12-29-05
Fun day yesterday! Wilz, WCZ and I ventured to the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) because on Wednesdays Milwaukee County residents with proof of residence handy receive free admission. We skipped the Rembrandt special exhibit due to lack of time and my paltry funds. Our first order of business was to play follow WCZ down the hallway. It led to the coat check and restrooms, which was great because I had to pee!
We then spent over an hour on the first floor, which opens into rooms upon rooms upon rooms. I became overwhelmed after awhile due to the dry hot air swirling about; the 19th and 18th century artwork began to all melt together. MAM has a beautiful Monet piece. I tired of searching for it online, but here is another one I enjoy that has similar coloring:



I also was very taken with the piece, “The Two Majesties” once again. Here it is, but this image does not do the actual painting justice:



The modern art collection is lacking, in my opinion, but it does feature one of Andy Warhol’s brillo pad cubes.

The Julian Schnabel piece is an absolute eyesore. There is a lot more good stuff on the first floor but Milwaukeeians should see for themselves!
Upstairs features the Pabst wing. Only in Milwaukee can a section of an art museum be sponsored by a beer company…There is a lot of queer folk art, “useful objects” and “entertainment” pieces, including a small painting of Nathan’s hotdogs in Brooklyn! Funny to see such a dirty, unappealing place kind of romanticized in that way…memorialized? Which word…well the upstairs back section is truly amusing. I laughed a lot, and I do not really know how appropriate laughing in a museum is but some of art is really really fun(ny).

Upon leaving the museum, we caused confusion in the parking structure because we attempted to leave out of the automated monthly pass user only stall and about 4 cars had to back up, and then we had to follow them way out the other end of the parking structure. Since I am a tard, I attempted to lift the level blocking us in, which was not a good idea. They need to mark where to go a lot better, me thinks. Oh well, just a cause for more laughter.

Afterwards, we all ate food at my house and drank some chardonnay, followed by Budweiser, and watched the “Helen Keller” episode of South Park that features the gimp necked turkey and then we settled down for some 80s teen action as featured in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. A classic.

I really like having people at my house. I need to do more often. Especially in winter because my place is cozy and warm; it’s not so good in the hot summers.

Following our movie viewing, we headed to the Foundation for a few libations with Wilz’s brother. Me being me, I decided to accost the Foundation regular who is currently on leave from army duty in Iraq. I made some casual banter with him, asking him how his holiday and if he ate a lot (I did!). He said he ate a good amount, and then I asked:Did you eat some pussy, too?

I think momentarily SassyJ was channeling through me!

The soldier (well, sergeant) responded casually as well, stating no, he did not and then made his way to the toilet.

Apparently, WCZ interpreted my foul mouthed comment as a signal that I was interested in the army sergeant. He is not bad looking or anything, in fact I have a drunken photo I took with him in the summer during my friend’s bachelorette party, but I really didn’t ask him that for any particular reason except to amuse myself by seeing his reaction. I was impressed that he did not flap, but later he came over and asked me why I asked him that and I said that well you know I’m just mouthy ask these guys ask them I’m mouthy! He admitted he was taken a bit off guard. Ha! Success. Apparently, I was a bit bored, as WCZ and Wilz’s bro were engaged in their own, private, best friends forever conversation, part of which centered on in-jokes about masturbation. (!)

When TC and DiNO arrived to my delight a little later, the army sergeant proceeded to tell them about my mouthy comments, which only served to amuse them, so I did succeed in amusing both myself and others!
***
And on a completely tangential note, I checked UWM’s site for my grades today and they were there: my GPA is 3.835; I received an A- and an A and I could not be more pleased, considering how tumultuous this first semester as a doctoral student has been for me, and considering that I wrote the bulk of my final papers in 2 days each.

Birthday/Christmas Weekend

Friday: Birthday. 32. Chardonnay at 6pm with Bec and SassyJ after a three month hiatus (too long!). Bec’s dog, Ruby, is very cute. Did not enjoy the puppy nipping but she will grow out of that and she calmed down pretty quickly. I know amusing shit was said amidst the personal but all I can remember is that I was talking about one of my activities for the week, which was to compare the Banquet frozen chicken dinner to the Swanson one. The Banquet one is fucking $1.25, it’s hardly even chicken. So many calories and so much sodium. Swanson won, of course.

They bought be gifts, which I didn’t expect. That was really sweet. Huge citrus/cilantro candle, cute green scarf, and a rocker belt.

