Loving Sondre Lerche!

Fantastic! Sondre sounds like a mix of folksy stuff and old lounge. Loving it! However, the lyrics come off rather odd... probably because he's a child and English isn't his first language. Still, Loving it!

Oops! He did it again...

Rush Limbaugh has turned himself in after a warrant was issued for his arrest in Florida, the charge is prescription fraud. Is this new and different? Or is this the same thing as before? Personally, I hope it's all new.

Synchronized Blogging!

BebeMoche and I both recalled our "cultural" anecdotes this evening and decided to both blog them out. Mine begins when I was working as an archaeologist as part of my grad work. I had been working at an ancient Greek site in Turkey and after weeks of hard-core work, we had a stretch of five days off. I spent the time with Naomi, our conservator, and Andy, an architect who had been mapping out the stadium, and the three of us had spent the time travelling around Cappadocia in central Turkey. For the most part, the Turks are like everyone else, enjoying a love-hate relationship with tourists. Some are overly officious, others don't bother to conceal their contempt. One evening, after we had enjoyed a wonderful meal, we were walking back to our hotel. I'm sure that the fact that we were Americans was apparent as we walked past a shopkeeper who wanted us to check out the rugs he was selling. We smiled but shook our heads as we passed by, which apparently wasn't what he'd hoped for. He shouted to us as we were walking away, "What's the difference between an American and yogurt?" The answer popped into my head and I shouted back, "Yogurt has culture!" and we all burst out laughing. I don't think that he was pleased. The entire episode was especially timely, since it had been a topic we had already discussed more than once. The Turks are very proud of living in a land full of such grand history. There are sites which date to prehistory, monuments from the pinnacle of the Greeks and the Romans, churches and other buildings from the Byzantine period. The only problem is, the Turks had next to nothing to do with it. Most of those monuments were over a thousand years old when the Turks first set foot in Turkey. We all knew that this Turk's claim to cultural superiority was nothing other than pretense.

The BF has gone global!

The BF has been playing around with his webpage for the last couple of days. I think it somes him up pretty well.

For Fafe

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HA!

Daily Candy

I love Daily Candy and just can't get enough of it, even though it's mostly geared towards women. Now there's Thrillist which is for guys. I've subscribed and have been getting the listings, but I'm not enjoying it as much. The listings are less practical, like the one for a site which ships exotic meats such as ostrich, yak, and alligator. Still, the unrestrained chest-thumping is interesting. These boys clearly are into the whole shopping-brunching thing, but have to include links to sick pictures and snarky comments in order to reaffirm their manliness. The whole thing seems like a window into a guido fraternity.

BuddyCrocker on Tax Day.

Okay, so now we've all paid our taxes, hopefully. I'm a bit worried about BebeMoche, who might be teasing the dragon. Honestly, I'm happy to pay them... not HAPPY, but I recognize the benefits that I reap by being an American and I see taxes as analogous to paying rent, so I'm cool with it. I do wish that I felt better about how the present administration is (ab)using my money, but whatever. What pisses me off on this day, however, is that after I'm coughing up the money for the IRS, they still make me put a fuckin' stamp on the goddamned envelope! I mean, throw us a frickin' bone! Spring for the bulk rate! It's ultimately a more intelligent use of our money. Then again, the IRS is all about collecting money. I don't think that any time goes into how the department could more effectively USE the money.

BuddyCrocker responds to calls for "real" content...

while passing over the irony that the individual calling for "real" content has lately posted such blog-busters as "I'm working really hard," and "My oddly anthropomorphized ipod has ceased to operate." (And how strange is it that said ipod has resurrected itself... at this time of year? If Tom Cruise hears about it there could be a new religion brewing.)

Okay, so the "real" content. This story is one I haven't thought about for a long time, but I recalled it last night at the BF's birthday party. I was speaking with a friend who has been upset with her dating life lately. She'd met this guy who was a super-hottie, but not entirely up front with her. She felt humiliated (though she had no reason to feel so) and she needed to feel like she wasn't alone in her situation. So I shared the following with her.

