This evening in a fit of procrastination (and waiting for Tess's Bjork cover band practice to end), I nearly bought my ticket for this summer's research trip...

But then I got nervous! Crazy! But it looks like I'm going to try to leave on 9 June and return on 18 August or so... Maybe I'll try to leave a week or so later... This stuff is just so exciting!

Washington IAD to Guatemala Aurora, $381
Indianapolis to Guatemala Aurora, $678

Nevermind that I also priced tickets for a variety of international locales. Favorites?

Washington IAD to London Heathrow, $919
Washington IAD to Chiang Mai Thailand, $3421
Washington IAD to Sao Paulo, $943
Indianapolis to Dublin Ireland, $1247

Summer! Summer! Summer! Yeah!

It's pretty exciting to get stoked on travel and research, since so much of my thoughts of the summer have been preoccupied with worry about loss, sadness, heartache and break...

1. Simone de Beauvoir
2. Susan Stryker
3. Robert W. Connell
4. Ann Laura Stoler
5. Edwige Belmore

These fabulous dudes and ladies (or whatever) are forever canonized in my Hall of Crushes...

Honorary Inductee: Plato

so, it's the end of the semester. and that makes things absolutely crazy and stressful. so, i'm just trying to post some bullshit to relax. and also distract myself from worrying about summer funding and whether i'll get any sort of grant or fellowship for summer study from the dept. of history.

i've been thinking alot about how the last two years have changed me. i can't hardly imagine the person i was the summer before i came here... it was such a fabulous summer, i was so enamored of life and people and learning cool things about myself. and so wide-eyed about moving to bloomington and going to graduate school.

now that sort of happiness is much harder to find. i'm not unhappy or sad or depressed, exactly, i'm just weary.

I could be prepping for class or my evening meeting, but why do that when I can procrastinate so easily, care of miss_meryl

One word, and one word only. No hyphenated cheats. One. WORD. ONLY.

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

Not as easy as you might think. Remember: one word answers.
1.Where is your mobile phone? backpack
2.Your significant other? generous
3.Your hair? perfect
4.Your mother? nurse
5.Your father? work
6.Your favorite thing? dancing!
7.Your dream last night? lost
8.Your favorite drink? coffee
9.Your dream/goal? professor
10.The room you're in? soma
11.Your ex? which?
12.Your fear? fear
13.Where do you want to be in 6 years? professor
14.Where were you last night? class
15.What you're not? happy
16.Muffins? vegan
17.One of your wish list items? cock
18.Where you grew up? everywhere
19.The last thing you did? read
20.What are you wearing? underpants
21.Your TV? boring
22.Your pets? dollycat!
23.Your computer? warm
24.Your life? complicated
25.Your mood? cloudy
26.Missing someone? tremendously
27.Your car? parked
28.Something you're not wearing? shorts
29.Favorite Store? boxcar
30.Your summer? guatemala!
31.Like someone? yep!
32.Your favorite color? black
33.When is the last time you laughed? when?
34.Last time you cried? yesterday

I think we all just want to find someone what makes us feel like Tracy Spencer in her ground-breaking video "Run to Me." See below:



Bloody brilliant!

I could post something for real, but instead I'll just post a play list.

19 March 2008

Too Much Time on My Hands - Styx
We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off - Jermaine Stewart
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Wild Life - Talking Heads
The Goonies R Good Enough - Ms. Lauper
When You Were Mine - The Princely One
Punk Rocker - Teddybears (feat. the one and only Iggy Pop)
You or Your Memory - those Mountain Goats
Beats Me Every Time - PB&J

dudes, i don't even know where to start. the last few weeks have been crazy. like in a bad way. death, houses burning down, teeth falling out, dental appointments, car repair, mediocre conference, too much work, not enough fun, existential crises, what else? oh, right, reading, writing, research, and grading.

i hope that soon i can come up for air. at this point, every day feels like survival. not to be melodramatic or anything.

and i got to the library too early, so i'm wasting 30 minutes (15 now) before the stacks open. ugh.

AND i left my coffee in the car.

