Domestic Violence

I saw _North Country_ with
a friend yesterday afternoon,

which was a bit surreal and completely ironic
since I had just experienced

my own erruption of violence before
she and I met at the empty cinema.


My partner and I were arguing
the same-old-same-old
in the kitchen: me, sitting at the table drinking coffee;
him, standing at the sink.

I felt that, once again, he was using
an old tactic . . . desperate,
I wanted to try something new.

He made an aggressive body motion
to indicate his ultimate frustration.

I? In response, I threw my coffee mug to the side;
I threw a saucer to the side. "Yeah?" I screamed.
The face plate to the stove's oven shattered.

Fell to the floor.

We've never been in silence this long.

I picked up my coat and left;
left him to pick up the pieces. Like I always do.

What scares me?
I've never been this calm, after being so angry.

ReMix

I said so many stupid things today.

I can't keep up.

I reread my last post and winced so badly
at the spelling errors that
I am considering
rechecking my post before I, uh, post.

Naaa.

A girl can only do so much.
ANd since this blog has no professional ties--
who cares?
All of you know/think I'm whacked anyway.

I have a plastic bat ring on my pinky.

Hallowwen holds many unnerving memories for me--
but this year, I feel over them:



Waking up on the morning he left
with swollen eyes,
my bare feet cold on the hallway linoleum,
I opened the front door
to the sun rising on my right,
piercing through the turning leaves
of oaks on Mirabeau Street. The newly paved black asphalt
accentuated the cut edge of every leaf's angle

and globs of orange pumpkin guts,
broken shells up and down both sides
of the block. Jack's with busted grins
smeared and heaped in piles
so thick--I could never understand.

The orange was beautiful though. Fresh.
Untouched though the night.
White seeds glinting from sticky jucies.

That was the first year
we went all out and bought
the biggest pumpkin we could find.
Too perfect to carve, to pierce,
but inevidably ending in the middle of a street
in a pile of perfect splats. Undistinguished.

The following fall I kept my pumpkin inside--
sitting in the corner of the atrium.
I ignored it for weeks. For months.
Finally, when I noticed the gnats,
I took a grimy dustpan and threw it out back
into the trash. Its teeth and mouth past sucken in.

And so. The turning years bring pound after pound
of perfect pumpkin flesh now, bought and purchased in the sun.
I run my hands over waxy rinds and smile.
I smile. Smile. Smile.

Post-Identity Politics, My Arse

Perhaps I'm not the first to say it,
I haven't researched this oppinion,
but let it be known that Harriet Miers
has been a red herring all along.

I had my suspicions in the beginning.

One NPR analysist was bold enough to swagger:
"Well, one thing this has done is pushed
us past an era of identity politics . . .
Bush is not required not to nominate a woman . . .
we are past that now and he can look for someone (ie. a man)
who is truely qualified."

Now, I've taken the liberty to misquote this guy exactly
because my scholarship is often lazy-*ssed.
But you get the drift.

Bush wanted to put Gonzales on the bench all along.

I wouldn't be surprised if Harriet agreed to take the hit.

Further, this administration knew if it foreground an "ugly" woman,
yes, that's what I said, I'm going there,
people would reject her more easily. Have you seen her pics?
Seriously. The make-up around her eyes is bizarre.
Harriet is a True BITCH (in the Joreen sense of the word) in so much
that she is marginalized by those who are heavily invested
in performing femininty the way the patriarch demands . . .


Of course, closer friends have suggested that
I am, indeed, a bit of a wack-o, conspiracy theorist . . .
who is slightly paranoid. Nevertheless.

I am wearing orange today.
I look totally washed in orange.
But I need to risk it:
it's a cute, professional-type blouce for Halloween.

I've been wrestling with suspcions that
people only keep me around the U because I "look" the part.
My teaching this quarter sucked.
But I'm easy on the eyes, dress/act/speak professionally,
and give great first impressions.
Too bad I'm a bottomless pit of fragmented thoughts.
Broken goods.

I dance with the patriarch each day.

Interview

I have a student coming
to interview me about braziers
in a few minutes.

Should I confess that I don't
even know how to spell that word?

Or that I left an important article
at home, one I should have given here
for research?

Or should I simply wing it? Like
everything else I do?

I have 5--count them--5 classes to teach
next quarter.
On 3 campuses.
A new class too: WS200.

"Baby Boos" and "Caspers"

If I had a daughter,
especially one who was 13,
I bet she would choose a "Ghost Pumpkin"
to carve this season.