It was probably 1990 or so and I was a young college student, single, and enjoying life. One night some friends and I were going to go out for drinks and dancing, probably to the End-Up of the Stud or some other gay bar with a nasty, single-entendre moniker. As usual, we'd first meet up at Cafe Flore, share some coffee and gossip together before heading out in one car. I was the first to arrive and after buying myself a mocha, I sat down, pulled out a book, and waited for my friends to arrive. I used to love spending hours at a cafe, alone with a book over coffee. It's something I really miss now. Anyhow, at one point I noticed this cute guy sitting at a nearby table. He was engrossed in his own book so I got the opportunity to check him out at length, until he caught me looking him over. Almost immediately, Stephen, my roommate/best friend/person-with-whom-I-have-no-appropriate-boundaries, arrived with the rest of our friends and they all settled in around me. Over the next half hour Book Guy and I kept checking each other out, smiling, etc. Even though I was enjoying our interaction, I didn't really feel any compelling urge to actually talk to Book Guy... it was just pointless fun. Finally, as we were all leaving I passed by his table and said "Nice flirting with you!" He laughed and I headed out for my evening feeling good.

Flash forward to the bar, where my friends and I are on our second round and it's a good night. The music's working, people we know and like keep showing up, it's a good vibe in general. Suddenly, I notice that there's a super-hottie right next to me, ordering a drink. We start talking and things are going pretty nicely. We've got a great rapport going, he's making me laugh, telling me all about this guy that he'd recently dated who had a huge poster of Debbie Gibson in his bedroom and isn't that sad. Soon, however, he says in a serious tone, "Okay, I have to tell you, my twin brother is coming to meet me here." At first, I'm incredulous, "You have a twin who's gay too?" (I know that some people think that the idea of getting it on with twins is hot, but I wouldn't be able to get past the immense Incest Ew Factor.) He tells me that it's actually pretty common in identical twins, but he and his brother are fraternal, so it's really strange. So I don't get why it's a big thing that his brother is coming. He then tells me, "Well, we have this rivalry between us and whenever he sees me talking with a guy he tries to get him to bed first." Of course, the honorable part of me is duly repulsed and I'm like, "That's fucking pathetic!" Five minutes later, the twin walks in... and it's Book Guy from earlier in the evening at Cafe Flore. Things quickly grow uncomfortable and I find an excuse to leave. Stephen comes along and on our way out he tells me how proud he is of me for striking up the conversation with the Hottie Twin, is suitably shocked when I tell him about the coincidence, is astounded that I have no intention of going out with either one, and thinks I'm an idiot for not using the situation for my own advantage.

A few days later I'm on campus and I run into Mess, aka Mary Elizabeth Sanderson, whom I'd first met a year before. (I'd dated her best friend, a boy that my friends Tanya, Frine, and I had nicknamed "The Face of God" after seeing him out a couple of times.) Mess and I totally fell back into it and within minutes she was like, "Omigod! I have this friend--he's totally cute!-- I think you guys would totally get along! We should hang out together!" Mess wanted me to get to know her friend since he was young, newly out, had only dated this one guy who turned out to be a total asshole and she wanted him to find out that not all gay guys are jerks. She also hinted that her friend and I might hit it off, though his age and newbiness were a total turn off for me. Still, Mess had her hopes. I might have declined but it wasn't really a blind date. Besides, the whole thing with Hottie Twin and Book Guy had bothered me more than I'd wanted to let on and I was looking for something positive.