/catastrophizing.

Yesterday was also big day - I got tons of props from a gender history professor, then went to this talk (see above) and, for the first time, asked a question of a visiting academic's project during the Q/A segment. Whew!

Day 2 of major props from Professors who I respect like whoa, today regarding an incisive and important question regarding gender that I posed to the disappointingly inastute senior scholar during yesterday's presentation.

Quote: "So, there's no gender in cock fights, huh?"

In response, I just laughed and felt validated and intelligent. We continued to talk about other omissions and shortcomings in the project. In hindsight, I wonder which of his colleagues told him about my question and what did they say about it, for this particular Professor had walked out earlier in the talk, after seeing that a colleague of his would "take care of things." He was, he said, "feeling a little disgusted."

Also, a pleasant and genuinely interested entre into conversation from a Professor who, just last week, I characterized as socially awkward and aloof. Today he was caring, human, available and offered an anecdote from his own personal experience in developing as an educator.

today i'm feeling a little dumb. and a lot competitive. i feel stupid compared to a peer of mine (to whom i usually feel superior - that is not much better). we have class together this evening and i just feel so fucking toxic toward her. as if i'm starting to dislike her on a personal level because i feel competitive and perhaps a little threatened by her on a professional level.

i am used to being the best. or the best of my class. or something like that. so, i get caught up in this business of scarcity and covetousness. i want to destroy her in classroom debate.

it's no way to be.

i guess there's a point in the early winter where everything is just so cold that all that you can do is sit back and think about things. and go back and read days and days (weeks) of old LJ posts which you missed while the actual things were happening.

and you think about everyone you know, everyone else who's not on LJ and you realize that pretty much people are just doing what they do over and over again.

and that doesn't mean that no one's changing or that your friends and acquaintences are boring, but rather that you're in your 20s and so are most of your friends and everyone is settled into who they are (if only for a month or a year) and you kinda already know what they're about.

and then, really, your super cute perfect cat jumps up to join you on your desk chair and you feel pretty ok.

i finished all of my schoolwork at 5pm today. that's, like, hours before my deadline and a whole night ahead of her deadline for me. sweet.

first thing i did was pull out this big tub of crafty/art stuff that has been the monster under my bed all semester. then i thought i'd sew some patches onto shirts and stuff, but then my scissors don't cut fabric. so i added new fabric shears to my list of stuff to get for myself around Xmas. then, i called the old lady and made some plans.

then...oh yeah...i took, like, the best shower ever. and it's cool, i'm alright talking about this stuff here. i'm pretty ok with my faggy side. well, my many faggy sides. i used Lush's Sandstone soap, then the Giovanni Hot Chocolate scrub, then Lush Sonic Death Monkey shower gel. i smell awesome. like a big bar of pervy boy chocolate & coffee.

now, all's peaceful here at the tranny shack. i'm waiting for my skin and hair to dry, then i'll go over to LRL's house for some making out, then dinner and a movie at home. the dinner? fuck, who knows! the movie? "This is England," a film on rudeboys and skins in...yes...England in the 80s. the preview and soundtrack are fucking awesome.

things couldn't be better. i got an A+ in one LatAm colloq, and no other grades posted. i've finished grading. i've got a long night ahead with the LRL, then a day of (fun) work tomorrow, then a few more days in bloomington, then home to DC for the "holidaze." and i smell like chocolate.

...I've got to be done. My brain hurts. And I started drinking diet soda. Talk about self-injury.

I don't know what I want for Christmas. It's that time of year when folks ask you these things. And I don't have an answer. I also don't have anything to say here.