We ate dinner at Casablanca. Good huge appetizer of all of the Middle Eastern dips, plus pita. The potato salad was particularly good. Eating while buzzed is fun, the food tastes so good, although it’s not good on the stomach. Fucking holiday bagel is currently in full effect. Of course, I ordered chicken with almond rice and it came with a salad. It was so much fucking food; I wish they’d charge $4 less and give me less food. A belly dancer clad in red with the bad blonde hair emerged just as we were about to leave. As she stood mere feet away from me, with her back towards me, I became mesmerized. How she moved her lower abdomen/back muscles, so quickly, back and forth, so in sync. Of course my friends had to tell her that it was my birthday so gyrated close to me. I attempted to mimic her for Bec and SassyJ’s amusement but my muscles need some more training! That shit hurt! Some little girl with a big pudgy gut was sitting at the bar, rising up in her chair, also attempting some belly dancer moves. Such a pudgy little gut she had!

Afterwards, I went to Foundation to wait to be picked up and transported for drinks down at The Palm, where my good friend’s band mate thoughtfully purchased me a birthday glass of wine. TC, E., WCZ, and DiNO and I had a tard-a-riffic time; E. brought me sweet, moist cupcakes, which I had mentioned months earlier and they bought me a magazine subscription, which was very nice.

Told my story of the roughneck running down icy Center street in a dress coat and dress shoes, running off his anger, watch out, roughneck running! A good mellow time though I was feeling really hot and sleepy, wish I could have had more of a crazy buzz. All and all in was a very acceptable birthday considering the last minute plan change; missing The Muppet Movie at midnight did not disappoint me.
* **



Christmas Eve. Oh god, as usual, an evening much shouting and vulgarity, even from Grandma. She told some story a lady once told her, goes something like this:

Lady: Well my mother tells me she is going to the doctor for a pap smear.
And I say mom, you’re 82 years old, why would you need to go for a pap smear?
Lady’s mom: Well I could still use a good tickle you know!

Or something insane like that. Who the hell knows how that got brought up! I go into the dining room and there sits a stack of movies from my uncles; all share the theme of RATS. My 81 year old grandma has been watching insane Rat flicks like Willard. Jesus fucking christ.

So much extra food this year too. My mom made a HUGE FUCKING VAT of tuna fish salad. It’s a favorite of mine, with the celery and the pickles, but fucking shit, look at the size of this dish!



Sadly, between the 7 of us we nearly finished the shit off in two days, well ok we ate a little tiny bit over half of it. No more mayonnaise for me for weeks. I ate 2 little slivers of the cow and felt guilty but I just wanted to try it. I feel bad enough eating the birds. I have to deal with this flesh consumption thing. And let’s see, pistachio pudding with fruit and nuts, tons of sugar cookies, pumpkin pie that I made, olives and pickles and celery, and chocolate candies and nuts. Christmas is too disgustingly gluttonous!

More vulgar jokes, one was a sucking dick innuendo that I even got involved in, too embarrassing to repeat here, then my step dad says something about using the tongue and I said well now I think you are talking about a woman, and he turned red! Lots of jokes with my mom and her inarticulateness. Pictures of my uncle drinking his Jack Daniels.

Opened up gifts at home, got my laptop computer, some extra stuff, my casserole dish. They wrapped up some more little stuff for me which was nice. My mom didn’t like the simulated opal necklace my step dad got her, not unusual. She can be so ruthless! Liked my seafood and CHICKEN cookbooks a lot also. And my popcorn popper. CHICKEN CHICKEN CHICKEN! Wanna make fried chicken!



Christmas day I was crabby. Ready to not be sitting and eating bad food anymore. Forced a Budweiser down as soon as I got to my grandma’s to thwart the arrival of bitchy Jen and thankfully was successful. Was not at all interested in hearing the entire family scream the television set due to the Packers’ ineptitude. Fucking *!(*U(*U ! yells my mom! Shit sucking something yells my aunt! Over and over! Blelelele you son of a gun! From my grandma, with a few mumbled murmurings thrown in by my uncle and step dad. Stupid fucking losing Packers.

In the last minute or so of the game, while we were playing Texas Hold Em (my step dad had lost his five dollars by then), the Packers got the ball! If they scored they could tie this game against the Bears! And Favre threw the ball! IT went far! Someone caught it! He ran and ran. My mom beat her hand on the table so hard her wine glass toppled over and she covered my grandma’s new corral covered outfit my other aunt sent in cranberry apple wine! And boy did my mom fly into the other room before my grandma got a good look at how much wine she spilled. The game ended with Favre throwing an interception. Damn he needs to retire.

