Erin's Recipes for People Who Can't Cook: Bean Pot

I'm pretty sure this, like Tater Tot Casserole, falls under the heading of White Trash Cuisine, but I like it and it's easy, so why not?

1 lb. ground beef
1 med. onion, diced
3 15-oz. cans pork and beans (pork optional)
3/4ish c. brown sugar (I hate things that call for 3/4 c. because I don't have a 3/4 c. measure. I usually just eyeball it in a 1 c. measure)
1/4 c. molasses
2/3 c. ketchup (I do, however, have a 2/3 c. measure. I know, random.)
1 tbsp. prepared mustard

Brown and drain beef and onion. Add all the other ingredients. Bake uncovered at 325 degrees F for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Whee, meals for a week!

At this point, the World Series is just frosting

Ha! My siblings aren't answering their phones right now. They spent all season riding me about how my Astros were games and games behind their Cardinals, and now...well, as I told my brother, winning the division doesn't mean much if you can't win the pennant.

This is particularly sweet as my sister took evil glee in calling me Monday night when Pujols broke our hearts with that homer. The message I left her? A gentle reminder that the baseball gods punish those who gloat too early, and oh yeah, who won the last game ever in Busch Stadium? Yeah, wasn't the Cardinals.

Awesomest post-game information: apparently the Astros' owner promised to buy Roy Oswalt a bulldozer if he won. New construction equipment all around, I say!

Confidential to Roy O.: if you're looking for a mother for your children, I'm your gal. And you know how I feel about kids, so that means something.

Stop the university, I want to get off

So this whole grad school experience has taken a sharp turn for the difficult this week, as things start moving inexorably toward finals in a very ominous way. Ominous like having two presentations in one day—I'll be dead after Tuesday, so if you've got something to say, say it now. Some notes:

Panopticon is a funny word
I don't know if you've ever read Foucault, but we're doing Discipline and Punish in Theory tomorrow. It's a fascinating book and wonderfully written, with the added bonus of being scary as all get-out. Foucault seems to have this idea that everybody should live in a sort of imagined panopticon, which is where you are constantly under surveillance, and you know it, so you behave. Very 1984, right? It is, of course, more complicated than that—he has some fun (anti-)Marxist ideas about how it would maximize production and so on—but mostly it led to my informal discussion group trying to plot an overthrow of our theory class that featured the phrase "Stop gazing at me, Dave!"

See? This is what happens to humor under stress.

Speaking of things not being funny anymore
Early in the semester, I was kind of having fun telling people that I was reading until my eyes bled. That was an enjoyably visceral (if cliched) metaphor, but it's abruptly stopped being funny this weekend, as my eyes have literally started to hurt at all times. For the past four days, there's been kind of a dull pain in my eyes that feels like the precursor to a migraine that will never come. It's leading me to have wild day-mares about slowly going blind from reading like Mac in Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott.* Mac had to wear green goggles and he couldn't read anything for like, a year. The horror! Anyway, there's no point to this except maybe that there's a physical component to my pain. It wasn't helped by the fact that I stabbed myself in the eyeball with the corner of my comforter this morning, in a boneheaded moment that could only have happened to me. Flipping the comforter off the floor onto the bed, and whoosh! It's in my eyeball and I'm cursing. Owie.

Candy isn't going to cut it, here
In somewhat brighter news, the graduate student Halloween party is coming up at the end of the month, and it promises to be a crazy bash. Although in my current state, I keep thinking of really...morbid costumes. Virginia Woolf: long skirt, hair in a bun, cardigan with rocks in the pockets. Okay, that's the only one I've thought of, but the more I think about it, the funnier it seems. I don't think that's a good sign.

Sometimes theory is like brain candy: tasty, but it'll rot everything right out of your head
So one of my presentations next week is on Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, which revolutioninzed feminism and how the academe thinks about gender (allegedly). And while I'm interested in her theories, I'm almost more interested in my reactions to them. Let me give you an example from the text:

"Further, the feminine could not be theorized in terms of a determinate relation between the masculine and the feminine within any given discourse, for discourse is not a relevant notion here. Even in their variety, discourses constitute so many modalities of phallocentric language. The female sex is thus also the subject that is not one. The relation between masculine and feminine cannot be represented in a signifying economy in which the masculine constitutes the closed circle of signifier and signified." (15)

Okay, if you're like me, you just skipped right over the block quote, so let me quickly summarzie. She's saying we can't talk about femininity as a relation to masculinity, because our language is set up to focus on the male. Basically, we can't conceptualize "woman" because "man" is too pervasive. So we've got this wild, radical idea. And on some level, I find it really attractive. Because I think it's true that culturally we've set up "male" as kind of the base level of functioning and thought (she's got some interesting stuff on how male = mind and female = body) and so whenever we think about female, we're really thinking about male and not-male. Which, you know, problematic. On the other hand, though, I'm kind of like, "...so?" I mean, these ideas are so entrenched that it's going to be literally impossible to ever think about female without thinking about male. It's an inescapable ideology. So identifying the problem is really just complicating a system that already works, essentially—this is where you get people going, "Why are you even thinking about that? It's ridiculous." And they're not wrong, really. I mean, there are obviously some problems for some people in the system, but at the same time, everybody functions, you know, we've all got issues, so this theory is great, but it's just that. Theory. Conclusion: the problem with theory is that it's too theoretical. Bon mot: Theory is the Catholicism of the academe. Identification of sin, confession, and ritualized guilt, except here nobody is absolved and the Bible is really really confusing.

