The Bliss of Ms. Blossom

We went to the park last night to swing. After convincing Mandy that we need at least one of us to face each direction on the seats so we wouldn't be caught by surprise and molested, we told each other stories. I'll probably have a hard time remembering all the details, but here they are.

Sara went first:

Once upon a time, there was a pea named Gene who was the prime minister of his land. He felt himself to be superior to the other Pealanders, so he didn't have many friends and was lonely. Since this is a fairy tale, Gene decided to go on a quest to find a wife. He traveled for awhile and came upon a carrot. Gene was not homosexual, so decided to keep going, but for some reason the carrot covertly followed him on the rest of his journey. Then Gene got to Asparagusland and was just in time for a bull-riding contest to win the hand of the princess! Unfortunately Gene, being a pea, had no hands or arms or legs or any other useful body part to help him stay on a bull for 8 seconds. At this point the carrot emerges and offers to magically conjure hands for Gene in exchange for Jean's prime minister position. Gene refused and decided to continue his travelling until a solution presented itself. He arrived at the ocean and met the Sea King. The Sea King didn't know how to help Gene, but instead referred Gene to Ursula. Unlike the vindictive, manipulative, Disney Ursula, this one wasn't as powerful and simply granted Gene's wish without requiring a sacrifice of his voice or soul or anything else. Newly equipped with the necessary appendages to ride a bull, Gene returned to to Asparagusland just in time to make the registration deadline for the contest. Gene won the bull-riding contest! In the midst of his celebratory revelry, however, the Asparagus King decided that a pea (regardless of how many hands he has) has no business marrying asparagus royalty. Grief-stricken, the Aspargus Princess and Gene pleaded their cause with the utmost sincereity and eloquence. The Aspargus King, being the vindictive, manipulative king he was (similar to Disney's Ursula), agreed to allow the union in exchange for Gene's soul. Yes, this king was willing to make his daughter's husband soulless in order to gain power. Well, poor Gene felt that he couldn't give up now, not after having come so far, so he reluctantly agreed. Once the Asparagus Princess and Gene were married, however, she decided that it sucked being married to a soulless man. She gathered up a crowd of asparaguslanders to storm the castle and retrieve Gene's soul. They murdered and ate the king, according to Asparagusland's caniballistic customs. After their success, the happy couple moved back to Pealand to have many asparagus-pea children and live in peace. Unfortunately, the carrot returned and demanded that they give him their firstborn child or he would kill all of the other children. At this news, all of the Asparaguslanders and Pealanders joined forces to kill the carrot and end his evil shenanigans once and for all.

my story:

After circling the sun for many many years, the Earth grew weary of its role in the universe, especially since Mars lost its own indigenous populations millions of years ago. It is lonely being the only planet in a solar system with any civilations to talk about. The Earth decided it would go and find other planets with which it would have more in common. Unfortunately, it forgot to take into account that once it slightly deviated from its prescribed course, all of its life forms would die. Nevertheless, now that the Earth was a barren planet, there was even less to tie it down, so it decided to continue with its journey. As it left the solar system, it ran into Pluto who was being ridiculed and ostracized because of its recent demotion from planethood. The two decided to ditch this solar system and travel off together. They traveled for a long time through the universe until they were sucked into a black hole and squashed into tiny little particles! Since it was black, there was no way for them to see it before it was too late. Black holes capture light, but fortunately sound waves can still escape. Knowing this, the Earth yelled out a distress signal. The moon, who had been horribly overlooked and left behind, was still loitering around the old solar system and heard its old friend the Earth. Rushing to the rescue, the moon sped throughout the galaxy. Once it realized, however, that the Earth and Pluto were in a black hole, it approached cautiously so as not to be sucked up. The moon eventually decided to abandom them to their fate and have its own adventures instead. As it travlled through the universe, it met a comet. They decided to travel together, but the comet was going too fast for the moon. They decided to compromise speeds, so the moon travelled a bit faster and the comet travelled a bit slower, and all was well. Their egalitarian relationship should be a model to us all. They travelled for a very very long time until they reached the end of the universe and ran into a big wall. They could go no farther, so they rested and played cards instead.