The appointed evening comes and Mess and The Youngling and I all meet up at Cafe Flore and leave in my car. We go to the Stud and it's completely dead so we head over to another bar. At the next place, things also look pretty bleak. The evening just doesn't have a great vibe, but whatever. We decide to give it a chance to pick up and order drinks. After a while, Mess has to visit the facilities and the Youngling goes along with her. As I wait alone, the Hottie Twin appears out of nowhere and starts chatting with me. He asks me what's going on and I let him know that I'm kind of on a going-nowhere-not-really-blind-date. Moments later, Mess and The Youngling return and I introduce them to Hottie Twin. The evening never really gets any better. The Youngling and I have nothing in common, I've had to turn down Hottie Twin outright after he asked me to dump Mess and The Youngling and go home with him (which totally offends my personal sense of honor), and nobody else I know has shown up. Everyone else feels the same way so we head out. Hottie Twin has asked me for a ride home and I've said fine. As we're in the car something clicks for me and I ask The Youngling, "So, do you have a big poster of Debbie Gibson over your bed?" The Youngling is shocked that I would know but yes, he does. So now I realize that the Hottie Twin is The Youngling's asshole. I drop Hottie Twin off at his apartment, then The Youngling and Mess off at her car. I head back to my apartment, feeling like the entire evening has just been about as bad as it can be, feeling especially gross about my attraction to Hottie Twin who clearly was a complete sleaze. After about two hours Stephen comes home and asks "Where were you?" "What do you mean?" I ask. He says that he thought that I was going out with Mess. I told him that I had, things hadn't gone so well and that we all wrapped it up early. "Well, I just saw them at the Stud!" After I picked up my jaw from the floor I asked him when. He said, "I just left them. It was Mess, her friend, you know, that young guy she wanted you to meet. Oh yeah, and that hot guy you met last week was there... the one that has the twin and they try to get guys before each other?"

So, not only had this little circle grown WAY too close for me, WAY too sleazy for me, WAY too self-destructive for me... This little circle had also tricked me, ditched me, and gone out to party without me. I felt sullied, stupid, and just wronged. Despite the fact that I had called an end to the evening and wanted to disassociate myself from them, hearing that they had gathered again made me feel excluded. I could only focus on the rejection. Looking back, I realize that I should have seen that they were the fools. I mean, Hottie Twin and Book Guy had no scruples whatsoever. The Youngling knew that Hottie Twin was a dick, but stupidly wanted to go out with him again. Mess also knew that Hottie Twin was a dick and that The Youngling was making a bad choice, but she went along with it. Not a single person showed the sort of character that I find admirable or that I even want to associate with. Ultimately, I had excluded myself by rejecting Hottie Twin and telling Mess and The Youngling that the evening was a bust. I guess, on some level I was doing the right thing, I just didn't see it.

BuddyCrocker's new look!

It's orange, by the way.

Ahhhhhh....

Spring Break! It's here and it couldn't have come too soon, I've been needing to relax and detach for awhile now. Although I do have to say that I have some of the best students ever. Yesterday morning one of the classes finagled a party out of me. It was the last day before spring break, which translates into "pointless" for those of you no longer in high school, so it was cool. Anyhow, they decided to pretend it was my birthday, they sang to me, they wanted me to lead them in games... they were happy, fun, wonderful. I just wish that I hadn't been the worn down, dragged out, bucket of exhaustion that I was and that I had been able to enjoy it. These students are in the last year that I teach them... I'm going to miss them next year.

It Starts Tomorrow...

I don't know why, but I LOVE the International Auto Show. I guess that it's the uhMERRican in me. Something about the modern designs, the novelty, the technical innovation... it's all just sort of mesmerizing. Still, going to the auto show usually means dealing with the same sort of clientele as one might see at Hooters... in short, not really my crowd. Nevertheless, I'll go and I'll inspect and I'll dream of when I lived in a city where I had a car and could spend hours just driving around. Sigh...

BuddyCrocker on the Verge...

Okay, so I'm beset on all sides by deadlines of all sorts, personal, professional, federal... I'm edgy, crazed, rabid, call it what you will, I'm teetering on the Cliffs of Insanity. Best part thus far has been the Parent/Teacher conferences for the mid-grade of the second semester. They're five minutes each, which is barely time for anything more than "Here's how I grade, here's how your child did, this is what they need to do for the rest of the semester, thanks for coming, good-bye!" We do two blocks of two hours each and for the second block I was booked solid from beginning to end. We started and within ten minutes my bladder alarm went off. It grew progressively worse and the parents were lined up until the very end so I never had the opportunity to take a break. By the end I was nearly in tears and I couldn't let on at all. Horrible. Horrible.