That theory part was not coherent, so now you know how I feel ALL THE TIME
Fun facts to get you out of this ramble at least a little ahead of where you started:

-Malayalam is the only language in the world whose name is a palindrome. It's spoken in Kerala, a southern state of India.

-Peasant children in the Middle Ages were more likely to have parental supervision from ages 4 to 7 than from 0 to 3. Evidently parents weren't big on getting attached to infants that were just going to die of the plague anyway, so they'd just leave them in the cradle when they went out to work in the fields.

-Virginia Woolf killed herself in 1941 by putting stones in her pockets and walking into the River Ouse. Now do you get the costume thing?


P.S. Bread update: still not moldy. Self update: getting increasingly weirded out by bread.

^{*Eight Cousins was one of my favorite books ever when I was younger; I probably read it for the first time in about fifth grade and I adored it and its sequel, Rose in Bloom. (Quick plot synopsis: Rose is an orphan, and comes to live at Aunt Hill with her eight male cousins. She becomes their darling and eventually ends up married to Mac, whom she nurses back to health from his eye difficulties, even though she has spent both novels entirely in love with the oldest cousin whose name I can't remember.) Anyway, I tried to go back and read the two books last year and could. Not. STAND the writing. Just awful—everybody patronizes Rose, probably because she's absurdly insipid, and the cousins are total twerps. And don't even get me started on the other romantic subplot, which is so...sexist and class biased and...gah. Okay. Rant over. The moral? I'm now afraid to reread other books that I loved absolutely as a child (The Chronicles of Narnia, Little House on the Prairie, The Wizard of Oz, and so on and so forth).}

Strange magic

I've had the same loaf of Wal-Mart brand wheat bread since the first week I moved to Iowa City, and IT HAS NOT MOLDED YET.

I don't know if that's awesome or extremely suspicious.

Painful

The WB just ran a promo spot for Supernatural in which they flashed quotes from reviews over clips of the show. Pretty standard.

Unfortunately, one of the quotes was "OMG."

"OMG"? May I just say "WTF"? Who's reviewing this show, John Q. Teenager? Some kid with a blog and a shaky grasp on sentence structure? "OMG" is not a credible review. And it's not even obviously positive, there, WB Promo People. I'm 90% certain it was in a sentence that said, "OMG, this show is teh awful!!!1!1!" And even if I give you the benefit of the doubt on that? It's still OMG. It's a fireable offense.

So now, even if Supernatural becomes the best new show on television, I can NEVER WATCH IT. Because I will always think "OMG," and then I will be filled with rage. Ugh.

Some things I was told tonight when I got my aura read

My friend S. had a party tonight, at which her friend N., whom I've met twice, was persuaded (by me) to read my aura. (He mentioned this ability when I first met him.) See what you think, and I'll give you my opinion at the bottom.

1. I'm physically pretty healthy "compared to most people in graduate school." Whatever that means.*

2. My intelligence shows up as a bright yellow, meaning that it's intense (it would be murky if it were somewhat...not so prominent). That, combined with the green growth-potential, is most heavily figured in areas of communication—understanding how people communicate, what they're communicating, and how and what I'm communicating. Not surprising, for an English graduate student.

3. There's a purple overlay. It's the color of royalty—I demand a lot of respect and have a generally healthy self-esteem (with a few weak spots that I'm not going to tell you about). As my friend B., who was molesting the aura-reader at the time, said, "Ha! I could have told you that within 10 minutes of meeting her."

4. My aura reacts—spikes, really—when I command the attention of a room, especially when I'm able to draw attention away from someone else. N. called it "amusingly subversive." I think this is hilarious.

5. My interpersonal relationships showed up as pink, compartmentalized bubbles, evidently surrounded by some grey and black cillia, and not very many of them are a deep pink (indicating a close, two-way relationship). He seemed to think they were more compartmentalized than normal, because I'm apparently the kind of person who takes a long time to form deep personal attachments. The grey and black indicate that I've been hurt before and am somewhat wary of letting people in. I'm reserved, in other words.

6. I'm looking for love, but cynical about my chances of finding it.

7. I generally feel that I teach people more than I'm taught, speaking interpersonally. Sort of arrogant. Sorry, people. (There are exceptions, and I'm thinking of them right now. I'm not going to write them down, though, so then each of you will think that you're an exception.) I'm supposed to be on the lookout in the next few months for people from whom I can learn, but it's evidently going to mean giving someone a second or third chance, which I'm admittedly not very good at (see #5).

8. I should probably not be expecting to meet anybody who could be a romantic interest for a couple of years, and when I do, I'll have to really be open to it or I'll overlook it entirely. I don't know how he could tell this; it had something to do with there being sparkly lights and the shadow of sparkly lights in my aura.

