Eddies in the Ace-Time Continuum

I seem to have inherited my father's inability to accurately estimate the amount of time I will need to spend in the hardware store. An hour-long trip to Home Depot today spilled over, and there was another trip at the end of the day. Mmmm, hardware stores. Another retail establishment as dangerous to my pocketbook as bookstores and music stores.

A recommendation to anyone who is silly enough to consider tiling any flat surface with white grout? Don't. I am spending two days hand-painting colored grout sealant over each line of a 150-square-foot section of floor, because I chose aesthetics over practicality in a moment of idiocy five years ago. And the worst part is that I have to do this every five years, to re-seal it. Argh.

Having my Dad up here is great. We've gone to Powell's and eaten Cajun food and had coffee and hung out, as well as fixing the wiring and the storm windows, the blinds and the grout, the caulk and the wallpaper. It is upsetting that there is so much left to do, but we are making significant headway. Have contracted with the kitchen remodelers (complete renovation) and landscapers (for the pruning; there is a gorgeous Japanese Maple out front that looks like Barkley from Sesame Street, it's so shaggy) and figured out what else needs to be done. I would never have taken action on this without my Dad along. It's not that I can't do most of these things, but the enormity of it scares me, and I don't. My Dad is so great for helping like this!

Now we are watching Hotel Rwanda in the hotel room, and it is breaking my heart and making me feel helpless and guilty.

Homicidal tendencies

I am never, ever using this hotel for an event ever again.

There were a series of little things and miscommunications that had me fussed, before tonight. I had to work with five different staff to get what we needed, and they didn't seem to want to accommodate us - we're a relatively small group (40-50 people) and not a huge profit margin for them, I get that.

But this is beyond the fucking pale.

I came back from Kinko's tonight, ready to get a full nights' sleep for a change. And I went to our conference room to drop off the handouts for tomorrow. And it was completely rearranged - different layout, different A/V equipment, all our materials just gone from the walls and registration area. I panicked and went to talk to the manager, who found that we'd been moved to another room (the redirection sign read "Mary Kay has been moved to the Tahoe Room" - my group is about as far from a cosmetics sales conference as you can get, I don't know what they were thinking). The new room has none of the dozens of things we had hung on the walls up and all our materials are stacked haphazardly in a corner.

Aside from the fact that that is not what I had discussed with the events coordinator, I now have to get up at 6:00 to set up the room again. No sleep. And what if I hadn't just happened to go to Kinko's? I would have walked in with 15 minutes to spare to set up the projector and found this mess? Not. On.

The only saving grace to the whole event (other than the fact that the meeting is going quite well) is that the bartender saw my face when I got back from all this craziness - I looked at him and said, "You're closed, aren't you," and he said he was, but he gave me (not sold me, gave me, which is unheard of in this place, where coffee costs $2.25 and a small bottle of water $2.50) a beer. God bless the bartender.

Still not coming back. Killkillkill.

Random vocabulary nitpicking.

While I'm in full support of the separation of Church and State in My Fair Country, I do think that perhaps we should give students enough information to avoid such vocabulary mixups as the following, which I see everywhere:

stigma ≠ stigmata

"Stigma" is a symbol of disgrace or reproach, a black mark. It is usually the word you are looking for, when you are looking for one of these words in casual writing or conversation. Stigmata, technically, is the plural of stigma. However, it tends to be the plural of stigma when referring to the definition that has to do with marking, scarring, or branding, and is commonly used to refer to the wounds Christ received on the cross.

Calvary ≠ cavalry

Cavalry are mounted troops on horseback. This tends to be the word you are looking for, when you are looking for one of these words in casual writing or conversation. Calvary is the name of the mount on which Jesus and those other guys were crucified.

Thank you, and that is all the nitpicking for today. Someone make me shut up! I have so much work to do!

Atkins hate, Cornbread recipe, and musings on beer.

At this time last year, I was on the Atkins/South Beach diet. There were several things I hated about the diet, but two stand out above all.

First, it made carbohydrates sound like zombie food. The more you ate them, the more you wanted to eat them. To listen to Atkins fanatics, one muffin and soon you'd be shambling about the countryside, drooling and muttering, "Caaaaarbsss...caaaarbbssss..." Ditto sugars. And ditto beer. Fuck that. Carbs are the base of almost every human diet anywhere, whether it's bread or rice or taro. And ain't nobody fat like America.

Second, it worked. I lost like ten pounds, in two months or something. They're back now, but I'll be damned if I ever do that stupid diet again; if the wedding dress hadn't already been cut out, I wouldn't have done it in the first place. I hate the idea of dieting. I hate that it worked. I betcha if I just walk to work a few times a week I'll get the same results. Betcha. Now I just have to actually do that, to test the hypothesis. Damn.