After a couple false starts, Mandy finally told her story (surprisingly, it wasn't about brothels):

There was a ducked named Quaid (I think that was his name, but I'm using it anyway) who was on a farm. Quaid was wandering around the grounds one day when a laser shot at him from a bush. He was confused and frightened, and only more confused and frightened when a little green man emerged from the foliage. "We've been looking for you for ages!" the little green man said. Apparently Quaid was the long-lost king of some Jeebie Jabba galaxy about 20 thousand light years away. In that civilzation, the king doesn't subject his people to new scientific experiments, but allows them to be tested on himself. In this case, the king was turned into a duck and transplanted to Farmer Bob's farm on Earth. He also had amnesia until the little green man reminded him of what actually transpired. Unfortunately, the little green man's spaceship had crashed on Earth and now they couldn't go home. For some reason, the little green man lasered all the farm animals (maybe he was really hungry?). After gorging themselves on steak and chicken, Quaid felt sick. On his home planet, it is usual for the citizens to eat a lot of steak and chicken (well, their own versions which had lasers coming out of the ears), but a Earthling duck can't digest that much meat very well. Farmer Bob came out and saw all the bones from his dead animals. Quaid and the little green man were the only ones left alive and Farmer Bob eyed them very suspiciously. I don't remember what happened next, except that they probably killed Farmer Bob and they somehow solved their earlier transportation problem and made it back to Quaid's home planet. In his absence of a great number of years, his people had replaced him with a new king. It didn't really matter that much, however, because by then Quaid was very old and died soon after returning home. The ending is happy, though, because he was given a proper Jeebie Jabba funeral.

Considering the weather has been tempermental recently, Friday was a gorgeous day. I wasn't planting flowers (or spreading mulch) with an organization this year, but Melanie and I hung out in Memorial Circle for awhile that afternoon. We got free t-shirts and hotdogs and boldly loitered on the grass as frisbees sliced through the air around us.

I had a really nice time with Nathan that evening. Jalisco's margaritas and coversation, followed by monstary pictures at his house. Nathan is strange and I don't see him too terribly often, but he's a good guy, despite his blatant misogynistic comments that are intended to throw me into a tamtrum. Time spent with him is always interesting. Part of me is always envious that his life is so open to possibilities right now, and I've just committed myself to a 6-year doctoral program...

Mandy, Sara and I saw Music & Lyrics again last night. Yes, again. It's not the best film in the world, but I like Hugh Grant and it was only $2. My favorite line in the whole movie is when Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore) and Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) are trying to record their song Way Back Into Love. Sophie is really nervous and the first few words she manages to whisper are so airy the microphone barely picks them up. Alex stops her and says, "just a little bit louder, because this song is intended for humans, okay? Way Back Into Love, take two." Hugh Grant's delivery always gets me.

If I could combine Melanie, Nathan, and Hugh Grant into one person... I think that would be pretty exciting.

"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thurber

Now I feel guilty for disliking him, especially since I realize how often I've heard that quote before. Sorry, James Thurber, I shouldn't have blamed you if my crossword skills were lacking.





This is the cool part:

"Thurber describes his mother as a 'born comedienne' and 'one of the finest comic talents I think I have ever known.' She was a practical joker, on one occasion pretending to be crippled and attending a faith healer revival, only to jump up and proclaim herself healed."

The weather was really nice today. So nice, that after I walked all the way from the English Building to Holden Hall just to remember that Historical Archaeology was cancelled, I went back to sit outside of the Engish building for an hour and a half until I was scheduled to work. I really think that the English building and surrounding area (except for the vast dirt field by the library) is my favorite part of campus. I first decided this during my freshman year when I had some time between my Sociology class and a Women's Studies conference. I sat by the statue in the courtyard of the two stone hands cradling a bunch of letters and finished 1984. Then later when some Gordon people wanted to wander around campus late at night, I made everyone go by this statue and we climbed up and looked for the letter A. It is there, alright, but close to the back where the wrists are. I remember sitting on a bench in that courtyard on a date once, and while I'm most certainly not going to repeat that exact experience again, it was at least comforting that he appreciated the courtyard as well and suggested we go there. Sometimes after a UDems event in the English lecture hall, we would linger in that area and talk about politics until the dark drove us home. After my Art History class (by the way, it was great, go take one) we would descend from the exit and cut through the courtyard. When I was wasting time before or after French, I would sit on those benches and do the daily crossword. For our English major brochure we're completing for our senior seminar, we're going to try and take a picture of the three of us by that fountain to put on the back. Who knows, maybe it will be picked to replace the fliers that are being used now.