Anyway, the whole experience was fascinating, whether you believe in the ability or not. N. sat and stared at the space above my head for about 5 minutes, and then said some disturbingly insightful things, all while trying to get B. to stop fondling his hair. I asked a ton of questions about what the aura looked like, specifically, because I was interested in the colors and in imagining what he was seeing. And in the end, I found the reading to be deadly accurate, and I strongly doubt whether N. could have picked all that up in the less than 8 hours that he's spent with me (especially given that several of those hours were not so sober and he was distracted by...other people). So. Let me know what you think, both of the accuracy of the reading and of aura-reading in general. I'm now terribly interested in the whole subject.

^{*Apparently it means that the health aura, which is closest to my body and looks like little wavy lines of white light, is relatively bright.}

This post is about sex!

Not really. Only in so far as everything in Freud is about sex.

Okay, so I'm getting ready to write a paper about Freud and dream analysis and theory, and I thought I would do a little thinking out loud, as it were. Or weren't.

So, here is how dreams work, in a nutshell.

First, there are three levels of the mind. Later, Freud will come to call them the id, the ego, and the super-ego, but in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), he hasn't invented that terminology yet. So we get a Conscious (Cs.), a Preconscious (Pcs.), and an Unconscious (Ucs.). The Ucs. (id) is basically a primal, wish-driven want machine. Most of these wishes are sexual and formed in infancy. These wishes have been repressed because they're inappropriate—this is the classic "sleep with your mother/kill your father" issue that everybody knows about. Or other terrible things that you want to do and think are inappropriate also end up here, although I'm not sure how that relates to infant sexual fantasies. Doesn't matter. What we need to know: Ucs. = "bad," powerful wishes.

So all that sort of hangs out in your Ucs., but because it's unconscious, you don't know about it, and what's more, you can't know about it. The Ucs. has no way to access the Cs. directly and let you know that you're having these issues, because you've repressed them so efficiently. Go super-ego. So this is where the Pcs. comes in. The Pcs. is basically there to keep you from exploding from these unconscious desires—I haven't found this directly in the text, but I get the impression that if your Pcs. goes haywire, you have a psychotic break and open fire. So. Your Pcs. takes random crap that your Cs. has noticed throughout the day—say, that there's a long hallway lined with blue chairs in the IMU (student center), and essentially allows the Ucs. to cathect (cathect: imbue with cathexis, which is wish-energy) the image. This is a compromise that allows dreams to work. Because you're horrified of your unconscious wishes, you can't be allowed to experience them directly. However, they can't go unexperienced, either. So the Pcs. and the Ucs. work together to express them, but to sort of...hide that expression from you. This process is called overdetermination, and it's why you'll dream of something completely benign and wake up sweating and terrified. Like my hallway above. I know it's absolutely harmless—it leads from the information desk into a ballroom. However, in the dream I had a few nights ago, I was deadly certain that I didn't want to go down the hallway because there was something bad at the other end and I would be in the wrong place if I did.

However, that's not all overdetermination does. Overdetermination also imbues things with about a zillion meanings, because remember, your brain is trying to protect you from that really baaad thing that you're wishing. So if there are multiple meanings, it's going to be harder for you to be hurt by that wish. So my hallway is like, my wish to have attended a different school, my desire to kiss the German guy, and my latent desire to kill my parents for having another child, or something. I don't know. You can't really analyze your own dreams, because you can't remember them (that's repression again!) and really you're just incapable of accessing what your Ucs. is trying to tell you.

So now the question is, how do we apply this to literature? According to Freud, the way you know when you're on the right track as an analyst is when the patient reacts to what you've proposed as an analysis. Of course, literature can't really "react," per se. When was the last time you saw the letters of your page rearrange themselves to spell "Damn, you're brilliant!"? (Last week, hm. Were you high? As a kite, yes, I see.) So we have to see if a psychoanalysis of text makes the text "resonate." Does a psychoanalytic reading open up more questions? Does it lead us to a deeper understanding of the unconscious intentions of either the text or its author?

Okay, I think I've got the basic points of this down, so I'm off to see what I can do with Reverend Dimmsdale's cathexis. (Oooh, dirty!)

Point of Etiquette

Okay, is there a way to compliment your professors without sounding really marginal? Because I have two professors who wear just outstandingly excellent shoes, and since I'm a firm believer in positive feedback, I'd like to mention my approval. I just haven't figured out how. "Dr. L.,* can I discuss this grade with you? Also, nice shoes. Really top notch."

And since it's grad school, let's "complicate" and "trouble" the question by examining the fact that one professor is male and one is female. Does this create two protocols? How does the gender of the complimenter factor in? What if I tell you that one of the classes is pass/fail and one is not? That one of the professors is a medievalist and one a writer? That I'm really just procrastinating reading my theory right now?

^{*I don't actually call my professors "doctor." They go by first names with graduate students.}

Erin's Recipes for People Who Can't Cook: Beef Stroganoff

1 lb. ground beef
1 med. onion
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
8 oz. canned mushrooms
1 can (10 1/2 oz.) cream of mushroom soup
8 oz. light sour cream
2/3 bag egg noodles (wide)

Chop up onion. There are varying theories about how you can do this without making your eyes water, but forget it. Spoon in your mouth, chewing gum, pinching yourself, whatever. You're going to tear up. Chop quickly, that's my advice. Toss onion and ground beef into pan to brown; lightly pepper. Crumble meat as it cooks. Put water on to boil for egg noodles.

