Re: A Cohabitation Update

To Kim's Kitchen Sink:

I would grow weary of monthly budget sit-downs, itemized chore rosters, and high-lighted question marks next to tubs of ice cream that were technically for both of you but only one person ate. Indeed, I think that sort of policy of stringent household equivocation would drive my Boy screaming from the house. He is much more content with the "thump" policy--that is, if I require him to clean, fix, or pay for something, I thump him on the forehead. But maybe you and your Boy will find that refreshing, to get everything aired out and back to even on a regular basis, and it wouldn't require you to be constantly responsible for his actions. This all is, of course, up to you.

That said, if you're happy to go the on-paper, every cent tallied route, I think there's some considerations you should take in before you agree to any financial or tidiness-related "fairness campaign":

-who earns more? S/he should feel comfortable throwing down more for rent, utils, and chow.
-who's home more? S/he should feel comfortable cleaning and maintaining more.
(if these spots are filled by the same person...well la-tee-frickin-da, good for him or her.)
-who is more likely to generate a mess that does not benefit the other? if you bake a pie by yourself for both of you to eat, it is appropriate for Boy to at least help cleaning up all the mixing bowls. if you bake a pie and don't share, you clean up for yourself. If he takes his bike apart on the living room floor to grease it and you walk through an hour later and trip over a spoked wheel, you have a right to kick him.
-Does either party enjoy cleaning? Will one person get upset if s/he begins to clean and the other doesn't snap-to to help? Does one party clean things that aren't actually dirty, or does one party fail to see filth? If that's the case, only a verbal instruction (paired with a thumping) is going to get you anywhere anyway.
-Who is better at budgeting? Who actually gets the fingerprints off the wine glasses? If you tend to forget to pay the rent, perhaps you should entrust the budgeting and fiscal scheduling with him. If, try as he might, he still manages to turn your socks pink, perhaps you should do the laundry. If you are actually better at all of these things than him, perhaps its time to teach the dork how to wash a dish, and tattoo due-dates on his arms.

Writing checks to each other actually sounds like what divorced people do, not people who really want to live together and make things work. Remember--as long as both people are aware and remember to pay on a regular basis, most equivocation will come out in the wash. If after a few months you're finding that fiscal fairness is not being upheld, there's no crime in opening a joint bank account that you can both throw into without being married, or even planning on marriage.

If you feel you need to set up a chore wheel or stick grocery receipts to the refrigerator, it's an indicator that you don't actually trust him to do his part. While you've been off-paper living together for a while now, I don't think you've had a fair chance to see what he's able and willing to do on his own. If he proves incompetent, negligent, or unwilling to contribute to any set of responsibilities, then you should bust out the cardstock and thumbtacks as a last resort before kicking the bastard out. But give yourselves a chance to see how your natural inclinations mesh.

Misc, Various

Financial situation: I am an employed member of American society. I work hard when I can get jobs in my field, and when none are available, I temp. It's not glamorous but it's work and I'm glad to have it. Unfortunately, on the wages I earn I could afford either rent or insurance premiums, but not both. Needless to say, I don't live in a tent.

So. As one of the 47 million Americans who are uninsured or insufficiently-insured, I feel that current events affect me rather a lot. Far more, indeed, than the gun-waving fanatics at town hall meetings or the wealthy lobbyists and "news" anchors who sent them there.

Let's look at me, as a demographic, for a moment. I'm 24, single, and not a parent. I hold a BA in a liberal art and am embarking, in just over a month, upon an MA. I'm a skilled carpenter and rigger and have a good work ethic. I type 90 words per minute and have been described as an ideal employee by my temp agency for having the simple sellable skill of courtesy. (Indeed, shouting at Sallie Mae representatives was not easy for me.) I actively pursue regular employment and speak and write in English.

Am I what you envision when you think of the 47 million Americans scraping by without access to health care?

For the past four years I have found myself working very hard for next to nothing in internships and assistantships around the country in order to make connections in a field that is rapidly collapsing upon itself because it costs more to produce than patrons are willing to pay.

In 2008 I earned just enough money to not qualify for Medicaid but far too little to afford private insurance, even when I itemized my student loan repayments and living expenses. Guess where that left me. (one moment while I find my Hiker's Guide to Shit Creek and a highlighter)

Interestingly, I do have some medical concerns that I would absolutely love to have addressed, but most if not all of them would not be covered by a basic health plan at the best of times. A chunk of my retina has detached and is freewheeling around the vitreous fluid in one of my eyes. My teeth, which have always chipped when I so much as eat yoghurt, are in a bad state and one of the lower incisors may need to be completely replaced. My face is a raging bacterial infection that is not only immune to benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid but is made red, scaly, and painful by even small amounts of either.

Are any of these concerns life-threatening? Probably not. But even if my vital organs are in pretty good nick, I still need some work. Yes, technically I can survive blind in one eye and missing a few teeth, but if I can avoid these problems I'd prefer it--particularly in the job field that I seek. I'd be hard-pressed to find someone who makes a comfortable wage in a white-collar environment who got into their job with gaping holes in their smile, a face that's downright icky, and severely compromised vision. There are probably people out there who've managed it, but even if company policy prohibits it, interviewers take things like appearance into consideration. While broken teeth don't actually indicate personal dental neglect and acne isn't a real sign of poor hygiene, appearances mean quite a lot when it comes to gaining employment. I keep my clothes clean and rarely carry an offensive odor, but due to genuine medical issues that I can't afford to correct, I look like a slob. Would you hire me?

