Linguistics, Dancing, and a Few Good Books

03 July 2003

The smell was impermanent, thank God.

Went to the Dean Meetup on Wednesday; we wrote letters to Iowans about how cool we think Dean is. This month's meetup was three times bigger than last month's....

By the way, has nobody but me heard the term 'Iowegian' for people from Iowa? Not terribly serious, of course, but I must've gotten it from somewhere. (The idea being, presumably, if people from Norway are Norwegians, then people from Ioway are... you get it. Doesn't hurt that a lot of people in Iowa are part Scandinavian, ethnically....)

Right now I'm listening to my latest Apple Music Store download, the album "The Essential Chet Atkins". This guy was a brilliant guitarist. I can't even classify the style---it's listed under "Country" in the AMS, but it's nothing at all like anything I've heard on any country music station, even the older stuff. Maybe this is just too old; I think it's more like a totally different style. If anything, it's more like the folk-y stuff on the "O Brother, Where Art Thou" soundtrack (another excellent album, of course).

"I'm not morally superior to him: I'm smarter than he is. There's a difference." --Sam Walker

Posted 11:36 PM [+]

01 July 2003

UGH.

I repeat:

UGH.

So there I was, puttering at home for a few minutes, trying to decide whether to eat there or to grab something on Thayer Street. And my eyes fell upon the mantel over the (disused) fireplace in my dining room, and the pumpkin that was on it.

Pumpkin?

In fact, it looked like the top half of a pumpkin. (You can see where this is going.) And closer inspection showed evidence of no less than three species of mould, merrily growing across the surface. A sticky-looking (I wasn't about to touch it) pool of long-dried pumpkin juice covered two-thirds of the mantel, soiling the bottoms of assorted bottles of alcohol that were there and two little stuffed animals that had been there for ages. I realised, to my horror, that although I had no recollection whatsoever of ever having seen this pumpkin before, whole or not, it must have been there for many, many months. I shudder to think that it might have been since last October.

Cleaning it up was one of the grosser things I've done. I suppose that may say something about the charmed life I've led, as I can certainly imagine many grosser things I could have had to do, but in point of fact, this one was definitely up there. I went and got a plastic grocery bag (which I carefully checked for holes), and juryrigged a way to hold it there while I took a broken spatula and tried to move the pumpkin remains. The pumpkin deflated, and the bottom gave out, so after I scooped the top half of the thing into the bag, I had to scrape a mess of pulp and seeds into the bag. All while desperately attempting not to breathe. The bag got tied off and thrown in the dumpster.

Then, of course, I had to go in there with a bucket of ammonia water and clean up. Yuck. The bottles were fine, though the stuffed toys had to go. The mantel itself has a permanent stain in the paint, and what I really hope is not a permanent smell; right where the pumpkin was, the paint is actually bubbled from the nasty stuff.

What gets me most about this is, how could it have been there so long? The stuff that's up there is not stuff I really interacted with, ever, but over the mantel was a van Gogh print that one of my housemates put up there just a month or two ago, and on the mantel itself (in front of the juice puddle) was a row of little party/votive candles that are the forte of my other housemate and must have been replaced in the last few months. And they didn't notice this thing? Not to mention other people who were over in the last, oh, year. It's not like my friends are particularly soft-spoken; how is it that none of them ever said, "dude, what's with the rotting pumpkin?"

Anyway, it's as cleaned up as it's going to be, now. A new coat of paint (and stripping the existing one) is recommended, but hey, I'm moving out in a month, so that's not my job. My housemates are out of town right now, so I can't wait to ask them about it. Oh! I just realised I should've taken a picture. Oh well, pictures weren't really foremost in my mind---I really just needed to get that out of there RIGHT AWAY. Ugh.

THERE IS NO WORLDWIDE SHORTAGE OF EGGS, BABIES, OR PEOPLE. THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY SEEMS TO STILL BE WORKING FINE. --Eva Schillace

Posted 6:54 PM [+]

Woo hoo! I now have access to www.blahedo.org. Nothing there yet, and I don't really have time to play with it yet. But it's mine!

On the prescription drug coverage bill: "Ted Kennedy is for it, and The Wall Street Journal is against it. On the other hand, the White House is for it, and pretty much everyone on the left except Kennedy is against it. The press is helpfully wringing its hands and announcing, 'This is *soooo* complicated.'" --Molly Ivins

Posted 12:08 PM [+]

30 June 2003

Howard Dean has raised more than $7 million this quarter. That's pretty amazing. But the best part is, over a million of that was just in the last two days---he sent out a message in the wee hours Sunday morning that he'd just passed $6M and was challenging his supporters to bring it to $6.5M by tonight. Talk about exceeding expectations! The campaign passed the $7M mark just before 10pm Eastern this evening, and it's still going---by the time the Midwest and West Coast contributions finish rolling in, not to mention all the snailmailed contributions, I fully expect it to be upwards of $7.25M. Today alone the campaign raised over three-quarters of a million dollars!

Why is this so important? The federal government will match up to $250 per donor. And many of Dr Dean's donors are in the under-$250 range, so the Fed will be paying in several million dollars into the campaign. This happens at the end of every quarter, hence the current rush to get the money in by midnight (in your own time zone) tonight. If you read this before the clock rolls over into July, contribute! If not, then at least head on over to Meetup.com and find out where this Wednesday's meetup will be in your area---find out how you can help!

"I would go back to the Clinton era of taxes because I think most Americans would gladly pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was president if they could only have the same economy that they had when Bill Clinton was president." --Howard Dean

Posted 11:50 PM [+]

29 June 2003

I've been going to Church at St Francis this summer, and I like it there; but today's homily about knocked my socks off. The priest reviewed the "bad year and a half" that the Church has had, reiterating that the people involved in the scandal are not the entirety of the Church; and without a doubt, the Church would make it through this time of trouble just like it always has.

And one of the things we will need to do (he continues) is to stop saying there are things we can't or won't talk about. We need to sit down and have honest discussion about things---many things, including ministry roles for various people, including women in the priesthood, and gay priests. And we need to talk about the general role of gays and lesbians in the Church, and about sexuality and reproduction. Honestly, and without obfuscation. The gates of Hell are characterised by deceit and oppression, and the Kingdom of Heaven will always win out over these things.

Yay Church!

"I deeply resent sleep, and yet, I am only human." --Kevin Colby

Posted 12:00 PM [+]