Still Reeling

Every time I return from a work trip, I feel like I've been beaten up. I guess every time, I kinda am. Among my list of woes this time is an ankle, previously healed, once again swollen to about 3 times its normal size.

Why does this job - take away all of the factors I bring to the table - have to be so stressful? I've worked at a lot of places, but nowhere as long as Evil, Inc. I wonder if all companies like this one are similar in dysfunction and employee behavior. I tend to assume that they are, but damn, the backbiting and sniping in my group is pretty astounding.

I resolve to take a big step back from work people. Another big step back, that is -- this isn't my first clue to things. I can't be friends with everyone I work with, which makes my job less enjoyable but my mental health a little more tolerable.

Books and Birthday Hauls

I haven't had great luck with books lately.

• I picked up and put in a concerted effort (150 pages) to get into The Etched City by K.J. Bishop. I just wasn't feeling it. It could be me, so I just put it aside and may pick it up again some day.
  
• I'm listening to a Dan Brown novel (abridged, thank god) called Digital Fortress. It's like he's never met a woman. I only have 50 minutes left, so I'm gonna power through.

For my birthday, I got tons of gifts -- more than I needed to receive x the power of n. I have survived these 38 years, and am working on a 39th as I type this.

• Sly B surprised me with a wonderful collection of Tank Girl omnibuses, the first of which I'm totally into at the moment. She also got me the film on DVD, a few other DVDs . . . cough . . . , and a t-shirt with a pinata and the caption "I'd Hit That." She took me to Boulder on Sunday for lunch, let me pick out a neoprene condom for my MacBook, and a pick-your-own 6-pack of microbrews at the best liquor store in Boulder County. She also made me lazagna, which, ahem, does it for me. I have a rant cookin' about the employees of the Boulder Apple Store - watch for that.
  
• My parents came to visit last Saturday night as well. B had bought my mom a huge amount of king crab legs for her birthday, and we gorged out on them. My folks gave me a new crock pot, Seasons 4 and 5 of The Wire on DVD, two pair of underpants (their older, ok?), and a really neat embroidered tunic. My mom called the other day to say she'd also gotten me and B lunch boxes.
• 2Rays hooked me up with some iTunes, with which we rented a few movies Saturday night (Inkheart, which we watched and liked okay and Role Models, which we haven't seen yet). I also picked up some Michael Jackson songs.
• A work friend gave me a Starbucks gift card.
  
• IronicPink sent me Trueblood Season 1 DVDs. Rumor has it she also knitted me a hat.

So, to recap, sometimes books aren't great and I am spoiled.

Quick TV Post

We LOVE Nurse Jackie. We are meh about HawthoRNe after one episode, but like the diversity of the cast. We are sick of Weeds.

Audiobooks Curiosity

Sly B and I (and Sly B's mother) are big consumers of audiobooks. It started, I think, with the Harry Potter books, which in the U.S. at least are read by Jim Dale. Dale does voices and really makes the books a lot of fun. We were hooked immediately. Since then, we have accounts at audible.com and always have a bunch of books in the queue.  (Also among my favorites are the James Lee Burke Dave Robicheaux books narrated by Will Patton - great, great listening experiences.)

I am usually reading one book the old fashioned way, and listening to another. Currently, I am reading The Etched City by K.J. Bishop, and am listening to Feast of Crows Book 4 of The Song of Ice & Fire by George R. R. Martin (which is a re-read for me).  

What I wonder today is this:  why, when there is a series of books (like the Martin series), would the audiobook reader change? I have spent HOURS listening to the first 3 books and really loved the reader. Now, in book 4, I have to get used to a whole new voice (this guy is a very stage-actor type) who pronounces the names differently.  Ugh.  I don't like it.

That's More Like It

The issue with our neighbor was happily resolved yesterday. As I noisily SLAMMED the cans that had been chucked over the fence all week into a steel ash bucket at around 7 a.m. yesterday, the man o' the house came over to apologize for the mess. He told me his son had thrown them over (a story we're not sure we believe, given the tininess of the boy and the tallness of the fence) and that he had tried to come and clean them up but found our gate locked (uh, yeah it's effing locked).

I'm not sure that this won't happen again, and I still don't enjoy living next door to him, but I do feel a little better after he came by.

That's Not Very Neighborly

Sly B and I have lived in our house for nearly seven years now. We think we've improved the curb appeal significantly, are friendly to everyone we see around here (except the suspicious foot traffic headed to the neighbor dealer), and mind our own business. Even so, our neighbors to the West are awful.

They are racists, they throw loud parties in their back yard that go on often until 3 a.m., they have built their own "fire pit" which sits about 5 feet from our cedar fence that consists of a charcoal grill with the legs cut off, they mistreat each other and their 2 year old son, they smoke pot all day long with their son at home and possibly meth also, they HAD a chicken in the back yard for a few weeks before the bird got wise and flew the coop, they have explosive screaming matches on a daily basis, they are pigs - Sly B saw the man o' the house dump a pot of spaghetti over the edge of their deck when he was apparently doing dishes one day, and I could go on. Of late, they have started tossing their beer cans over the fence. Tonight when I got home, there was a BAG of cans tossed over the fence.

Now I'm a good sport. I can get along with a lot of different kinds of people most of the time. I think I'm tolerant of others and not expectant of anything special in return. But I have absolutely had it with this situation.

Sly B has a good plan to handle the conversation about the cans. She is going to ask if they've seen any kids around because we have a new batch of trash over the fence daily. All I can say is this - I envy her grace because I'm more of a mind to march over there and start cussing.

