Stupid List Servs! As if I don’t have enough breast/penis/elbow enhancement shit in my inbox. I also have crud like this to wade through. What follows is a legitimate request from my professor that he calls “fast feedback” about how the class is working. He does this every three weeks, unlike those professors who wouldn’t “piss on fire to put you out.”

And then…the reply from one of my incredibly witty classmates.

On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Cool Professor wrote:

> Hi Class:
> First I want to apologize for not leaving any time for fat feedback
> yesterday — and second then I want to remind you to bring your
feedback to
> class tomorrow. The two questions were:
> 1. What’s the best and the worst thing about the class so far?
> 2. What’s distracting/helping your learning?
> Remember that you response can be anonymous…
>
> Thanks,
> Cool Professor

>On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Irritating Classmate wrote:

> Apologies aside I am surprised that we are spending any time at all on
fat feedback. Yes, I know that since early October I’ve put on about
ten pounds (okay…maybe 12 pounds of so) and I suppose I could use some
kind of feedback about just how large I am becoming but still. Is this
really an appropriate use of class resources?

A slightly offended (okay, it is more than a slight weight gain), Irritating Classmate

Whatta Maroon!

Went to the mall, yesterday, of all places. My downward spiral into anti-intellectualism continues.

Ahh the delights of overpriced food, fried cheese on a stick, and nasty-looking after-holiday displays. “Please buy our crappy leftovers while we do inventory!” they scream.

Highlights of yesterday:

-My sister saying, “Man, I love watching you throw food out the window.”

-Buying kettle corn on the street downtown, like Seattle is a real city or something.

-Having perky salesgirls in the cosmetics department put random crap on my hands that I can’t afford.

This made up for Saturday night…someone slashed our truck tires while it was parked on the street. They left a trail of havoc that was at least three miles long, following up the 28 busline and hitting cars at random. I looked for a pattern–new cars? Foreign cars? SUVs? We have a 12-year-old GMC worktruck without offensive (or any) bumper stickers. The car across the street was a Dodge or some such thing, and a little Honda got hit too. Totally random.

I have utterly succumbed to reality television, and stupid radio.

I remember when I was in high school, surrounded by people with budding ideals.

“I don’t watch TV anymore,” declared the boy with a Super Nintendo and a pool table.

“I don’t eat things with faces, or starches, or…anything,” declared The Skinny Girl.

“Peace in the Middle East!” said everyone, wearing cheap peace symbols they bought at the mall. “No blood for oil!” they said, and tied yellow ribbons onto everything that was nailed down.

“Get out of the way!” I said to my little sister, who was standing in front of the television.

I was good to my brain for a while, like when I moved out of my parents’ house and didn’t have a television. I would only listen to scratchy records and German bands with names like *Die Toasterwuffen*. I was not politically active, or even active really, but at least I was using the library. I was keeping it real. My friends would come over and be impressed with my spartan lifestyle, which was identical to theirs since they were poor, too.

Now Mr. Husband and I have a solemn pact: six years ago we purchased a TV/VCR that is the size of your average computer monitor, and we refuse to hook up to cable. This makes TV more discouraging, especially with all of the mostly horrible sitcoms that showed throughout the 90s and the bunny ear-twiddling. Ah for the days of Married with Children. In those days the TV was just used for video rentals.

But now there is the sickening car wreck known as reality television. But I have an excuse (as always): I think that what I do in my spare time directly relates to what I do when I am busy. When I was in junior college, I used to paint and read Dickens when I wasn’t in school, because school wasn’t very taxing. Now that I am reading theory and plotting and planning and stretching my poor little wad of fluff all the time, I listen to the R&B station incessantly and watch Joe Millionaire.

It’s hard enough to take a stab at becoming an intellectual or scholar without the temptations of Nelly telling me to take off my clothes or watching twenty poorly-dressed, orangy women fighting over one dopey guy. What is a girl to do? How can one resist? I can’t think all the time, or even most of the time.

God Bless America. The land where fast food three meals a day is more affordable that buying good, organic food. The place where it is far, far easier to never think AT ALL than to crack a book or consider something. The place where, ironically, life is so convenient that information is every where but challenging yourself is an uphill battle.

I should go study now, but I will probably go blogrollin.

Sometimes you put two little girlies together, you get trouble. Fingers go into eyes, there is shoving, and screaming, and snack-coveting. If you’re lucky, though, you get a few minutes of peace.

Today was one of those good days. I went to my friend’s house and brought little Frannie with me. After lunch the she and my friend’s daughter disappeared and were playing quietly in another room. Together my friend and I entered into that special kind of denial that mothers go into when small children are quiet.

Her house is safe, so we weren’t really worried. We sat and idly chatted for about ten minutes uninterupted, a sin and a luxury on any day. Occassionally we could hear the toilet seat banging up and down and giggling.

“I’m afraid to see what they’re doing,” my friend confessed, finally.

I took a deep breath. “I’ll go,” I said, and went to find them.

I went to the bathroom and pushed open the door. It jammed, because there was a chair in front of the sink blocking the way. I could hear the water blasting full-force.

My Frannie was on the chair, and her friend Liki was in in the sink, naked. Frannie was squirting hand soap all over Liki, and there were bubbles everywhere.

“I giving Liki a bath, Mama!” she told me.

I almost fell down, I was laughing so hard.

In Other News

Thanks to all who responded to my survey! I love mining information for educational purposes. I am so lucky! I will submit the results tomorrow, sans identifying information, of course.

I am writing a report on ethical research this weekend. I’m not sure why I picked this assignment, since I will probably be fudging the results for a data report I have due this week.