The thing that really baffles me about people's aversion from socialized (or social-lite) health care is the fact that so many of these people would, if asked, concede that they're being rooked by their (shudder) premiums and they know it. (the word Premium grosses me out, not unlike the word Moist) Yes, we the people know that insurance is by its very definition an act of extortion that we buy into in order to feel safe. "I'm paying you to help me out in the event that I get sick, because on some subconscious level I believe that if I give enough money to the right people I won't get sick, I won't get hurt, I'll get in to Heaven, and I'll be happy and safe." I'm accepting your money under the condition that you don't get sick, because when it comes down to it I have no more idea as to what lies after death than you do, even movie stars get hit by cars, and absolutely nothing buys happiness." We all know that taking out an insurance policy is gambling and selling insurance requires fraud, but decent, intelligent people do both.

And if it wasn't for the profit side of insurance, it really would be an entity purely established for the greater good. Everyone pays into the pot so that in the eventuality that someone does get hurt or sick, there's money available to fix them. Insurance Is socialism. Or is on paper. In the US it's more of a Ponzi scheme, and those who are most likely to need it don't get it because that would force the companies to actually use the money they've worked so hard to collect.

I and others have explained this concept to many Americans and found the principle dashed against the wall, not through intelligent rebuttals, but with the simple phrase "I've got mine, I don't care about you." Many people seem to believe that when they pay their insurance premium they're just paying the company for the right to have them pay out, apparently from their assholes, in the event that they need medical attention. The idea that they're using money from other people's premiums, in addition to their own, doesn't quite dawn upon them. So a more accurate phrase to describe their state of insurance is "I've got yours and mine, but I don't care about you." And who are the yous? Millions of people who are just as likely to get H1N1, drive off a bridge, doze off while making toast, drink themselves jaundiced, and develop diabetes as oneself. The people who can't afford health insurance under the current plan are typically, if anything, more likely to take care of themselves simply because they know there's no safety net. (That doesn't mean we don't need it, don't want it, or are too good for it. We're just forced to be somewhat more aware when we're crossing the street by the crippling fear of even more debt.) We're mostly employed, 'cos otherwise we'd probably qualify for Medicaid and wouldn't be in this bind.

A question I have, for any reader who may stumble across this--are you really happy with your insuranace? I've heard on the news that millions upon millions of Americans like their insurance the way it is, but I have never actually met one of these people. Everyone I know has been alarmed to find that their premium has been hiked out of their affordable range after they've gotten hurt, or has been rejected for necessary surgery because their doctor improperly filed a form, or has found that, because their company switches insurers every six months, they've had to start from scratch with new doctors every time their kid's reflux disorder has flared up. Not once have I heard out of anyone's mouth that they are at all happy with the service they've received. "well of course, if they're talking about it it means they're unhappy with it--that's not an accurate representation." Yeah, but I know a lot of people, and a lot of them complain about it. This isn't a peer-reviewed study. So please. Let me know if you are happy with what you have.

I'm willing to pay into a system that I can afford. I am unable and unwilling to pay into a system that punishes me for going at it alone, that pockets 20 cents of every dollar I throw in, and that knowingly rejects people from the pool who might use it. These are the same people who rejected homeowners' insurance claims after Katrina because the roof blew off after the water level rose to the second story, not before. The people who wouldn't pay for an arborist to safely remove a dead tree but instead waited until it fell and smashed the roof to tell us that they weren't going to pay for the damage because their records showed we knowingly had a dead tree near the house. For-profit insurance does not reward good companies, it allows all companies to be shitheads. And they are. Remove the profitability, remove the shareholders, remove the greed and the sticky-fingered hold on policyholders' cash and you get affordable insurers who are willing to do their jobs. You're paying them to responsibly dole out everyone's collective funds to people who need it, and while they do that to an extent, they charge you far more than they will ever put into that pot.

That profit margin is the difference between me affording to join and my application being rejected due to insufficient funds. I take the risk--a risk that, in the event that something horrible does happen to me, will hurt you in the long run if I wind up being hospitalized. I can't afford hospital bills. No one can. So I'm going to take out a loan to pay the hospital, and when I lose my home (and thereby my job and my ability to get another one) because I can't afford the interest, i'm going to default. No matter how much the collection agency harasses me and hurts my feelings, it would take a thousand years for me to pay them back. which hurts the economy, and your bank with it. Ooh fun, higher interest rates for everyone! Because I got excluded for being poor. Is it fair to you, as someone who can afford it? No. Would you rather I just get a cheap lethal injection if I survive a nasty train accident with eight broken bones? Many Americans would say yes.

American insurance is the only industry I know of in which the point is to pay a lot for absolutely nothing.

What Happened Next?

August 16, 2009: Receive confirmation email from British Consulate, politely telling me it will take 5-10 days to process, thank you for your patience. Convince myself I'm a terror suspect. Have dream I'm denied entry because I was deported once in 1854.

August 23, 2009: Buy two sets of plane tickets, one for Sep 1 to go to Mom's, one for Sep 15 to head to London--include time cushion just to be on safe side. Start packing to go home.

August 24, 2009: Receive e-mail from Consulate confirming issue of visa. Do a happy dance around my office.

August 25, 2009, 8:15am: Receive robophone call from UPS informing me that package will be delivered today, if no one is there to sign for it the delivery person will leave you a message. Sigh, knowing I'll have to go pick up document from UPS after work, hope it'll be open late.

August 25, 2009, 9:30am: Mom calls from South Carolina, opens package at me, describes my SHINY NEW VISA. Why it went to her house the world may never know. Apparently the new visas have your photo on them and lots of shiny squiggly business to prevent fraud. Excited to see it in a few days.

August 25, 2009, 1:00pm EST (6:00pmGMT) Ben leaves work to visit house we're interested in renting. Cross fingers and hope it's not so far out of our price range that we can't make it work.

Sometimes a lawnmower is just a lawnmower

I find people who use brand names to refer to generic products, such as Hoover instead of vacuum cleaner or Crosby in place of cable clip, annoying. I don't really know why, but I'd imagine it is in some way related to my hatred for all forms of advertising. I'd much rather not have specific manufacturers referred to as though they are the primary or best example of a particular type of product. Kleenex is not the best brand of facial tissue, but when you ask your neighbor to pick up a box of them at the grocery store while they're out, you can bet that they will bring back a box of the established brand. Even if by "Kleenex" you meant Puffs.