In the spirit of Atkins loathing, I give you the recipe for cornbread that has been making me happiest lately.

Creamed-Corn Cornbread

Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, 1/2 stick
  
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
  
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 2 tablespoons sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 1 can (~8oz) creamed corn
  
• 1 cup milk
  
• 1 large egg, well-beaten

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Melt the butter.
   
   
2. Mix liquids together (creamed corn, milk, half of the melted butter and egg).It will all fit into one of those handled 2-cup measure,s if you've got one; just pour in the milk first, as it's the only part you have to measure.
   
   
3. In a medium bowl, mix dry ingredients together (cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt).
   
   
4. Put the rest of the butter in a 9" round or square pan and heat it in the oven until the pan is hot.
   
   
5. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and pour in the liquid. Stir, but remember, with recipes that use baking powder, less stirring is better, so stir just until blended.
   
   
6. Pour the batter into the hot cake pan.
   
   
7. Bake until the cornbread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes.

Also, on the subject of beer, a random observation:

Someday someone will invent a nonalcoholic beer that tastes better than Budweiser. Like, a nonalcoholic microbrew. If they did? I would almost never drink real beer. As it is, though, I only resort to the Clausthaler when I've gotta drive or otherwise be on top of my game. Because yeah, it's got nothing on the good stuff.

This pointless post brought to you by milkfat, refined sugars, brown ale, starch, and the much-abused semicolon.

W.S. Merwin, "Conqueror"

I've been reading a lot of American history lately, and also discussing the politics of gender quite a bit with friends. Assimilation and passing are fascinating concepts, and this poem points to some of the most important questions about what it means to fit into the dominant paradigm, as well as giving an excellent sense of the subjectivity involved and the more opaque aspects of cultural interpretation. The last line hits like a punch in the gut.

Conqueror

When they start to wear your clothes
do their dreams become more like yours
who do they look like

when they start to use your language
do they say what you say
who are they in your words

when they start to use your money
do they need the same things you need
or do the things change

when they are converted to your gods
do you know who they are praying to
do you know who is praying

for you not to be there

          — W.S. Merwin

Politics: Links that caught my eye

International: Brazil to U.S.: Keep Your Money.

Brazil has rejected $40 million in U.S. funds for fighting AIDS because of demands that it condemn prostitution, a key participant in its flagship AIDS program. The move is seen by some observers as a rejection of Washington's head-in-the-sand linkage of neo-con morality and foreign aid.

How wonderful! Go, Brazil, go. Forward-thinking, pragmatic solutions not weighed down by dogma. What a concept!

Of course, on the home front there's more fabulous news from Our Fair Government:

National: The Real ID Act is about to pass.

The Real ID Act will therefore likely be enacted without being scrutinized by any hearings or debate. The American Civil Liberties Union today expressed its disappointment that the final measure includes this sweeping legislation that rolls back asylum laws, attacks immigrants and sets the stage for a national ID.

State Level: And Texas is banning gay foster parents; this bill has already passed the Texas House of Representatives. Language includes:

Section 264.1064c. "Notwithstanding the applicant's or foster parent's statement that the applicant or foster parent is not a homosexual or bisexual, if the department determines after a reasonable investigation that the applicant or foster parent is homosexual or bisexual the department may not: (1) allow the applicant to serve as a foster parent; (2) place the child with the foster parent; or (3) allow the child to remain in foster care with the foster parent."

Oy, America. What are you thinking?!

Observation of the day

I am so lucky that even my problems are privileges.

Maven structures and the internets

An online friend of mine who is studying to be a librarian asked the other day, "What do you want the internets to do for you?" She was getting at information access, in terms of search engine functionality, I think, but my immediate response was, "FILTER." Filter people, filter things, filter ideas, filter information. There's so much out there, so many news sites and stores and books and people, that I need the internet to tell me what to pay attention to.

Specifically, I need mavens. Mavens are the key to the way I access the internet. Mavens can be people, or on the internet, they can be sites. Sites with superior search technology function much as mavens do; they make it easy for you to find exactly what you want. (I think; let's talk about this more a little further down.) And of course there are mavens in the Gladwellian sense as well; bloggers have been acknowledged as filling a maven role on the internet for quite some time. The term was coined, as I understand it, by marketing researchers, who discovered that it was not as effective to market directly to the masses as it was to market to certain knowledgeable people who would then do a sort of peer-to-peer marketing. Seth Godin writes more about this in his essay, "Unleashing the Idea Virus," downloadable here.

