Now that I drive a Mercedes-Benz, I should acknowledge the reality of my comfortable middle-class status. Which would be a much funnier thing to say if I actually had a picture of my car to go with it; I'll put one up eventually, I promise. For now, let me show you my aunt's new vacation condo in the Florida Keys, which has a similar expectation:reality ratio:



But seriously: I make more money now than my parents did when I was little, even adjusting for inflation. And if I weren't planning to quit my job, blow a big chunk of savings on a laptop and a trip to Europe, and retire to a life of quasi-poverty as a graduate student in the fall, I could have easily bought a genuinely nice car, the kind where you have a warranty that lasts for more than a month and you worry about getting little dents and shit.

Whoa.

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Part N of an infinite series.
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O Diesel! O Lords of the Highway! O Fickle Imps, who dwelleth in my dash!

What have I done? How can I appease your wrath?

The car worked fine when I bought it. Yesterday, sometime between morning and quittin' time, the turn signal relay died. So here I am this morning, driving along at 65 mph, window rolled down and making absurd uninterpretable arm signals to the traffic, when kerSMACK!!, my back window explodes. Actually it wasn't so much an explosion as a sudden transformation from seamless glass to a mosaic, but it was pretty darn loud and terrifying.

I figured it was a bit of kicked-up highway debris, but no. Nothing hit my car; the window just exploded of its own accord, or more likely the rear defroster's accord. Which shows you what I get for thinking I have a nice touch of luxury in my jalopy! Now I'll need to knock out the pretty translucent mosaic and install some plastic wrap.

On the other hand, my turn signals are working again, hurrah!

One: I have a new car, and it's a Mercedes, woo woo! Which would mean I'm moving up in the world, except it's from 2020, has a salvage title, and is ugly as sin. However, it does run on diesel, which means it could theoretically run on vegetable oil at some time in the future - if I decide I want a car after all.

Two: I'm souping up a theme or two for competition. If any of you WordPress 1.5 kidz could play with this one a little, and let me know if you find any bugs, I'd be much obliged. Hit the screenshot to download:

Part the First: Look at how I'm defined by the Infinite Teen Slang Generator!

yami
n. a female, particularly a nice one.
"Reggie, that yami is nice!"

Awwww.

Part the Second: How many times have I mentioned that I lived in a dorm with a coed naked hot tub? Clearly not enough to garner a significant audience, as is the way of the world - but surely once or twice. And the discussion of men and nipples in church made me think back on what made me comfortable, or not, as a potential ogle-ee.

It seems to me that there are four types:

1. Men who don't see women as full-fledged human beings.


2. Men who do manage to see women as human beings, but not as sexual beings, or have a classic virgin/whore dichotomy problem.


3. Men who see women as both human and sexual beings, but not at the same time. They're well-behaved, but sometimes shift from normal eye contact to a desperate staring contest. You can see the "oh shit I wasn't supposed to notice or feel anything now I'm stuck" whirling 'round - an admirable sentiment, perhaps, but still an awkward moment.


4. Men who are fun to be around in a coed naked hot tub.

Obviously you can cook the categories to apply to women, or same-sex ogling, or whatever other genders and sexualities you've been streaking campus with lately. The point is, I saw an awful lot of young men successfully move from category 3 to category 4; while I can't speak to their inner experiences, from the outside it just doesn't seem that difficult. Contrariwise, there was one notable instance of someone moving from utter misogyny, to at least a theoretical acceptance of women as both human and sexual (in practice it didn't always work out so well) - and clearly freaking the fuck out every step of the way.

Learning to accept the inevitable moments of sexual tension and let them pass, without getting all in a lather - it strikes me as the same thing that happens in meditation, letting your thoughts go and returning to your breath, again and again. Practice, isn't it?

Part the Third: I'm going to Seattle tonight. At this point I can safely say that I'll be leaving LA this summer/fall, driving north along the Pacific Coast until I hit grad school. How far north, exactly, I dunno - thus the going to Seattle - but if you're so inclined, now would be a good time to cast some pearls of grad-school-choosing wisdom.

