on the nature of embarrassment

The thing about embarrassment is that the times that we do things that we fear will embarrass us, they tend to turn out okay. Embarrassment more often sneaks up on us in ways big and small, jumping out from behind a bush like a brother with a pet tarantula.

The past weekend, I went with WNEP Theater to Three Oaks, MI to hold the Skald Storytelling Competition at the Acorn Theater. Initially, my job was only to be the stage manager. However, as there were only 8 performers able to attend (6 from the Chicago Skalders, and 2 who were auditions from the local area), and Don really wanted 10, I was one of those drafted at the last minute to perform, based on my (though unsuccessful) audition last year. Don swore I could do it, so I buckled down, and after some advice from Don, rewrote my story and prepared it.

I was terrified to do it, afraid of humiliation through multiple channels, such as falling down, forgetting my story, or of talking at Mach-10. I convinced myself to do it by deciding that WNEP folks wouldn't laugh at me, and I didn't know the rest of the people, so who cares what they thought.

I actually did quite well. It was fun to be on stage again, and my story seemed to go over very well. I didn't win, but I didn't care - getting up and just doing it was enough for me. And I wasn't humiliated, so bonus!

On the other hand, while crossing the very busy Michigan Ave. this afternoon, I stepped wrong and fell off my shoe. I started to right myself, windmilled a bit, lost my balance and managed to spin around before sprawling somewhat lightly onto the ground. This in front of numerous cars, as well as tourists and businessmen crossing Michigan Ave.

Embarrassment sneaks in on little cat feet.

shut up, universe

this morning, the universe gave me an unequivocal sign that i was supposed to get back and bed and hide under the covers.

i'm standing in the bathroom, in front of the mirror, doing my make-up, and my ceiling light fixture falls down, hits me in two different places in the head, hits my shoulder, and shatters on the floor. luckily, i didn't black out or pass out, and after some ice i'm doing okay (but with two goose eggs and a sore shoulder).

it was one of those ceiling fixtures that is a half circle that has a screw coming down from the ceiling that goes through a hole in the middle of the fixture, and you "secure" it by screwing a decorative bolt onto the bottom of the screw, outside the fixture. it was pretty heavy, too, the glass being about 1 1/2 inches thick. The funny thing is, i last changed the bulbs months ago. i have no idea why this morning, out of nowhere, it suddenly dropped on me. i didn't hit the wall or do anything to shake it. it could have just as easily fallen while i was in the shower or not at home.

but whatever the omen, i ignored it and got dressed and came to work. i figured if i had a concussion and was going to pass out at some point, it'd be better to do it at work where there'd be people to see me. fuck off, universe.

in happy news, i recently got a "body wave" in my hair (read - a perm without the poodle curls) that looks pretty awesome. i feel very sassy.

i also spent an awesome saturday with my friend H., wandering around Graceland Cemetery, a historic cemetery on the northside. There are some amazing old masoleums (including one shaped like a 20+ foot high pyramid, with an angel on one side of the door, a sphinx on the other, and a stained glass window of Jesus). There's a mausoleum designed by Louis Sullivan (who is buried nearby with a monument erected later by friends, complete with an embarrassingly glowing description of Sullivan's life), and burial sites for people like George Pullman (has his own stage with a single giant Roman column) and Cyrus McCormick. My favorite is the area for Daniel Burnham (leader of the Greco-Roman architectural style so popular in Chicago) and his wife and children. Graceland has a small lake at the northeast end of the cemetary (the area where all the barons of turn-of-the-century Chicago are buried) and Burnham has his own small island in the lake, with a bridge, and large bolders with plaques in place of regular carved tombstones. It's a beautiful, peaceful resting place. I found myself wanting to spread a blanket and have a picnic.