Once meat is browned, drain. Then add garlic salt, flour, mushrooms, and more pepper. Stir and cook one minute. Put noodles in water pot to cook (5-7 minutes). Add mushroom soup to meat mixture. Stir and heat on medium for 10 minutes. Add sour cream, heat through. Drain noodles; mix in a little pat of butter to keep them from sticking. Serve gravy on top of noodles; attempt to keep cat from licking plate before you are finished.

The mish-mash. The MONSTER mish-mash!

Don't date midgets, boys
There are three German guys that ride the bus at the same time I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I love them. They're hilarious, not only because they're cute and European, but because they have no idea that I can understand everything they're saying to each other, including their commentary about the mysterious Amy, who's cute if you go for small women, apparently. Evidently these guys are in some sort of business program at UI, and they like football, especially the Pittsburgh Stars. (I know. So cute.) I'm trying to figure out a good German line with which to strike up a conversation some day and make them wonder if they've said anything untoward the past few weeks.

Sugar shock in three, two, and convulse
I've said it before, but sometimes Iowa City is just entirely too cute for its own good. I went to the weekly farmer's market tonight and bought an onion from a Mennonite or an Amish woman or whoever it is that lives in Kalona and wears a bonnet and grows vegetables. I also got some zucchini and a long discourse on the various varieties of garlic. I didn't know garlic came in varieties other than "bulb" and "granulated." Anyway, there were children playing soccer with their parents in the adjacent park, lots of free samples, and generally pleasant expressions on the faces of every person I saw. It was like the most wholesome thing I've ever experienced.

My Intro to Grad prof wears headphones all the time and I think it's kind of weird
Top ten songs on the playlist lately:
1. Ryan Adams - La Cienega Just Smiled
2. Dave Matthews - Some Devil
3. Michel Buble - Fever
4. K.D. Lang - Helpless
5. Green Day - American Idiot
6. Counting Crows - I Wish I Was a Girl
7. Melissa Ferrick - I Still Love You
8. Weezer - Beverly Hills
9. Sara Bareilles - Fairytale
10. Antony and the Johnsons - For Today I Am a Boy

Hm. Seems to be some gender confusion and self-loathing in there. Honestly, my life is way more upbeat than this list suggests.

I think this is actually how most academics structure their careers
It's kind of hilarious when you find yourself structing your entire reading of a text around one person who really just irritates the crap out of you.

There's a guy in my Chaucer class who I absolutely can't stand (because he's an arrogant idiot—an all-star, if you will—who dominates the conversation and is incapable of keeping his shoes on gross put your damn sandals on and shut up right now), and I spend a lot of time thinking about things to say that will refute whatever he's just said. Generally it doesn't even have to be something I believe. As long as it's contrary and defensible, it's a go. Amusingly enough, the entire rest of the class does the same, as far as I can tell.

I don't know if that's really the best way to go about evaluating texts critically, but if you can make the theory work and smack someone down at the same time...it's a beautiful thing, man.

Oh, and can I just say one more thing, chief? I hate people who insist on taking notes on their damn laptops. What do you think you are, a 1L? No. We're English graduate students. We are humble. We use a pen and paper, and we don't distract everybody in the classroom with our tappy tappy and our power cords and bite me you pretentious all-star. You're lucky that's not an Apple you're typing on, or I'd stab you in the eye with my super uncool yet totally unoffensive ball-point. Seriously. Why are you taking notes on a computer? There's NO GOOD REASON. You're just trying to show us all how "with it" and "smart" you are,but mostly you're showing us that you're totally out of touch with your actual major, which is entirely composed of PAPER AND THE INK THAT IS ON THAT PAPER. If you want to work with computers and typing, go hang around with the computer science people, who will immediately laugh you out of town. Put the computer away. And put your shoes on, right now. You're wrong about The Knight's Tale, too.

Interesting facts I have learned in class so far

Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, was accused of rape in 1380. This is weird, given his generally empowering view of the female gender.

"Satyagraha," Gandhi's program of passive resistance, actually means "truth-force," and is, like most foreign words in my South Asian Lit class, impossible to pronounce. (Suh-tee-gruh, with the last "ha" part kind of swallowed.)

A literary journal may be considered successful if its circulation hits 2,000. By comparison, The New Yorker has a circulation of over 500,000, and Sports Illustrated of over 2,000,000.

Hindi, one of the national languages of India, and Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, are essentially the same language. They just use different writing systems.

Nietzsche was not an anti-Semite, or at least not one of particular vehemence. After he died, his crazy anti-Semitic sister edited all his manuscripts to fit her agenda. Also interesting: Nietzsche went insane ten years before he died. It was either syphillis or a tumor. Sadly, this does not explain his extremely weird writings.

Everybody says cut my hair

I have a new hairstyle.

It's nothing drastic—if you saw me right now, you might not even notice. I've got the new swoopy bangs that are all the rage with the kids right now. Mine swoop to the left and are aaaaalmost long enough to tuck behind my ear.

