is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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I Have Many Questions.
I Have Many Questions.
I�m living in a building built in 1885, and I�ve come to realize that few of the wall-to-ceiling-or-floor connections are right angles anymore. As such it is almost impossible to hang a photo or an artwork so that it looks properly placed on a wall. So be my guest. That is, if you end up being my guest, feel free to try to adjust the hanging things to look like they aren�t slightly crooked. It may make you feel better, but it won�t change anything.
On Tuesday after I posted my last entry I had a meeting with the man in charge of the humanities center that administers my fellowship. He told me about lots of rules and budgets and things. Then I came home and tried to write the lecture for my first day of class. But I was so very very exhausted�from the emotional weekend, and the moving, and the unpacking, and not knowing where things are, etc.�that I thought to myself, �I�m just going to lay down for a minute.� But the minute I laid down I knew there was NO WAY I was ever getting up again if I let the laying-down continue, so I forced myself to put together some sort of lecture notes. Then I went to bed at 9:30 pm! And slept until 8 am!
And now I�ll share with you three jokes that Evany and I both think are hilarious, but which other people often do not find funny (compiled via IM). 1) �Wait, are you breaking up with me?� (as stated when someone disagrees with you about something unimportant, or if someone has to leave the room for a minute, etc.) If you say this, sometimes people, especially men, will become concerned that you think you are actually going out with them. Apparently that�s not funny at all. 2) �Are you saying I�m fat?� (as stated when someone says your dress is nice, or that what you�re eating looks good, etc.) Same deal. Most people, especially men, just don�t want to go there. It cannot possibly be funny. 3) �I think I�m pregnant now!� (as stated, for instance, when someone squeezes by you in a crowded bar, or maybe gives you a bite of a really good piece of cake). Again. Sometimes not so funny? No. ALWAYS FUNNY.
I was having a phone conversation with LG the other day. He was on his cellphone and the signal was bad, and at some point he said, �you�re breaking up a bit,� and I said, ha, �wait, are you breaking up with me?� He laughed for a long time. You see? ALWAYS FUNNY.
Have you ever thought about the phrase �sensible shoes�? I mean, are there shoes out there that human beings can�t sense the presence of, but maybe dogs can?
Class has gone very well. I have only 8 students. Given that there is an enrollment limit of 14 students in my classes, this is fine. My course description wasn�t available last year during registration for fall because I hadn�t even been offered the position yet. Anyway, my 8 students so far seem ideal: interested and inquisitive and ready to discuss the texts and related issues. It seems like it will be a fun semester.
As I was getting dressed for my first day of teaching, I had a crisis of sorts. I had no ironing board, and then couldn�t find the iron anyway, and, really, I have only one or two outfits that work in this oppressively hot and humid weather and also cover my tattoos. The tattoos will come out sooner or later, but it�s better to ease people into these things. So right after class I went looking for shopping. I found a mall a few miles away that is called Suburban Square. I am not joking. The first store I saw was Talbots. I said to myself, �lord (and taylor), please don�t make me shop at Talbots, please!� I found a Banana Republic, which furnished me with a fairly good skirt (on sale) and two identical blouses (same pattern and cut, different colors, also: over-priced, but perfect academic camoflage). I wore one on Friday, and it made me laugh when I looked in the mirror, but it�s a fairly cute blouse, and it doesn�t give me that �I am an Ugly Imposter� feeling that some Ladies Clothing does.
Here is my favorite quote of the week from someone else�s web log (Dana, the hot singer and very good songwriter from the very good band Deathray. I saw them open for Fountains of Wayne at Du Nord in SF, remember?). After an entry on a number of things including the situation in New Orleans, and race issues, he wrote: �Hey, if gas prices continue to rise, maybe GM could develop a combustion engine that runs on national shame.� Heh. Ouch.
Speaking of OPB, I recently looked at the page in Diaryland that tells me who got to my diary by clicking from sites that link to me, and that lead me to a woman who, in her web log, has links to four sites. Those sites are: me, Evany, Jerry Brown, and Will Wheaton. That�s right, Evany and I are rubbing elbows with the mayor of Oakland and Star Trek�s Wesley Crusher!
Anyway, as I was walking around Suburban Square I was IM-ing with Evany about my Talbots fear, and this was her response:
Evany: how awesome if you had to use talbots to cover tattoos.
Evany: it seems just walking into talbots would do that?
Evany: permanently?
Ha!
Btw, check out this insanely cute picture of Evany in the American Girl Cafe in NYC.
Do you think maybe somewhere there are sensibly dressed robots called talbots? And can dogs tell that they are dressed?
Recall that it was only Ulysses' dog who saw (or sensed!) him for who he was when he returned in disguise to his home after all those years of his odyssey. People can be dumb about these things.
You think I'm joking!
Here�s why you think I�m cute: I have hives in my armpits! Constantly, whenever it�s hot and humid! Because (and this is why you really like me): I am allergic to my own sweat! Can you believe it? I can, because there�s nothing like swollen and itchy armpits to keep you from forgetting such truths.
On occasion I have been allergic to other people�s sweat.
Speaking of sweat (because his NYC apartment has no air-conditioning and a velvet couch, on which I have slept), my good friend David, who has lived in Berlin for the past five years, but who is about to visit NYC because his subletted rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan needs his attention, emailed me from Canada the other night asking me to text message him to remind him that he exists. Apparently he is bored. So I wrote to him: �Don�t worry. You exist. Don�t let Canada get you pregnant.� He responded: �My pause in life is a pregnancy most swollen.� So I wrote back: �I live across the street from �a pea in the pod: maternity redefined.� I have not checked their lexicon.� Apparently that satisfied him, or made him despair of consulting me about matters of existence, because I have not heard back.
10:33 p.m. - September 03, 2005
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