Going Bananas

Such a long, long time to be gone
and a short time to be there

If my sister hadn't died, she would have turned 50 today. Instead, she's been gone for 26 years--more years than she lived, which means I've lived more years without her than with her. And, of course, that's the case for life in general--we're dead for more years than we were alive, and pretty quickly, in the scope of the world's time. At this point, it's not just missing her qua her; of course I miss the stupid jokes we shared, and the rest of our shared childhood and adolescence, but the sadness, at this point, has at least as much to do with not knowing what she would have become, what she would have done, how she would have transformed into an adult. Would she have gone on to become a force in the world of international development? Would her budding feminism have grown? Or maybe she would have come home from the Peace Corps, gotten married, had a few kids, and had a boring office job somewhere. I kinda doubt that, but I also recognize that the work she might have done is my fantasy about her; there's no way to know what she really would have done. It's like reading a really wonderful novel, one of those big juicy ones with lots of interesting characters, and having the author quit writing after only a third of the novel, and it's not in any library anywhere, so you'll never know what might have happened to the characters.

And, of course, Chuck's mother and the mother of a close friend from college both died this year, and I knew them both reasonably well--the latter for as long as I've known my friend, which is coming up on 32 years; and Sara committed suicide. (I can't bring myself to erase her number from my phone. It'll go away when I switch phones eventually, as will the last call I received from her, but she lingers electronically.) (I have known three people who committed suicide: a cousin, a friend/lover in Philadelphia, and Sara. Is that a lot? Because it seems like it to me.)

On the other hand, my parents' health, despite a variety of bumps (some of them literal, in the case of my dad's rash; Ron, my mom doesn't have a plant, so it seemed easiest to recommend a jar of the goop, and the steroids are doing their thing), continues to be pretty good, all things considered; my mom got a kidney; my brother and I both have jobs (and I even got a promotion and raise); I saw more events this year, between concerts and hockey, than any other year in my life; and I had good company to share while I did it.

I guess, when it comes down to it, I don't know how to sum it up and reach a single evaluation: "good" or "bad" year. I try to go along with as much equanimity (and even joy) as possible, and I try to share as much of that as I possibly can, but it's not as though we can take any of it with us--which, for me, is all the more reason for dancing along as best we can, when we're lucky enough to have the basics. Not needing to worry about food and shelter and meaningful work and so on really is priceless. Given a sufficiency of the basics, it's the little things that improve our lives and that really make a difference.

For example, when I talked to my mom this morning, she was about to have a banana, and I suggested she put peanut butter on it as well. She was absolutely delighted at the prospect of the banana, with or without the pb. Why is that significant? Because, for those of you who haven't dealt with kidney issues, things like peanut butter and bananas are too high in forbidden elements. For several years now, my mom, who loves bananas, has had to limit herself to a few bites, and definitely not every day. Being able to eat whatever she damn well pleases, not needing to soak potatos overnight, not needing to go to dialysis three days a seek, is a radical realignment of her world. Knowing my mom, she won't go crazy--for her, it basically means she can have fruits and vegetables again, without having to worry that it will wreak havoc on her potassium or phosphates or whateverthehell. I realize that the kidney itself is a huge thing, rather than a small thing, but my point here is that the effect of the kidney is in how it alters a lot of small things about her everyday life.

Anyway. I don't have any grand conclusions today. I did manage to do the laundry and make the banana bread and clean up a tiny bit, plus I shlepped north and got some good chocolates and some collard greens. Friend and I are going out to an early dinner tonight, then heading to the sweatpants and the couch. Tomorrow we'll make pork (to make the spirit of my grandmother happy); I found a recipe for collard greens stuffed with a mixture of rice, currants, tomatos, pine nuts, and some other stuff, all of which I had around (except the greens); and I have some sweet potatos I need to use. If any (or all) of y'all were around, I say hey, come on over! That not being possible, may your new year be full of sweetness and light and joy and love.

Nothing to See Here

So for this week in food, the c'testants provided more confirmation of their qualities and personalities. The four best chefs are clearly the Brothers Volt, Keith the Pig Man, and Jen. The other four remaining chefs are all pretty mediocre, despite their opinions of themselves. Their failures may have been from execution, but the failures are at least as likely to be failures of ideas, or failures of just not knowing enough to put something good together.

Robin does seem to be annoying, in several dimensions, but Eli and Mike I-for-Idiot are just sexist assholes. Both of the guys seem to think they are great chefs, which they are not; both seem to think they're oh-so-much-better than Robin, evidence of which I haven't seen; and both act as though every week that Robin remains is an affront to them personally, which is getting really quite tiresome. The fourth chef, Laurine, doesn't seem all that super-talented, but she has a pretty low profile on the show, too. She clearly doesn't have the experience that the top four have, or the chops in general, but she's also not running her mouth all the time.

Mike, in particular, is just an ass. He acts and talks as though he is completely the shit, but he doesn't seem to know how to cook in very many cuisines or styles, and he does not seem to have a grasp of many of the basics. Perfect example: he was teamed with Robin last week, and their bag of food was Asian-themed. Mike asked Robin if she knew anything about Asian food and flavor profiles. She said yes, she did; he said that he did not, but that he was going to run the show, he was going to make all the food, he was going to let her make whatever she wanted and then not serve that part. Simple Asian isn't that difficult to do, if you've got the ingredients in front of you (garlic, soy, ginger, and pepper of some kind will get you pretty far), and two of the other dishes failed much more spectacularly, so neither of them was in danger of going home, but it was just so incredibly dismissive. I've run into men like that throughout my life, and they are so very very very tiresome.

I stumbled across Colicchio's blog yesterday--he's one of the hosts/judges of the show, as well as the owner of several NYC restaurants--and it was quite interesting. I don't know if he does his own writing or if someone edits it or takes dictation, but it's quite well-written, and it definitely provides additional insight and commentary on the actual cooking and the judging thereof.

Anyway. Today was another of my exercises in doing everything on public transportation. I woke up "late" (i.e., about 6:30), puttered a bit, worked out for 20 minutes, showered, and left the house at about 8:20. I took a train (where a kid--teenager?--sat down next to me, despite the multitude of completely empty seats, and then proceeded to crowd me, rub against me, and generally try to get a rise out of the White Lady (he was black); when I got up to get off the train, he promptly got up, and sat down next to another white woman sitting alone, and started up with the same shit, which confirmed that it wasn't my imagination; what an asshole), then a bus, then walked about 1/4 mile to the restaurant where I was meeting kstyle (!1!!) and her husband, who were passing through town, for breakfast. We had a fine time until 11:30, then I walked 2 miles to the acupuncture place. Left there about 75 minutes later, took a bus, then another bus, to a shopping corridor. Went to Trader Joe's (butter, nuts, dried fruit, carrots), Bed Bath Beyond (new water purifier thingy, plus two extra filters), the liquor store (four bottles of wine on sale), Peet's Coffee & Tea (four canisters of tea, plus a free cup), then took a bus two blocks to the el, then took the train home (after waiting for 20 minutes because there was some kind of breakdown), then walked about four blocks lugging all the crap listed above. I got home a little before 5. If i'd been driving, I would have left the house at 9:00, and I likely would have been home by, oh, 3:30, and I would have been able to buy a case of wine--and get the case price--instead of 4 bottles.

On most levels, I don't mind this at all; the only time I've had it any other way was when Chuck and I lived together and he could shlep me to the store, but on errand days like today, unless he was coming along for all the errands, I might well have done big chunks of it on public trans anyway. (Of course, I was living downtown then, too, so many trips were shorter.) Some days it does feel like a chore, though. I know that to do anything, but especially to do a full day's worth of running around, I have to allot time in every slot for waiting for and riding on buses and trains, and I know that I have to make sure not to buy more than I can carry, and I have to make sure to plan my route to minimize the distance I'm going to be fully laden. I also bring a book, because there will be waiting and riding; that part is kind of fun, actually, because I end up with plenty of time to read.

Thus, today I started reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, and I am absolutely loving it; it's one of those books where I'm torn between wanting to do nothing except read and wanting to slow down and read it only a bit at a time, so the experience lasts longer. (Yes, I know that's weird.) I purposely put Peet's at the end of the list of visits so I could get my free cup of tea and sit and read for awhile, with no agenda and no rush to get home, which is really one of the great pleasures in life.

I also spent a bunch of time tonight on the phone with an old friend from college--someone I met my very first day of school, back in February of 1977--and it was wonderful. We've known each other for nearly 33 years (really? can that possibly be true?), and there's something special about talking to someone who has known you that long but who isn't family (and who knows your family!). I don't have any friends at all from high school or my home town, so it's really my college friends who have been around the longest.

I'm sure I have some Profound Observations somewhere, but they're not appearing tonight, so you've had another lunch post; oh well. I've been fighting off something for about 10 days; I have no clue whether it's a cold, or just side effects from lots of dry air, or just general malaise, but I've managed to avoid all symptoms except an incipient sense of my body doing battle against something.

New Seasoning

So we're several episodes into the new season of Top Chef, and no one who has gone home has not deserved to go, especially in recent weeks, as we've had a chance to see people work over a couple of episodes. It's interesting to see how people's foibles seem to leak out in spite of the editing, and probably a bit because of the editing, but still. For example, it's becoming clear that Michael I. is a twerp who has an incredibly inflated sense of his abilities, in addition to being a sexist asshole--in an early ep, he noted that there was no way a girl should be even with him--hey, asshole, the women aren't cooking with their ladyparts, and you're not cooking WITH your dick, you ARE a dick; there's a difference. The Voltaggio brothers know their shit; they may stumble occasionally, but there isn't a major fail.