Anyway, having the new bangs is not so terribly interesting (unless you're like me and you CANNOT stop playing with your hair, ever). What is interesting is how I got them. I actually let my sister cut my hair.

You have to understand the magnitude of this event. For an adult woman, I am entirely too attached to my hair. I've lost all perspective. I feel intensely uncomfortable letting licensed professionals touch my hair because once I figure out what works with a certain cut, I don't want to have to figure it out again. That's the reason my hair is as long as it is: stylists can't mess it up (and neither can I). So allowing E4, who is neither a licensed professional nor even a high school graduate, to touch my hair was an act of total trust. Or total unwillingness to pay for a real haircut.

The thing is, though, that E4 has very cute swoopy bangs. And then the other sister (Juliette Lewis!) got them—and, in a Single White Female twist, hair color the same as E4's. Since their hair is roughly the same texture and curliness as mine, I wanted them too, and the girls assured me that they were very easy to create.

So tonight I sat on the toilet lid in front of E4 and asked her four times if she was sure that she knew what she was doing.

"Have you done this before?"
"Yeah, no problem."
"To whom?"
"Nothing."

This was not reassuring, or even comprehensible. But the parting, the measuring, and the snipping proceeded, and now I have adorable bangs hanging in my face and irritating my mother, and I look even more like my sisters. And every time they look at me, they can see my bangs and know that I love them. Or that I'm very cheap. Either way.

NEW FEATURE: Erin's Recipes for People Who Can't Cook

As I have discussed on more occasions than I care to link to here, I am a special kind of dumb in the kitchen. So when something actually chances to work out (that isn't a pan of brownies or some sort of powdered macaroni item), I like to share with you the process so you can either (1) make some use of the information or (2) laugh at me.

So today's recipe is for chicken salad, and I made it up all by myself, more or less. As much as one can make up a recipe for something that is simple and ubiquitous like chicken salad. But anyway, the almonds are the secret to the whole thing, because the texture contrast makes it interesting. You could also add celery for that purpose, but I hate celery. Stringy pseudovegetable. Bleh.

Protein-Tastic Chicken Salad, which is not unlike all chicken salad, but with more explicit directions and almonds

3 chicken breast halves
15 grapes (I like purple, but it's up to you)
handful slivered almonds
salad dressing (mayo if you're a heathen)
salt
pepper

Cube chicken breasts. Tip: This is most easily done if the chicken is still partially frozen. Boil chicken breasts on medium heat until they're done (or, if you're me, until you remember to take them off the stove). Drain. Salt and pepper cubes. Get out a new cutting board so you don't die of salmonella, or at least flip over the chickeny one. Dice slivered almonds and add. Slice grapes and add. Note on grapes: if it bugs you to have random pieces of grape skin floating around in your salad, peel your grapes, because the skin will separate from the grape slices when you stir. Dump on salad dressing "until it looks right," as my mother likes to say. This means about four big spoonsful to start. Stir. Sample. Adjust salt, pepper, and salad dressing to taste. Salad dressing may need to be readjusted after refrigeration. (I don't know; it always seems to need more later.) If you are on a low-carb diet or hate bread, serve on top of a lettuce salad. Otherwise, serve on a hamburger bun with lettuce. Makes 5 or 6 sandwiches, I would guess; I haven't used all mine up yet so I don't know.

I'm a new graduate student, so here are some LISTS

Things I had to read this weekend, which is the first weekend after classes started, mind you
South Asian Literature: Four articles (~100 pp.), plus 80 pp. of Waiting for the Mahatma by R.K. Narayan (done)
Theory and Criticism: Four passages from De Sassure's Course in General Linguistics (~60 pp., bonus for REALLY boring and also somewhat pointless)
Chaucer: One article (50 pp.), 75 lines of General Prologue (bonus for Middle English), six passages from Sources & Backgrounds book (~25 pp.) (done)
Literary Journals: 12 essays (~100 pp.)

Ways I deal with all this reading so I don't go nuts
1. Bitching. This is universal to graduate students, apparently. The Association of Graduate Students of English (I know, clunker of a name) had a picnic this weekend, and the top two topics of conversation were (1) how much reading everybody has and (2) how much everybody doesn't want to do all their reading. Oh, and this one girl told the story of how she got shot in St. Louis. Don't go to St. Louis, kids.
2. Highlighters. I have tons of highlighters, and sometimes I play a game with them called Pretend You Have to Find the Important Ideas in This Stupid Article. If nothing else, highlighting makes my professors think I've read whatever it is. Plus, pretty.
3. Wine. Believe me, De Sassure goes down a lot easier when he's greased by a glass of riesling. You know, it's writers who have the reputation for being alcoholics, but I suspect critics are not far behind on that front. Note to my parents: I am in no danger of becoming an alcoholic. I hear that doesn't happen until at least comps.
4. Cats. Whenever one or both cats park themselves on top of me, I feel all loved, and then I think I'd better treasure their attention because it doesn't happen often, and then I can't move for an hour until they're done napping. Might as well get some reading done, provided it's not being laid on by some feline.

Things I did this weekend besides read
Attended picnic (x2)
Took classmate to emergency room
Kicked cat in head (x2—she was trying to escape)
Made chicken salad (see recipe feature above)

The Making of Dr. N.N. Mind

I’m back, whee!