Dr. Who

We fell in love with Dr. Who last weekend.

I Hate Being Disappointed

Back in the day, when I was a student and very engaged in academia and intellectual pursuits, I really appreciated the work of sexpert/educator Susie Bright. I thought that she brought tons of great stuff to feminist studies, and provided an alternative to all of the anti-sex junk that's out there.

I was really excited to learn that Susie B. was doing a podcast, called "In Bed With Susie Bright." I thought that it would be fun and thoughtful. The podcast is not free, but I had some extra audible credits, so subscribed. What the heck, right?

I was not impressed with the first few episodes. I found them a little dry and boring, but thought it was okay. Then, the third episode I listened to turned me off forever. Susie interviewed a man who wrote a book called (I think - her website wasn't easily navigated, so I couldn't find it) "Everybody Must Get Stoned" about sex & drugs in rock & roll. Sounded like an interesting bio book about the exploits of Iggy Pop, Mick Jagger, etc.

What really turned my stomach was the direction Susie took the interview. She and the author wanted to talk about how fantastic drugs like heroin, crack, and meth are when used as sexual aides. And that we've all been damaged by drug abstinance education in school -- using heroin recreationally does not an addict make. And how Amy Winehouse might look like a burn-out, but she's probably a tiger in the sack because of all the coke.

I can appreciate, in theory, the wild shit we do when we're under the influence. I think it makes for great stories. I can also find a book about the wild shit rock stars do under the influence interesting. What I don't find amusing is the advice like: attend "drug & sex" parties just to try it, and "try heroin" at least once, and "crack really makes you horny - try it."

I'm getting pissed just thinking about it. Unsub, stat.

You Eat What You Are

EssBee and I are no where near model-thin. Yeah, i'm that bitch that takes up two seats on "your" airlplane ride. I'm always tickled by the assumptions made about what author, professor, Indian chief, Greg Sarris, would call "powerful" women (aka fat chicks).

One of the college students who works for me (she is 5 foot nothing and weighs about 90 pounds - runs marathons for fun) asked me what EssBee and I would be doing this weekend. I informed her we'd be completing the planting of our garden. She asked, "What will you plant." I listed the majority of items for her - tomatoes, chilies, cucumbers, brussel sprouts, kale... She looked at me like she couldn't believe those things ever pass my lips. The look on her face made me think she was expecting the list to be more like this: Dortito bushes, bacon trees, and hybrid hostess cupcake vines. Mmmm...cupcakes.

Where Are Our Priorities??

I work at a research 1 university in a NASA sponsored program in a college of engineering. We are focused on space - the final frontier. Our students work on space hardware missions ranging in complexity from balloon payloads (launched on weather balloons) to sounding rocket payloads, all the way up to low earth orbiting satellites. Most of the students who come through our program are interested in working at NASA or supporting industries. Nevertheless, many are recruited into the defense industry. We are a tiny program that works on a budget of approximately $1M (which is huge compared to other departmental programs in the humanities, but tiny in the engineering world). We write grants and beg for funds constantly, and yes, we ask defense corporations for money to support student programs all the time. For the most part, I try and forget that we have direct ties to the defense industry by focusing on the inner-city, low-income K-12 programs I oversee and our alumni who now work at NASA centers around the country. Today I played "Token" at a meeting at one of the leading defense companies in the U.S., where we traveled to beg money to support students. I've been to defense industry buildings before, but never to as massive a campus as I was at today.

It was HUGE. Countless buildings, people everywhere, very strict security to gain access. As I was sitting in a meeting (the only woman and person of color surrounded by 20 white guys - most over the age of 45) I grew more and more sad as I listened to intelligent people talk about doing good things, with the knowledge that they would all go back to their offices and do their part to make killing people (mostly brown, poor people) be done more efficiently and effectively. Also, knowing that I'm doing my part to get the next generation of folks in their ranks. (Ward Churchill's "little Eichmann" kept running through my mind - as I am one.) All I kept thinking about was that if we threw this much money and resources at ANYTHING, we'd be really good at it. What if I was in a huge campus of buildings and thinkers who were working to eradicate poverty, or to find a cure for AIDS, or even to figure out how to make sure all people on Earth started on a level playing field, or how to stop the ice caps from thawing... In fact, several of the men around the table are amazing humans. I've known some of them many years now. I'd be willing to bet that 90% of the people working on that campus would rather be working outside the defense industry, but that's where they work for the money. Some of them probably even enjoy the challenges they face when they're working to solve problems and design innovative solutions. Imagine how much more satisfying it would be to put that same effort and expertise toward benefiting humanity instead of contributing to the killing machine. (Honestly, although I consider myself a space geek and love science, I even question spending so much on space initiatives when there are other things that could use the money we're spending to get humans back on the moon.)

I talked about this with an office mate when I got back to the university campus. She said, "People spend money on the craziest things." All I could think was that I spend money on defense as a U.S. taxpayer. I spend a hell of a lot of money on defense. What is wrong with us!? Why are we so obsessed with "defense"? I don't think it's a new thing - I think it's been around for a long time. And it's not just a U.S. obsession (although we're working hard to perfect it).

I am a radical feminist of color who does what I can to make the world a better place and to contribute to change, but being surrounded by the collection of wealth and expertise working toward "defense" today, I wondered how we can ever change the direction the machine is headed with minuscule grassroots efforts? I know this feeling will pass, but it is sure strong today.