I'd be the first to admit that I like my interactions filtered to an excessive degree. I was volunteering tonight and getting frustrated with the people I was interacting with; though I really believe in the organization/cause I was working for, I avoid the place sometimes because irritating people volunteer for them and they talk to me. My partner often accuses me of elitism. Perhaps I am an elitist, though a pretty damn mild one - I don't think I'm better than other people, it's just more comfortable/interesting/fun for me (a great deal more) to interact with intelligent, articulate, openminded people. I love the internet because it lets me filter people virtually, to talk only to people I want to spend time on, and to access only the ideas and information I am interested in. Let's not talk about balkanization, the dark side of this coin. Let's just talk about mavens, for a while.

Can a site be a "maven"? I'm not sure. Is Amazon a "maven" site because it brings together multiple stores and consumer options in an easily-searchable user-friendly way? Or does its "recommendations" feature make it a maven? Or is it a maven network, with its "So you'd like to.." lists? I'd be interested in discussing this.

I haven't read Gladwell's book, so a lot of this is me talking out my ass (surprise, surprise!). But I'd love to hear your thoughts on how maven structures function online.

In entirely unrelated news, library science is gaining in appeal. I think I could be happy as a librarian. It probably would have been best if I'd figured this out before spending $30K to get a master's in my current field, but hey. I'm just in the thinky stages about this right now. Librarians are cool. I like what they do. I like what they think about. I could be good at that. And happy, which would be the key difference from my current setup.

Email.

Dear Representative Thompson,

I read your speech on the floor of the House regarding HJR 6 and I want to thank you. I am a married, Christian woman and I am horrified at the bigotry being perpetrated in the name of my God and with the ''sanctity'' of marriages like my own as an excuse. Thank you for standing up and saying what needed to be said, and God bless you.

Sincerely,
[Me]

If you'd like to email Representative Thompson and say nice things as well, go here.

More reasons I should never, ever be allowed in bookstores

Okay, I spend a lot of money on books. Which has made sense, all my life, as I read a lot of books, and the library doesn't have them all, and I like to have my own copies, etc. However, in the past two years I've changed over to doing a great deal of my reading (fictional and otherwise) online, but have continued to acquire books at something near my previous rate. This has left me with a great many unread books. While in the past the list that follows would have been only part of a year's reading, it now poses an embarrasment of literary riches that I really need to take care of before buying any more books. And I will buy more books, no doubt of that. This list does not include my poetry books, which I rarely read cover-to-cover, but rather dip into on long nights, sipping sustenance here and there like some grotesque couch-potato parody of a literary hummingbird. So, the list, and then a plea for advice.

Own but have not read:

Godel, Escher, Bach - Hofstadter
Summerland and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
The Fifth Book of Peace - Maxine Hong Kingston
Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids, and Life in a Changing World - Peggy Orenstein
Upside Down - Eduardo Galeano
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
The Beach - Lena Lencek and Gideon Bosker
California Dreamin' - Wilson
American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons - Dow
The Raj Quartet (3 of 4 books) - Paul Scott
Hussein - Patrick O'Brian
Angels Fear To Tread & The Longest Journey - E.M. Forster
The World is Round - Gertrude Stein
Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in the High School - Penelope Eckert
Ashes to Ashes - Richard Kluger
Oscar and Lucinda and Jack Maggs - Peter Carey
Venus in Furs - Sacher-Masoch
Ecotopia - Ernest Callenbach
Sacrament of Lies - Dewberry
Billy Bathgate - E.L. Doctorow
Selling Students Short: Classroom Bargains and Academic Reform in the American High School - Sedlak et. al.
The Hours - Michael Cunningham
Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee
The Music Room - McFarland
Conversations About The End of Time - Eco, Gould, etc.
Kim - Rudyard Kipling
The All Of It - Haien
The Female Man and The Zanzibar Cave - Joanna Russ

Currently reading:

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong - Loewen
Too Darn Hot: Writings on Sex Since Kinsey (compilation)
Our Enemies In Blue - Williams

Partially read but not finished (not including school books that were not assigned in toto):

The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson
Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex - Levine
Justine - Lawrence Durrell
India - Shashi Tharoor
The Myth of Monogamy - Barash and Lipton
Bowling Alone - Robert Putnam
From Altar to Chimney-Piece: Selected Stories - Mary Butts
Manufacturing Consent - Herman and Chomsky
Delta of Venus and Little Birds - Anais Nin
Promiscuities - Naomi Wolf
In The Spirit of Happiness - The Monks of New Skete

So, see anything I should absolutely just not even bother with? Anything I should move right up to the top of the list and not stop reading until I'm done? Let me know.