I actually only have a few minutes before I have to catch the bus for my next class (Introduction to Literary Theory), but I thought I would get everybody as up-to-date as I can.

I settled in, by and large, although there’s one box in the kitchen that I just haven’t been able to bring myself to unpack, so it’s still sitting in the middle of the floor. Lyra hides under the flaps and swats at my ankles when I walk by, like a painful little reminder that my housekeeping is terrible. Thanks, baby girl. Speaking of Lyra, she’s in love with the hallway and wants to spend as much time in it as she can. If she could marry the hallway…well, she wouldn’t, because then she would be cheating on the bookshelf next to the window in the office (a.k.a. the cats’ bedroom). Anyway, needless to say, the cats have adjusted well and are back to being their normal pesky selves, including leaving some extemely foul poos in the litter box, probably as revenge. Bleh.

School’s going well so far, now that we’re past the orientation/anticipation stage. Let me tell you, if there’s anything more useless than general orientation, I can’t think of what it might be. Here is what I learned: There’s a website. This website apparently holds the key to all knowledge, making the people who actually work in various university offices useful for only one thing: telling you the address of the website. Departmental orientation was somewhat more interesting, as I got to meet my classmates. Most of them seem very nice, although they are typical English graduate students—a little overenthusiastic and socially awkward. I’ll fit in well.

Classes started yesterday. I’ve been to three of my five classes already, and it pretty much looks like I’m going to spend the whole semester reading. Reading, reading, reading, a little writing, then more reading. Seriously, I’ve already spent over $80 on copies (one course pack and one set that should have been), on top of $200 for books. Poor! Do they not remember this?

Iowa City itself is charming and quirky, but not quirky in that pretentious/self-conscious way that Austin is. (Sorry, Austinites. But if you have to try to be weird, then you’re just like my freshman who used to have mock sword fights with himself in the quad. Weird, yes, but also annoying and scary.) They have right-turn arrows and warnings for any curve that’s greater than 120 degrees: WARNING CURVE TIGHTENS 25 MPH. I can’t decide if those are for the old snail-like Midwestern drivers, or for the crazy college kids.

Moving to Iowa has reminded me of a lot of things, like that Midwestern guys seem to be above-average attractive and that people besides me actually do use their turn signals. Going to the grocery store is, as always, an exercise in hilarity. I bought fish sauce last night at Hy-Vee, and I had to explain to the clerk that it didn't taste like fish and was actually sort of tangy. Not hilarious because I explained, but because she looked like she absolutely did not believe me. I mean, I do sometimes tell wild lies, but not usually to unsuspecting store clerks. Oh well, the look on her face was probably somewhat like the look on mine when I discovered Beefomato in the juice aisle. It's apparently the Midwestern equivalent of Clamato. They're equally disgusting, in any case.

All right, I'd better run or I'm going to miss the bus, and then I'll be late for class and it will be a whole drama. I'll have further updates on class and classmates, but probably not today as I'll be working on my 2-page response paper for Chaucer that's due tomorrow.

We were ON a BREAK!

If you hadn't noticed, Dr. N.N. Mind is taking a short haitus from posting. I'm in the process of finishing up my life in Houston so I can move on to graduate school. I hope to be back sometime in the third week of August, perhaps with an entirely new and exciting design. See you then.

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n."

Today has been a shitty day.

Well, that's not entirely true. It was going along pretty decently there for awhile; I was getting some work done, listening to good music, and I had a nice lunch. And then about 4 o'clock someone made a random comment to me (I won't repeat it because it was entirely too contextual to be relevant here), and that quickly the day was shot.

I don't know about you, but once I've achieved a bad mood, nothing can make it go away except for an extended private sulk and about eight hours of sleep. Not even the violent downpour and subsequent twin rainbow over downtown this afternoon had any effect on my mood. And you know how I love the rain.

So here I am, fully immersed in my private sulk, which in this case seems to be listening to Kasey Chambers and writing about how SOME people are EXTRAORDINARILY thoughtless and apparently need to have NEEDLES shoved into their KNEECAPS before they finally GET it. (Don't worry, said people don't read this blog. I'm not even being passive-aggressive here. I haven't gotten that far in the sulk.) Unfortunately, this isn't the good kind of sulk, where I can feel self-righteous about how I done been wronged; my feelings are hurt because what Jerk #1 said was true. Asshole.

Anyway, that's the scintillating story of my evening. I'm going to go find some crabby food (probably ice cream) and contemplate the pitiful state of my life. I'll return you to your regularly schedule sarcasm and good humor tomorrow.

"This is the true story of two people, picked to work in an office..."