I hear they are orange under the first layer?

A dash of color here . . . 

A snip of imperfection there . . . 

and waaLa: half-*ssed, giggle-butt amateur photos from a lovely day at the city park. 

Good Moods All Around: The Biggest University Halloween Party Town in the US

He took it down!
Well-renamed his Typepad web site.
Whew.
I revisited today to give him more grief,
but he must have seen me coming--

or he's a nice guy who
thought the name had been abandoned.

BTW~
THIS HAS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST FANTASTIC
days of my life. Seriously--


nothing to big has happened--I just feel all warm
and snuggly, while at the same time,
I was a fierce ball of teaching energy. 3x.

One student stopped me after class
and thanked me for my powerful, illuminating lecture.
Fabulous, eh?

And the rain has cleared--off to a nice dinner
and then collecting leaves.

All sizes, shapes and colors. Scrapbook?
I'm not sure . . .

Anything is possible.

THE _REAL_ SQUIRRLEYMOJO

WTF??!!

No way--seriously!
Someone ripped me off!

While here at work, I hooked up to the old addy:

www.squirrleymojo.blogspot.com

It was some lame template with a redirection
to another site!!

And this guys is publishing under my psydo, "SquirrleyMojo"!
Even spelled the way I spell it--
and it really isn't me (I couldn't make a site that well constructed).

WTF happened?!

Misc. Updates

Ok, so the Mr. "Intrigue" guy
never showed up in class today
and the exam is on Wednesday.

I have a sick pit in my stomach
that tells me he wasn't joking
and that I openly laughed at a student
in front of his peers.

Great.

One more ounce of guilt and I am washed.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If I had twin six-year olds,
they'd have to got to LegoFactory.com
and download this 3-D designer engine
that allows children to create and order
their own box sets.

For example, Twin B could "build" an alligator
in a 360 turn-table platform
and then order all the individual pieces (legos)
used to create the alligator.

And get this: The box it comes in has a picture
of the design on front.

Yep, my kids would be into this.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

My partner is watching _Vampire Hunters_,
directed by Wellson Chin and in sub titles.
Apparently Chinese vampires are quite different
than Western vampires.

Totally more freaker.

For starters, they float. They don't move
their joints so much, just become zombied
floating corpse. And they suck blood from a distance.

All of this is second hand information,
because I cannot watch the film.

I once dreamed that my teddy bear (in HS)
floated to me from my desk in a most menacing fashion.
The end of scary, floating things for me.

I believe objects can float through mid-air;
we just haven't figured this out yet . . .
here's a question:

Can you explain why a small fridge magnet
can lift a paper clip against the pull of the
entire earth's gravity? Think about it.

I don't think gravity is what we think it is . . .
Something's up, so to speak,
and we are on the verge of a break through.

We, being the entire human race. Ehem.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Did I tell you that I have finally decided
to write a book?
Seriously.
I don't know what it will look like,
but I have imagined it into existance . . .

what have you imagined into existance today?

Spank Your Blog

xenozoonosis (zee.noh.zoh.AWN.uh.sis)
n. A disease transmitted to a human after the transplantation of an animal organ.


Yeah? You knew that? Check out this site, wordspy,
and use 3 words off this list on your next post.

Sure. It's a challenge. You game?

Do I Lie to Make Myself Happy?

100. I've been meaning to tackle this list for a while.
99. I never feel like writing anymore.
98. Life can be a fog.
97. I'm turning into a purplish donkey named e-or, or something.
96. I've never read Pooh crap.
95. I found a CD with 1000 classic titles on it for a buck.
94. Phillis Wheatly wasn't on it.
93. Nevermind, I don't think that is her name. I'm smuck.
92. If you know her name, don't tell me---

WAIT WAIT WAIT--I can do this, give me another chance.
Put me in the game coach--

"Go to the ball, Jason!"
"Why won't he go to the ball?" The umbrellas are up
and the parents shout at the sidelines.
The dad with a long, stringy ponytail quips sarcastically
to anyone who will hear.
Players slip in the mud, get kicked in the face--
and the game goes on.

Wrapped in blankets, bottoms slung in canvas chairs,
coffees and hot chocolates--some woman shouts
in Spanish with bright red lips
a phrase I wish I could remember.

The goalie skips across to his box
and pulls at his tabogan, wipes his nose--
the trophies remain dull and wet in another box,
far removed.