Interestingly, I've had this low-level loathing as long as I can rememeber. I distinctly recall feeling it during a vocabulary lesson in the second grade. On Mondays Mrs. Popp would get one of those giant lined sheets of paper and clip it to the chalkboard with industrial-strength magnets and ask us to come up with at least 20 words at least 5 letters long that started with the same letter. The trick was we would have to come up with words who's second letters were all different--if we already had "apple" on the board, "aperture" would be rejected. We would try, most weeks, to get through most of the alphabet. When we came across letter pairings that didn't really work in English, for example xk, cd, sr, or mf, we would stop and talk about it (and usually giggle and try to pronounce the impossible syllables.) The week I recall so vividly was O week. We got to OX, and I knew it. The best word was Oxygen. I knew what it was, I knew how to spell it, and I even knew that through some sort of voodoo trees made it. I held a lungful of the stuff and waved my hand around like a lunatic trying to get my teacher's attention--partly because I thought it was a good word, but mostly because I wanted to remind her of how smart I was (just like I did every vocabulary day).

But alas. She picked Laura, who's hand was also in the air and who's reputation for being an imbecile was well known. Her suggestion for the vocabulary board? "Oxycute."

For readers who may not remember early-90's American tv ads, "Oxycute 'em" was (and may still be, I don't know) the catch phrase for Oxy astringent pads' marketing campaign, and a reminder that you should use their product to help clear up acne.

Mrs. Popp looked befuddled. "I'm sorry, I don't think that's a word."

"No, Oxycute. Like on TV. It means "get rid of zits." replied Laura. The heavy, already-pubescent 9 year old had a smattering of them near her temples to go along with her kids' shampoo-immune hair grease. Had I been older than 7 at the time I might have understood and sympathized that she was a clear victim of poverty in the American South. Like all of us she drank hormone-laced milk which screwed up her pituitary gland, but she also carried junk food lunches--chips, candy, coca-cola, cookies and string cheese--every day, a trend that at the time didn't send up as many red flags in teachers' minds as it should have. Her health and maturity were not being attended to, most of her words and phrases came from TV, she was kind-of dirty, she packed her own lunch of absolute garbage--she was a neglected child. Now I feel bad for her upbringing and hope she's doing something with her life that she feels proud of. At the time I thought she was stupid.

My mouth shot off, before I could stop it. "That's a nonsense word from a commercial. It's not real." Her glance was daggers, but quite a few of the other children laughed.

Mrs. Popp tried to salvage what she could of the situation. "I don't know the term, I'm sorry, but you said it means 'to get rid of zits'? Like, pimples?" We all laughed again at the word 'pimple.'

"Yeah, y'know, like Oxy pads." retorted Laura, determined to save face if she could.

"I think that's a proper noun." said Mrs. Popp, not unkindly. "Remember, our vocabulary words can be people, places, and things, but not specific people, places, and things. Anyone else?" My arm flew into the air again. The god-like second grade teacher's eyes appraised me briefly. "No, Kristen, you spoke out of turn. Who else?"

I was appalled. My perfect word was rejected because I was too much of an arrogant little shit to keep from hurting the dirty girl's feelings. I hated Laura. I hated Oxy acne-control products. I vowed I would never buy them, even if I got pimples worse than Laura's. (As it stands, I never have bought Oxy products, and my skin is far worse than Laura's, so I guess I stuck to my guns.)

After a lot of hints and effort on Mrs. Popp's part Vincent finally came up with "oxen" and it was entered onto the big word list in neat second-grade teacher handwriting. I tried to point out that "oxen" was shorter than 5 letters, but she addressed my claim without acknowledging my raised hand. "I know it's not 5 letters, but there's not that many words that start with OX so I think it's fine. In any case, it'll make the quiz on Friday a little easier! Is that what you three were going to say?" I lowered my hand, along with the other pedants, and nodded, defeated.

To this day brand names and marketing-generated words make me uncomfortable. I despise hearing product-specific words in conversation or the workplace. It cheapens conversation to hear trademarked words ("Hey, are you heading to Walgreens?") where generic ones ("I'm going to whatever drugstore I can find.") would suffice. It even puts me off my ease to refer to products and places by their market name, even if they're precisely what I'm buying or where I'm going. I could never work in fast food. ("Medium black coffee, please." "Do you mean a Grande Americano?" "No, I mean a medium black coffee. See the big metal thing with the brown liquid dripping out of it? That.") Like the way "Rockefeller Center Observation Deck" has the hip name, "Top of the Rock." I think that sounds marketing-y. I've been up there twice in a month (damn foreigners) and still think it sounds too stupid to say aloud. (I also strove tirelessly but to no avail to convince a friend that the tv program title "30 Rock" refers to the thirtieth floor, not the entire building, so no, we did not visit it.) Thankfully I rarely enter establishments that ask whether I'd like to "Super Size" my purchase, and I haven't purchased a McAnything since I was about 5. (It really does annoy food chain employees when you refuse to order anything by name. "Can I get your two-layered hamburger, please?" "My what?" "The one with two slabs of meat interspersed among three pieces of bread." "A Double Whopper?" "I guess that works too." Eventually I got so frustrated with the process that I gave up fast food, and a few years later, meat.) I just think, unless you've invented an entirely new product, or discovered an entirely new species, giving something a new name is tacky. It sounds stupid. I feel awkward when I say it, and I get annoyed and embarrassed when people correct me with their corporate-endorsed term. ("Can I take your order?" "Yes, can I get your mango-pineapple please?" "Which one--the Mango A-Go-Go or the Mango Mantra?" "the...mango...a...go-go..." damn people humiliate you with stupid words and charge an arm and a leg? I won't be going back.)