They're setting Robin up to get rid of her, or at least I hope they are, but last night was brutal, too. For one thing, they started the episode by having everyone talk about how she's been lucky and she really doesn't belong there. Know what, people? If that's true, then eventually she'll fuck up worse than everyone else. She's been saved so far--her drunken shrimp was hideous, but Mattin's raw fish that made people sick was far, far worse; last night, she managed to win the quickfire, so she had immunity, plus Ron's dish was really bad--but only because someone else has been worse. And one of the cheftestants (sorry, Larry) basically said she won the quickfire by mentioning that she'd had cancer to the judges. Which, seriously, is over the top rude. Does he really think the judges are so stupid that they'd be taken in by that? On the other hand, as the episode unrolls, it becomes clear that she is annoying the shit out of everyone, mostly by narrating everything she's doing, which, yeah, that would make me a bit crazy, too. Also, because she has immunity for the elimination challenge, she claims she's going to just try to do a great job and play with it, but she really doesn't do anything interesting. So, no, I'm not convinced she belongs there; the question is whether they get rid of her or Mike I. first. Or maybe they guy who insisted on bringing his own pressure cooker, and taping it together because the baggage handlers screwed it up, and then it exploded in the kitchen (!!), which, sorry, would also piss me right the fuck off. A chatterer is annoying, but an exploding pressure cooker can maim or kill someone, and that basic disregard for one's fellows is even worse.

Last night's challenge was interesting; each of them had to "deconstruct" a classic dish. On one hand, several of the chefs had no clue what it meant to deconstruct a dish, despite what appeared to be some brief instruction about that. A couple of others--most notably Jen, I think--understood the concept but didn't actually do any of that, because they worked in a place that focused on doing the classics AS classics. Mostly notably, Mike I. had no fucking clue what "florentine" meant. He was supposed to do eggs florentine, and he kept calling it "eggs new-to-me," which is just not very funny. And I think he even had to be told that it included spinach, which kind of blew me away; does he really not know that "florentine" = "has spinach in it"? I suppose I can forgive him for not knowing the back story of that--what with Florence, Italy and the Medicis and all--but to not seem to know that basic fact is more evidence of what an ass he is.

The other thing was how Jen was completely stressing about her deconstructed meat lasagna--as the episode was going on, I was actually coming up with a deconstructed version of that in my head, perhaps because I've made it a million times. I would have had more trouble with some of the others (and, oh, wait, I'm not actually good enough to be a contestant on this show). I was also (probably inordinately) pleased that several of the elements in her final version were in the neighborhood of what I was thinking. Actually, her final dish is also a good example of one of the two reasons I'm not TC material: yes, I would have done homemade pasta; yes, I would have done the meat separately; yes, i would have done a simple tomato sauce, though maybe a different one than she did--but that whole crispy parmesan thing? Not so much, and it sounded as though that really made the dish work. Also, my mom never did a bechamel sauce in her lasagna, but we did do ricotta, so I don't know if that would make a difference.

The other reason that I'm not TC material is that these guys have practically no time to come up with and make this stuff, which, if you're going to work a hot line in a restaurant, you damn well better be able to do. I've gotten much more efficient in the kitchen, but I'm still not a line cook and I'm not well-suited to doing that. Some of the shit that gets thrown on a plate is kinda eh, especially because we're still early in the season, but they have a much wider selection of techniques and recipes (especially sauces) in their heads than I have.

Still, my main criticism of the show remains. I think a dish only comes together after a few iterations, with critiques and notes along the way. The ability of the Volt bros. and Jen to put incredible things out without that is evidence of their skills, for sure; it's a useful technique for separating the hacks from the good cooks. But as the season goes on, I think it would be more instructive to see how they would utilize that iterative process to kick the dish up to the next level.

For the concert report, I have to note that the Bruce concert was one of the two or three best shows I've ever seen; I've seen him 25 or 30 times, and this was incredible. As I'd suspected (and hoped), the people who were most likely to show up were people who were excited at the thought of Bruce playing Born to Run straight through--something he's never done before. (The other night he said they'd done it once, way back in the day, in Red Bank, NJ.) And, in fact, that's who was there: long-time devoted fans, which exponentially increased the energy of the whole thing. Bruce has always fed off of that, too, and this show was hell-bent-for-leather straight out of the box and then all the way through, for three solid hours. So, yay for that.

How I Got Here

Jonquil asked about Heinlein, which, in my slightly wine-besotted state, unleashed a flood of memory. Many of the people at Jonquil's place, including her, are science fiction/fantasy (SFF) fans, and quite a bit more knowledgeable and well-read in the genres than I am, I hasten to add.

As I was getting ready to go off to college, a local friend who was 7 years older than I and whom I knew from my theater stuff (and from our backgammon and herb and vodka-and-lemonade evenings with two gay friends) gave me "Stranger in a Strange Land," which I remember slogging through but not particularly liking. I liked the concept of "grokking," but I could not tell you a single other thing from the book, and it certainly did not inspire me to go find more Heinlein. I've since found out--from reading others' conversations--that Heinlein is a rank misogynist, so I'm just as glad I didn't bother.

And, as I've probably bored you with told you before, the guy who sat behind me in Algebra 3/Trigonometry (Jeff Innes, where are you . . .) insisted that I read Lord of the Rings, which I promptly did, thus capturing me for life. But I really didn't stumble across SFF other than that, somehow, despite my love of Kurt Vonnegut and despite my voracious appetite for the written word.

My college had (and has) something called Winter Term, wherein students are required to go do something for a month. Some people take a month-long course; some do an internship; some go volunteer someplace; when I was there, a group of black students retraced part of the route of the Underground Railroad (my college is notable for being the first racially integrated college in the country as well as the first college to educate men and women together, and the town was, in fact, a stop on the UR). Both professors and students teach the courses on campus, and, in retrospect, I suspect that professors use the winter term format to work out new courses as well as to teach or lead a month-long symposium on a subject into which they're delving, out of personal and/or professional interest. Anyway. One of my two favorite college professors taught a winter term course that I took on the subject of Work and the Meaning of Life. (is it any surprise that the meaning of work has been central to my thoughts throughout my sentient life? It's certainly been there for at least 30+ years.) I can still picture--as though it were yesterday--my professor reading a passage from a book a student had given him (I think), Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed:

"Here you think that the incentive to work is finances, need for money or desire for profit, but where there's no money, the motives are clearer, maybe. People like to do things. They like to do them well. People take the hard, dangerous jobs because they take pride in doing them, they can--egoize, we call it--show off?--to the weaker ones. Hey, look little boys, see how strong I am! You know? A person likes to do what he is good at doing. . . . But really, it is the question of ends and means. After all, work is done for the work's sake. It is the lasting pleasure of life."

And that single passage made me go to the bookstore, find that book, and then find other of LeGuin's books. Keeping an eye out for her name led me to other names, occasionally, and years later a friend suggested Sherri Tepper. I read The Gate to Women's Country and got drawn in again. Occasionally I'd read something that turned into a space western, and I still don't have much patience for those, and occasionally I stumble across something--possibly a recommendation from someone from Jonquil's flist,--that draws me in. Point being (in so far as I actually have one, which is debatable) that, despite my love for a number of SFF writers, in general my knowledge of and reading in the genres is limited. But when it's done well, I love the freedom to explore an idea. The Dispossessed, for example, asks the question, what would it be like to live in a society that did not have private property? How would that work? What problems would arise? What would happen if someone from that world went to a world where there was still private property? Frankly, it's one of the best explorations of anarcho-syndicalism I've ever seen, and one of my great regrets about leaving academia is not having the opportunity to teach that book in a political theory class.

Listalicious

I had intended to meet friends tonight--one friend has a son who was playing in a jazz trio at a photography center opening of some kind--and then . . . I bailed. I cranked away at work today (including five hours putting together the monthly report for BB, not least because my coworkers are unfamiliar with outlines, no matter how much I create them and hold their hands and practically write their fucking pieces for them), because I don't see how else I'm going to get through the next few weeks. And then I thought about the very long list of chores I'd set for myself (work out each day; go to two different farmers' markets, for honey, dried fruit, fresh fruit, and perhaps some vegetables and bread; clean the disgusting pit of a bathroom; do the laundry; do some baking; clean up the mess and clutter; and crank through as much of the second editing job as possible (the other editing job still isn't quite ready)), and I realized that I would be much happier if I came home and did a couple of things on the list.

So: DMB. When we bought the tickets, we each ended up choosing seats with "obstructed views." The first night, that turned out to mean "sitting in the second row on the side-ish of the stage," which isn't exactly my idea of obstructed. We wandered down, checked out the seats, and, as the opening band finished up, trudged up the hill for a beer. We came back down as DMB came out, and discovered that the seat directly in front of me was occupied by a young man who was--no lie--at least 6'7" tall. And he was standing. And he showed no inclination to sit down. And I am short. I could see absolutely nothing except his back. I was bumming--it was like having been given a wonderful treat and then having it ripped out of my hands.

I sat down--because seeing his ass wasn't so different from seeing his back--and tried to figure out how to somehow enjoy myself. Friend then made me switch seats with him--it turned out that the row in front of us was angled and shorter, such that Friend's seat was actually a front-row seat (I could have reached out and touched the stage). And he could see around very-tall guy, so it all worked out. We were so close that we were effectively behind the speakers, which meant the sound was kind of muddy (especially for those of us who are not huge fans who know the words to every song), but it was very fun. It was especially interesting to turn around and see 40,000 people behind us. The second night, our seats were near the back, not far from the sound board. Sightlines were pretty good, too, so it was a fun contrast with the previous night, and the sound was much better.

