The Bliss of Ms. Blossom

My dad sent me a recent Chronicle article written by a PENN STATE ENGLISH PROFESSOR about what it's like to live in Stage College. That translates into about three signs for Penn State. The guy also mentioned Iowa City as another typical college town. I guess that's another sign for the Univ of Iowa. Furthermore, last week my brother's friend walked into the house wearing a Univ of Michigan tshirt. Sign. I should really be keeping track of all these signs, because I see them everywhere now. Or I should stop being superstitious and make decisions based on reason. We'll see.

It's not entirely fair to say I've been an isolated hermit during this first part of Spring Break. I've been out to dinner with people, and I've conveniently been at home during a mealtime or two, but I've also spent a lot of time with only Anna. She has done yoga in the mornings. She has filled out her (dead-on) March Madness bracket. She has read in peace. She has taken naps. It sounds like she's on retirement.

A glorious retirement, I might add, because being an isolated hermit is quite wonderful.

The employee at Starbucks expressed sympathy for me when he saw that I was lugging around Ulysses and two secondary texts. Apparently it's not trendy to do homework over Spring Break. He seemed to forget, however, that it's always trendy to go to Starbucks. And I was wearing a new bra, so he underestimated just how cool I really was.

I read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor (Univ of Iowa graduate! sign?) last night. Very chilling story, and I ended up really creeping myself out.

I had a pretty in-depth conversation with myself in the bathroom mirror earlier today. I was imagining my upcoming visit to a prospective university's campus, and I think I got carried away.

As much as I absolutely worship only Anna time (don't get me wrong, I really do), seeing real people helps to keep me grounded. Usually Sara is the bathroom mirror, for example. I don't want anyone to come back to Lubbock, yet, but ask me again by the time the weekend rolls around.

Let me tell you about my wart. It's on the bottom of my foot and has only recently developed. My Will-brother had a wart on the bottom of his foot, but he waited so long to treat it that the doctors had to eventually cut it out. Rubbing it with Head & Shoulders shampoo or putting duct tape on it are two examples of folk remedies that I've heard. My junior high English teacher told us about a magazine that would buy warts - if you told them how many you had, they would send money and the warts would eventually fall off. In my Folklore class a few semesters ago, I remember hearing a wart remedy that involved burying a piece of cloth that touched the wart. At least, something like that, although what I just wrote doesn't really make sense. I opted for a bandaid-like treatment that I found at Wal-Mart. It seems that progress is being made, but today my wart began bothering me when I walked. So lame.

Today at work, a student came in and asked for change for her five, including two dollars worth of quarters. Only having three quarters in my tray, I walked around Crystal to reach her drawer. "I'm going to grab some change real quick," I said as I slowly pulled the drawer out so as not to bump her. She leaned sideways uncomfortably to give me room. "Sorry, but I'll try not to hit your baby." She freezed, then turned to the guy she was helping (the one who never smiles and always seems rushed to get out of our office) and quickly explained, "Oh no - I'm not pregnant! Anna's just weird." He waited a beat, just staring at the two of us. Then his face relaxed and he cracked up. He walked away, folding his bills into his wallet and chuckling down the hall.

I am in the library and I almost sat down next to this truly creepy individual, but I noticed who he was at the last second, did an exaggerated bug-eyed cartoon face, and scampered away. I have no idea if he noticed, but I also don't care in the least. I saw him in the library elevators once. He asked me how I was doing, then TOUCHED MY STOMACH. There are few instances when people can get away with that. Maybe if I was pregnant, and always if I'm about to have sex. Neither was the case here.

sex
The biological classification of individuals as males and females. Sociologists would note, however, that even though this is a classification based on biological differences, it is a socially constructed classification.

gender roles
Social roles ascribed to individuals on the basis of their sex. The term gender differs from sex because it refers specifically to the cultural definition of the roles and behavior appropriate to members of each sex rather than to those aspects of human behavior that are determined by biology. Thus, giving birth is a female sex role, while the role of infant nurturer and care giver (which could be performed by a male) is a gender role usually ascribed to females.

Ahhh! Such a great time!

First and foremost, I locked eyes with Barack Obama. That has to be understood. For a split second, he stared right at me. I don't think he noticed Melanie's or my homemade Barack shirts, but he knew Anna Crawford was there, I'm sure of it. We stool for four hours in the rain, but I would do it again. This weekend? Definitely. The rally was fuckin' unreal. Obama was like some sort of rockstar and we almost expected him to materialize amidst smoke and lights. One thing that stands out was how intense he was. He would begin to talk, and when the crowd was roaring too loudly for him to continue speaking, he would stop pacing long enough to stare us all down. He always looked at us, watching the supporters, talking about what we wanted to hear, and never played to the cameras. He may be young and charismatic, but he's also serious: about the campain, about change, about getting us back on track. I can't emphasize enough how focused and intense he was. Melanie said she wished he had smiled more, but I think he showed me what I needed to see from him. "I'd vote for that."

It was nice to feel on vacation. Even on the weekends in Lubbock when I'm not really up to much, I'm still in Lubbock. That means I'm still thinking about my thesis, or whether I work this Saturday or next, or when I'm meeting my parents for dinner, or which bills I have to pay, or why Michigan hasn't sent a welcome wagon to congratulate me on my acceptance yet, or which friends I still need to call back before they completely wash their hands of me. It's tiring. I didn't take any homework at all to Austin (haven't been back since ACL 2005, wow, so long ago), and only checked my email twice. I slept in and drank soy milk and made some friends and let the humidity poof up my hair and realized that I can deal with heights to some degree and found a jar of naked plastic salsa babies and didn't lose a game of Spoons. It was fantastic.

I feel that the weekend was nicely balanced. Tearing up at Obama's allusion to Martin Luther King Jr. and taking a picture of creepy dolls' heads because I thought they would make Steph laugh: again, such a great time.