On a related note, I hate the word "nugget."

the process so far, cont'd

August 3, 2009: Call Sallie Mae, beg for express mailing. Can it be overnighted? Customer Service rep says yes, if you have a FedEx account. Ask if it can be mailed to a local FedEx office. Am told no. Tell rep this is ludicrous, as I'm a student and an independent entity and cannot be expected to have, or have access to a FedEx account like some sort of corporation. At this time, am told that Request has been processed but no letter has been written. Rep says she will send an e-mail to encourage speed on letter writing, but I should allow 3 business days for request to be processed. Point out that 3 days have come and gone. She corrects herself, says "I mean allow 3 to 6 days, then 7-10 days for processing."
-Call temp agent, ask if temp agency has FedEx account. As temp agency's primary product is, in fact, people, who don't particularly like being FedExed, her answer is a sad no. Also tells me not to ask if I can use my primary worksite's account, as the agency considers that tacky.

August 5, 2009: Call Sallie Mae, ask if letter has been written. Am told by different rep that yes, not only has it been written, but it has been processed and shipped and should be in your hands by tomorrow (Thursday), Friday at the latest. Moreover, it was written on the 29th of July. Have doubts, but thank rep.

August 6, 2009: Nothing in mailbox. Friend arrives from China and I decide to have a good time and try not to freak out.

August 7, 2009: Nothing in mailbox.

August 8-9: Weekend. Aug 10: visit DC, get nice and sunburnt.

August 11, 2009, 9:00am: Call Sallie Mae in morning, demand letter. Rep says letter was written August 6, was shipped August 10, and should have been in my hands yesterday. Inform rep that I was told letter was written before August 4, and was to be delivered by the 6th. Ask just why the hell company policy is to lie to me to get me off the phone. Ask where letter is being mailed, as I clearly don't have it. Rep lists off my mother's address in South Carolina. Begin shouting and swearing at rep, as at no point has my mother's address been listed as my correspondance address, do you idiots even read your applicants' information, you should know that. Demand another copy be overnighted to my home at Sallie Mae's expense. Rep corrects himself and says "oh, no, it was sent to your current address, should arrive in 7-10 days." Shout that this is unacceptable. Rep connects me to manager, who asks if I can receive it as an email or fax. Eyes turn purple and nearby phone book begins to smoulder. Tell rep I was specifically told two weeks ago that email and fax were not options. Rep apologises and says she'll email it today, and will call to tell me when it's done. Ask why it can't be sent now, she says she has to find the document first, but it will be in your hands before 5. Thank her, head to diner where friend from China eats first American-style pancakes.

August 11, 2009, 4:30pm: stop into internet cafe to find milkshake for friend, decide to check email while there. No letter. Call Sallie Mae, spend 15 minutes on hold before getting base-level rep. Demand previous supervisor; rep has never heard of said person. Demand another supervisor. Wait on hold for 20 minutes. Get another base-level rep, declare I require document in next 15 minutes, rep opts to connect to supervisor, wait 15 minutes, redundant hold music begins to make me twitch. Get supervisor, demand immediate emailing of letter, supervisor says the letters are written and sent by a separate company and they've all gone home for the day since it's after 5. Inform her that that is irrelevant, as the letter has already been written and must surely be connected to my account in some way. Supervisor says letter has not been written and must be individually constructed by a high-ranking member of separate company. Nearby computer explodes at a touch from my hand. Supervisor apologises profusely and has asked assistant of high-ranking letter writer to write e-mail requesting letter for tomorrow morning. Demand from supervisor recourse to compensation when Sallie Mae's incompetence prevents me from getting visa and starting school on time. Inquire as to what policy is in place to ensure that I'm not completely fucked by their flat mismanagement of this situation from the word go. Supervisor informs me that "this is the first time the British Consulate has required this sort of thing, so it's all new, and you're the first person to have had a problem with it, so we don't have a policy regarding that." Inform her that I believe that statement is flat horse-shit, and explain that after two months of fielding her company's lies I've had enough. If the letter isn't in my hands by 8:00 tomorrow morning I will be reneging on my loan agreements, and if you still want to charge me fees for your disservice you can discuss that with my lawyer. She apologetically reiterates the company's mantra that due to the high volume of letters that need to go out she will try to have it by tomorrow, but allow for Thursday at the latest. State that this is unacceptable, I am done with Thursday at the latest, it needs to be here now, it was late three weeks ago, Godammit what is wrong with you people, if it's not here tomorrow morning expect a call from my lawyer. Supervisor apologises, begs for patience, I hang up and burst into tears. Head to Coney Island to have mohitos with my sister and scream at the ocean.

August 12, 2009, 9:35 am: E-mail with password-protected .doc file arrives in inbox.

August 12, 2009, 10:30am: Print off document at Kinko's, take whole application and passport to post office. $13.50 later it is express mailed 10 blocks to the Consulate's office, here's your tracking number. Skin loses redness, find that fire-starting ability is suddenly absent. Have a beer, visit top of Empire State building.

August 13, 2009, 10:00am: Check mail tracking. Application was signed for at the consulate half an hour ago. Sleep soundly for 6 hours.

August 13, 2009, 4:00pm: continue worrying.

the process so far

December 2008 - Begin grad school search. Become very interested in RADA and Central School of Speech and Drama. Begin communicating with schools via e-mail.
- Apply to Central School of Speech and Drama, RADA
- Receive offer of interview for Central in NYC in February.

January 2009 - Visit London to look at schools. Enjoy impromptu interviews with 3 schools (Westminster, Central, RADA.) Apply to Westminster in person. Visit Rose Bruford College, lose interest.

February 2009 - Move to NYC
- Telephone interview with and receive offer of studentship with Westminster. Realize I'm not hugely interested.
- Attend Central Interview. Enjoy it greatly. Make friends, decide we must all be classmates.