The first night, as we walked through the parking field, someone yelled out, from a van, "Hey! It's an old guy! Hi old guy!" The second night, as we walked to our seats, someone yelled out, "Hey! It's a silver fox!" (meaning me; Friend's hair isn't very grey, but mine definitely is). We were amused that we were both identified as Old--which, compared to this crowd, we certainly were; we could have been the parents of about 95% of the crowd. But, hey, we've been doing this for more years than many in the crowd have been alive, we know how to pace ourselves, and I'd say we get a few points for the effort.

We had a hotel room Saturday and Sunday night, and we had lunch on Sunday with friends of his who live not too far away. We originally planned to take a day off and wander back slowly on Monday during the day, but then ended up making a mad dash early in the morning to get to work, which meant we both had fewer than the requisite number of brain cells to rub together at work. But it was nice to get out of town. Part of why I want to crank for the next two weeks is that we're going out of town in two weeks--again only for the weekend, though we both plan to take off on Friday--and I want to get several things out of the way before that.

And, really, I just have a ton of deadlines. The challenging part--or one of them, anyway--is that it involves a number of detailed, complicated things all piled on top of each other, the kind of things where I like to make outlines, and plans, and get other people involved with plenty of advance notice, and so on, and that's basically just not possible. Take two of the things that are due soon, and that I have had on my desk for at least a couple of weeks--i.e., I've had some lead time on them--but that I have not been able to get to because too many other things have been in the way. But there's no point in fussing about it; I'll just do what I can and power through. I suppose I should have turned down this weekend's editing job and, say, just relaxed, or possibly even gone in to the office, but whatthefuck.

I'm half-watching "Pride & Prejudice," which is on Oxygen tonight, and I could write a fucking dissertation about the ads, but I think sleep would be the wiser choice. I did manage to get about 2/3 of the clutter put away, and the bathroom is clean (!!!!), so I was, indeed, able to cross off a few things from the list. Long day tomorrow, though, even if I only do some of the things on the list.

Bread Instead

Is it weird to include a loaf of bread in the price one charges for a pair of tickets?

Turns out the second home game of the next series is on Sunday . . . which is also Indy. Which would even have worked out if they'd played the game at, say, 8:00; we could have made a mad dash back and probably made it in time. But nooooooo; game's at 2:00. Flip side, though, Bossman is more than happy to buy the tickets: I asked for face value plus a loaf of miche, which is one of the best breads from the best bakery in the city. Friend tried (albeit not very hard) to convince me to try to sell them for big bucks, but I suck at that kind of thing. I'd much rather get my money back, get an incredible loaf of bread, and enable someone who will be VERY happy to go to the game actually go to the game. (Bossman had season tickets for years and got them again this year for the first time in a very long while, but the bill for playoff tickets showed up when some other major expense showed up, plus he probably didn't figure they'd go this far. Or something.)

I probably could get a ton of money for the tickets, I should note. For example, someone is selling two tickets to each of the first two games, in a similar section, for a total of $1000--but face for these tickets is about $100 apiece, or what would be $400 for the four. I guess I have this notion that even ticket resales operate on the what-goes-around-comes-around principle. People have helped me out multiple times, and I can turn around and help out someone else--plus I get a fabulous loaf of bread out of it as my "surcharge."

I don't have all that much to offer up here, though. There was an article in last Sunday's NYT about female bullies that annoyed the shit out of me, but I've been neglecting to write about it because it was the same old tired patriarchal bullshit. The article started off saying that 60% of the bullying done in the workplace was done by men . . . and then proceeded to say no more about male bullies. And, here's a surprise: men bully both men and women, but women bully mostly women. How fucking dense can this person be? Bullies pick on the weaker/subordinate people. Who's more likely to be subordinate(d)? Oh, wait, that would be . . . women. The comments were a whole other festival of woman-bashing--it made it sound as though no man ever bullied anyone ever, it was just all those mean ol' women. Jesus christ on a cracker. Of COURSE some women are bullies--being female does not mean one cannot be an asshole. But did you see the part where the vast majority of the bullying is done by men? (And that's provided that the measure of bullying is accurate, which, good luck with that; d'ya think there's any chance than any woman who is strong will be regarded as a bully by some people, simply because she isn't being all subordinate and shit?)

Did anyone even consider that women get points with patriarchal men if said women bash other women? Has anyone noticed how the patriarchy encourages women to police other women's behavior, thus making it look, to the untrained eye, as though it couldn't possibly be a sexist thing? Did anyone point out that many (patriarchal) structures reward bullies and assholes, so anyone who wants to succeed (or has to survive) within those structures has to engage in or at least tolerate that behavior? And who among us has the wherewithal to go up against a bully, especially if there's any kind of piling on? I am of an age, and education level, and income level, and I have a boss such that the consequences of calling out bullying are way less likely to be problematic for me, but most people don't have that privilege. (We also don't have any bullies, quite, where I am now, that I know of.)

The more interesting question for me is why people don't join together to fight a bully. Haven't you noticed the people who see the bullying going on but don't say anything, just sit around hoping the bully doesn't focus on them? Of course, someone above the bully in the hierarchy has to give at least tacit approval to the resistance, and someone has to be willing to point out that the emperor/empress is, in fact, unclothed, and that's difficult to do, and sometimes it's difficult to see it. And some situations cannot be changed: I have been extremely lucky in terms of my immediate supervisors. Seriously; despite the occasional irritations that are part of all human relationships, I have had very good bosses, with the occasional extraordinary one thrown in for good measure; that makes a huge difference, too.

The other thing I've discovered is that a strong personality can alter behavior for the good. I think most people would agree that I have a strong personality (though it took me decades--really--to figure that out, for an assortment of reasons), and one of the things that enables me to do is to set a tone in some settings. For example, I try very hard to compliment and acknowledge people publicly. Not in a blowing-smoke or sucking-up kind of way (because no one ever trusts that, nor should anyone trust that), but just acknowledging people's good works. It encourages others to do it, it feels good when someone does it, and it doesn't cost a damned thing. I know some people think everything is an all-or-nothing game--i.e., in order for you to do well, someone else has to do badly--but I really fight against that mindset, because I hate it. And that kind of positive influence can snowball--I may be able to start it, but others have to carry on with it.

I do wonder what would have happened if the one very difficult person hadn't left about a year ago. She and I would not have been a happy team, by any stretch of the imagination, and I am certain she would have done her best to sabotage me. Given the information imbalance that she would have had and would have fought to maintain, she would have succeeded, too, which means I would have left (or my boss would have had to choose). I'm just glad I don't have to deal with it. It's not that there are no frustration with my job now, and it's not as though there aren't always politics when two or more humans are around each other, it's that there's a whole other level of disfunction through which we don't have to fight.

Anyway, the stress continues: big site visit at the end of June, and at least one proposal between now and then, which will require a bunch of coordination with others, plus I need to get some data together, plus one of my coworkers will be gone for three weeks (don't ask), plus some hockey, and Indy, and Milwaukee . . . so, yeah. Might be a little busy around here.

Pole Day with Hockey

Whew.

This week was, in fact, rather insane, in a very good way, what with two hockey games, a concert, and, last night, a few beers with the medical director, whom I like tremendously, not to mention going full-throttle all week on the budget stuff, with very little help from anyone else. There are housekeeping chores this weekend and a lot of hockey and racing on television (Formula 1 qualifying was this morning at 7 and the race is tomorrow morning, and today was Pole Day at Indianapolis, when the drivers fill the first 11 spots on the grid for the 500, including the pole). So I watched F1 qualifying as I puttered around, then my mom called as I was getting ready to leave. We talked for awhile, and then I headed out for the shopping.

Which was interesting, in an unexpected way. I wandered over to the bakery to get some bread--I have yet to find a place in this city that makes bread that even comes close--and ended up chatting with Bossman for a few minutes about hockey (he had season tickets but didn't get playoff tickets). I stopped at an Argo that I walked past, because I realized I had a card in my wallet with some money on it, so that tea was sort of free. Stopped at the bank, then to Peet's for more tea (I had been running low both at work and at home). Because I bought tea in bulk, I had a free cup coming to me, so I settled in with my book. After awhile, I realized that I was in no rush to get anywhere, for the first time in what felt like ages. I had no plans for tonight, other than to watch hockey, and no plans for the afternoon, for that matter, other than watching some of Pole Day and working out, which could be done simultaneously. I could read, drink my tea, and just relax, for as long as I wanted, before I headed to Whole Paycheck. It felt very nice, I have to say.

I even managed to stock up on some produce for the week, so I won't have to live on the oatmeal stashed in my desk drawer--strawberries were on sale, and I got some broccolini, too, which I'll steam and take to work cold, perhaps with some of the lemon tarragon dressing I got. (Okay, this has devolved into a what-I-will-have-for-lunch blog, which is pretty pathetic.) Some pistachios, so I can make another batch of nougat with the egg whites and dried cherries I still have around; I still have an orange that isn't moldy, so I'll use the peel of that, too, except this time I'll remember to boil it to open the pores and soften it, and then perhaps put it right into the boiling sugars. And maybe I'll make another batch of cookies and take some to work.

As you may be able to tell, Friend is out of town--hunting wild turkeys, this week and next week, with a brief foray back into town from tomorrow sometime until Tuesday. If he doesn't get a ticket for Monday's game and doesn't get back early enough tomorrow, I won't see him until next weekend or after, but, with my schedule, I'll barely notice. (Okay, that's only partly true.) This week includes at least one hockey game, a concert, and at least one dinner with a friend; I want to see a couple of other friends, too. I had intended to do a weekend yoga workshop next weekend, but realized that if the Hawks keep winning, it would conflict. I could still sign up, and might do so, but another weekend like this one--i.e., with sports on the TV and not a lot else to do--could be a good thing, especially because the following two weekends will involve going to races and, possibly, hockey games.

