organic green beans #94066

Note to self: just because your girlfriend works in a grocery store does not mean it is nice to make her recite the PLU numbers of various vegetables while you’re sucking on her nipples, no matter how entertaining you may find it. If you do this, she may be forced to think of sex all day long at work, and that wouldn’t be funny at all.

the grammar police

This post on Sugarbutch today touched on one of my pet peeves–the fetishization of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Other people’s pet peeves, as it were. Bear in mind that this is just my opinion, and I’m not directing this at Sinclair specifically (though it may undeniably seem so). It really is just a general rant about something that upsets me.

First, I’d like to make clear where I’m coming from. At the selective private college I attended, I worked for the school paper as a copy editor for two years, was a peer tutor for the English department, and spent nearly every evening of my last year as an undergraduate in the library working on my honor’s thesis (80 pages of critical theory which I hope no one will ever read). Professionally, I work in a library and have spent a great deal of time writing memos, grant applications, press releases, and other publications which require a strong ability to structure language. I’m studying for the GREs right now and so far there aren’t a lot of words in the verbal section which I haven’t seen before.

In short, I’m a bibliophile too. And I understand why people believe that a lack of attention to spelling, punctuation, and grammar reflects a ” lack of attention to detail” generally (as Sinclair puts it). And yes, it lends itself well to erotic power play–who hasn’t been chastised in school or elsewhere for sloppy writing? I too have a vintage Westcott ruler, and although I use it at work I’ve considered bringing it home. I have a few plaid skirts as well…

Schoolgirls are all well and good, but it’s the “elsewhere” that gets me. Because the role-play we like in bed often reflects a real-world situation in which there is a significant power balance, and in our real world lives, it isn’t always in a teacher/pupil context. I think that in most real-world situations where a person is being corrected for their inability to write in a specific manner, the power imbalance is often based on certain assumptions about class, race, and social status. These issues have nothing to do with the writer’s intellectual abilities, or even their ability to make themselves understood.

Without getting into an in-depth analysis of the failures of our public education system and the particulars of descriptive grammar theory, my basic feeling is: if you understand what a person is trying to say, and the only difference between what they’ve written and what you think they should have written is a capital letter here or there, all that your criticism does is make you seem elitist. In short, I think it’s a pile of classist bullshit, and if this issue hasn’t yet been featured on Stuff White People Like, I would happily nominate it.

surprise holiday

Today is an unexpected day off! Yay. It’s very unusual–I don’t know what to do with myself. Perhaps I’ll catch up on housework, or go into town and get some coffee, or just curl up on the couch and read a book all day…I’m so busy all the time these days I have no idea what to do when I get free time!

It’s more unusual because K. is out of state visiting family, so I am totally on my own. Because we live together, because we get along well, we spend most of our time together when neither of us is at work–and I realize that I haven’t had a day off without her in awhile. It’s somewhat disconcerting. It was weird to sleep alone last night, for the first time since Christmas, and the apartment feels very quiet.

There’s some part of me that is so terrified of becoming a helpless, codependent girlfriend, that I am angry at myself for feeling lonely. No loneliness! It’s important to be independent! You don’t need her to survive! Remember what it was like when you were single!

But of course I have grown used to having her around.

a butch purse

In order to defeat the bout of writer’s anxiety that I’ve been faced with lately, I’ve decided to try that age-old writing excersize: write what is in front of you. In this case, K.’s purse.

Every time I look at K. with her purse I am reminded of a line by Jeanne Cordova, “A butch purse is an only child. Femmes have as many purses as shoes.” When I first read that I nearly had an asthma attack laughing, because it is so, so true. K. has only two bags: a green YakPak messenger bag which is falling apart at the zippers, and this purse. I, on the other hand, have an obscene and ever-changing number of purses, many of my own making, some adopted out of pity, some purchased in a moment of weakness. I’m fond of interesting linings and have yet to figure out the ideal number of pockets. Bags and purses are my great fashion love, and I collect them and treasure them dearly. I have no idea how she survives on only two.

But she does. The messenger bag is for cargo, a transportation item only, and the purse is for occasions when all you need is a wallet and keys. Some chapstick. Cellphone. Possibly a small notebook for shopping lists and the like. The purse she has fulfills these requirements and no more.

It’s a deep red, dyed leather, with a thick strap and many pockets. It doesn’t look designer but it does have a little plate affixed to the side panel: “liz claiborne. established in 1976 and made for all lifestyles.”

No kidding.

things to do at work

Like many people, I have a desk job which (sadly) requires me to be physically at my desk, in front of my computer, for 7.5 hours a day. In some ways I’m very lucky–I work in academia which is much more relaxed than it is in the corporate world. There is no dress code other than closed-toed shoes (because we work in a library and books are heavy), and no restrictions on our internet usage. But I’m still an administrator, and I’m expected to sit at my desk and administrate.

In a few years I will probably leave this job for another organization or department. It’s not ideal: I like people, I get bored easily, I want stimulation and interaction and the internet just doesn’t do it. But in the meantime I have great benefits, decent coworkers, good money, and I do somewhat important work.