For the most part they were positive. However, I had one parent who came in and was disappointed that her child's grade had slipped. She brought a letter from her child's tutor, saying that the tutor teaches at X school and has written her own textbook, and said tutor refuses to work with my student anymore because said tutor believes that the student is working with a useless textbook and has a incompetent teacher. Now, fortunately I've developed a thicker skin than I used to have, as well as a measure of perspective. I pointed out to the parent that anybody who has written their own textbook has done so out of disatisfaction with what's otherwise available and so I would be surprised had this person had anything good to say about another textbook. (Frankly, based on other things the parent said, I'm not certain that the tutor understands the methodology of our textbook. It has its flaws, but it's not entirely pointless.) And, I said, about the inference that I don't know how to teach, I can only laugh. This person has never seen me teach and knows nothing about my methods or technique. Besides, I have hundreds (just barely) of past students who can quite capably work with the language. I was then able to redirect the conversation to a more constructive direction. Eventually, the mother shared that there were personal problems at home and that she and my student have been essentially homeless for a couple of months during renovations. Of course, the fact that this might have some slight effect on my student's ability to concentrate seems to have eluded the parent. Also, this is the same parent whom I informed in the fall that her child was talkative and distracted in class. The parent replied then that "It's the only class my child has with [child's best friend] and so as long and my child is passing all I care about is that they're having fun!" To this I replied, "Okay, as long as you realize that this does impact your child's overall grade." I guess she didn't quite get it the first time. It just annoys me that this parent is so quick to blame me for the student's lack of progress when there are clearly other factors. I mean, you can lead a horse to water...

Elaine Pagels on the Gospel of Judas

Elaine Pagels is one of my favorite scholars on religion in the ancient world and she's written numerous fascinating articles about early Christianity. The link is to an op-ed piece she wrote for the New York Times. Thanks Alfredo for the heads up...

What?

I've ranted about stupidity and now there's another example. I'm reminded of when I was hanging out with a friend of mine when her boyfriend came in, kind of shaken up. He was in training to become a police officer and had come home early that day. The gun-safety instructor had shot himself in the foot while taking his gun out of the holster in front of the cadets. Lee had been one of the cadets and was kind of freaked out by the whole thing. Can't say I blame him. Still, it seems to me that Lee and the others might have been a bit more prepared for the bang than the students and the teacher were.

Somehow, "I told you so" just doesn't cut it...

So the president's current approval rating is down to 36% by one poll... and I think those numbers come from before it was made known that Bush allowed the leaking of Plame's name. People are finally beginning to get the fact that our activity is affecting the climate of the planet on which we live. People are starting to catch on to the fact that those who benefit from the present administration are the administration's 'nucular' families. Middle America is getting freaked out about what's going on in the Middle East and wants to turn tail and run away, which would totally fuck everything up. I could easily go on about the handbasket we're in.

Honestly, as the rest of the country has been catching up to what many of us have seen coming, there just doesn't seem to be any legitimate reaction. I mean, there's "No Shit!" but it's not really all that constructive. As Bush's approval sank lower and lower, and as each week brought a "new low," I felt a lot of anger. I felt that my resentment at the media for calling people who thought like me arrogant and dismissive of Middle America had finally been vindicated, though it pisses me off knowing that I'll never see that admission on the Nightly News. And now that we have all this mess to clean up, (with the very real possibility that we CAN'T clean it up), it's both frustrating and frightening. I think our Founding Fathers had a noble idea, namely that people have to be given the freedom to guide their own lives, and I believe that we have to follow that ideal. But, Damn! How fucking stupid can we be? And on a global scale, no less?

To top it all off, I can't find my favorite t-shirt or my favorite sweater! I was going to wear them both to a gallery opening Thursday evening and changed my mind last minute. Now I don't know where they are, goddammuthafuckinrrarrgh!

Interesting....

The link is to a story about an ancient Teotihuacan temple presently under excavation in Mexico. It's also the site where Catholics reenact the Crucifixion during Holy Week. I've been fascinated before, (and I'm sure that someone, somewhere has written an article on this in some periodical), by the fact that places considered divine remain divine despite changes in the population. Temples in Egypt have gone from being the seat of Egyptian gods to being Christian churches to being Muslim mosques as new people have come and conquered. Likewise, the Parthenon (temple to the virgin Athena) was converted to a church of the Virgin Mary before it too became a mosque. The cathedral Hagia Sophia in Istanbul became a mosque as well. It makes sense to me that when a new people invade a location and supplant the inhabiting people, the new gods displace the previous gods as well. However, in this most recent case, knowledge about the temple was apparently forgotten and the rites began in the same spot by coincidence. I'm all, like... woah!