One of the downsides to watching all this television, though, is the re-immersion in the patriarchy. Yeah, I know, it's not like I don't run into it in the rest of my life--I do not have a Rancho Deluxe--but I watch relatively little television at my house, and, at Friend's, often as not it's on tape and we zip past the commercials. And, of course, commercials are the biggest source of the crap. Frex, the Pl@yb0y channel is advertising heavily on the channel on which the hockey games are playing, and the ad is getting on my last fucking nerve. I won't bore you with a recounting of it, but it scores on every last patriarchal trope. Then there's a Bridgestone tire commercial that features Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head--she's nagging him in this shrill voice about his driving, he has to stop short, or swerve, or something, and her lips go tumbling down the hill, shutting her up--and guaranteeing I'll never buy Bridgestone tires. Not that I have any intention of buying a car or tires, but it is a wildly offensive ad. And so on.

Plus there are the endless beer ads--did you know that Mi!!er is "triple-hops brewed"? And it still tastes like piss! (Yes, I know, I have become a total beer snob, and I don't care; I do not want to waste time, calories, or buzz potential on crappy beer.) And the new pasta thingies from, um, Pizza Hut, maybe? I love how they make up names that sound like they should mean something in the language of the cuisine they're supposedly producing--Italian, in this case, so they come up with "Tuscani" (pronounced "tuss-CAHN-ee") or something. Sort of like Tuscany, but with that "i" at the end to signify that it's Italian. No, really! Just like you get at restaurants! Restaurants like Pizza Hut, anyway; not so much at places where the food is good. Or the pasta in a bread bowl from Domino's: I figure you have to cut it in half, so you can slap a half on each ass cheek. Okay, fine, so I'm a food snob, too; sue me. It's not like cooking good food has to be expensive.

Anyway, I have to stop carping so I can devote my full attention to hockey.

The Advantage of Cranky

As the scarcity of posts might suggest, I have been occupied with extrablogular activities. Work, mostly, which has been time-consuming and difficult, but also some hockey (with more in the offing); okay, lots of hockey, because I'm watching on television what I'm not watching in person. Friend has been in a frenzy, as well, because he's going turkey-hunting two weeks in a row, and the preparations are extensive. (He fusses more than anyone I've ever met, except myself--his systems have systems. Of course, many of mine do, as well, so I understand. But back to that in a moment.)

Next week, for example, I have two hockey games and a concert, as well as major deadlines at work. The following week I have a concert and possibly a hockey game, depending on how the series is playing out, and dinner with a friend. I have promised to (and want to) hook up with at least one pastry school friend in the next two weeks--if we can figure out how to include the Brazen Tart (so i can hear more about this farm thing she's mentioning!), then we'll do that, too. Then there's Indy at the end of the month, and June will be consumed with preparing for a visit from our federal funders at the end of the month.

The last two weeks at work have been difficult--we're supposed to be using this new financial software to do our budget for the year, which, okay, whatever. Except, of course, it doesn't necessarily accommodate all of the quirks of federal funding and the program income (in the form of Medicaid and/or Medicare reimbursement) that is sometimes included in the federal budget and sometimes is not. And I've never done this before. And the person who was doing the budgets before me was an ass, in multiple dimensions, primarily in the form of not telling anyone what she was doing and making things unnecessarily complicated. On top of that, the controller for our organization keeps changing the bits we need to pay for and is less than clear about where, exactly, they're supposed to go in the context of this software.

So, of course, yesterday I had to spend the whole day at a management retreat with the management team, doing team things. The person who facilitated it was good at it, and it wasn't as completely heinous as it could have been, but the timing made it less worthwhile. I'm being pressured to have the budget done by close of business on Monday, so being forced to spend a whole day away from it was rather problematic. As a result, I'll do what I can on Monday, but that's it. And I have a concert to attend Monday night, and a hockey game Tuesday night. My feeling about the whole thing is that I'll do what I can do, but if the organization sees fit to drag me away from the budget for a "retreat," then I have no problem going to a concert on my own time, rather than, say, working through the weekend or something.

One of the interesting dynamics yesterday is that our manager self-identifies (according to one of the exercises) as a "feelings" person (or "informal" and "easygoing," to use the metric of the day)--he's the only one in that quadrant. Which means to me that he'd damn well better have some people who are "formal" (in the sense of write things down, have meetings with a purpose, be task-oriented) and "dominant." At first, I was the only one in that quadrant, and I was kind of pissy about being forced to put myself there, because I have adapted to so many different environments. Reasonably quickly, the new medical director--whom I like tremendously and with whom I really enjoy working--realized she belonged with me, and a third person (whom I actually don't think belongs with us) joined us. I pointed out to the medical director that she and I had more education than anyone else in the room, and that we had obtained it in male-dominated environments, which I think affects how one operates. it's also worth mentioning that, except for our boss, who is gaygaygay, everyone on the team is female. It's the most female environment in which I have ever worked in my whole life.

The funny thing about this, to me, is that you can only have these discussions in office world. Of course there are different personalities in other environments, but in a place like the bakery, we have to get a product out the damned door. Everyone had best be task-oriented. And, more to the point I'm trying to make, in many ways, in that environment, I was, by comparison, more "analytical" (i.e., formal and easygoing), when I was working with Bossman on a new product, and also the person who did a lot of smoothing things like a feeling person would do (e.g., the pizza on Saturdays). Yes, I was also organized and task-oriented and so on, but so was everyone else, so that became an irrelevant evaluative criterion. In office world, you can lose sight of this. Of course, one could argue that this is a typical task-oriented-person's assessment, and you might even be right.

The other thing that was interesting is that we nearly left without discussing the biggest challenge we all face: the boss's boss is demanding, doesn't respect boundaries, wants what she wants when she wants it, etc. (which sounds like addict behavior, if you ask me, though I have no reason to think that's true). But as we were discussing challenges and how we were going to meet them, etc., I finally said, "Are we going to discuss the elephant in the room?" And our boss said yes, we should, and the facilitator said, good, let's finish this other thing first and come back to it. What was amusing was that everyone knew what i was talking about; it was also amusing, to me, that I was the one who mentioned it. If I hadn't, it wouldn't have gotten said, and all of the fine suggestions the facilitator was throwing around would have been useless for 70% of the problems we face. (What happens is she decides something is a crisis, she fires off urgent emails to our boss, and he comes barging in to whatever we were doing and flails around about it. The underlying issue is that she does not realize that we cannot do the grand expansions she has in mind without getting the operational infrastructure in place--the infrastructure that either never existed or that crumbled under her watch.) So we actually talked about it, but what I've been saying to my boss for months is still true: he's going to have to suck it up and confront her on these things. At least other people thanked me for bringing it out in the open, and I could sense the relief everyone felt to be discussing it; as I said yesterday, I'm nothing if not blunt. Actually, the whole group became more animated during that discussion, despite it being the end of the day, than they had all the rest of the day, which means everyone wanted to talk about it, even if they were afraid to bring it up.

And I think that is yet another advantage of being a cranky old broad: it's clear to me that this is one of the main underlying issues, and we can do nothing if it isn't discussed. No one else was willing to bring that up, however, even though nothing would get solved if we don't discuss this and do something about it. But, really, I don't care: what's she going to do to me? And, frankly, I'd tell her to her face--diplomatically, of course, and acknowledging her needs and her position, but seriously. So, for once, my what-the-fuckityness came in handy for actually addressing an issue. We'll see what happens.

Book Love

When I was in my early teens, I'd go to the local public library with my dad. I'd rummage around on the "new fiction" shelf, and the "adult fiction" (as opposed to the YA fiction, which I found tedious in multiple dimensions), and maybe look something up with the catalogue. I'd end up with a stack of books, and sitting in the car with that stack always gave me a little thrill. I'd read the first couple of pages of a few of the books, or look again at the description on the inside jacket flap, and I'd decide on an order in which I'd read the books, saving what i thought would be the best book for last.

It turns out that, 35 years later, I still do this.

I zipped down to the library late yesterday afternoon, expecting to pick up one book that was on hold for me and finding that two others had come in as well, and I stood on the train platform and started doing that surveying-my-haul thing.

While rummaging through the library's online catalogue, I stumbled across Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, about his hiking on the Appalachian Trail. I have had to be careful where I read the book, because he makes me laugh out loud--he is a very good writer, and it's extremely funny. (He could use a good editor or spellcheck program, though; I've found three or four egregious typos.) I highly recommend that particular book, and I'm definitely going to find some of his other stuff as well.

The other thing I found online recently is a bakery-cam. Yes, that's right; there is now a live webcam in the back of the bakery where I worked. It's more a stop-action cam--it updates every 10 seconds or so, rather than being a continuous feed--but still. I just peeked in and saw Phil and Bossman making rolls (it looks like they have a new roll divider; I'll have to ask him about that). I have to say that watching it the other day made my stomach clench a little bit: I look at it, and I am nothing but happy that I'm not doing that any more. In fact, being away from it for a year (and being able to watch it on my monitor) has made me realize just how much I hated working there by the time I left, for a combination of reasons.

I liked the people, and I even liked a number of aspects of the work, but I got up every morning and had to will myself to not think about how much I didn't want to be doing it. That kind of numbing isn't good for anyone. I've had office jobs where that was true, too--I think it's unavoidable, no matter what you do; that's why they call it "work" and why they have to pay you to do it--but I never felt anything like I did at the bakery. I think it was the combination of low pay and physically taxing work, along with the knowledge that I had absolutely no future either there or in that line of business generally, that made it so depressing.