I finger the antenae in my pocket,
two dimes and a nickel, an old receipt.
My nose is cold and I can't imagine
not running the field,
not slipping on wet grass,
not making contact with the ball
and somehow not out-shining them all.

Yipee Skippy!

This batch of papers is good!

Life is worth living again.
I can put down the chocolate cake donut . . .

Feeling Much Better--THXS

Wednesday's Melt Down

My phone rang in the middle of my lecture
in WS100 around 2:00pm on Wednesday.

I was completely thrown off my game.
I never allow my ringer on--
some little elves must have been playing with it.

The ringer was even maxed out & startled me--
my class graciously laughed it off,
but I fumbled with my bag just to get the cell phone out.

I knew the call was about $6ooo.oo
worth of medical services.

My private life had intruded onto my public.



THEN:

The class and I were discussing female and male communication
techniques when the class clown, aka a guy who
openly flirts with me in front of the class,
stretched out like the Orginal Gangster
to put his Thang Down:

"Yeah, well, like--"

He has the class eating out of his hands,
admittedly, including me, he's such a player,
no one knows what is going to come out of his mouth--
my own mouth is twitching at the corners with a grin,
my eyebrows furrowed in a "Really?" Here we go.

"Like when I meet a girl,
it's all about, like, _intrigue_.
You know. I talk to her
to put out my intrigue vibes."

The class looses it. WTF? Intrigue?
He's a blonde Shaggey. There ain't no intrigue
under a puddle.

I try to look serious, but I can't.
I simply can't.

I start laughing.

And I don't stop.

I cover my face with both hands,
turn my back to the podium, to the class,
and laugh.
I wave at my face to get oxygen.

1/3 of the class is loosing it too,
1/4 of the class seems confused,
and the rest are becoming uncomfortable/worried, I guess.
'Meniacle laughter' doesn't cross
my mind until much later.

For a split second, a sharp fear
that I will never ever regain control
ever again.
Then, overwhelming grief. Shame.

I turn around, I must dismiss them,
the door is in the back,
laughing, Batman meets Joker, "Well, that's it--
your homework for Monday . . ."
That phrase gets me back in a groove.

I step out into the atrium/cafe
of this posh new building and make my call.
A student skips out on a conference--thankfully.

I walk outside, through an amazingly
cultivated landscape with golden trees
and fountains--and for the first time,
I hate it all.

I hate how artificial the architecture is,
the system of education,
how hopelessly artificial I have become.


THEN:

I've lost my keys. I trek all over campus
looking for them. I haven't eaten all day
and it's 4:00pm. I have a worrisome,
suspcious notion that the keys are in my bag,
that I just can't see them. That the psychosis
is keeping my brain from registraring them.

I take off my shoes and wonder down a slope
of pines toward the parking lot.
The grass feels soft and lovely.

For a moment I know who I am--
a nymph. I was meant to wonder the trees,
make love, and eat small bites of fruit
with cheese. The wind feels lovely in my hair.

"Which way are you trying to go?" A suit asks.
Bastard. With his bourgeois hair, glasses, and loafers.
"I can unlock the buiding for you."

I float past, smiling, shaking my head no.



It took five hours for my partner
to bring an extra set of keys and another hour & 1/2
to get home.

I didn't want to come home.
And I don't want to be here now.

I canceled all classes for Thursday and Friday--
so, you catch me in the midst
of my Mental Health Weekend.

Hope all of you have happy mental health this weekend too.

Mysterious Packages

I had a package in my mailbox
from Alaska
at the University.

Inside was a small keychain
with these glittery words:

"People who act like they know eveything
annoy those of us who do."

***

That same afternoon, I stopped at a subway
downtown to pick up a six-inch spicy Italian on wheat.
When I exited the building I noticed a strange character
standing beside my Neon.

He was acting suspcious and I wondered if I had locked the doors.

Obviously, he didn't see me crossing the street,
coming directly toward him,
because, after looking up and down the street,
he reached into a trash can
and picked up a styrofoam lunch container
and quickly tucked under his jacket.

Drug deal was my first thought;
poverty was my second.

How might you interpret this scene?
And more importantly, why?

16 Minutes Till Class

I just ate 4 oz of Zucchini Bread
from the Oasis where an Indian man
asked what a zucchini was--

I didn't really have a metaphor from which
to describe Zucchini,
so I just smiled instead.

Yes, me. I just smiled instead.