That said, here is a short list of things I am doing instead of actually working:

-writing a blog post
-studying for the GREs
-thinking about ways to thwart my pets in their quest to destroy my furniture
-obsessively checking my desk plants for insects
-making origami…things
-thinking about scenarios for porn I might someday write

Please feel free to contribute to this list.

house lust / despair

Everywhere we go, K. looks at people’s houses. That person has a porch! That house has round windows. This house has flagstones, oooh look at the pretty flowers. And I say, yes, it is very nice. But that person has to pay for snow removal, and this person has to fix their own plumbing. That person hired a landscaper, and I bet that person has a leak in their roof.

But of course I too have terrible house lust, and suddenly everyone I know who owns property is an object of overwhelming jealousy. Because I want a house too, very very badly, even more than I want an engagement ring [subject for another post]. I want to be able to renovate, I want the space to invite people over (difficult in this 500 sq. ft rental), I want to not have neighbors that keep me up late regardless of whether I’m invited to the party or not.

Most of all, I want the legitimacy of being a Real Middle-Class Adult, because we all know that’s what it really comes down to. I will dream of a house of our own, I will plan the things we might make for it, the paints we might choose…but unless money falls from the sky to pay off our student loans, I can’t see how we will ever qualify for a mortgage of any size.

what so proudly we hail’d

On this great anniversary of our nation (*dry cough*), I am thinking mostly about the electric bill, and wondering whether we have enough money in our joint account to cover that and the rent check we just mailed out. I think we do; K. is working today, which means double-time and a half—it ain’t so much on $8/hr, but it’s something.

It is hard to be patriotic these days. I am glad for the things we do have, and know that many people across the world don’t have the standard of living we do. I am truly grateful, for instance, that I have clean water, that I don’t have to worry about intestinal parasites, that I live in a house that doesn’t flood on a regular basis. But the news is depressing, and it’s hard to even think about the big picture sometimes because I am too busy thinking about the electric bill. And that’s true for most people I know. There are probably people out there who just pay the electric bill without thinking much about it (kudos to you if you’re one of them), and I hope someday that’ll be me, but in the meantime…happy 4th of July. I’ll be doing laundry and paying bills.

educating the masses

The tag surfer is one thing I love about WordPress over other platforms (LJ, for instance). It shows me all sorts of things I would never have found otherwise–and perhaps shouldn’t have.

Like this post by a well-intentioned but seriously misinformed person, trying to understand some basic concepts of gender theory and human sexuality. I’ve linked to it, because I’m hoping some of you can give her a little help (I have very little formal training in this arena other than my own life experience) but here’s some quotes to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. Brace yourself.

“If gay people are gay, why do they want a same-sex partner who very much resembles an opposite-sex? Why don’t they be straight from the beginning and just like the opposite-sex in that case? Why bother making someone try so hard to look like the opposite sex when natural ones are readily available in abundance? [....] Or an even better example, Chris Crocker. He is obviously born a man and he’s gay. But apparently, he’s trying to be a woman, isn’t he? If he did go for a complete sex change, he will become straight because he still likes guys and he’s a woman then?

SEE. SO damn confusing. I should have asked my professor these questions during open discussion time when we were struggling to come up with topics to talk about.”

I left a long comment which is full of holes and some half-accuracies, but I was trying for understandable, not comprehensive. It was surprisingly well-received, by her response:

“I had no idea much of my thoughts could be offensive. I still don’t understand how it is but since you said so, I’m really gonna think about it again seriously. Because I’m serious about understanding homosexuals. I am afraid I wouldn’t be prepared if one day I find out I am one myself. I doubt it now but I really need to know about you guys, that’s all. [...] I don’t think ignorance is bliss.”

Points for trying, in my book. When faced with ignorance, it’s very easy to become defensive and angry—because so often, it’s a justifiable and necessary response—but sometimes I try to step back and see if there’s some genuine effort going on behind. On a good day, I like to think there are more people like her than we realize, and that we really are getting somewhere.

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don’t be such a girl

This morning I had a project meeting with one of the higher-ups, and at one point, she asked me if I would send a memo to the department heads reminding them that the deadline for XYZ thing is tomorrow. I winced, and said, “I would rather have sent it Monday, that’s really short notice…” and she asked, “Why? They’ve known for weeks that this was coming.”

Because, I thought, I don’t want anyone to be mad at me. And though I didn’t say it, she still gave me a full dressing-down about how it’s not my fault if they’re slackers and I shouldn’t take any shit from anyone who complains. Really sweet of her, if a bit intimidating.

This is something I am working on, professionally, but it’s been a problem for most of my life. Like a lot of women I’ve known, I have a tendency to assume that anything that goes wrong is a) my fault, and b) my responsibility to fix. Since I put on a good show most people don’t know that, secretly, I am still sure that at any minute They are going to come busting in and say, “you there, you fucked up and everybody knows it.”

I try to catch myself every time I start thinking like that, but sometimes it slips in (like today, when I read the new post about internet authority on Sugarbutch and immediately assumed that it was provoked by a comment I had left). It’s one of of those things you work on, and someday soon, I hope, I’ll be able to look at any given situation and think, “okay, here’s a situation,” rather than endlessly trying to figure out what people think of my place in said situation. Which inevitably turns into some clusterfuck of internal guilt-tripping wherein I then start thinking, “nobody gives a shit what your place in this situation is, stop being so self-centered, processing is such a girl thing to do…” which really isn’t helpful either.

In the meantime, I wonder, do guys have these situations?