And as for today's rant:

Burger King has now managed to completely piss me off with a second ad campaign. The current one has these two guys, one with a bag full of their new mini burgers. He tells his buddy to watch, and shows the bag to a woman, who proceeds to squeal idiotically over them, about how cute they are, etc., as if (a) the burgers are babies and (b) all women squeal uncontrollably at the sight of something small and cute. It is beyond annoying. Their previous campaign featured the announcer saying something like, "people are going to bed hungry tonight," or something like that, the solution being BK's new late hours. It was beyond offensive. Got news for you, Idiot Ad-Writer: many people are going to bed hungry because they can't afford food.

I know! Let's cut taxes! THAT will work, for sure! Or at least that's what the idiot Republicans will tell you. I can't even write about politics, because it will make my keyboard explode. (If I could lose weight by ranting, I'd have it made.)

Why was Aretha wearing that hat?

Because she IS Aretha, and, yes, she can wear any damn hat she wants. I also appreciated the subtext of shout-out to Marion Anderson.

As I noted elsewhere in Blogistan, I was watching Tuesday's ceremony in our conference room, on ABC, because that's the channel our TV-plus-rabbit-ears received the best. (We do not have cable at work, apparently, so we rigged this up so people could watch.) One of the blatherers commentators said, on seeing Nancy Pelosi and Senator Feinstein and the President-elect come on to the porch, that we would not have seen that tableau a hundred years ago. I blurted, because I could not help myself, that we would not have seen that tableau FIFTY years ago. There was general agreement about what I said, but the fact that the commentator was so ahistorical still kind of amazes me. Seriously: how can you claim to be a journalist and say something that fucking stupid?

Tuesday was also my first exposure to Rick Warren, and what a tool. At least I got a shout-out in Obama's speech. Incidentally, w/r/t the former, a number of my non-atheist friends were completely offended by Warren's recitation of the so-called lord's prayer (including my boss the ex-priest). It took me awhile to figure that one out, because, on some level, to me a prayer is a prayer is a prayer, and I find pretty much all public prayer offensive, particularly at sporting events and official government functions. (If you want to pray at any time, please feel free--I will even, you may remember, make space for said activity at my own (possibly) damned dinner table; but invocations of a deity at sporting and government assemblies are an enforced religious observance that annoys the fuck out of me.) However, I have learned that that particular prayer is profoundly christian, and, thus, at least potentially offensive to anyone who isn't christian but is religious in some way. Apparently there's a dispute within christianity, as well, as to whether one is supposed to have one's debts or one's trespasses forgiven; ah, sectarian disputes.

I believe we have "godless communism" to blame for much of this. I know you can find piety and references to deities all throughout U.S. history, but the upheavals of the beginning of the last century ratcheted everything up a notch. Communism, socialism, and anarchism, and, with all of them, atheism: many Powers regarded them as pure evil, and anything that could be associated with any of them, and anyone who didn't sufficiently despise all of those isms and anything associated with them, could be denounced freely. Same with labor unions, in part because the early labor movements were related, philosophically and sometimes politically, with the isms; all of them had as their goal a kind of liberation and justice for the common person.

Marx's historical analyses may well have been mistaken--that is, though the workers of the world may well unite at some point, I don't foresee that OR the withering of the state occurring any time soon. In addition, the attempts to create marxist-influenced society in eastern Europe/Russia and China were wrong in practice and possibly in theory as well (I do not claim to be any kind of expert on marxism/leninism). Nevertheless, Marx's analyses of capitalism and the oppression of the workers that results from it have much to recommend them. Some teacher along the way pointed out that Smith's and Marx's analyses of industrialism weren't all that different; rather, Smith is less disturbed by the oppression of the working classes that is a necessary facet of capitalism. If that's true, it is thus hardly surprising that the monied powers that be regarded any of the spawn of Marx's analyses as a danger. (Stalin and his evil ilk basically played into the hands of the anti-communist and anti-socialist forces by providing reasons for condemnation--reasons that had nothing to do with the message of liberation and justice that is at the heart of the marxist analysis. Whatever else Stalin was about, he was not about justice or liberation.)

On a completely unrelated note, it's been kind of strange to see Caroline Kennedy in the news of late. She's very close in age to me, and she was most frequently in photographs in women's magazines, either the ones my mom got or the ones I was reading for my dissertation, in the 1970s or so, i.e., when she was quite a bit younger than she is now. The current photographs show a middle-aged woman, which is a very striking reminder that that's what I, too, look like these days (and, let's face it, I don't have a stylist of any kind). Somehow, in my head, I'm still somewhere around 35. I'm trying to figure out how to revise that.

Some of it I know has changed: the other two women that my boss manages are in their mid-to-late 30s, and they're just in a different place than my boss and I are. I can definitely enter the rant zone, I can definitely go off on a tear, but the past five years seem to have made a major change in me. I don't feel as though I've finally reached some end spot, but I also sense that I don't get wrapped around the axle in quite the same way any more. I can't explain it very well, especially because most of you either don't know me IRL or haven't known me all that long, and I know that even to people who know me well IRL it may not be obvious, because, really, I am still capable of ranting like nobody's business.

But it just doesn't matter.

I guess part of it is that I've stopped believing that I'm ever going to do anything that matters or lasts, and I've stopped believing that I'm going to get to do any of the things I've dreamed of doing. Every one of my plans has, after a certain amount of effort and expense and time on my part, gone to shit. I'm doing basically the same work I was doing in 1986 when I left the east coast for graduate school in the city in which I still live. Yes, I have done some fun things--and paid dearly for them, in several senses of "paid," as well as met some wonderful people--so I don't want to sound too poor-pitiful-me, because that's not where I'm going with this. I've also foregone a number of things that might also have been fun--having kids, for example, which was something that I wanted to do only if I had (a) a partner (b) who also wanted to have kids. Having a kid by myself while I was in grad school, for example, or immediately afterwards, when I was deeply in debt and unemployed, seemed like a very bad idea.

So, given that, what am I going to do? Sit around and feel depressed and sorry for myself because I'm a loser? Yeah, okay, whatever; that doesn't sound like very much fun to me, so, no, thanks, I'll skip that. I've experienced depression several times in my life, and I have to say that I found it profoundly boring. I can expound on that if anyone cares, but I really did find it boring.

Okay, so no job I really want; no well-paid sinecure; no kids; no meaningful and fun work (though I do like my coworkers and my current job). I can either be happy with what I have--which is nice, relatively speaking--or I can be perpetually dissatisfied and depressed and crabby. Eh; the latter sounds like too much work. I'd still like to write a book, and I'd still like to start doing needlepoint again, but I don't know whether I'll manage either of those things. I'd like to live in a nicer space at some point, but the thought of moving makes me cringe, and I really don't want to pay all that much more for an apartment.

Whatever. I've resigned myself to being a loser. As noted, it just doesn't matter, so this doesn't disturb me nearly as much as it might have when I was younger.

One final note before bed: I constantly threaten my boss that he's going to be in trouble when I win the lottery. When things get really crazy, I inform him that I'm going to drain my savings account to play. Today he informed me that I'm never going to win, that he has called in all karmic debts to ensure that it doesn't happen. Which cracks me up--the thought that he's praying that I NOT win just amuses me to no end (though I don't know that he prays or even believes in a deity, per se, any longer).

Another Post About Food

Jesuschristonapogostick.

Yet another outbreak of the What You Eat Is Wrong Wars, over at Twisty's site. Here's the latest comment, as of now:

a deep respect for the animals they hunt and eat

So murder is A-OK as long as you “respect” the person you murder? Care to try that in a court of law? Oh no, of course not, we’re talking about killing “animals” here. Othering is a tried and true foundation for all manner of discrimination. Bravo.

If you go to the original post and the comments, you'll find a few comments by Yours Truly (though, I guarantee, I'm done with that particular thread). The point, though, is that I am damnsickandtired of hearing how whatever the fuck I eat is Wrong, Immoral, and Not Feminist, Plus Other Species Are The Same As Humans and You Are A Murderer If You Don't Agree.

There are multiple paths, people. I understand the vegetarian argument, and the vegan argument. I do not happen to agree that they are the only moral arguments, but I recognize the spirit behind those arguments and I respect them. Hell, I will even cook by them, if you have dinner at my house. In return, please acknowledge that I have thought about what I eat, and how, and respect my choices as well, and stop regarding my conclusions as the choices of one who is insufficiently evolved. kthnxbye.

Meanwhile, today I edited for awhile, then embarked on a cookie-baking marathon. I redid the almond cookies, except this time I toasted the almonds first. I also reduced the amount of egg whites, because I didn't have quite enough eggs to do everything I wanted to do, but the cookies still came out okay; toasting was a Good Thing. Another white or two would have improved things somewhat, but not enough such that anyone other than me and the Tart and other graduates would have noticed. I reduced the sugar, too, and tried to remember to add some lemon extract but forgot until it was really too late.

I remade the chocolate cookies, and I was less unhappy with them this time. I cooled the chocolate a bit more, and I chopped the toasted hazelnuts a bit more (the original recipe does not include hazelnuts, but I think they make an otherwise very boring cookie much much better), and paid more attention to the shaping, and, all in all, they're much better than the last batch. (Again, mostly to me; everyone else seemed to like the first batch just fine.)

The ginger cookies (a.k.a. Ginger Bites), well, they're still a work in progress, but I'm closer. I left out the chocolate this time, and increased the ginger dramatically (i.e., more than doubled it), and added both orange peel and orange juice, as well as some cinnamon and molasses, and a little more butter. I like the flavor, but the texture still needs a little work.