Erin: I did thoroughly enjoy Slate saying the French have got to go.
M!: Yeah - the Tour de France would be a lot better with less of the French involved.
Erin: As would most things in the world.
M!: Indeed.
Erin: Maybe we just need to start paying more attention to the Giro d'Italia.
M!: That might be a way to go.
Erin: I like the Italians better than the French.
M!: Me too, but I like the race less.
Erin: Why?
M!: It's not as long, so there's less drama, for starters. I like the French countryside.
Erin: Bleh.
M!: Which I'm sure looks shockingly similar to the Italian countryside for the most part.
Erin: I hate France.
M!: But still. Maybe if they swapped . Like the French run the Giro and the Italians run the Tour.
Erin: Right. Well, I'm kind of intrigued by Austria. Maybe they should just do more of that.
M!: Gradually put more of the race in Austria? Until it's all there?
Erin: Well, that, or just pay attention to the Tour of Austria until the Tour de France essentially goes away. But either way. Austria. It's gorgeous, it's grueling, and the Austrians are aggressively organized but not mean.
M!: Okay, get on the phone with Europe and float that idea out there.
Erin: The Austrians would love it. Seriously, it's like the best idea ever. Austrians even dislike the French.
M!: Who doesn't dislike the French?
Erin: Um...the Canadians?
M!: I guess. They like everybody.
Erin: Yeah, but they have a more than casual tie to France. Also, I think Palestinians like the French.
M!: That's odd. the French supportive of Palestine?
Erin: Yes. They hate the Israelis because the Americans like them.
M!: So it's not so much a legitimate ideological stance as it is them being contrary? That's a pretty lame way to structure your foreign policy.
Erin: "Well, we're not gonna. We're gonna have a sandwich." Well, I'm sure it has some other things--the French are somewhat anti-Semitic. Way more than the Germans or the Austrians, actually.
M!: Hm. Maybe someone needs to go smack France around again to shake some of that superiority off.
Erin: Dude. Everybody in the world has delivered a smackdown.
M!: I think the US is about due to give them another one.
Erin: But it just gives them an inflated sense of self-worth.
M!: Not if they're all gone. How long has it been since we've shot at French people?
Erin: Too long! What actually needs to happen is that the entire Earth needs to ignore France.
M!: Exterminate the French!
Erin: Hm. Then what do we do with France? Are you proposing that we just break it off Europe?
M!: We could divide it up amongst the surrounding countries.
Erin: Yeah, that's going to be a smooth process that won't irritate the English or the Italians at all.
M!: The English had their turn having lots of territories. Same with the Italians/Romans.
Erin: Maybe we should give it to somebody that would infuriate everybody. Like...Papua New Guinea.
M!: And besides, if your country was ever Facist, then you're automatically out of the running. Italy: out. Germany: out.
Erin: Austria. Communists should probably be out, too.
M!: Yeah. So it leaves like, the Portuguese.
Erin: You don't like my Papua New Guinea idea?
M!: Sure.
Erin: Portugal killed a lot of Indians.
M!: What if we expanded Luxembourg to a ridiculous degree?
Erin: Or Liechtenstein. Or maybe we should give it to a lot of displaced minorities and watch them fight it out while filming a new reality show.
M!: Awesome!
Erin: So, like, American Indians, Israelis...Taiwan, and...the Aztecs.
M!: "Watch what happens when people stop being (whatever they say on Real World) and start committing genocide."
Erin: Polite?
M!: There you go.
Erin: I think it should go, "Watch what happens when people stop being oppressed and start committing genocide."
M!: That works too.
Erin: Oh, Nepal. Nepal should be there. They'd be like, the sleeper. Who spends most of the show trying to get everyone to calm down and be Zen, and then sneaks in and wins it all at the end.
M!: Now with the Aztecs, could we combine them with the Mayans?
Erin: Sure.
M!: Because I think that would cause a lot of internal friction.
Erin: And make for good t.v., yes.
M!: Right.
Erin: And of course, the whole thing will be picked up by Fox.
M!: I don't know - it's a pretty big undertaking. I think the Survivor guy should do it, and I think he's got an exclusive deal with CBS.
Erin: Hm. Maybe Regis would host.
M!: Intriguing.
Erin: He's about due for a very irritating comeback.
M!: Yep
Erin: I like it. Let's work up a spec script and send it to George W. and Regis's people.

Erin: Next on the agenda: fixing major-league baseball.
M!: I think the Nationals nee Expos are doing a good job of that.
Erin: True story, but I think the NL Central needs to ship a team to the AL West, and a new DH rule needs to be instituted: if your team wants to use a DH, the pitcher he's batting for has to stand in for one free bean ball.
M!: I like that.
Erin: He can wear a helmet, but no armor.
M!: Does he get a bat or does he just have to stand there?
Erin: I think he just has to stand there. He's apparently too much of a weenie to wield a bat on his own.
M!: Is there going to be a rule for pitch speed?
Erin: No.
M!: Can he move?
Erin: No, it's a free bean ball. He has to take it. I think the only rule is "don't aim for his face."
M!: Or does he have to keep his feet planted?
Erin: It's like a free shot.
M!: Wow.
Erin: Feet planted, for sure. He can maybe move his torso to mitigate broken bones.
M!: This sounds like a recipe for an exploding DL.
Erin: Well, maybe people will think twice about using a DH, then.
M!: Does the rule apply for pinch hitting in the NL?
Erin: No, because that can be strategic.
M!: Very well then.
Erin: Hm. Or we can let the fans throw eggs.
M!: Pies
Erin: Eggs are way smellier.
M!: But pies are funnier
Erin: Eggs hurt more.
M!: Fair enough
Erin: Although really, there's no reason not to do both. And they can just sell them in the stands. For throwing convenience. Eggs for $1, pies for $5. It's a huge money-maker.
M!: Yep.
Erin: Well then. Any other baseball issues that need our attention?
M!: How the Astros have gone from being awful to just mediocre.
Erin: Evidently they got tired of sucking. They had a meeting in the clubhouse and were all, "Sucking sucks. Let's not do it anymore." And everybody nodded.
M!: But they're not so interested in being good yet.
Erin: Baby steps. They beat San Diego; I thought that was promising.
M!: Indeed.
Erin: Or a fluke, it's unclear.
M!: And Roger is throwing ridiculously.
Erin: Yes, it's sad when you're 7-3 but your ERA is under 1.50. If your ERA is 1.41, you should be 15-0.
M!: Yep. Lots of 1-0, 2-0 games will kill you.
Erin: Very true. Interestingly, the Yankees won their first game with less than 3 runs this weekend. I hope they continue to be mediocre.
M!: Yep.
Erin: It warms the cockles of my heart.
M!: It'll be nice if they learn that a bunch of high-paid, old superstars isn't the way to win.
Erin: Yes. Although A-Rod is hardly old.
M!: No, but he's a douchebag, so that's kind of the same.
Erin: True story.