In fact, that is what cemeteries used to be - public green spaces. On that blustery Saturday, hardly anyone was in the cemetery. Only a few history gawkers, looking over the stones of family groups and trying to figure out who was related to who and how. But one recent grave, a double stone for a 39 year old man who died two years ago, with his mother's information already carved, save the death date, had a huge bunch of fresh tulips on the stone. So not all the dead are resigned to history and forgotten.

a rant a month late

So, yesterday morning before I left for work, I was watching the Weather Channel. And they had a little story called "Ground-Hog Wash" (that's how they spelled it), in which they talked about the fact that after Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early spring, we had some of the worst weather of the winter, and how some people were complaining about the groundhog getting it wrong.

Ok, I know that talking about the weather 24/7 probably can't always be exciting. But seriously, if there are people that actually expect a giant rodent to correctly predict the changing of the seasons, they have bigger problems than a late spring.

Nevermind the fact that the groundhog seeing his shadow meaning a longer winter doesn't even make sense. If the groundhog sees his shadow, that means it's sunny. You can't have a shadow without sun. And wouldn't it being sunny seem to indicate good weather - ie an early spring?

I think the whole groundhog thing has something to do with whether or not it's a good time to find a mate. He comes out, checks out the conditions, and if it's time for lovin', he goes out clubbin' and if not, he goes back to his hole to smoke a bong and take a nap. Let's see what Wikipedia has to say (provided the Colbert Nation hasn't fucked with the groundhog like they fucked with African elephants, that is).

From Wikipedia:

In traditional weather lore, if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If the groundhog sees its shadow because the weather is bright and clear, it will be frightened and run back into its hole, and the winter will continue for six more weeks.

Ok, so I do have it right. Does that even make sense? Cloudy weather equals early spring? What is that? It goes on to quote some old poems from Europe, and something about Native American sacrifices that doesn't make much sense, possibly being the cause. Nothing about actual NATURE, heaven forbid.

And anyway - from February 2, isn't 6 more weeks of winter, and an early spring, pretty much the same thing? A mid-March spring is pretty good, at least up north here.

The point of this rant - don't take weather predictions from something that can't read a radar.

why am i wearing tights under my pants?

I always love a fresh snow. Everything looks so clean and pretty when its covered with a thin layer of white. A fresh snow hides the flaws, and makes everything looks new and unspoiled.

And then two days later, you're left with messy piles of dirty slush, frozen puddles that break when you step on them, and the white dust left behind from miles of salt.

Add all this to constantly frozen toes, and it's no wonder I'm down. I need a weekend somewhere that has sunshine and fruity drinks and sand that burns your feet.

manipulation station

One of my favorite bloggers, Maggie Mason, wrote a post last week about the film "The Holiday" and how in the film, Kate Winslet ends up with Jack Black.

It seems to me that for a woman to play opposite a guy as good looking as Kate Winslet, they’d tell her to lose a hundred and fifty pounds and consider plastic surgery...I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie where the girl wins a stunning guy on the basis of her awesomeness. In the few examples I can think of, the guy overcoming a woman’s lack of conventional hotness is a central plot point. In movies, awesomeness only seems to really count if you’re a boy, and that makes me want to punch something.

Most of the comments on Maggie's blog completely miss the point she's making, telling her 'it's a great movie, you should see it before you comment,' or that they think Jack Black is funny, so that makes him cute. I wrote this most of this long post in her comment box, before realizing it was way too long for comments.

It has nothing to do with whether the movie is good or not (it looks good and I do want to see it). It has nothing to do with whether women are attracted to funny, conventionally unattractive men (I am!).

The point is that in the media, men aren't attracted to funny, unconventionally attractive women. It's a complete double standard that is being perpetuated by Hollywood - because you see old/unattractive men with hot women, but almost never see old/unattrative women with hot guys. Think about film and TV pairings, and ask how often the woman is the less attractive one. How many Hollywood leading women are not smoking hot? How many Hollywood leading men are not smoking hot?

What kind of messages is this sending? What is this consciously or unconciously telling us about what we as women and they as men should be attracted to? Because Hollywood doesn't reflect society as much as it helps to shape it. These subconcious messages are repeated over and over in films, TV and advertising, that women are only attractive when they are physically attractive.

