| I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford |
[Jul. 20th, 2008|11:03 am] |
Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon ... the two most beautiful words in the English language. -- Henry James
Woke up late, went to Threadgill's for brunch with John and read the paper. Went to Flipnotics and sat in the heat for a while and worked on some graphics for the graduate conference. Gave myself a very silly manicure -- metallic blue with white floral designs and rhinestones -- while watching Manhattan. Worked a bit on my research, and had what amounts to a lightning bolt moment -- a minor bit of connecting the dots that will likely substantially inform my approach. Hot damn.
Got tacos with John. Watched the Addiction. Found it kind of plodding and ponderous. Vampire grad student sounded more exciting in theory. Bought tickets for Two Lane Blacktop with Monte Hellman live on Wednesday. |
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[Jul. 16th, 2008|03:06 am] |
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| she was just like kissing me |
[Jul. 15th, 2008|09:07 am] |
Since I rarely listen to top-40 radio, I was unaware of Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" until fairly recently.
I'm fairly ambivalent about the song. It's cheap fun, and the post-Madonna fishnets and synths video is pretty appealing. But, I can't decide if it's some sort of bi-curious anthem or just more girls who make out for boys garbage. It's the line "I hope my boyfriend don't mind it" that grates on me, since it seems like a strategic straightening out of the speaker.
Jill Sobule's "I Kissed a Girl" is something else entirely. Sobule's Lisa Loeb-era girl with guitar ditty is sweet and earnest by comparison. The Sobule video features Fabio and ironic 1950s imagery.
I'm not sure what I think about the political shifts hinted at by the two songs with the same title. Is the latter song an indication of the mainstreaming of queer sexualities? Or is it more evidence of the ways that non-heteronormative female sexuality is appropriated by the mainstream as something sexy and marketable for straight audiences? Are we over all that?
In other gay news, AISD pulled 10 grand in funding for a production of Rent, the first licensed production of the musical by a Texas high school. The show is going on anyhow, because of a rule stating that only the principal has to approve productions, but most of the faculty, professional musicians, and staff working on the production are now doing so without pay. Opening night is this Thursday. If you want to support the production, go see it or make a donation. Despite my generally low interest in high school musicals, I'm likely going Saturday, if anyone wants to join me. |
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[Jul. 15th, 2008|03:08 am] |
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[Jul. 14th, 2008|03:05 am] |
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[Jul. 13th, 2008|03:07 am] |
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| it's harder to be friends than lovers |
[Jul. 13th, 2008|01:04 am] |
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) vintagehandbag: Fuck memory foam!
neturon: You know you've entered a certain life stage when you're yelling "Fuck memory foam" in a bar.
That was followed by a brief rant about why exactly I hate memory foam. I do, in fact, hate memory foam. It feels gross, and it makes me get too hot when I'm sleeping and wake up every time I want to shift in my sleep, which is quite a lot actually. Additionally, it is bad bad bad for sex.
Unrelated: I would like to note that I received an e-mail today in which the Social Capital Foundation, in announcing their conference on Social Capital and Social Inclusion, mentioned that they are "looking forward to having active new members," and invited those interested to "send cover letter + CV for deliberation." They're not exclusive, they just love irony.
Further unrelated: This has to be one of the most unbelievable things I've read on Craigslist ... Now I cannot host I have a room mate and we have a agreement no women allowed in the apartment. Were not gay just don't want too many complications. Because when someone says he and his roommate don't allow women in the apartment, I think "gay," not, you know, that "roommate" is code for "wife." |
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[Jul. 12th, 2008|03:10 am] |
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| why can't I breathe |
[Jul. 11th, 2008|04:38 pm] |
I got to write a column for Flow (click and go read!). I feel pretty good about how it turned out. The piece is a feminist reading of the Nintendo DS I Play for Me campaign. Anyhow, I'm excited, it's kind of a big deal for me because I'm in an academic journal that important people in my field read, etc. Go read, comment if you see fit.
