of the things that make writing a dissertation so difficult. At first it seems like it should be second nature by now, considering that I've been writing papers about literature for ten years now. But here are three of the reasons why writing a 30-page chapter is much, much harder than writing a 30-page seminar paper. Consider this if you think that a PhD is like an MA only a little longer:

1) I'm out of practice. It's been three years since I wrote a seminar paper, and although I've published a book review and an article (which was a revision of a seminar paper), written a few conference papers, and taken two written comprehensive exams, those are all VERY different from researching and writing a cohesive argument from scratch.

2) Standards are higher. And I mean much, much higher. We get told all through the PhD program that we're really colleagues now, scholars, but I think that the gulf between someone taking her comps and someone writing her prospectus and dissertation are huge. It has to be groundbreaking scholarship, exhaustively researched, elegantly written, and conclusively argued. This isn't a paper covering something; it's the identification and explanation of a new problem.

3) A dissertation has to synthesize and organize such a huge amount of information. I can't describe how hard it is to make a simple decision like which element of the argument needs to come first when the argument is going to be 250 pages long. It's juggling a whole lot of things!

Anyway, I'm just griping: the nice thing about dissertations is that they are going to be revised exhaustively, so there's always the possibility of a do-over if it sucks. And maybe some of these problems are unique to my foolishly-complex topic. But honestly, I expected this stage of my PhD to be the EASY one!!

Everything I know about life I learned from the O. C.

2008-01-15T13:09:00.000-08:00

We've been watching the O.C. A lot. It's an objective correlative. Anyway, that show is just plain full of guidelines for wise living. Here's my top 15

15. Chinese takeout is good.

14. You can sport a hickey or a bruise from an attempted rape to a cocktail party or prom, and no one will notice. Your hair will cover it, no problem. Most importantly, you must not, MUST NOT wear a t-shirt to school to cover said bruise

13. School is optional. You can leave at any time, any day, for any reason, and suffer no consequences.

12. It makes perfectly good sense for 16- and 17-year old girls to go ahead and choose their marriage partners. After all, who needs security more than them?

11. If a girl doesn't meet her partner in high school, she'll have to date and marry a man at least ten years older, even if he's unattractive, in love with someone else, or just plain evil.

10. It's not a good idea become friends with people you meet at therapy.

9. It is always better to try and deal with attempted suicides or rapes yourself, without calling any law or medical professionals.

8. When two hawt girls hang out with each other a lot and don't have boyfriends, they will become lesbians.

7. Just when a relationship seems to be going well, that's when things are about to get really, really bad.

6. All poor people will necessarily end up as rapists, single mothers, saddled with gambling addictions, in the slammer, or dead.

5. And yet, all poor people are especially good at Texas Hold-Em.

4. One drop of poorness contaminates the whole community and leads to widespread mayhem until the taint of poverty is expunged with nice clothes, a rich girlfriend, and enrollment at a private school.

3. If you take a poor person to a rich person's party, one of the following WILL occur: a) Someone will get punched. b) Someone will get too drunk and publicly humiliate herself. c) Someone will do drugs and wind up floating in the pool. d) Someone will unveil a long-lost porn film starring the hostess.

2. Boys don't like to date girls with whom they share common interests and can have invigorating conversations with, even when said girls are also beautiful.

And the number one life lesson I've learned from the O. C. :

1. Unless you want to end up shipped off to Chicago, Portland, or New York, never, never stop being friends with the main characters.

I like to screw up in style

2008-01-10T15:36:00.000-08:00

So, today on Kingston I was rolling up to a stop light when it turned green. I took my foot off the brake, looked away and thought "hey, I didn't know that shopping center had a Blockbuster," and looked back just in time to slam on the brake before rolling--veeerrrrryy slowwwwlllly--into the late-model Jaguar in front of me.

My front bumper isn't even dented, just has a bit of paint knocked off, but my license plate gouged a quarter-sized hole in the Jag's bumper. I don't even want to imagine what kind of money a bumper on an enormous Jaguar sedan costs...so I won't.

Of course, the incident was my fault, but my car isn't really damaged, my insurance shouldn't go up (I HAD a clean record), and even though I got a citation (for following too closely...yeah, that was pretty close), the cop leaned over to me and said, "Just come to your court date...I'll advise leniency," so I'm almost getting away scot-free.

I know what you're thinking, right: Hooray for taking down those damn Farragut subdivision-dwellers! Fight consumerism!! rage against the machine!!

But there were three women my mom's age in the car, visiting from Florida. So I kinda scared them and spoiled an afternoon of their vacation. And therefore, not only do I feel like shite for messing up my clean record, making a st00pid mistake--seriously, I REAR-ENDED someone? for a BLOCKBUSTER?? what a day--and for sticking myself with court costs at least, I feel like shite for making some nice ladies' family visit a bit more unpleasant. Why couldn't they have been some jackass frat boy whom, I would assume, probably deserved it?

But I like to have the best of everything, and since no Rolls Royce was available, I had to settle for a Jaguar.

See, we Red Raiders have A LOT of school spirit.

2008-01-06T20:19:00.001-08:00

Wow. After going to this school, it's no WONDER I have the sense of humor of 12 year old.

Just call me old faithful

2008-01-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

Being at an SEC school is hard for a true Texan. I know, I know, you all think the SEC is the strongest and best conference. I'll never admit that it's better than the Big XII, but okay, the SEC has an argument.