March 19, 2009 - Receive offer of studentship with Central. Realize I'm hugely interested.
March 26, 2009 - File FAFSA and request that info be sent to Central. FAFSA states this will be done automatically.
- Realize RADA is not part of FAFSA, which would mean I'd have to take out expensive private loans. Frown and think. Eventually give up on RADA when I discover their interview/portfolio review dates are not until late June, and I must accept or decline Central's offer by May 15.

March 30, 2009 - Receive Student Aid Report from FAFSA, discover I do not qualify for Subsidized Stafford Loan. Frown, but am not hugely surprised.

May 8, 2009 - Accept Central's offer, prepare to begin grad school October 5. Inquire whether FAFSA was received.

June 3, 2009 - Discover FAFSA was not sent, and that FAFSA never sends information overseas. Central requires official paper copy. Scour FAFSA website for this information, eventually find it on unrelated page. Attempt to request paper form from website. Find this is impossible. Call FAFSA, order official copy. Do not have option of choosing address to where this is sent.

June 20, 2009 - Mom receives FAFSA in SC. Forwards it to NY. Start getting concerned about time.

June 25, 2009 - Receive FAFSA. Apply for financial aid with Sallie Mae. Send off Master Promissory Note, FAFSA, cover letter outlining fund request to Central. Pay for 3-5 day delivery.
- Call Sallie Mae to ask if I need to file two separate MPNs for Stafford Loan (maxes out at $20,000) and PLUS Loan (required additional $22,000 to pass border control.) Am told by Sallie Mae representative no, just one is necessary, and overage will become PLUS loan automatically.

June 26, 2009 - Fill out application for student visa, discover application fee has tripled since 2004 and now requires fingerprints and retinal scans. Realize I don't know when financial documents will come in, abandon application.

July 13, 2009 - Call Central to see if they have received financial aid info. Am told it just arrived, will be handled in next two days. Get more worried about time.

July 22, 2009 - Receive e-mail from Central asking why I only have one MPN. Reply immediately stating that's what Sallie Mae told me to do. Ask if I should file another one, and if this will cause problems. Express confusion. Receive no reply. Start picking at face.

July 26, 2009 - Call Sallie Mae's dial-a-song, discover I will receive 2 loans amounting to $20,500. Am baffled and angry, as this is less than half of what I require to even gain entry clearance. Try to ask Sallie Mae what's going on but website and phone service encounter technical difficulties. Try to ask boyfriend, parents, sibling, Central for insight as to what may have gone wrong. No one answers phone. Start hitting things.

July 27, 2009 - Call Sallie Mae during business hours. They apologise for misinforming me before, but PLUS loan Does require separate MPN. Discover that 2 loans are not Stafford and Plus, but rather Stafford Subsidized and Stafford Unsubsidized. Am pleasantly surprised. File PLUS MPN over phone. Sallie Mae promises to contact Central themselves to confirm loan amount. Send Central .pdf of new MPN in email.

July 29, 2009 - Receive confirmation of PLUS loan amount from Sallie Mae and Central.
- Call Sallie Mae asking if I need an official document confirming loans for border control. Yes I do, and it should get to you in 10-14 days. Express that I don't have that kind of time, can you send it as a .pdf, can I pay for it to be express mailed. Am told no, that's just not how it works. Politely thank customer service agent. Hit things.
- Fill out visa application again. Credit card is rejected by website to pay application fee. Hit things. Call bank. Nothing is wrong. Receive call from bank, discover that border agency website entered security code wrong and sent garbled info. Call mom, scream a little. Give up. Mom convinces me to un-give up.

July 30, 2009 - try paying fee again during business hours. It goes through. Am $244 poorer.
- Schedule Aug 4 biometric data appointment. Shudder with revulsion. Print application.
- Discover passport needs to be valid at least 6 months after expected return from UK date. Realize mine will only be valid for 4. Hit something, but fairly gently.
- Check and find that IcelandAir only requires 3 month validity after trip. Hope this helps.
- Discover that passports may be renewed 9 months prior to expiration. Do some quick math and realize that doesn't work for me. Drink tea and wonder what will go wrong next.

passive aggression part 2

If you're a plumber, and you're sent to work on a gas line in an upstairs apartment, and you tell the owner of the building you're working on that the work will all be done on the outside of the building...do the work on the outside of the building.

If you find it would be easier to run the pipe through, say, the floor, and through two other apartments, there are certain things you must do before you start cutting.

For instance, the first thing you must do is tell the superintendent of the building, who will then notify the landlady, who will then notify the tenants of the affected housing units. You are not legally permitted to proceed until the tenants have been notified. Under no circumstance do you enter the units without the prior consent of the tenants. Entering a housing unit without the consent of the unit's legal occupant has a name, and that name is TRESPASSING.

After the tenants have been duly notified, you may proceed with work, making sure to bring all tools and materials with you to the worksite that you will need to complete the job. This includes not only your plumbing tools, but gear such as drop-cloths, contractor bags, clean rags, and a shop vac for protecting the house you're working in and cleaning up any messes you inadvertently generate when cutting drywall or tile. If you do make a mess with chunks of plaster, tile, dust, sheetrock, and/or your own muddy boots, you are flatly required to clean it up. Under no circumstances is it the responsibility of the tenant to clean up after you.

If you fail to bring proper cleaning supplies with you, you are responsible for obtaining them. This requirement may be fulfilled in a number of ways, but it may not be met by using those of the tenant into who's house you've broken. If you do use all of a tenant's paper towels, it is important that you replace them at your own expense.

If you must leave the jobsite incomplete due to extenuating circumstances, you are still required to clean up and restore the unit to how you found it, or at least as close as you can get it. You may not leave the tenant's belongings strewn about the place. Belongings of the tenant may include items such as garbage bins (not in front of the refrigerator overflowing with chunks of drywall and your own soda cans), cleaning supplies (not left in the middle of the floor with mops and brooms strewn about, now coated in grime), pet food dishes (not put up high and therefore inaccessible to the elderly feline you've now distressed), and any wall-mounted items (not coated in drywall powder, then perched in the middle of a stack of clean dishtowels on the recently-clean table). Additionally, it is considered a bad practice to leave any items, such as big blocks of the tenant's ceiling, perched precariously on high surfaces.