We are supposed to find seven people we know well and ask them nosy questions of our choosing. It is based on an Australian study/campaign called “Life. Be in It.” and is all about leisure-time activities and encouraging Aussies to get off their butts bums, which evidently are almost as flabby as Americans’.

Anyway, who wants to take a survey? I would encourage anyone I know/regular commenters to apply. Twenty questions, all about juice and elevators n’ shit. Email the macrophobe.

Wug, wug, so school started yesterday, which I thought was going to make me a slap-happy pappy, but only resulted in the formation of a grumpy-chumpy.

As usual, (I should really know better by now) there were readings due the first day that were posted at the last possible minute on the class website. Nothing like that sinking feeling of walking into the den of lions unprepared.

The bus ride home was a thrill, however: a short dumpy woman with long, black (I am not making this up) feathered hair, wearing one of those sateen jackets that usually bears the logo of a tavern on it, and tight, stonewashed jeans chose to heckle me and a school acquaintance for the whole ride home.

I think she was drunk out of her mind at four in the afternoon, and chemically imbalanced besides. She was with a scruffy dude with one of those weirdy leg immobilizers on and a pair of crutches. He was drunkenly trying to “shoosh” her as she yelled at us.

“YOU GIRLS TALK TOO MUCH, DID YOU KNOW THAT?”

She was hello-loud but so was the rest of the bus, so I didn’t realize she was talking to us at first. My friend and I were speaking in a normal tone of voice, and laughing a little.

“BOCK BOCK BOCK! THEY SOUND JUST LIKE CHICKENS, DON’T THEY, ROGER? BOCK BOCK, I NEVER HEARD SO MUCH TALKING IN MY WHOLE LIFE.”

My friend and I glanced at her and went on talking.

“It seems too early to be that drunk, don’t you think?” I asked my friend.

“THEY NEVER SHUT UP, DO THEY, ROGER?”

All the time Roger was going, “Shh, be quiet now, be polite, honey, please?”

At one point she moved over to Roger’s side of the bus and was out of sight. I could hear more murmuring as Roger was talking to her.

“OH ALL RIGHT, ROGER. I’M SORRY! HEY, DO YOU HEAR ME? I’M SORRY.”

I wanted to tell the BI-otch I was sorry she was so crazy, but I don’t know my school friend well enough to stir the pot. My conservative policy nowadays is to not start fistfights in front of possible future networking contacts. Because that’s what people always remember, instead of an awesome presentation. We continued to ignore her.

Finally my stop came. I moved towards the front (“OH GOOD, ROGER, ONE OF THOSE CHICKENS IS GETTING OFF.”) and told my friend to be careful.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I can take her.”

The bus rolled away and the evil BI-otch looked back at me through the window, twisting her face up very unbecomingly. I gave her the two-fisted salute and the last thing I could see before the bus got too far away was her jumping up and down on Roger and flapping her dumpy little arms, trying to claw through the window to get at me.

In Other News:

During Xmas break I discovered the folly of my ways via this article. Why am I wasting my time in a library/info sci masters’ program when I could be learning this stuff on the streets, or whatever this ridiculous asshole is trying to say.

NO. The appellation “asshole” is too good for him. I am the Asshole. He is an infected splinter on a dog’s dick.

Seriously, maybe I am wasting my time. I mean, Advanced Due Date Stamping is hardly any harder than Intro to Due Date Stamping. And the waiting list to get into LIS 546, Bun Variations, is about a mile long. I doubt I’ll get in before I graduate even. Oh well. At least I have Intermediate Patron Shooshing to look forward to next quarter.

If I ever meet this guy in person I will step on his Scrabble bag in kitten heels.

In Other, Other News:

If Mr. Husband ever gets smushed by a random chunk of 747, this is the first place I will go to soothe my pain. I mean, if you don’t want to bathe with Jesus, I can’t help you. (via larisa)

Having a two-year-old is an experiment in staying sane, everyday. I get up in the morning sometimes and say to myself, maybe this is the day I will hear the word “why” for the gabillionth time and I will strip off my clothes and run down the street naked, yelling, “Woo, woo-hoo!” like one of those old Daffy Duck cartoons.

Maybe my brain will fry and I will leave her at the park or the grocery store. I will come home and suspect something’s missing, and will put a pot of something gloppy on the stove to reduce for hours, and that’s how the police will find me, talking to myself and wondering about all the glop-stains on the wall.

Me and my mama-friends talk about this stuff, the potential for insanity. We talk about little rooms with locking doors (for us or them), tropical vacations, and the possibility of our husbands correcting the things about themselves that really irk us (about the same as us correcting our bad habits, I guess).

And you’ve got your perfect-parenting books, magazines, and even Dr. Phil telling to praise the hell out of your little Morticia or Demonicus. So you get insanity from outside the house, as well as from the inside.

Some days I find myself saying things like, “Thanks for taking the crayon out of the cat’s butt! Good job!” or, “I am very proud of the way you stopped poking your friend in the eye.” Just so I can do something besides scold.

The other morning I realized that the positive-reinforcement thing is going a little too far.

I was so nutsy by 9:30 from being cooped up that I did a quick deck-swabbing instead of a full shower.

“We’re getting out of here, Frannie!” I said, as she stood under me and watched. She watches my every move, it’s like being someone’s personal movie, except the movie can potentially scar them for the rest of their lives.

“Why?” she said.

“Cause Mama’s going crazy. And don’t say ‘why’ again, please. Just because.”

“You washing your face Mama?”

“Yes.” I moved on to other parts.

“You washing your wulva, Mama?”

“Yes, I am.”

“That’s wonderful, Mama. Good job washing your wulva.”

Oh I will be sad when she can say her “v’s”.