About that brochure, I would always recommend getting margaritas before starting a project like that. It seemed to work out well. And it was also nice that the three of us are really bossy, which sounds problematic, I know, but it just meant that we got along. After looking at the English Department website, it mentions how we are "pioneers at the frontiers of the humanities" and that phrase is going to entertain me for years, I think. Pioneers? I guess. According to someone, anyway. In our senior seminar class today, Dana was taking pictures of everyone. She would tell Stephanie and I to pose, then someone would say "Facebook that!" and most people would laugh except for the few who sigh and start complaining about the insipid qualities of such sites. It started getting strange when, during the middle of someone's presentation, she began taking pictures of random people in the class without their knowledge - including Dr. Conrad. She captured a nice one of him looking like a badass and erudite as he leaned forward to catch what someone was saying.

So, Historical Archaeology. Not bad as far as Archaeology classes go, but it's really not quite my thing. Luckily I've only had to take a few to get my Anthro degree. The last few classes we've been preseting our Refuse Analysis projects. That really just means that we had to keep a log of all the garbage we threw away in our kitchen trash, switch anonymously, and share our findings with the class. It actually sounds interesting, but it was harder than I thought. That's all normal academic schoolwork stuff, but the part that pissed me off is coming up. A grad student (a number of Anthro classes have both grad and undergrad students, since our department is so small) gave her presentation. Since there was a ticket for the movie 300 decided the subject must be a guy since that's "such a boy movie." Then she said that it seemed like someone was cooking a lot, so he must live with a girl, since "most girls cook." Not cool. I saw that movie and I don't really cook. According to her, I'm a guy. I already said that this was a hard project, but I don't think it's appropriate to base your conclusions on personal generalizations you make. She didn't have any statistics about action/epic movies or cooking. All she used was these strict stereotypes about girl and boy things. Damn. Fuckin' idiot. And that's not a generalization, because I have first-hand knowledge of her idiocy in this particular case.

Anyway, when I was walking back from Holden Hall to the English Building today, I came to the Southwest Collection and had to, like I do at least twice everday, decide which way to go. Sometimes its a "by the library" day, and sometimes I follow the street and go under the trees. The same goes for when I'm leaving English class and I have to decide which of the many ways I want to walk to Archaeology. I realized today that I associate lots of different memories with certain areas, even when they are as similar as adjascent sides of buildings. Vibes. But, just like time travel, it always reminds me of how small coincidences can become so important. Like the people that I randomly see and start a conversation with, which leads to an activity or a new friendship, etc. For example, today I saw Julie and she reminded me about her pool party this weekend. Being the idiot that I can be, I thought it was last Saturday, but wouldn't have realized this unless I ran into her. And I reminded her that, since Mike is back in town, we were going to the Fox & Hound tonight. Usually I am learning about plantation sites at that time, but as luck or fate or Buddha would have it, I saw someone I don't usually see that often. Ok, not a life-changing or riveting example, but it's important to me.

When I say that I sat outside the English Building, I really mean that I worked on the crossword a little (fuckin' James Thurber quote, I don't even know who that is!) then took a nap. I really love public naps, even though they make me a little paranoid. I had to make sure that a part of me was touching each of my belongings in case someone wanted to steal my Archaeology notes or university paper. My arms and legs all fall asleep really easily, so it can be hard to situate my comfortably. In the end, my left hand was completely numb I remember dreaming, but now I don't remember what about. Damn. On the London-Paris trip, we would sometimes go to one of the parks (Hyde Park in London and that one in Bath were my two favorites) and play games or nap. Something about feeling the sun and being able to sleep while not exaclty being alone is really relaxing. The thing I hate about naps now is when people cover the windows and turn off all the lights. Then I feel like I'm missing out on part of the day and it makes me disoriented when I wake up. Public napes, however, trick me into feeling that I'm still participating in society. And I will always choose sunlight over darkness. At work someone came in and talked about how nice it was. I enthusiastically (too enthusiastically?) and told him about my nap in the sun. Crystal mentioned how she hasn't been outside at all today so she doesn't have a clue what the weather is like. This was a really sad statement, I thought. I realize I'm not the most outdoorsy person, but one of the nicest things ever is being able to lay outside and read a book.

Dr. Elbow came in today and I mentioned that someone gave a presentation over her interview with him in my senior seminar. Apparently he entered some photographs into an exhibit that were about his trips to South America. Dr. Dennis and him have done work like that together, so I've seen lots of the slides she was talking about. Then he asked me about grad school, and I learned that he got his PhD in Pittsburgh. He started talking about the area and seemed to know it pretty well. Apparently we are really good friends now. Before he left, he got on my case for not filling out my Honors exit survey and graduating senior data form. "If you had done that, I would have already known you were going to Penn State and wouldn't have had to ask you!"

Summary: I like the English Building, the sun, crosswords, and public naps. I do not like James Thurber or gender stereotypes.