If you feel the need to relieve yourself while you are trespassing, it is considered in ill-taste to track drywall dust all the way down the hallway and into the previously-clean restroom of your chosen victim. Additionally, as many people visit their bathrooms barefooted in preparation for a shower, it is highly inconsiderate to leave painfully large chunks of both drywall and gravel all over the tile.

If you must leave large, unsightly holes in the ceiling and floor around where you've installed your large, unsightly pipe, you are contractually obligated to inform the superintendent of the building of your need to do so to ensure that repair of the ceiling and floor by a separate contractor can be prompt. You should not rely on the astonished and frightened tenant of the ostensibly burgled and vandalized flat to pass this message on for you.

If you break into and trash one apartment, you should lose your job. If you break into and trash TWO apartments, you should pay a hefty fine and be made to formally and publicly apologize to the tenants you have harmed.

passive aggression

If you own a cat, but live in a house with a roommate who does not own the cat, and your cat pukes everywhere every day, or misses the litter box, or sheds constantly on all surfaces, or is simply hungry...guess what. It is your responsibility to clean up after and feed said feline. More to the point, even if you don't give a damn if your house is booby-trapped with cat vomit or carries an eye-watering odor, your roommate probably does, and you are obligated to clean it up. It is irrelevant if you get home from work late and are tired, or are busy doing other things--its your pet, not your roommate's, and your roommate should neither be forced to clean up the dried piles of puke nor live with them in his or her kitchen.

Additionally, if it is pointed out to you that your cat throws up more often than it should, or that the puddles of diarrhea in the living room and hallway are a sign of illness, you are also responsible for seeing to the cat's healthcare, at your expense. If you are unable or unwilling to tend to the health of the feline, then it is still your responsibility to see to it that the cat winds up in the care of someone who can and will.

----

If you run a gas company and need to replace the fuel lines going into an apartment building, you have an obligation to tell the people it affects so they can plan ahead to not be home. If you are going to begin tearing up the street with jackhammers at 5am on a Saturday, they should have the right to know in advance. If you cannot inform people of this inconvenience, you must start work later in the day. Additionally, you have an obligation to put things back the way you found them when you're done. That involves patching the holes in the street fully--e.g. not leaving loose steel plates all over the road that make noise loud enough to set off car alarms or leaving around lightweight sawhorses with no sandbags that fall over into traffic. That also involves turning people's gas back on, without being begged, in a timely fashion. If you must gain access to the home of a client in order to turn it back on, you must take in small considerations for your clients' own time, such as requesting clients block off 2 hours for a technician to arrive instead of 15. You cannot expect clients to take days off work and sit around at home waiting for a technician to arrive "anytime between now and 11:59pm." Then charge them a fine if they cannot be there.

If you are the superintendant of a building and a landlord requests that you leave a basement door unlocked so that a maintenance person from a gas company may gain access to a resident's meter, you have an obligation to do so. If you fail to unlock the door, you are responsible for all fines incurred by the tenant from said gas company. Additionally, if the tenant is required to take the day off work to let the maintenance person in, only to discover that thanks to your negligence they will have to take an additional day off of work in order for the repair to actually take place, you owe them additional compensation, such as culinary services or cooked food for all of the days that the tenant is unable to cook for him or herself.

----

If you are a ginger-haired Englishman with a direct connection to the writer of this publication who recently returned home against the request of the writer, you have an obligation to come back and continue your snuggles.

Oh Corona

I don't want you, I want your beach.

This is the first time I've watched ads in months.

Food Ad

I just witnessed an advert for Jell-o low-calorie pudding. the set up--"How does Jell-o fit all that rich chololatey taste into just 60 calories?" a beat, in which they showed the pudding squishing out of an extruder. My mind searched for answers that didn't end in, "they make it out of plastic." The excited female voice finally answered her own question with "Who Cares?! It'll add flavor to any diet!"

EEEEEEEW.

Don't ask, don't look under the hood, don't read the ingredient list, just eat it. And get addicted to it. and in a thousand years they'll find your preserved remains, still rubbery and clogged to the brim with artificial cholesterols.

so, we're done, right?

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson--that's the three for this go-round, right? No sneaking in a fourth--our tvs will explode.

recent quotations

"Whenever I see tired-looking people in scrubs coming home at weird hours, I get this urge to go over and shake their hand and say 'thank you for keeping crazy hours to save people's lives.'"
-Rachel

"Well, isn't that Karma?--you'll either get stepped on or rained on."
-Me

"Everyone's a little bit Puerto Rican--if you're from there, your parents or grandparents, your friends--even if you're not connected to it at all."
-NY official on news

knees

Bona-Fide question--I would like to know, of my readers, who finds ladies' thighs that don't touch when her knees are pressed together attractive. As in, ankles and knees touching, but one and a half to two inches of breezeway between the legs when they meet her groin. I am genuinely curious here.

Because I don't. I think it looks wrong, at the Id level. The animal in my brain is frightened and repelled by ultra-thin frames. This is not my aesthetic speaking--I appreciate all shapes of people for their artistic value--but the hungry, violent, sex-craving, and linguistically impaired chunk of my functionality makes my heart race and my feet want to run away when I see stick-legs. While the impulses these people elicit in me rarely reach the analytic area of my mind, or even form themselves into words, when I see these breathing Jack Skellingtons folded into chairs I find myself very hungry, very anxious, and very aware of my exits. My self-preservation instinct, which will never understand the intricacies of society, is scared that I'll become trapped in here and made to starve with these people.