I have started drinking more than necessary again these past few weeks. Stress induced. First I decided not to continue with my graduate studies, as mentioned below. Then, I received some news. Important news. The freshman writing curriculum will be tweaked next fall. A different professor will be teaching the course new writing instructors at UWM must take. Things will be changing. I think I will like the program much more now. Maybe. I hope. Can’t be sure. Really can hope. So I formulated a new plan last Thursday night. I will take one class in the Spring, one I will have to pay for, but it sounds like an interesting class and I have to be in school to be considered for a TAship for next Fall. If I am not granted at TAship I am definitely leaving UWM. I’m not paying for more than one year of coursework. It’s ridiculous. I am more than qualified for a TAship. I’ve taught for three years! So it’s in their hands I guess. I’m going to get letters for my application, I’m going to try hard. I think I should try. I haven’t been trying hard. I don’t try hard enough. Damn I’d achieve so much if I did, because I do pretty well when I just do the minimum. If I hadn’t received this news, I’d be filling out a withdrawal from study form. It seems meant to be, somehow.

Friday was four hours at Foundation chatting WCZ’s ear off and talking to my ex-neighbor who is a sorta garage rock band that I like. A Racinian was performing DJ duties. I drank 2 huge glasses of wine during a very enjoyable dinner at Villa Roma with the monkey, the monkey’s mom, and E. 2 huge glasses at the bar. Too much. My bagel is going to start expanding again and I’ve been managing to keep it at bay! Fuck the bagel! I want a mini bagel.

Saturday was waking up late and therefore getting a late start on Project 1, presentation due Monday night. Then I went to UWM by myself to see my friends’ hardcore band. A benefit for an animal rights group at UWM. They kept projecting those gruesome videos on the wall, of cows hanging from the ceiling of some barn, building, I don’t know. Hanging upside down, a rope tied around one hind leg. Pigs being stepped on and bludgeoned. It’s a fucking absolutely fucking horrible thing to see. Seeing that kind of shit is what made me go vegetarian so many years ago, and now I am lame again and eat chicken and turkey and fish. Maybe I should stop. I don’t want to though. Even if I did stop eating meat, there will always be more people who eat meat. The animal abuse will not cease. There has to be another way to fight this. Humane treatment of the animals before slaughter. It shouldn’t be such a difficult context. Fucking America.

Anyway. I felt old at the show, but inwardly glad that new kids are building on my old scene. I still like that hardcore RAWR stuff every now and then though. Helps release some angst. During my friends’ band, some kids started a circle mosh pit during their last song. When the band stopped, the pit abruptly dispersed. Pretty funny stuff.

After that show, I went home to eat a fucking CHICKEN pot pie and chill a bit before heading to the Mad Planet to see this band Red Knife Lottery that I’d heard was good the night before, from my ex-neighbor. Got on the guest list. They were good. Such young kids, but good energy, no pretense. They will only get better, too. I was so tired, but stayed chatting with the ex neighbor and then my one who got away showed, looking all nice and dressed up, trying to kill me I guess. My head’s still a little spinny from that encounter. I thought I forced that shit to die but apparently not. Lucky me.

So it’s Sunday now and I haven’t done a damn thing on my project. Got distracted at the Crackpot in the early afternoon. Enjoying my friend’s zany dad because I haven’t seen him in so long. Him and all of his talk about slutty girlfriends. He wanted to make sure he was caught up on all of my gossip. My head was pounding all day. Guess seeing 6 bands in one night could do that to an old lady like me. Tomorrow I guess, will get up early, worked the editing job tonight so I’ll have to work less tomorrow. I need to get some fucking rest, but first will watch the episode of South Park where Cartman’s cat is in heat. Kittty what are you doing what is wrong with you kitty baaaddddddddddddd kitty!

I like this:

More research/commentary later.

'Girlcott' Members Meet With Abercrombie Brass Over T-Shirts

http://news.yahoo.com/s/wtae/20051205/lo_wtae/3103959

Mon Dec 5, 6:20 PM ET

Teenagers who were offended by T-shirts on sale at Abercrombie & Fitch and launched what they called a "girlcott" met with company brass on Monday. Some of the T-shirts went too far, according to some young women.

The shirts boasted slogans such as:

"Blondes are adored, brunettes are ignored."

"Give me something to scream about."