But I thought I did when I started typing.

this end of the semester shit is so rough. i feel like my brain is melting and i still have plenty to write. my deadline was extended to midnight sunday, so that's great. but damn. i just wish that i was done already.

readings course = never. again.

frankly, mr. shankly, i'd rather troll myspace than work on this paper. is it just the oppressive odor of my study carrel in wells library? or maybe the herd of UGZ everywhere i turn?

if the study carrel grafitti is any indication, this is no place for inspiration:

1. FUCK THIS PLACE
2. I heart ICORE ----> ME TOO ----> ME THREE
3. I heart Kevin
4. heart LB
5. heart A+K

so, the past few days i've gotten to thinking pretty hard about why it is that i never fucking hang out anymore. and it's because i'm always doing schoolwork. like grading papers or reading or writing my own papers. or oftentimes reading a book for class.

but it sucks, like for reals. i haven't been to a show since october. no joke. it's easy, i guess, cos i see a bunch of people whom i really like on a day to day basis what with school and drinking coffee and working at the 'cosm and all, but damn... there are so many more people i'd like to see on the regular, not just in passing and "hi how's it going? oh it's great. it's good to see you" kind of a way. that's silly.

but, i mean, i have gotten really adept at juggling mountains of blue books and at microcosm rediscovered my long lost adolescent and late adolescent fondness for zines.

MA Review tomorrow. Paper drafts tonight. I wonder when I'll ever just spend a night with LRL without my sneaky laptop peaking around the corner or, worse, expectantly perched on my lap.

Damn near burnt out. But that's right where I should be at this point in the semester, no?

i think i'm losing my mind. like losing my ability to talk about the day-to-day things. like absent-minded professor in the works, here, folks. all day long i've struggled to hold a conversation about anything, anything other than the proposal i'm writing and the monograph/theory paper...

both due this coming thursday. the day after my MA review! talk about stressful...

it's crazy to believe but, please, don't get too excited. i still have some bureaucratic paperwork to go through to get my K'iche' language stuff certified. and then i'll add those extra two letters...

i can't believe that the semester is nearly over. i thought it would never end.

one of these days i'll have that ph.d, go to australia, build a treehouse, find pants that fit just right, make homemade ginger ale, go rollerskating, live in the city again, teach graduate students, and write my third book.

one day at a time.

the prison books conference was really great. i had a great time with LRL, it was our 11 month anniversary on friday night, so it was really great to spend a night in a strange hotel room with her. she's so amazing.

the other bloomington folks who went were fucking awesome, too. dancing at c street was the most fun. i think highschool homecoming went to the gay bar, but it was ok. we were the weirdos, but we were the best dancers. i thought riley was gonna punch someone, but instead she just danced right up on that stupid dude. i smiled until my face hurt. i hope i never live in champaign-urbana, but a weekend there was nice. plus, there's no shame in watching "my big fat greek wedding" to decompress, right?

new knuckles:
KOOL -AID
DIEY OUNG

now, it's just about surviving the rest of the week. there's too much to do, but that's old news. today i wrote a pretend lecture for a class assignment and later this week i've got to write a real, live one.

when will i take the time to get my car checked up? to get that new (full color) tattoo? it's kinda like from now until december shit's gonna be crazy. i really only have to survive this end-of-the-semester insanity for three more semesters. then i'll be done taking classes. forever.

sometimes, i wish i just worked a real job.

oh, p.s. pay attention to global news right now, peops! all sorts of changes are happening to the south and east and west of us!

...be updating all the time, but seriously i've been slacking lately.

this is new, good stuff:
+ procrasting on reading for thursday class
+ contemplating a mental health day off from class/work/everything on thursday
+ temping @ microcosm (and maybe tomorrow is my last day this time around)
+ prison books conference this weekend
+ layers layers layers
+ my cat is so cute
+ i'm not a "cool machine" and that's just fine
+ finally mended my cords just in time for fall
+ quietly brainstorming sights to see in guatemala this coming summer
+ making new friends in a slow way, who needs fast-found friends?
+ sister spit came to bloomington on saturday
+ "arrested development" season 2 is so fucking hilarious
+ registering for spring semester classes (only 3 more semesters of coursework!)
+ that lull before the end of the semester madness

scary stuff:
- too much reading to do and not enough time. not at all.
- impending deadlines too far off to do anything but shudder
- winter's coming so soon, then there'll be snow and then time will just fly until spring
- always mountains of bluebooks and quizzes to grade
- why did i assign myself a huge historiographical/state of the field essay for my readings course?