I'm starting to suspect that ABC 13 has pyromaniacal tendencies

I've gotten in the habit of watching Good Morning America as I get ready for work, which is fine. It's the romance novel of news programs, to be sure, but it's fairly decent background noise while I'm putting in my contacts and changing clothes three times. However, GMA is interrupted at 7:55 and 8:25 for local news.

I'm starting to ask myself what the point of this is, as the local news in Houston is ALWAYS THE SAME THING. There are about five items on a rotating schedule (one for every day of the week). They are:

1. A shoddily-maintained apartment complex burns, but no one is hurt.
2. Someone attempts to cross the freeway on foot and it killed.
3. An Enron muckety-muck or a human smuggler is sentenced at the courthouse.
4. There is an incident at a chemical plant (usually a fire).
5. A schoolchild is suspended for some ridiculous reason.

Seriously. These are apparently the only things that ever happen in Houston. Every once in a great while something different happens—the traffic incident is a flipped Hummer instead of a psychotic pedestrian, or it's the Legislature screwing up instead of the judiciary, but really, what's the point? It's getting to the point where I can recite along with Marisa Rivas, and I'm afraid that by the time I move to Iowa, I'll be able to do the sign-language interpreter's part, too. Last week alone there were five fires. Five! One two three four five! One for every day of the week. No other news happened. Amazing.

Frankly, the only reason I don't mute the local news is because I want to hear the weather, although I don't know why. It's just as monotonous as the news. Hot, hot, hot, rain tease, hot hot hot. Wind from the south, misery from all directions. No offense, Doug Brown, but I'm starting to hate you.

Maybe I should try another channel. I do have a new love of Matt Lauer lately, since he allowed Tom Cruise to make a more complete ass of himself the other morning. Or maybe I just need to move.

Some Lists

Words and Phrases I've Been Overusing Lately
True story/sad story
General malaise
Bad news bears
Chief
I'm going to stab [you, him, them, that guy if he does that one more time, I swear].
Aces
Interesting (Bonus: generally used when I'm not at all interested)
(C) Bite me
Oh, Lordy
Good grief
Slash, i.e. "I'm going to eat this...slash throw it at you.

Reasons My Sister and I Could Be Twins, According to My Brother
We like art and literature
We are loud
We do not enjoy science
We are irrational
We do not think he is as funny as he thinks he is
Nor as knowledgeable

Reasons My Sister and I Could Never Be Twins, According to Both of Us
She is tiny and I am not
I am a listener; she tunes out when people talk
She likes cucumbers and beer and a vast array of foods that disgust me
She enjoys the center of emotional tempests; I like to observe from a safe distance
I like Chagall and she does not
Control is important to me; she couldn't care less who's running the show as long as it's entertaining
We were born four years apart

Reasons My Sister and I Could Be Twins, Ignoring the Obvious Problem of Birthdates
We are smart as whips, however smart that is
We are clumsy
We are disorganized, except when it counts
We have green eyes and big hair and the same toes
We like baseball and travelling and lying to people for no good reason (why yes, my middle name is Edward after my grandfather and she was born in Spain while our parents were itinerantly living there*)
We do not think my brother is as funny as he thinks he is
Probably not as knowledgeable, either

Places I Have Eaten Since the Month Of No Eating Out Ended
Nit Noi
Jason's Deli
Auntie Chang's Dumpling House
Chipotle
Texadelphia (twice)
Chick-Fil-A
Jamba Juice (twice)
Dessert Gallery

^{*These are lies that I and my sister (respectively) have told and managed to make people believe. Hers is better than mine because she convinced her roommate that it was true, and then her roommate interviewed her about Spain during a project for Spanish class. Evidently E3 claimed that our parents had gone there on a whim, Dad was working as a waiter and we stayed there only until she was five, thus explaining her complete lack of ability to speak Spanish. The roommate got an A- on the paper. I don't know if E3 has ever 'fessed up, but it makes me laugh every time I think about it.}