My team, Texas Tech, has never won a national title in football, as far as I know. I believe that they've never been ranked higher than 7th in a national poll. But I <3 them because, as they showed in the Gator Bowl, no matter how terrible they look, they always believe they can win. Last year, they overcame a 38-7 halftime deficit to win in the [crappy] insight bowl, which was the biggest comeback in bowl history. Then they were behind two touchdowns on Tuesday, and scored 17 points in about 3 minutes, IIRC. as their place kicker said, "A lot of people probably thought the game was over, but we learned that from last year when we came back from 31 down or whatever it was that it's never over. I don't think there was an ounce of doubt on anybody's mind on our team from our standpoint." That's why we consistently hand other teams painful upsets: #4 Texas and #4 Cal in 2003, and the Sooners this year.

And that's why i couldn't BELIEVE that Al Groh left his slightly-injured quarterback out of the game with only a 14 point lead. Obviously the guy could play: he came back in in their last series. What were they resting him up for: next August?? The commentators kept opining about how long UVA had had to prepare, and how they'd realized that the Tech defense can't stop the run (we can't). But Groh didn't realize that a 14 point lead over Tech is NOTHING?!? Bad decision. And then he complains about the officiating!!! Not every call went their way, true, but you still have to play all 60 minutes.

Anyway, Guns Up!!!!! We may never win a national title (recruiting is a little difficult when your school is in Lubbock), but we'll always point our Roy Rogers horse's statue's butt toward college station, ring our cowbells, and enjoy being underdogs! *wipes sentimental tear*

Birmingham

2008-01-03T19:48:00.001-08:00

During a 12-hour drive through the Southeast, you see some strange things. Like a billboard for a barbecue place that I think was called Younguns.

It had a picture of a cherubic blue-eyed infant wearing something that looked sorta like a christening gown. Only, it was holding a rack of ribs in its hand and had barbecue sauce smeared all over its face.

The best part was the caption.....wait for it...."It's THAT Tender!!" You heard me.

How tender are those ribs, really? Baby soft?

I just couldn't do it...

2008-01-02T15:58:00.001-08:00

I can give up myspace, but even though I haven't written a real blog for months, I cannot resist the siren song of public self-disclosure. As my unfortunate roommate Jessie is aware, I have a problem with talking about things ad nauseam. Although I try to never do it when college football is on, sometimes the tendency to agonize about the minutia of my life asserts itself during Law and Order: SVU. See, the advantage of doing that in a blog is that if I bore you, you can navigate away without me knowing!!! Sadly, there is no Netscape Navigator to life (if you got that Jeanette Winterson reference: I'm sorry. She has actually written some good sentences, just not that one).

Anyway, being back in East Texas has dulled my writing ability to the point that I've got nothing interesting to put in this post...and I actually just spelled "post" "poast" until I corrected it. That's right. I'm sinking into a torpor. It's sad, too, because the night I drove into Texas last month, I kept listening to a song about leaving the South, and I gazed at the stars in a maudlin fashion and wondered what compels me to be such a damn driven Type A personality, and why I can't just be happy with a simple life. Well, now I remember, it's because it bores the hell out of me and provokes such a malaise that I've been thinking about death and reading Kierkegaard. That's right, I've been inhabited by a long-dead Danish philosopher. I fear for my sanity.

I'll be back in Knoxville tomorrow, hopefully in time to watch some college football. I love East Texas, and I think it's beautiful and in theory I love the simple, slow-paced southern life....but it's just too claustrophobic. A few weeks ago I was looking at some pictures of East Texas taken by a friend of mine who's a photography student (*waves in case you're reading*) and I realized that I thought they were beautiful but they still made me feel like screaming...what with the claustrophobia and all...

Upshot is, after Croatia, odds are I'll be back in Knoxville writing my dissertation. I have had an epiphany: academia may [does] have its own claustrophobias and hypocrisies, but it at least lets me do what my personality craves more than everything except cotton candy, and that is it lets me have conversations about the abstract ideas that virtually no one outside of academia cares about. Seriously, I read a book about postmodern theology that jokingly added to the tenets of the Reformation (sola scriptura, etc) the doctrine sola significatione: signification alone. And my inner post-structuralist rejoiced. Outside of academia, who gets that? Nobody.

*combs hair into an emo point* "Dear Diary...you're the only one who gets me, man. you're my best friend. I feel like tacos."

Uh, to finish up this public self-absorption, I jokingly described my soul last semester as not a dark emo pit but a tidepool. Which is not to say that it's shallow, but that it's continually renewed...or something like that. I'll probably always be both a disaffected academic and a disaffected churchgoer because I'm frustrated by the fact that so few people are both. I'm sad that I don't think I know anyone who would want to read that book I mentioned--The New Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernism -- and talk about it with any enthusiasm. I know, you think that sounds BOH-ring. See!?! Like I said!! Oh well, point is, leaving academia--much as it enrages me with its refusal to be self-reflexive--would leave my tidepool way too isolated. :-P

So thanks to all of my amazing friends who've listened to me agonize about my career for the past 18 months or so. I know, it hasn't been pretty. In fact, I'm sure I've been downright annoying. I'll show my gratitude by asking you all to Croatia, where you can get the biggest cotton candy you've ever seen for like a DOLLAR. And also by losing money to you at Texas Hold' em, getting into the spirit of the 80's party, and trying not to complain about the nasty food at senor Taco.