Yes, I spent my past two weeks working in fashion. (Buh? You? Fashion?) I was dressing models and tending wardrobe for a high-end New York design firm for a sales event of some persuasion. It was actually pretty fun, and half of it was work I do anyway in my closet, just on a larger scale. Each garment, of which there were about 400, had a place in a very specific order, which was listed in a book. All I had to do on the showroom floor, aside from serve occasional coffees and clear up tables, was make sure that each garment was put into, and put back into, its exact spot in the rack--which lined all of the walls of the large space--between buyer appointments. Backstage, as rackfuls of clothes were brought in for the models to, well, model, I loosened, unbuttoned, and untied garments, put them on the models, tucked, tightened, zipped, and buttoned dresses, buckled shoes, sent the girls out, collected the garments when they returned and, after putting the girls in the next look, re-hung, re-buttoned, tied, fastened, straightened, and snapped all closures and hung them on the buyers' racks in the showroom. We were forbidden from allowing garments to touch the floor--the cheapest of which would have taken me a month to save up for, the most expensive would have wiped out my savings and put me into serious debt--and probably would have been flatly executed if we'd soiled or damaged anything. As it was, the sample clothes started falling apart by day 5--hastily sewn collars parted, unfinished seams began to unravel, snaps fell off, zippers snagged, and the floor was literally littered with sequins and beads. One particularly ugly zipper snag, which everyone agreed was not preventable, had to be taken up to the designer's desk so she personally could snip it out. and by "taken" I mean "walked"--the model was trapped in the dress. It was kinda funny.

Most of the buyers were lovely people, though some were jerks--the kind of people who want to see this dress in all five colors it comes in, as quickly as possible, only to say, "no, I hate all of them." Occasionally a model would ask, "Didn't I just have this on?" and the seller would reply, "oh yes, you showed these dresses a few minutes ago, but the buyer wasn't paying attention so if you'd please walk them again? thanks." through tightly clenched teeth. But, even in haute fashion--or perhaps especially so--the customer is always right. And the sellers were always smiling. As much as it may have hurt.

I liked the people at this fashion firm--they seemed genuine, for the most part, and if the pants size in the building was an eighth of the city's average so what? Skinny people need jobs too.

I spent most of my time, however, sitting and doing crossword puzzles in the dressing room with the girls. Most buyers would block two hours for their visit but the modeling component only took a third of that time, so we would chat about current events and our own lives. One of the girls had just bought a condo with her husband. The other is working on her PhD. They both party on the weekends and come in with blinding hangovers when they overdo it. They read the paper, they file taxes, they love their families, and if it weren't for the fact that they were both 5'10," flawless of complexion, comfortable naked, and frighteningly rail-thin they'd be just like you and me. They are aware of the anger their careers incite. They're aware of the pain that their glorification generates. They suffer for their bodies, and they suffer when they fail anyway, just like us.

"I'm downright obese for a model." said the emaciated girl as she stepped out of a pair of trousers she deemed ill-fitting. "These were made on the other girl, who is shaped right. I'm a fatty. I mean, I know I'm still terrifyingly underweight for a real person, but in this field...pass me that skirt. I can wear that."

"You are a bit of a big one," the other twig replied as she took the aforementioned trousers and pulled them on. "I mean, I'm really proud of this company for hiring you. Not every designer feels comfortable hiring a plus-sized girl like you, but I think this company is responding to current social pressure to stop making chubby little girls feel bad about themselves by contrast. And they started with you! What an honor."

"I know, I'm doing my part. But it's true. He thinks my hips are too wide."

"Yeah, he thinks my boobs are too big."

(she has hips? She has boobs? Where?)

The girls ribbed on each other like this all the time. The one may have weighed about three pounds more than the other, and while this was not noticeable to the naked eye, for some garments it meant the difference between a dress squeezing on and not. Because yes, even though these girls were underweight to the point of infertility, even though they couldn't maintain their own body temperature, even though their cheeks were hollowed out with melon-ballers, they were too big for the clothes. And it wasn't the clothes' fault.

Even runway models are expected to modify their bodies to fit the clothes. It's not just "real" women who are made to feel imperfect by a French seam. It's not just "real" women who are made to believe that their woman-shaped butts are too big because they cupcake over the waistline of their trousers. Even the people for whom the garments are made are told they fail to fulfill the designer's vision.

Because the garments are not made for these models. Nope, not even these women who work hard and starve daily, these delicate, shivering towers--they don't do the dresses justice. Because who they would really look best on is twenty year old drag queens.

I am tired of being told how to look by gay men. I have boobs. I have an ass. I have thighs and a belly and my hips are a force to be reckoned with. I'm shaped like a girl and I should like that. I do like that. Gay male fashion designers need to be designing for the little cross dressers they love. Their ideal woman is not a woman. And if they weren't in a position of global influence that would be absolutely fine. But it's not just that women around the world are frustrated with themselves for not being tall and thin. We feel frustrated with ourselves because we're not teenage boys.

I AM NOT A TEENAGE BOY.

I may have the acne of one, but I'd never pass for a gangly gay youth. I have curves that designers flatly ignore. The reason the size 12 version of that dress will still look horrible on me is because you've just made it a foot larger all around--I go out and in and then out again in what some people would assert is a rather pleasing manner. But That dress in my size will be two feet too long, too big in the waist, too small in the bust and hips, and wouldn't even begin to accommodate for my arms. And if I got it altered--well, actually it would still look stupid, because if it is reshaped for a person with a shape, it's no longer the same dress. No matter what, the top designs will not look good on me, because they're not intended for me. They're not intended for women.

I know my proportions are not media-beautiful, and my weight is downright alarming, but even when I kept my hair cropped to a uniform 1" all around I was rarely mistaken for a man. But even when models have full Farrah Fawcett heads of hair a part of me wonders if any boys have been slipped in--I'm sure it's the next logical step for most designers. When your best model fails to conform to the ideal, it's time to change the model, not the ideal.