Think about the furor over those Dove ads last year - there were all kinds of opinion articles out there from guys who said that seeing these "fat" women on billboards was disturbing to them, they didn't want to see size 8 or 10 women on billboards. Never mind that the women on the billboards were the same size or smaller than most of the women these men knew. These men have been trained to find a certain kind of body type (that maybe 5-10% of women have?) attractive. Women of a normal body type were "gross." If it had been a billboard of normal looking men, would women have had such violent reactions?

And it's not "instinctive" for men to find skinny women attractive, as some might claim. What is attractive has changed many times, and in many cultures, over history. 50 years ago, Marilyn Monroe was the hottest of hot - and she was a size 10, I think? Pale, white skin used to be attractive in Victorian England, as it was a sign of wealth (not having to work outside). Some cultures prize big hips, because it means a woman can bear children.

Society, and especially the media, condition men and women into what they believe is attractive - and who is in charge of most of this media? Who gets to pair funny balding men with physically attractive women? And why do they do this?

Who spends billions of dollars each year on getting skinny and looking attractive, men or women? Why do women wax, pluck, highlight, polish, suck in, wear killer high heels? What's convinced us that this is how we have to look in order for men to find us attractive? What's convinced men that only women who do this ARE attractive?

This is the point I think Maggie was going for.

happy *cough* end of quarter!

i managed to get the huge paper done and turned in this morning, so that's one monkey off my back. I have one more for my other class due on Wednesday, but it's not quite as problematic, I don't think, so it should be no problem.

well, except for the fact that I'm teetering on the edge of a sinus infection, i think. it remains to be seen. i'm trying to get the meds in to open everything up before the infection starts. right now, my sinuses are so inflamed that my face is puffy and my teeth hurt. i had to look this one up, since I'd never had it before, but it turns out that when the sinus cavity in your cheek, under your eyes, build up pressure, it can put pressure on the roots of your upper molars, and cause tooth pain. i could hardly eat yesterday on account of the pain in my mouth, never mind the pain in my face. it's been coming and going today, so I guess I'll just hope for the best.

society is going down the can

there is a McDonald's near my office (at Chicago/State), where I often get my morning coke (the fizzy kind, though I could probably also get the powdered kind there, too).

Over the weekend, they put in a CD vending machine.

It is this big machine with about 20 or so CDs and a couple of listening stations. You can swipe your credit card and a CD will dispense.

The whole concept is weird enough, but the music in it is even weirder. There's the new Foo Fighers and John Mayer albumns, and then there is a Neil Young Live album from 1970.

Because while I'm sucking down my cola and grease, I often think "Oh my god, I need to hear Neil Young RIGHT NOW!"

to all the friends i've loved before

my friends who i have barely seen these past weeks, just wanted to let you all know that i'm insanely busy with the end of the quarter, which will wrap up in about two more weeks. once I'm through this, I'll be able to hang out again.

i miss you all. so come over tuesday night, which i've set aside for poker, pizza and election returns. it's probably my only night off for the next few weeks.

random thoughts

It's almost dark outside. This is a rather depressing state of life in Chicago, which is on the eastern side of the Central time zone. It's dark at 4:00 in the winter.

This week, I'm almost too busy to think straight. I'm pretty sure next week will be no better. Thankfully, the quarter ends in two weeks and I'll have a month-long break. But I will miss the hilarity of kindergarten (where i'm told my hair is pretty several times a day).

It looks like the Democrats might win back the House, but the real question is "Will they do anything with it?" Like, say, take Bush to task? Work on fixing the budget or even better, No Child Left Behind? I'm hopeful, but I can only have my heart broken so many times.

I'm discovering that the longer I live in the city, the more I am completely unlike my family. I'm sure that being the black sheep is the reason I ended up here in the first place, but every time I see them, I feel like we get each other a little bit less.

good luck, kids...

last night in my education class, one of my fellow classmates was talking about teaching a lesson where she gave students cards with root words on them, and other cards with suffixes and prefixes, to make new words.

thinking of the word "unbroken," one of the root words she supplied was "broken," and she was telling us about how one of her students caught her mistake, and the root word should have been "broke."