In other news, it seems to me that my afternoon classes have been holding out on me. They're much sharper than they'd let on.

Oh yeah, and Pink's new CD kicks ass!

Brokeback still no Maurice

The BF bought the Brokeback DVD and watched it last night. He was completely devastated and had difficulty sleeping. I gotta say, I just wasn’t that touched by Brokeback when I saw it in the theater and I still think that Maurice was better. Maurice came out at the right time in my life for me and I was really able to identify with the story. For one thing, I've always been a total sucker for those Edwardian period pieces from the height of the Merchant/Ivory era... that's probably the elitist in me I try to deny. But unlike Brokeback, Maurice offered the hope that there was happiness to be had. Brokeback's power comes from its heartbreak and frustration, which I no longer romanticize. I think I’m also bothered by the fact that the main character in Brokeback is simply another homo who ends up desperately alone. To me, this just reaffirms the same tired image of gays commonly found in American popular culture since they were acknowledged. Even with Will and Grace, Will has spent almost the entire run of the show without anybody who isn’t a joke. At a time when gays are supposed to be enjoying such a good image in the media, it seems to me that it's really just the same old message.

The Day on the Job...

Today there was a faculty meeting and our department was in charge of catering the food. Since I'm the foody in the group, responsibility for the affair was unanimously delegated to me. It was totally low-key so there was no need for me to turn into Marshall Stewart. After deciding on a theme it was simply a matter of soliciting volunteers... with only a few twisted arms. Of course, I personally obsessed over the asparagus camembert bread pudding I baked and was up until, like, past 1am since it wouldn't set up quite right. But in the end, my colleagues and I did a fantastic job and the rest of the faculty were suitably impressed. It all turned out just fine.

Otherwise, I've been fielding a lot of personal questions lately from the students about my married life. When I first got the job I listened to someone from the counseling department who suggested that I keep quiet about my sexuality, at least for the first few years. I followed her advice though now I wish that I'd followed my gut and simply been open with the students and not just the faculty. I'm sure that the kids could have handled it better than the person who advised me thought. Now, I'm in this hole and I'm not sure how to get out of it. I hate the fact that I have been dishonest with the kids. I hate the fact that I will have to go through a big production when word gets out and I have to clarify things. I mean, I'm sure that few will be really surprised, but still. Mostly, I forget how I'm supposed to do this. It's been more than twenty years since I've had to come out to people who have a different idea about me. It just seems so foreign to me now.

The Game! (or The Part of Me That Hasn't Grown Up)

I have recently been indoctrinated into a game played by many of my nines. It started last week when I was setting up before class started. One of my students suddenly said, "Shoot! I lost the game!" Puzzled, I looked up and she asked me if I knew about The Game. When I told her I didn't she said, "The point of The Game is that you forget you're in The Game. Once you remember that you're in The Game then you're out and you have to tell everyone around you that you're out of The Game. Then they're in The Game." I stared at her for a moment and then asked her to repeat it. They're quite used to this sort of reaction from me so she didn't hesitate to explain a second time. So then I ask, "So you just have to forget... that's all?" And she says "Yeah, that's it." So I'm like, "Does this mean that I'm in The Game now?" And she's all, "Yeah, now you're playing The Game and you have to forget that you're playing The Game." So I'm all super-confident and I'm like, "No problem! My brain's like a sieve, I'm totally going to do this!" I mean, I leave the house without putting gel in my hair and lots of other really important stuff like that. No way I was going to remember about The Game! Not one hour passed and another student was asking me about a point of grammar. I was saying, "Okay, when you're working with relative clauses, you have to remember..." I paused for a nanosecond to frame my next words and in that instant my ferret-like mind inserted "The Game." So I was out... and I was pissed. Since then, I've found out that The Game keeps going, even after you've fouled out.

BTW, now all of you who've read this are in The Game. Enjoy!