I think I will just see how that works for me--
at least for today. Auto pilot on.

Seriously

I refuse to NaNo.

So stop [squishing shoulders up
and pinching face like "ewww"]
asking me.

I _will_ die unknown, unfamous, and unfullfilled,
d*mnit. And that's my choice.

Plllliiitht!

Die Academia Die

I googled the phrase "Die Academia Die"
tonight to no avail--
everything that came up on the first 52 pages
was in German.

So I post tonight
for any frustrated academic
who may want to spat off in English.

Also, I wish I could get a hold of
pirated web copy of
Stephen Dunn's "After"--

which is a poem about Jack and Jill,
after "their fall" with a long "arduous evening" ahead of them.

I stumbled across it in the book store last weekend,
and the way Dunn turns the ordinary into the marvelous
is to be admired.


Yep. Guess that's why he got the Pulitzer in 2001.

Torture Session #55

Why do parents
who find themselves in a pinch for time
always cook corn with hotdogs?

Hotdogs and corn.

How many times can a child chuck corn
and hot dogs
without the parents finally figuring it out:

Hotdogs with boiled eggs are so much better.

Ode to Etcher

BTW:

do you know where you are?
you're at the Etcher baby
we got tragedy...

Welcome to the Etcher
He's got fun 'n' games
He's got everything you want
Honey he knows all the names
He is the blogger that can find
Whatever you may need
If you got the money honey
He's got your disease

At the Etcher!
Welcome to the Etcher
Watch it bring you to your shun na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na, knees, knees
He will watch you bleed

I say!

Welcome to the Etcher
He takes it day by day
If you want it you're gonna bleed
But it's the price you pay
And you're a very sexy blogger
VERY hard to please
You can taste the bright lights
But you won't get them for free
At the Etcher
Welcome to the Etcher
Feel his, erm, serpentine
He wansta hear you scream


Welcome to the Etcher
It gets worse here everyday
Ya learn ta live like an animal
At the Etcher where we play
If you got a hunger for what you see
You'll take it eventually
You can have anything you want
But you better not take it from the Etcher


And when you're high you never
Ever want to come down, so down, sucked down, so down YEAH!!!!!


You know where you are
You're at the Etcher baby
You're gonna die
At the Etcher
Welcome to the Etcher
Watch it bring you to your shun,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na,na, knees,
At the Etcher
Welcome to the Etcher
Feel his, erm, yeah, serpentine

Running Out of Steam [Emotionally Drained but a bit of Fun Implication at the End]

If you've read this blog for very long,
you've come to realize that
I make lots of promises I simply don't keep.

Unintentionally. I guess.

But I've talked my head off to every
willing ear and now I have no steam left
from which to write about the fated events.

But I will tell you:
A young man approached me today
about his midterm.
He wanted to know how he could have gotten a 57
when his study partner, a female in WS100,
got a 97.

Gender bias?

I tried to explain to him,
from the rubric I put on BlackBoard before the exam,
that the essay had 4 parts:

+2 for Identifing the author
+8 for Summarizing the main arguments
+10 for Synthesizing with course goals
and
+3 Bonus

For the 3rd part (+10) he wrote _nothing_.
Nada.
Blank.

Do the math.

Apparently he couldn't. Instead he wants
to investigate me for gender bias in my grading.

Did I mention he missed a week's worth of class?
He seemed to think that had little to do with his score.

Student: "I just don't want you to think I'm
just some dick in the back of the class . . ."

Me: "Really? You think that I think that?"

Student: "Well, from what I said in class
the other day. I don't want you and some of the
girls in here to think I'm an ass."

Me: [Furrowed brow, nodding, and look of concern] "Hmmmmmm . . ."

Student: "Yeah . . . you know, I don't
want you to think I'm some meat head."

Me: [Look of shock and horror]"No! I don't think you are
a meat head. I've never thought that."

Some Stats for Class Next Week

My Campus:

2002 saw 42 reported "Forcible Rapes"

2003 saw 39 reported "Forcible Rapes"

2004 saw 25 reported "Forcible Rapes"


The number is decreasing, but what does that mean?
Fewer incidences?
Are women reporting?

More info on the 10/12 WS100 RIOT will come--
just probably in pieces as I try to figure out WTF happened.

Riot in WS100

My WS100 broke out in a riot
this afternoon--I sh*t you not.

I invited a First Wave Feminist
who claims to have been on the "front lines"
during the movement in 1972
to come speak to my class.