Finally, I adapted the Cooks Illustrated Black & White Cookie recipe--reduced the butter; replaced the sugar with honey--and added rosemary, lemon peel, and dried cherries. These were a nearly complete success. The shaping needs some work, but I was extremely pleased with the flavor. The flavorings really work well together, and I will make these again.

I had some meditations on whether/how my pastry school and bakery experience has affected my actual baking, but I'm tired and want to sleep, so they'll have to wait.

Righteousness

Incidentally, this continues to crack me up. Someone in a Pandagon comment referred to it the other day (and I don't remember the thread, or I'd cite it), and it is just priceless. It's worth reading all of the comments, at least until you get to the one that describes how the Pistol Boob came about.

Marathon Woman

I spent a good part of yesterday with the television on--and, not just that, but tuned in to "What Not to Wear." They were having a marathon, and I actually knew someone on one of the episodes (she was one of the coworkers who has left), though I didn't see her yesterday, and it's completely mindless and i was puttering around baking and thus didn't have to pay close attention. Whatever. It was interesting, in a sort-of-train-wreck kind of way.

On one hand, let's assume that everyone wants to present himself or herself in a good light; we all want to be "attractive," in some sense of that word. I'll even grant that many of us, probably most of us, choose at least the occasional piece of clothing or style of dressing that does not present us in a particularly flattering manner. The single biggest mistake I saw people making is wearing clothes that do not fit properly. Most of the women profiled on the show--and it is always women--are normal-sized, some even tending to be significantly larger than what we see in the media, but there's not a lot of fashion or style advice out there for normal people. (Not that I would really know, in that I don't shop in stores or read the publications that sell clothes. I get a lot of catalogues, so I see what's being sold in that way.) The women were an interesting mix, as well: a firefighter from California; a single mom from Virginia who wants to sell real estate; a campaign lawyer from Chicago; a court reporter from Florida.

A lot of the suggestions were helpful, although, perhaps because of the similarities in body type among many of the women, there was a striking similarity to the suggestions. In most cases, you could even see how the women could translate at least some of what they were learning back in to their normal lives: wear this type of fabric, or this type of cut, rather than that one; emphasize this feature by wearing this type of garment; draw attention to this part by doing that thing.

But.

(You knew that was coming.)

If I never hear the word "feminine" again, it will be too fucking soon. I do not regard "feminine" (or "masculine") as a desirable state, nor as something to which one should aspire or devote any effort. Seriously, people--the world will be a better place if we dump that word and all of its brethren (or sisteren, as the case may be). The show with the firefighter was the most severe offender, not surprisingly, as it was all about how she could get rid of her superhero t-shirts and she could stop buying her clothes in the junior department (both of which are true statements, actually) and Be More Feminine when she's not on duty. Several of the dresses they picked out WERE flattering on her, and she might well want to wear them, but it is not about "femininity" per se. Although, of course, for the patriarchy, it is always precisely about the femininity.

The other thing that was getting on my last nerve--and, of course, it was not unrelated--was their insistence on putting everyone in heels. Not necessarily high ones, but heels. I categorically refuse to wear them--and I cannot imagine men agreeing to wear some article of clothing that caused similar pain and inhibited mobility in similar ways. And that's the essential point here: Yes, fine, those strappy little heels may make the line of her leg look longer, but they also prevent her from walking quickly--or running, if need be--and they are bad for her feet, legs, and back. They are a FAIL.

I think that's the difference between heels and makeup. I could easily argue that makeup is a waste of time and money, that it sucks money out of women's wallets that they could spend on their retirement funds, etc., and there's some truth to that. For better or worse, in addition to being a way to play with one's appearance and with decoration, it's also a nod in the direction of patriarchally approved looks (and all women have to make some of those choices, give some indicators that they are Compliant or suffer the consequences), though, as those things go, it doesn't cost that much time or money. More to the point, makeup may be wasteful or pointless, but it does not cause physical harm. It does not keep the wearer from walking or running; it does not cause bunions; it does not cause backaches or foot pain. Makeup could be compared to shaving facial hair. Most men spend some time shaving or grooming their facial hair; some men look good with beards or mustaches, and other men not so much. Either requires some effort, on a nearly daily basis.

Another thing on the show was the hair. Every single woman who had long hair ended up with her hair chopped off. Of course the stylist made them look good; that's not the point. The question is, what does it take to maintain that hair? How much time each day? How much time at the hairdresser? How much money? The answer to all those questions is: a lot.

The thing with clothes is that we have to wear them. It doesn't take any more effort to buy or wear flattering clothing than it does to buy or wear unflattering clothing. With hair, though, some styles require way more effort and expense and upkeep. The firefighter was a good example. She has really beautiful hair (she had it long), and I really didn't think the cut they gave her did any more for her than the way she had been wearing it, and it will require more upkeep, what with the trimming and shit, and it will be more difficult to get it out of her way when she's working, because the shorter bits are too short to be put into a braid or ponytail. Show her ways to arrange it when she wants to dress for something other than fighting fires--fine, no problem. But why give her a cut that is going to be a complete pain to maintain? Personally, I'd want a style that can look acceptable with minimal effort all the time, rather than one that either looks great (with much effort and expense) or ragged and unattractive.

And, really, that's what was at the heart of the whole thing that eventually started to bug me. We all want to wear things that make us look good, and we don't always have the best ideas about what those things are. Fine; I'll accept that. But there are considerations other than how things look, and the thing to do is to take those considerations into account, not dismiss them as fear of expanding one's horizons or whateverthefuck. The Gendertest comes in handy here, too: can you imagine asking a member of the opposite sex to do whatever it is you're suggesting, at the frequency and expense you're suggesting, and having that person comply happily and willingly?

Comb one's hair? Sure. Get it cut occasionally, so it's not too ragged? No problem. Spend some time grooming the face, either with makeup or shaving? Okay. Wear clothes that are of a color and cut that are flattering? Also okay. Wear footwear that hobbles you and causes pain? Not so much. Institute grooming routines that require a lot of extra time or money or both? Also not so much. I'm willing to devote about a half an hour a day to this stuff--including the shower. Winter takes a little longer, because I have to grease my whole body or it flakes away to nothing and because I have to wear more clothes so I don't freeze my ass off. But that seems to be a reasonable amount of time, and my (relatively limited) experience suggests that it's about what men spend, too.

Anyway. My ranting is fading here. I've decided I have to actually leave the building today. (My friend has a cold, so we're theoretically getting together tonight instead of last night.) I did laundry this morning, which was the first I left my apartment since Wednesday night; baby steps, people.

Tools

The book that I didn't like much was "Girl Cook" by Hannah Mccouch; I thought I would like it, for obvious reasons, and there were bits--some of the cooking bits, in particular--that I liked well enough, but the whole thing was chicklit at its worst. I was musing about why I don't like that genre, and, no surprise here, it's because the stories always seem to be a version of "how I found my prince, even though I didn't think I would." Okay, that's not exactly a novel observation, I suppose, and occasionally there are stories that are well-written, so I don't mean to dismiss them all. (I'd also add that not everything that's written by a young(ish) woman falls into the category, despite the marketing that tells us otherwise.) But it got me thinking about how marriage, at least in its novelistic incarnations, has been transformed.

If you read Jane Austen or Anthony Trollope (or, for all I know, a bunch of other writers from more than a century ago), one of the central plotlines of many of the novels is the urgent need for young women without independent means to find a husband. In all of the stories I can think of, the gentlewomen of no or little means know that if they do not find husbands, they will be relegated to a very poor existence. The only work available (for a gentlewoman, anyway) is as a governess or a companion. In both cases, the women live with another family. In the former, she tutors and raises their children, and in the latter, she provides companionship and, in some cases ("The Eustace Diamonds," for example) she provides a veneer of respectability, because no woman, no matter how wealthy, can live alone, and, of course, household help does not count. Thus, poor women provide the veneer, in exchange for a roof over their heads and food to eat.

One of the other things that's interesting is that women who have an income (Austen's Emma; Lizzy Eustace; Glendora Palliser; an assortment of other Trollope characters) still face tremendous pressure to marry. They are on the market, and they must find someone to marry them before their sell-by dates, else they come to be regarded as old goods.

In all cases, no matter their finances, women are regarded as lucky if they marry for, or with, love and affection. This is particularly true for the poorer women, who literally cannot afford to marry only for love. In the case of wealthy women, the love of a good man makes them better people somehow (as in "Emma," particularly, although that novel has always creeped me out a little). Thus, it becomes advantageous for wealthy women to find wealthy husbands--not because either of them needs the other's money, but because the woman will never believe that he married her for her wealth. Take the Pallisers, for example: Glendora has huge wads of money, much more than Planty, but he has so much of his own that her money is irrelevant to him.

What does this have to do with chicklit?

Well, women now can earn their own way in the world, it turns out. Money confers advantages--that is always going to be the case, I imagine, until we live in a propertyless anarchist paradise--and I bet I was not the only person here who was informed that it was as easy to fall in love with a rich man as with a poor one (probably not true for me, but that's a different story), but I have never depended on a man for my bread. I thought I was going to do that, at least until the bakery was a wild success, but we remember how that turned out. It's also true that the trajectory of my life has different significantly from that of the majority of women, and it's also true that I don't have children. (On the other hand, I'm not the only woman my age I know personally who has lived alone so much of her life, and another friend my age decided to have a child by herself and has done so. It may be that we all "attract" each other, precisely because of our deviation from the mainstream, but it may also be the case that there are simply more women out there who have, in one way or another, for some amount of time, made major life decisions without a partner being involved in the decision and have not been destituted by that. Yes, I know that it DOES impoverish many women.)