The following is the actual conversation I had a moment later.

the guy sitting next to me leans over and whispers "what's the difference between broke and broken?"

I look at him for a moment in confusion, then say, "well, broke is a past tense verb, and broken is usually an adjective."

he looks at me for a moment in confusion, so I add, "like this pen. You can say 'The pen is broken.' or you can say 'I broke the pen.'"

He still looks confused and then asked, "What about, 'The pen is broke.'?"

In my head, I'm calling him an idiot while I say, "That's not correct usage. The pen is either broken, or you broke it."

"Oh," he says, "ok, that's a good one to know."

Yeah, it really is. Thank god this guy's going to be teaching middle school math. I hope he's better with pre-algebra.

vamping it up

this new look is semi-temporary. i need to play with the new blogger tools and figure out how to customize this thing a big, especially the column width, as this narrow little column is driving me a little buggy. As is this pink. but for now, enjoy the new tickers, the labels, and the blogger-provided comments. sorry, all your old, insightful comments are now gone.

um, i'm gonna go do some work now...

those who do not remember history

as a person who had a cardboard cutout of JFK in her room all through college, it seemed like a forgone conclusion that on a trip to Dallas, I'd squeeze in a visit to the Sixth Floor Museum.

so, I'm in Dallas for work, and this morning had a few free hours to spare. I've barely left the hotel since I got here on Wednesday, but with my free time, I hopped the local light rail three stops down the street to Dealey Plaza and the former Texas School Book Depository (Now the Dallas County Administration Building).

The sixth and seventh floors of the Book Depository have been transformed into the Sixth Floor Museum, which is home to a good museum chronicling the Kennedy administration and the assassination. The best artifact is the scale model of Dealey Plaza created by the FBI for use in the Warren Commission investigation. The museum was fairly crowded, but almost everyone was following the audio tour and as a result the place was nearly silent, except for the audio of the various film clips. The corner where the "gunnest" was located is surrounded in clear glass and is set up to look like it did when found (though not exactly, as the officers who found it disturbed the boxes in the site, so no one is exactly sure how it looked).

The disturbing part is the street outside. Two Xs are painted in the middle of Elm Street to indicate the two places where Kennedy was shot. By the further X, over on the grass (not far from the infamous grassy knoll) is a small plaque.



It says Dealy Plaza "has been designated a National Historic Landmark. This site possesses national signifiance in commemorating the history of the United States of America."

that's it. There's no mention of Kennedy or the assassination, save the two Xs painted in the streets. Men with posterboards about the assassination stand on the street corners in the plaza, eagerly pointing out the various sites to wandering visitors, while selling books detailing the conspiracy. Groups of smiling tourists stand in the fire line between Kennedy and Oswald to have their picture taken with tbe book despository in the background, or the grassy knoll, or the spot where the final bullet struck behind them. A few stop to read the plaque, but none seem to puzzle over it, and none seemed to stop to contemplate what happened on this spot.

The street is a busy one, leading to a highway, and I wonder at the people who drive over those Xs daily on the commute to work. Do they think about the significance, or is it such a part of their daily routine that it no longer interests them?

I tried to sit in front of that second X, next to the spot where that final shot struck, and think about what was and what might have been, how things might have been different if the car had swerved or Kennedy had ducked. I couldn't really think. I was distracted by giggling tourists and flash photography and traffic. By the people who visit these sites, without understanding the reality, the importance.

I went through similar feelings when visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C. These sites represent something grave and tragic in our shared history, yet they're treated by most visitors like a required stop or a carnival, with no interest in or emphasis placed on the sad historical memories these places hold. The plaque that marks the location of Kennedy's assassination cannot even be put into words - it must be described in vague euphamisms. It's hard for me to describe what I felt. Just a vague sense of unreality, and a bit of disgust. Like there should be something MORE. That the visitors to this site should have some sort of emotional connection, some sense of interest or outrage, rather than treating it like a souviner store.