Now, she's a University speaker as well
(she will address the University in about a half hour, actually)
and came with a "full court" following her, so to speak.
Journalist galore. [OK-two.]

She brought a friend.
A writer for the Boston Globe,
who decided to speak as well.

Her friend and I got into an actual shouting match
in the last 10 minutes of class
in front of all of my students.

Yes, an out and out shouting match:
She, pointing her finger at me,
and I, myself, throwing my head back
and gut-laughing incredulously.

Two raging, self-proclaimed "feminist"
cat fighting on the floor. What a hoot
it must have been for the spectators.

Yet, this spectical proved to me
that I do, in fact, think my ideas are worth fighting for--
and the way this woman acted and "read" culture,
sh*t, I know I'm in for RADICAL change.

I Dream in Flash; Significant Beyond All Doubt

I know it sounds corny,
but I do.

This morning I awoke with the Llama song
flashing through my mind--only
I wanted it to be about moon bats . . .
why can't moon bats have a double "l"?

Is there a song about moon bats?
If so, would a moon bat blog
in front of her class for ten minutes
as they begin to filter in?

ALSO: I need your help
to make me look smart(er than I feel).

I am in the search for new words;
Tim hit a cord with the passionate love
affair between words and fall.

In my closet office, we are starting a word wall--
help me get past Lemony Snicket,
blithe,
gazebo,
and chain.

That last one, by the way, just came to me--

It's Boot Wearing Time

Perhaps I'm a bit early,
but I have these fantastic black boots
that click-clack on the cobble stones.

And when wet leaves scatter themselves about
along my path, I imagine their colors
reflect along the buckles.


How many 20, 30, 40 of thousands of people
must die before I become emotionally inured
to the constant suffering around me?

My time will come. I suspect. And although I may not
suffer a tsunami, hurricane, or earthquake . . .
death will come to me in its own cloud of ruin.

Until that moment arrives, I must blithely walk
in these clickity-clack heels,
up and down the cobble stone paths
watching the seasons change
and trying not to trip.

Hello Happy Bloggers

Sorry I had to wait until Friday
to be happy--but you know how it goes.

A little drizzle is dazzling the fall colors
of leaves spinning and flitting in the wind
outside my office window.

In a few minutes I will grab my umbrella
and head out for a stroll
to a small coffee shop down past the campus green
for a Womens Studies department meeting.

Ironically, my goal is to keep silent,
not to say anything stupid today. Smile, nod, agree--
and get on with my grading.

Forty Plus papers--a few students appear
to actually be learning. Strange on this October day.

I feel like having children
just so I could run home, drink apple cider, carve pumpkins,
and watch the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown on DVD.
MMMmmmmmm . . . this could be a good weekend.

Not Exactly Alive Either

But I'm not dead.
My death clock suggests
that if I don't turn from cynical realist
to blithe optimist soon, I'll be hitting the morgue.

Meanwhile, I found a bizzare sort of addy in my email
bright and early this morning.

I could use close to 200,000.oo now--who couldn't?
Would a live specimen suffice?
My current model is starting to show signs of wear and tear . . .


I promise to be more cheerful in the next post.

Venus May be Enough to Think About

I don't want a 10th planet!
And especially another moon--
geez, our culture is saturated with enough planets.

And one groom this weekend
thinks all planets revolve around him.
He's getting married--so what? Yes, and he's the last.
Good. I'm burned out.
Even if I did get gold slippers with tassles.

I am, however, interested in multiple dimensions:
did you listen to Ira Whom-Ever on Science Friday, NPR?

He had a guest speaker who specializes
in Quantum Physics and has a new, "accessible" book out
detailing our latest quest to understand the universe
through, um, particle perspectives, I think.

After a short break, all Ira had left to say was to comment
on the speaker's looks, her appearance, specifically
her likeness to "Jodi Foster."

Instead of String Theory,
he actually said he wanted to talk about
"string bikinis."
I sh*t you not--a direct quote.
Look it up.

I physically jerked--almost vomited in the seat next to me.
I have never screamed so loudly at my radio
from inside my car while driving in four lane construction--in fact,
I almost swerved off the freeway,
into a ditch.

Which is right where that type of hype
and thinking is trying to keep women,
particularly in Science--in a ditch.

Luckily, the speaker was smooth
and deflected Ira Dumb-Ass with poise and ease.

Yet, if we can't handle seeing Venus
from different points of view,
how can we hope to learn anything from a 10th planet?