The T-shirt that got the girls so upset in the first place said, "Who needs brains when you have these?" -- the words written across the chest of the shirt.

One of the protesters said, "Just being in high school we have enough to deal with -- without having to walk around looking at my own peers just degrading themselves and demeaning themselves. Just how much more negative can you get?"

Representatives from a group called the Women and Girls Foundation were invited to Abercrombie & Fitch national headquarters, in Columbus, Ohio, on Monday, to offer up their own ideas for T-shirts.

Messages like, "Your book or mine?" and, "You're just jealous because I have a 4.0." were put forth.

The girls said they hope the company gets their message.

"The money's coming out of our wallets. We're putting our money down for their products. So, they've got to make it better," one girl said. +

I sit down with a group of four other people to discuss Ruth Behar’s ethnographic memoir The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart. The people in my group are smart and funny. Everyone in the class, as far as I can tell, is smart and funny. We begin discussing the questions posed to us. I start to feel a nervous, fretful pang in my belly. Can I really leave this behind? This camaraderie? No one else I know will sit down with me and earnestly discuss an academic text/although certainly I could form a reading group composed of academic ex-patriots…

It is so comfortable, sitting and discussing. Sitting and discussing. Not doing anything; sitting and discussing. I only get worked up once, really. A record for me. I don’t feel that tense feeling either. I just sit, and discuss. The fretful feeling slowly subsides.

It disappears completely after a few minutes of large group discussion. Our professor, who is dynamic and caring, one of those professors is aware of her power, but also (seems to be) truly committed to her students and to working towards equality within and outside of the academy, points out mournfully that Behar is just so sad. She’s sad. This book is sad. She’s so freaking sad.

She is sad. And her sadness (and uncertainty; her vacillation) only serves to validate my decision to leave the academy behind, finally. Because I don’t want to be her.

In a chapter about a Mexican woman whose story Behar is attempting to “tell,” she writes, “As a Cuban immigrant kid, I grew up in a series of cramped apartments in New York, so when Marta tells me she loves to come to my house, that it is her dream house, I understand, but feel odd that the things I have acquired are inspiring wanting and longing in someone else” (91). That Behar would rather pose as the guilty successful than embrace her success exasperates me know. I am so interested in my own exasperation because all through undergrad, and even until a few years previous, I would understand her guilt, because I come from a working class family and never really lived in the lap of luxury when I was a child (obviously, though, my experience was not the same as or as severe as her own; I was an only child and had plenty of space, and although the food I ate wasn’t gourmet, there was enough of it, always, and I don‘t know it came quite that easily for Behar). But now I disavow such guilt. I wish not to be broke forevermore. I will not live in a dangerous neighborhood for sake of cheaper rent (In undergrad, I‘d never have lived in Shorewood. Never.) My god, I want there to be a day when I’m not renting. That was one of only reasons to go through this Ph.D program; for all the stress it creates, I would gladly receive a large salary, finally, to buy a home, and help my parents when they become elderly.

So for Behar, and so many other academics, to constantly force themselves to feel regretful, or to pose feeling regretful, for having some money and living relatively comfortably, just pisses me off now. I’m not going to be one of them. I have a nice apartment now, but I have no savings besides my 401K. I have no money for travel, for the occasional fancy dinner, for a night out at the theater, for the very occasional extravagance. I have no need to be rich, but I would not balk at earning $40K a year, or maybe even more (and that goal is so low compared to many Americans). Maybe what I'm saying is tad tangential, but damn. I would not feel bad that I no longer had to wonder where the rent money comes from.

In her last chapter, Behar recounts what I see as a courageous action she performs at an academic conference. But before she goes into it, she asks why she is there, at the conference. She clearly does not desire to be there, doing this academic work, again. But she “reminds” herself that she is there to take a stand. To me, these confessions are the most sad. Certainly we all have moments in our professional careers when we feel beleaguered, let down. It’s not rosy all of the time. But it seems to me that academics, especially those who come from working class backgrounds, are female and/or are “minorities,” (I hate that fucking word and I also hate “people of color;” both are patronizing) ask themselves more often than some other professionals why they remain in their profession. Where, at four-year-universities, there’s in-fighting all of the time. There’s hypocrisy that runs so deep. It wears people down. There is rare joy, rare pleasure. For me that joy comes from feeling that I am writing well. I do not need a Ph.D to write. I do not need to feel bad anymore.

No, I will not be. The academic who has to remind herself. Why she is there.