Part the Fourth, while we're discussing my geography: I'm also planning a trip to Europe in July. The itinerary is Iceland - Norway with family, then Norway - Denmark - ??? - London? doing the backpacking thing with my sister. Any readers out there willing to show two delightful young tourists a good time?

I've been listening to KCRW today, and more importantly to their fund drive. The last pitch they delivered was to "take control" of "your station" which entails, of course, giving them money and then not paying attention to what they do with it.
Oh yeah I feel the power of ownership there, baby!

Public radio personalities will say anything and everything during fund drives, so one oughtn't read too much into this... but they've repeated variations on the same argument all morning. KCRW is member-supported, not member-run. I gave them money last year and it most certainly did not bring me the chance to vote for an additional transmitter in Altadena or a statutory limit on the amount of Air that can be played in a week (I like Air, but really!) or even station board members a la the Pacifica model.

I hate seeing people innocently suggest that opening one's wallet is the same thing as being active and creative and in control of the universe. Stupid capitalism.

Thanks to Fafblog, I remembered National Pie Day just in time to travel to the local chain pie restaurant and eat pie.

I do wonder what genius strength reasoning went in to the decision to have National Pie Day in January, when only citrus fruits are in season. Citrus pies are wonderful, but is it really in the pie spirit to rub northerners' noses in the frozen wastedness of their winters?

Also, with National Pie Day being just two days before Burns Day, we incur substantial risk of a run-together Haggis Pie Day on the 24th. Yuck.

It's astoundingly simple to convince oneself that one's bodily crevices are merely homes for filth and decay, that one's blood is laced with poison or one's sweat is made of weakness. This is a cross-cultural habit; last night I postulated that body-hate is in fact a basic human instinct, and then I turned that instinct on my nose.

Let me tell you, pore paranoia strips have nothing on the ancient yogic practice of jala neti - especially not when you've got a cold. Neti, for those of you too lazy to click the link, is the practice of pouring warm saline solution through one nostril and out the other, thereby flushing out loads and loads of watery snot clumps! Even on a good day, there is way more snot in my sinuses than there is mysterious fatty goo in my nose pores, and last night I nearly ran out of handkerchief. Yogic wisdom 1, Bioré 0.

The creepiness doesn't particularly diminish with time, but it sure works better and faster than commercial decongestants. And it only feels a little bit like drowning, hoorah!

1. If liberal culture was more firmly entrenched, wouldn't we all recognize that the failure to give one's employees a day off "for diversity" is the same thing as allowing the Klan to solicit contributions in the cubicle farm? Racism hurts everyone, white privilege or no, and I'm being unjustly deprived of a nice day for a picnic. Waaah.
   
2. I'm curious about the etiology of colds. Why is a snotty nose presaged by a sore throat? And why is it only snotty in one sinus at a time?
   
3. Via Bitch, Ph.D comes an anecdote about Harvard's President's daughter:
   

   
   In his talk, according to several participants, Summers also used as an example one of his daughters, who as a child was given two trucks in an effort at gender-neutral parenting. Yet she treated them almost like dolls, naming one of them ''daddy truck," and one ''baby truck."
   

   
   Just because you're "confrontational" and "straight-talking" doesn't mean you're not also "a sexist asshole". The numerous flaws in Summers's supposed "arguments" can be easily pointed out by any halfwit* and I leave them to it**.
   

   
   What I'm curious about is the unspoken assumption that if girls can be demonstrated to be more nurturing than boys, then they obviously can't be expected to be as good at math. Because the ability to do math can only be developed by skewering bunnies and kittens on your pencil, and then dancing in a shower of cute-baby-animal blood while reciting your multiplication tables.
   

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Dear Snow: thank you for the blizzard in Indianapolis. It was exactly what I asked for. Next time, I'll be more careful.

A thirty-six hour trip from LA, complete with lost luggage and bonus time spent sitting on tarmac; then a thirty-six hour flu. A brilliant lead in to profoundly rotten things, which are as unbloggable as profoundly rotten things always are.

I'm in a bitter place right now, but at least I got to go Christmas caroling in the snow. Life, as the TV in the airport lounge uniformly reminds me*, could be worse.

Regardless, I'm'a try an' keep myself off the internets for another week or two.
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