That is, despite the pay iniquities and the financial and other burdens that raising children add to the mix, it is more possible--though, of course, not easy--for a woman to get by without a man. (Of course this is all heteronormative, but it's an aspect of heteronormativity, not an aspect of being a woman, per se, about which I am writing.)

The point--and I do have one here--is that patriarchy, as a system, increasingly must make marriage attractive to women for reasons other than the monetary ones about which Trollope and Austen wrote so perceptively. This is made easier by heterosexual attraction--many women like having sex with men, and vice versa, and at least some of that attraction is every bit as inborn as the attraction that some women feel for women and some men feel for men. And, really, humans are, by and large, social creatures (that's a whole other Wittgensteinian argument that I'll leave unexplicated for now), so forging bonds of various sorts isn't exactly an unusual thing to do. But neither the sexual attraction nor the sociability necessitates marriage as we understand it.

I could also argue, and not just for the sake of argument, that there are all kinds of arrangements that would suit women better: imagine if we had adequate childcare available, or imagine if women were paid equitably. Those two things alone would put more cards in women's hands, and would enable them to tell men who were being assholes to fuck off. Adequate childcare--and the lack of penalties for caring for children--would also enable more men to be better parents, as well. It's hard to be an involved parent when you have to work 80 hours a week, and it's hard to forego that, if you know that foregoing it means you will not be regarded as eligible for any number of career paths that you might desire for your own reasons. That conundrum affects men and women differently in our current society, but it does affect both men and women. (I also know an unusual number of men who have been the primary caregiver for significant stints of their children's lives, and all of them had job or career situations that did not fit the current norm in some important way.)

In the chicklit genre, at least the bits of it that have crossed my path, the men end up fulfilling the same function they did with Trollope and Austen--providing an escape from a situation that was socially, and possibly financially, undesirable, while at the same time providing True Love. "Girl Cook" is a stellar example of it, in fact, because the woman in question is broke, wants to be a chef, leaves the job she has (for very good reasons), and Just Happens to meet a man who is smitten with her and Very Very Rich, plus he owns (wait for it) a food-oriented television network. In addition to her cooking abilities, she was raised in an environment of sufficient wealth & privilege that she can hang with the rich people and not embarrass him.

But the question that always occurs to me is why the women in these novels spend so much time worrying about finding the right man. They certainly do not need to do that in the same way that Austen's and Trollope's gentlewomen needed to do that. However, it does serve the patriarchy, as a system, for women to be worrying about this, so I do, indeed, blame the patriarchy for chicklit, and I have come to regard chicklit as a tool of the patriarchy.

ETA: I posted this, then meandered over to flea's place and found HER critique of chicklit, in terms of a specific book. Go read it.

Get the Razor

Occam's razor, that is.

What are the possible reasons that the Republicans chose Sarah Palin?

1. McCain (or his handlers, which I think is more likely) want to make sure the rightwing nutcase base comes out to vote. That group is ambivalent about McCain, at best--mostly on the forced-pregnancy issues--because he has not always toed the line as thoroughly as they want him to. Palin doesn't believe in evolution; doesn't believe in sex education (except abstinence only); and doesn't believe women really should have choices about when or whether to bear children. She is, in other words, a rightwing nutcase herself. It also means, if there were ties in Senate votes, she could be relied upon to vote their way (in her role as president pro tem of the Senate). It's also worth pointing out that Lieberman and Casey (the other two names that were tossed around) would lose this vote, because of their positions on these issues.

2. McCain/his handlers believed their own rhetoric, i.e., believed that (a) there are a whole big bunch of Bitter Old Women who supported Clinton and who not only will not vote for Obama but might vote for McCain and (b) these women are only interested in voting for someone else with a vagina, i.e., they would not care about the head that is attached. (I have never believed that the so-called "puma" vote is anything except a bunch of rightwing nutcases trying to get face time on Faux news by ginning up this story; most--perhaps all--of the women they've profiled have a certain amount of republican-ness in their backgrounds, which makes it difficult for me to believe they were truly Clinton supporters to begin with; the hatred for anyone named Clinton is too overwhelming for that.)

3. McCain truly believed that Palin is the best person for the job of Vice President--her extensive experience in government, particularly her experience in some aspect of governance in which McCain is seen as weak, makes her the perfect complement to McCain, and makes her an ideal choice as a potential president.

4. They knew it would be a controversial choice--possibly even because of the family mess, especially insofar as the republicans have actually been the ones to do most of the publicizing of it, and they've been making things up, while they're at it--and figured it would be a way to distract everyone from her actual lack of qualifications, suck attention away from Obama, and, perhaps most important, suck attention away from the actual issues.

I think we can safely rule out 3. There's no possible way that anyone is going to claim that Palin is the most qualified Republican in the country. We can argue about whether Biden is the "most" qualified--because we can have different definitions of "most"--but we would be unlikely to say that he is UNqualified. Despite my carping, I would not regard Biden as unqualified. Palin is unqualified.

I think we can rule out 2, as well. While they may have hoped to pick up a few votes from vagina-Americans, I don't believe they really believe their own rhetoric on this matter. If that were their intent, there are plenty of other Republican women out there with more experience than Palin.

What's going on, then, is mostly 1, with a possible dash of 4 thrown in for excitement. Basically, Palin is a dogwhistle to the far-right, which is the group of voters that McCain absolutely must get to go vote but that was least enthusiastic about him. The dash of 4 is mostly an attempt to make lemonade, because it's clear that (a) the vetters did not do their job at all, or (b) the vetters were from the far-right, or (c) the vetters decided to listen to the far right. I find it difficult to believe that they looked specifically for an anti-choice candidate with very little governing experience AND a family Situation.

As for whether Palin's daughter is fair game, well, no, mostly not. I think it is relevant to point out that Palin reduced funding for a program that provided pregnant unmarried teens with a place to live; if that isn't an example of punishing women for having sex, even when they want to actually bear the child, then I don't know what the fuck is.

On another note, however, the weekend provided great barrels of fun. Friend and I had dinner last Thursday night. I bought a NYTimes and took myself out to breakfast Friday morning. Friday afternoon we went to the baseball game; Saturday morning we rose at the crack of dawn to drive to his friends' house, climb in their vehicle, and then tailgate and then go to see Bucky's season opener. We killed some time at the tailgate location after the game before going to the tex-mex place at which Friend and I ate a few weeks ago. After that, back to the friends' house for some beer and euchre, and some stargazing (it was clear, and their house is way out in the middle of nowhere, so there were many stars to be seen--and no sound at all, pretty much, except crickets). Sunday we hung out, then got in the pool, and eventually wandered to a local establishment for burgers and beer, then home for more beer and euchre. (We hadn't originally planned on staying Sunday night, I don't think, but once more alcohol came into play, driving two hours back here seemed unwise.) We left early Monday morning and were back here before noon; we also made a spectacular dinner Monday night that included grilled boar steaks and grilled vegetables, the latter tossed with pasta, and some cabbage and broccoli.

This weekend we do another set of excursions. Friday night we drive to the friends' house again, then go out for dinner and bowling (!), and, who knows, maybe more euchre. Saturday we go to a crafts fair/wine tasting, at which Friend purchased much good wine last year and probably will again this year (and I'll probably get some as well). Sunday we get up at the crack of dawn and drive to Joliet for the IRL race (from his friends' house), which means we have to pack for several different events this weekend. I had intended to do some laundry this week, but the weather has gotten cooler, and I've decided that with careful underwear management, I can make it through the weekend with clean underwear and without having to do laundry.

No iPhone for Me

No, I am not going to get an iPhone. First, the cell phone I have (and it's even a new one; my old one cracked, and my plan was up, so I just got a new one) is perfectly adequate for my uses. It doesn't web surf (though it could; I just refuse to pay for that service), and i don't send text messages, but it works fine for the purpose for which I want to use it, i.e., as a mobile phone.*

Second, this whole "mobile me" rollout has just sucked. I had no webmail at all for two days, service has been spotty since then, and it doesn't work well (it says) with the version of Safari I have on my iMac. I cannot upgrade Safari without upgrading the OS, and I'm not going to do that, either. If it were free, sure, why not, but I'm not going to pay to do it. That is, the fine folks at Apple were so intent on getting their iPhones out the door, they just screwed the rest of us. Look, people, I PAY for my email account and its accouterments, so I expect it to fucking WORK. Do not sacrifice it because you're rolling out a new product and haven't worked out the bugs yet; that is so not my problem.

Third, though, the only service provider in this country is AT&T, and I loathe them with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns. In additional to the unbelievably crappy service they provide, they have been running one of the all-time most offensive commercials of late; it makes me grit my teeth whenever I hear it. Seriously: I should send them my dentist bills. It's the one where these two guys say they're "so going to that concert" (it's an AT&T blue room commercial), and Guy 1 says he's going to tell Lisa (spouse or girlfriend), and he calls out to her that he's going to a three-day music festival and she calls back, "No you're not," and he says to Guy 2 that he can't go, and Guy 1 says, "Dude--it's like THAT?" And then Lisa calls back, "And pick up your socks."

I am so fucking sick of men being portrayed as these wonderful, fun-loving-if-sometimes-a-little-irresponsible beings and women being portrayed as the mommy/meanie who has to tell them what to do. The other commercial running right now has the guy wanting to play all kinds of music for his wife, and she says, not right now, while I'm giving birth, and he says, "Wait--drum solo!" First off, what the fuck is she doing reproducing with that man? On what planet will he actually help raise the children? Yeah, I know, it's supposed to be a joke, but it is not a fucking joke: he's an ass, and she leaps right into the patriarchally prepared spot.