But history, in all it's weirdness, survives, even when it's rarely noticed. At the corner of the book depository, at street level below the sixth floor window of the sniper's nest, is a plaque that states that the "building gained national notoriety when Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot and killed President John F. Kennedy from a sixth floor window as the presidential motorcade passed the site." And I discovered that some still pay attention, are still interested in or outraged by, our shared history. They remember history and how things can be changed in an instant. They care about the past. On the plaque, the word "allegedly" has had a line carved underneath it.

i love the '80s! strikes back!

this afternoon on my way back from lunch, i saw a woman in stirrup pants/leggings, with black flats and a long sweater.

the 80s have returned! time to start pegging your jeans again.

in other news...

Today's winner for most ridiculous headline goes to CNN

Megadeth angry at United Nations

procrastination: it's how things get done

i'm a horrible procrastinator. i'll admit it. i'm always the one getting stuff done the night before. it's virtually impossible for me to finish something early.

i took today off work, as I have some vacation days i need to use up before the end of the fiscal year. I figured it would be a good day to work on a huge project for school. it's 15 small papers that need to be done by the end of the quarter, 15 days from now (sprint class!). So far, I've finished one. But I've done a load of laundry, groomed the cats and vaccummed the house. I might fail Intro to Research, but at least something is getting done.

also, i spent 10 minutes today looking for my house keys. it turned out the cat was sitting on them.

waiting to barf

i spent much of last night, and parts of today, about to barf, due to a drug interaction, I think.

sitting on the bathroom floor at 2 am, feeling your stomach churn and your mouth water, knowing the inevitable is coming, feeling it build up, has to be one of the worst feelings in the world. it's not like barfing when you are drunk, and it surprises you out of nowhere.

thankfully, i never did throw up. i hate throwing up. but since i never did, i just spent the night tossing and turning, my queasiness not allowing me a solid night of sleep. hopefully I'll fair a bit better tonight.

i've been back from new orleans for about a week. it was mostly a good trip, though i spent most of it working and didn't really get out much. new orleans is mostly a ghost town, the population dramatically decreased. the tourist areas are mostly up and running, though many major chain stores are closed, not from damage but from lack of workers, and most of the restaurants didn't have enough help. the outlying areas are a different story. i saw one business that has a trailer park set up in it's parking lot, and about half of the company's employees are still living in trailers in the lot, their houses destroyed and not yet livable. there is a good deal of construction and tarps and broken fences, street signs missing. I didn't make it into areas like the Ninth Ward, that were hardest hit.

We will be standing momentarily

On my way into work this morning, my train was delayed "due to signal problems." I was able to have a relaxing doze while the train spent twenty minutes getting between two stops.

I'm so thankful that i'm not one of those super-important people for whom a train delay is a level-5 emergency. There was a woman on my train who made approximately 14 phone calls in that 20 minutes, letting the entire Northern Hempisphere know that she was running late, while she stood next to the door, her body vibrating with tension. Between calls, she stared at the crack where the two doors joined, as if by sheer will, she could make the doors open and magically deposit her at her platform.

blargh

so, i have a stomach virus (i blame E. - though, I give him credit for -mostly- being very nice to me while i've been whiny).

i, the queen of immunity, who hasn't thrown up without the aid of alcohol since 1995, has been felled by a virus. thankfully, it's not tootoo bad. but it's bad enough that i've been trapped in my house all weekend, unable to eat and basically becoming exhausted if i do much more than travel between the bed and the couch.

it's the end of day 2, and i'm bored out of my skull. the only thing keeping me in the house is the tight knot of pain in my middle, oh and a deathly fear of possible public barfing. thankfully, the barfing is probably in the past, but the pure exhaustion is not. i tried to go out for a little while this morning, but the dragging in my limbs and the spiking fever drove me back to bed.

i spent 5 hours sleeping this afternoon. now it's 9 pm, and i'm wide awake with a stomach ache and nothing to do. and sunday tv sucks.