I am reading Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi, and she mentions how the Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein "...predicted that the genius pool would shrink by nearly 60 percent and the population with IQs under seventy would swell by a comparable amount, because 'brighter' women were neglecting their reproductive duties to chase after college degrees and careers - and insisting on using birth control. 'Sex comes first, the pains and cost of pregnancy and motherhood later,' he harumphed."

So much going on here besides blatant sexism: classicism, xenophobia (Herrnstein's worried this will harm the US's global standing), etc, but what really gets me is the word "harumphed."

Such a great word! Considering all the harumphers I know (mainly Dad and Sara), I should be using it a lot more often. For some reason it reminds me of Winnie the Pooh... was there a similar word in those stories? What are those creatures Tigger is afraid of?

[frantically searching online...]

HEFFALUMPS!

Today we moved Mom's Rose of Sharon from the side to the front of the house.

(Not all the male feminists I know are like this by a long shot, but I've still noticed this trend recently.)

I'm sick of having a conversation with a guy about feminism, reproductive rights, etc., and having them say: "Well, even though I'm male, I'm still a feminist (or pro-choice or whatever)." No one should have to be defensive about their gender and I think it's commendable that people can connect with others beyond those arbitrary boundaries. That's like saying a heterosexual person can't support gay rights or an ethnic majority must automatically be racist. Feminism isn't about pitting women against men, but recognizing a system that disenfranchizes all sorts of people by endorsing strict social roles (gender roles included). I'm never the one who implies that men can't be feminists; it's always them. Which begs the question: do they really understand feminism?

The new facelift for Facebook doesn't really bother me one way or the other, EXCEPT for the new Inbox tab at the top. Whenever anyone gets a new message, it just shows up as a number in paratheses. What happened to the charming little envelope icon? I have been conditioned to rejoice when I see that icon. I love love love getting messages, but this new method of announcing a new message doesn't seem very satisfying.

Other than that, I saw a million and one people at the Phi Beta Kappa iniation. And I just promised to keep in touch with about 4 professors, which in hindsight, was very foolish. I got to see Kambra! She was so excited to see Sara and I that she started crying. I miss her, and I stand by what I said (about a year and a half ago): I would marry her if it wouldn't cost so much to feed her. This is the woman who wants to eat her way through Italy. I ran into several profs that I know only because they have credit union accounts. Dr. Dennis challenged me to come up with a creative use for my PBK key. Apparently he knows someone who used it on his leather jacket zipper. Artie Limmer came by and took a picture of Dr. Dennis, Sara, and I. It's a little odd, because I don't think I ever introduced them to one another. I did meet one of the guys from the national office or whatever. I walked up to get pink lemonade, and he was getting iced tea. He congratulated me and asked what my plans were. It turns out he has a BA in English, so if this English professor thing doesn't pan out, I know I can always fall back on PBK as a career option. To top it off, the vegetable selection wasn't very good, but we ate Rosa's after anyway.

So, I've decided on Penn State for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, their program seems to be more student friendly. The specifics aren't interesting to anyone who isn't personally involved, but - let me tell you - they seemed to take more of an interest on my campus visit than Iowa did. Not that I expect people to bring the routines of their lives to a halt to entertain me for two days, but showing up to appointments would be a nice gesture. Financially, personally, professionally, spiritually -- it just seems to be the better decision.

My life is now cyclical. I was born in State College, and I'm returning there to get my PhD. Mom was going through pictures the other day, and she found one from years ago where Dad was wearing a dark blue tshirt that said State and I was wearing a dark blue tshirt that said College. We stood next to each other to spell out State College. In hindsight, I love this picture: Dad got his PhD there, and I'm now going to do the same. I don't think I'm particularly photogenic, and Dad doesn't always smile in pictures, but this one actually turned out decent. I like it.

State College seems to be about 4 hours away from lots of places: Philadelphia, New York, Washington DC. Someone from there insinuated how 4 hours was a long time to drive somewhere, but they apparently haven't ever travelled anywhere in Texas. I drove (read: Melanie drove, I passengered) 6 hours to see Barack Obama, so I can handle 4 hours easy.

I love Margaret Atwood. I'm semi-obsessed with her right now and am reading nothing else.

Yes, black swans must mean something, Stephanie.

It's very cold.

Yesterday, we went to Mckenzie Park to feed the ducks. There were two lazy Canada geese who didn't want to swim very far to chase down a piece of bread, and a handful of ducks who were tentative about swimming too close. After trudging through the wet grass and over the bridge, we stood there eating the bread and discussing swans. I want to drag them back with me to fly kites.