I spent an hour walking my mom through how to e-mail me some photos last night. We searched for the files, we attached them, we failed, repeatedly, to get Yousendit to work. So, so stressful. Things like this make me really afraid of falling very far behind technologically. I don't want to hit some point in my life and just not know how to do things that for many are basic life tasks.
I had some sort of weird H.G. Wells/Soylent Green nightmare last night. I lived in bizarre conditions in a giant house with a bunch of friends and family. There was no sky -- the house was either in a giant structure or there was a dome over the city or it was someplace underground. It and the surrounding buildings were on stilts. We weren't supposed to leave the house. I snuck out and learned that the plastic bracelets we were all wearing had gold stamped lettering indicating we were all to be made into ground meat for the other people to eat. We spent the rest of the dream trying to escape through a tunnel hidden under a frayed beige carpet. I don't know where the tunnel went. Also, the bracelets were faceted plastic, like children's jewelry. Bangles, really.
Happy weekend, everybody. |
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[Jul. 10th, 2008|03:14 am] |
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[Jul. 9th, 2008|03:05 am] |
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| went down to the river to pray |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|12:32 am] |
audreyheartburn pointed me to Elizabeth Berkley Lauren's web site, or, at least, the web site of her workshops targeting teen girls. It seems really well intentioned and earnest. However, there are a few concerns I have:
- Comic Sans. My eyes! My eyes!
- Quote from Reviving Ophelia on "Mission" page.
- Bio littered with typos.
I'd continue, but it seems cruel. |
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[Jul. 7th, 2008|05:02 pm] |
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[Jul. 6th, 2008|03:06 am] |
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| I was the boy you never knew you wanted |
[Jul. 5th, 2008|11:31 am] |
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Less than 48 hours home and already my accent's creeping in thick as molasses, as sin, as the dust that clouds the air here. We blow off bottle rockets over the field off FM360. Remember, there didn't used to be houses there on the FM. Remember, the speed limit used to be 60. 35 now. There's kids, and houses, not just shored up single-wides, but brick and mortars with foundations and skylights and fancy mailboxes. A family friend's kid is entranced by the pyrotechnics. We tell him. Bottle rockets are illegal now. We tell him. Enjoy these, we can't get them anymore. They zip and sizzle into the sky and disappear. The kids are getting tired and fighting it, begging for more tanks, more hens, more roman candles, more rockets in the sky. Down the road, someone else launches a rocket into a field of dry grass, where it ignites, and spreads. Same place as last year. Same fire. We send a couple of folks in the pickup with a fire extinguisher to deal with it, and they come back as the smell of charred grass washes over. So much smoke. Empty boxes. Burnt bits of paper, of grass. Kicked up gravel, swarming mosquitos. That silence like nothing, like empty, interrupted only by the sparks and light, the explosions. |
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[Jul. 5th, 2008|03:05 am] |
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[Jul. 4th, 2008|03:11 am] |
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| the saddest kid in grade number two |
[Jul. 2nd, 2008|09:37 pm] |
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So, several days ago, my grandmother's cat, Mindie, who lives at the retirement community with my grandmother, disappeared. She was definitely not in the apartment, no one knew where she was, and my parents and aunt had combed the entire grounds with no luck. My mother gave the entire staff her cell phone number with instructions to call her at any time, day or night, if they found the cat. My mom got a call at 4 a.m. night before last. The cat had been found in the apartment next to my grandmother's; her neighbor leaves his door open, and apparently the cat ran into the apartment, and then was very confused, and was yowling, but my grandmother's neighbor, like most of the residents, doesn't hear well, so he said only that he kept dreaming that he heard a cat. In any case, Mindie's home now. Stories like this convince me being old must be like living out an Edward Albee play. |
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[Jul. 2nd, 2008|03:30 am] |
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[Jul. 1st, 2008|03:42 am] |
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