One of the old tropes from Ms. magazine was, when you're wondering if something is sexist, reverse the sexes in the situation and see what that does. If you take my first example, if a woman said, honey, I'm going to this three-day music festival, and her husband said no you're not, and pick up your socks, we'd think she was probably in an abusive/controlling relationship. It takes on a creepy tone that, IMHO, points to the underlying creepiness of the actual commercial. What person wants to control someone else's life like that? What person wants to BE controlled like that? And, perhaps most important, the commercial makes it sound like it's women who are running things. I'm here to tell you that women are not, in fact, running things.

Anyway.

It turns out that most of my birthday celebrations are going to be after my actual birthday (which was Sunday--I am now a half century old). Friend and I had sort-of-maybe tentative plans that depended in part on the weather (for the camping and music option) and in part on a friend (who wanted to come down to join us), but you know about the best-laid plans. Friend played hockey Friday night and got hit in the ankle with a puck; when he woke up Saturday morning, he couldn't put any weight on it at all.

I eventually meandered over to his place Saturday afternoon, and spent Saturday and Sunday waiting on him, basically. (He's very low maintenance, so this was not a problem; I brought him food, and ice packs for his ankle, and occasionally sat on the couch with him while we watched something.) After I finished my editing, I baked a lemon blueberry tart and some cookies.

So, for my actual-birthday breakfast, I made us fruit pancakes (Joy of Cooking recipe that has become a total fave--it is incredibly easy, and pretty healthy, and really really good; I used blueberries and strawberries on Sunday, which is spectacular), and for my actual-birthday dinner, we ordered pizza and drank good wine. He wished that he could have made breakfast for me, but that would not have been a good idea. He gave me a wonderful pair of dangly earrings and it turns out he got tickets for a beer-tasting festival in early August, so that is part of the birthday celebration, too. All in all, a wonderful day. Not quite the big bash that I'd occasionally thought about assembling (and even made a few tentative plans to assemble, but then didn't), but I just didn't feel like doing that. I couldn't figure out all the reasons why not, but just decided to go with how I was feeling about it. Not that the celebrations are over, however.

Thursday I'm taking Friend and K out to dinner at VeryFancyPlace. Next Sunday, the friend from last Sunday will probably come down and join me and Friend for dinner, and later in the month, Brazen Tart and another pastry school friend are making dinner for me. I'm hoping to take the Tart out to dinner, too, at a Different VeryFancyPlace. So, all in all, lots of little celebrations, which sounds like a fine way to do things. The other thing that's nice is that the beer festival is the weekend after the proposal has to be submitted, and the weekend after all my editing has to be submitted, so I'll really be able to take off with impunity.
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*On the 3rd of July, Friend and I were grabbing some food prior to the fireworks, at a bar/restaurant near where he'd parked the vehicle. At the table next to us were a late-20s man and woman, seemingly on a date. However, they kept taking these moments to surf the web on their respective mobile devices (the ones that are phones but have the keyboard for texting), and text as well, for all I know. I find this bizarre, to say the least. What can you possibly be doing that is more compelling than the actual live person six inches away from you? Even if they weren't on a date, per se, it's just rude.

Home and Away

I haven't been at my home much in the past week; thanks to all the hockey games, and an assortment of other arrangements, I've spent about half of my nights at Friend's house in the past two weeks. (We've been going to his house because he has a cat whom he doesn't like to leave alone too much.) It's a little strange, given that I haven't done anything like this in, well, forever; Chuck never had his own place, and before that I wasn't in arrangements where it would have happened. I occasionally feel a little bag-lady-esque, it's true, but it's been okay. It helps that (a) I do not have to get up at the asscrack of dawn, and (b) the trip from his place to my work is wildly easy; the bus drops me off at the door of my place of employment.

Unfortunately, much of this hanging out has been accompanied by the consumption of great food and beer, which has not helped the ass-reduction program (ARP); quite the opposite, as a matter of fact, which is getting on my nerves. I'm really a little at a loss what to do about the whole thing. I do not like working out. I hate it, in fact, and I've only ever done it for any length of time when I was rehabbing from a handball injury or otherwise could not play. While part of me would very much like to start playing handball again, the logistics of that are pretty prohibitive: expensive, for one thing, as I'd have to join a gym that has a handball court and players; and involving much traveling to and fro, for another; and finding a place to do it, for a third. I'm not ruling it out for ever and ever, but I'm also not seeing it happen any time soon. I did walk to work today (about three miles), and then walked to get lunch today (maybe another 1/2 to 3/4 mile), and, now that it's no longer the middle of fucking winter, I may try to do that more often. It will help a bit, I'm sure, but. The biggest "but" (notice there's only one t there) is that I like playing sports, I like DOING something, and that's part of what I miss. So I don't know. I'll figure out something eventually, I suppose, but meanwhile I'm settling on walking and whining about how I want to do something else. If the ARP is going to be successful, I really must do something.

For a complete change of subject, Friend and I watched "Meatballs" the other night. I had recommended it, even though I haven't seen it in 20+ years, because of the chant Bill Murray's character teaches the campers in his charge: "It just doesn't matter." After seeing it again, it probably isn't worth going out to rent or anything, but two other things leapt out at us: There are lot of pretty young women in the movie (and some cute young men, for that matter), it being set at a summer camp and everything. No problem there. The two things that are really striking, however, are that, first, the young women do not play any sports in the movie, e.g., in the inter-camp competition. They are cheerleaders. All of them. The Meatballs camp is kind of halfhearted, while the BigFancy camp has cheerleaders in matching uniforms and such, and we're supposed to take something from that, but the girls don't play soccer, they don't do anything except cheer. Oh--and play field hockey, at one point, which amused me, seeing as how I played field hockey 35 years ago. The other thing that really struck both of us is that a lot of the young women had small breasts--or, rather, the young women had a lot of variation among them in terms of breast size, instead of all of them being mondo-breasted. And there really wasn't a lot of breast display, for that matter. Mostly the women were wearing t-shirts and such, and not skin-tight ones, either. So, really, that was kind of refreshing.

For this post's amusing (and, it turns out, deistically related) items, I saw this headline as I walked past a box today, and it cracked me up. Then, while surfing, I found this (slightly NSFW), which also cracked me up. If you follow the link in that post, you'll find a thoughtful post as well as the source of the (altered) drawing.

At work, well, things have gotten interesting already. For one thing, it turns out that the two major grants that fund the organizations for which I'm working (basically, there are a couple of related organizations that are separate in some important ways but still gathered under an overarching umbrella for a few other infrastructural-type ways) are about to run out. Yes, I have to write two major (as in multi-million-dollar, multi-year, whole-ball-of-wax) proposals, totaling about 300 pages of materials. A few pieces are due April 7, the rest (the bulk of the narrative materials) are due April 21. Let me repeat: the proposals for the basic funding for this organization are due in about a month. So, yeah, no pressure there.

There are a few hills to climb with my coworkers, but I'm hoping I can energize them and get them involved in ways that are helpful to me AND to them and that help us all move in a positive direction. It will be challenging, though. (For example, don't say to me, "I don't think you're understanding me." Not least because I am, in fact, understanding you, I'm just not agreeing with you. You even could say, for example, "I may not be clear here," but don't put the onus on me. Especially when, hello, you're wrong, and this thing you keep touting as the Best! Helpful! Website! Ever! in fact does not address all, or even most, of the areas we need to address in our proposals, so you can't get out of the work that easily. As you would know if you bothered to read the materials I sent to you. But to that person I said thank you, several times.) It's really a make-or-break kind of thing for me, so pissing people off right up front = bad idea.

My boss seems happy with me, and with my work, and with my plan for proceeding, so that's all good, and I do have a plan. Aspects of my current chart will make it clear to a few people that we will need to work on some of these things to an extent and in ways that they seem to be trying to avoid. And my boss agrees that we're going to have to do this as a group. (The person who claimed I was not understanding thinks I should just meet with everyone individually, I think because s/he doesn't want to do the hard work of reading materials ahead of time, preparing for the meeting, and then focusing on the task at hand. But I could be wrong. And I suspect there's some burnout in play, too, for that person and for everyone else.) Basically, I'm doing what I always try to do with this kind of thing: I'm organizing as much of it as I possibly can, which helps people focus on what I really need them to do, and, in particular, the things I cannot do without their input.

All in all, in some ways, this could be very cool. The plans at the heart of these proposals can serve as our guide, as the base for what we do, and that could be very positive. I said all this to my boss, and it was music to his ears--I think he's really, really glad he hired me. And I can see some of the challenges he has faced and continues to face, and I see it as my job to help with that. (I always tell prospective employers that my job is to make my boss's job easier. It's a great line, and it happens to be a useful approach.) One person who seemed pretty negative yesterday--about a different topic more than about mine--was actually very helpful to me: s/he pointed out that weekly meetings would NOT be sufficient to accomplish this, and was very supportive in general. One of the suggestions won't be as helpful as s/he thought, but, again, all of that will be made clearer from the materials I'm putting together.

I do kind of wish I didn't have a massive editing project at the moment as well. It turns out to be even bigger than we thought (which means both more work and more lucrative), and the production editor just got the last batch of materials to me today, even though the first ms batch theoretically was due back earlier this week. On the other hand, it isn't requiring the kind of massive copyedit that the last one entailed, though I must say that his author is way too fond of split infinitives and passive constructions. I'm going to spend a significant portion of Saturday hacking away at it, then have dinner with Chuck and CK, the latter of whom I haven't seen in a couple of months. And Sunday? More hockey!