"This next look coming out on 15-year-old Hans is our playful take on the classic bikini. Note how the beading moves the eye away from the bustline, encouraging a slimming effect and smoothing out any roundness. Available in lime, tangerine, and cerulean, sizes 00 through 2. $11,300."

Gas Attack

So I moved a little ways across town last week, and, while I've spent most of my time since then working as a wardrobe assistant, when I've been home I've been befriending my new roommate's cat, Slider.

Slider is somewhat ambiguous in age and origin--my roommate has had her for about six years, but believes she was at least seven when she came into his care. Her slightly saggy old lady cat belly has always had very short, thin fur--an appearance which gives the uninformed observer the impression that she's recently had surgery.

She's snuggly and affectionate, if a bit needy when it comes to attention. She seems to want to be picked up whenever a human comes home for a bit of head scratching, finger licking, and a touch of that weird "cram my head up under your chin" behavior. She's talkative and communicates easily, with the "meow then point my head at what needs attention" system, and the "pat pat pat...pat pat pat....pat pat pat...head butt--wake up stupid human, kitty is hungry!" morning routine. She prefers to have company when she eats and will come get you for a trip to the full food dish.

She farts constantly.

Sheez, I have never before been so regularly privy to the scent of yesterday morning's lightly fried eggs. She gets right up in my face to do it, too. It's not my fault her owner feeds her corn-based chow, but she sure wants to punish me for it. Bleurgh.

On Righteous Indignation

I was born in the mid 1980's to a card-carrying member of NOW and an absent-minded engineer. I was raised not believing, but knowing I was equal in every value to boys, but also knowing that stupid boys might try to harm me if I reminded them of that fact. From that I grew to understand that I was equal in value to smart, worthwhile boys, and was actually worth more than stupid rednecky ones. I knew that I had every opportunity to be as smart as I possibly could, pursue any career I wanted, and that I had the right to say no, or yes, as the spirit moved me.

I also knew that when I reached adulthood I would be held responsible for my actions and choices, that my self respect and sexuality were mine alone, that a woman was prime minster of England and there would soon be a woman President, and that I had a personal responsibility to maintain my sense of self-worth in the face of all that might oppose me because I was a girl.

It was a lot to absorb before 1990.

But absorb that I did, and I think that may have harmed the feminist movement in the long run. See, I grew up under the very erroneous assumption that my rights, responsibilities, and opportunities were a given. That they were not something I would be called upon to fight for, because that fighting had been done for me. All I was asked to do was maintain it, and not waste it.

Which is why I was a bit shocked to learn, upon leaving Fort Mill, that the oppressed women we'd glossed over in social studies were actually real people, and the institutionalized rape, murder, and imprisonment of forward-thinking women was actually going on outside of the protected bubble I called home. I got through the chunk of my education in which my teachers focused on making us appreciate what we had, but before they could get to the point where, I think, they were going to tell us to help others attain it too, 9/11 occurred and the message of "promote women's rights in the Muslim world" was trampled by the much louder, "kill all brown people."

The hoopla did die down a bit and more recently our politial sights have returned to the plight of women living under the Taliban and other Back-assward regimes. I think the reason Western women have a hard time wrapping our heads around the fact that women haven't en masse risen up against institutionalized rape, honor murders, punishable education, and forced marriage is that we really don't understand how they can feel powerless. Our reeducation in the 1960's was pretty damn thorough--girls do feel empowered, women know we have rights, and we know when they're being infringed upon. We do get angry when our neighbors only pay for their sons to go to college. We do get upset when jackass old men leave their wives of 40 years for teenage gold-diggers. We're saddened to see the ghetto produce teenage baby-mamas who erroneously believe that having kids of their own will free them from the abuse they receive from their families. And people do work to help women break free of these patterns of male-dominance, or at least sue the bastards for everything they've got. People do go into the schools to try and help teenage girls see that college, not babies they can't handle, will help them break free of poverty and subjugation by men. We do try in our own communities because we know that the overall sentiment among women here is that we are equal, and we deserve our equality.

In the West we are shocked and horrified to read inquiries into the institutionalized beating, rape, and neglect of children by religious schools in countries we call our own--especially when we know that something could have easily been done to stop it at the time. I think the abuses perpetrated by the Irish Catholic Church against the children in their care are identical to the abuses against women in Saudi Arabia, in almost all ways. The children were captives, raised in the abusive institutions, understood that they could be abused at any time for any reason, and that if they spoke up about it or even cried that the pain would be worsened and they would be isolated, called liars, shunned, sent away, or killed. Many had never known any other way of life, and they inherently knew that fighting would get them nowhere--they were smaller than their captors, and in many instances kept weak and on the brink of starvation partly to ensure that they would never effectually fight back. Indeed, they also knew that complaining would get them nowhere--even if they sought an outside authority, such as the police, the adult in the confrontation's word would always be taken more seriously than theirs, even if their bones were broken and their bodies clearly violated. If you were raped by a priest it was your fault for reaching puberty in his presence. If you were beaten senseless by a nun it was for your own good because otherwise you'd end up like your mother, who was a prostitute and the spawn of Satan. You are alone, you have no recourse to aid, and you have no rights at all--not even to your life.

I have never lived in this world. I don't ever want to. I have felt victimized and have occasionally feared for my life, but I have never been made to feel utterly helpless for any sustained period. I've always had the right to leave, the ability to seek help, the right to a grown-up or a lawyer or a jury of my peers. No one's authority over me is absolute, and I always have the right up to stand up against what I perceive as injustice. I have stood up against what I perceived as injustice. It got me nowhere, as the last time I did was during the Bush administration, but I was not harmed or punished for doing so. I have petitioned, written my senator, peacefully protested, and voted again and again. I have taken my side up in court and won with the validity of my argument. I've been intimidated by cops but only in one instance have I ever felt that they were twitchy enough to abuse their authority or harm me. I have said no, and been respected for it. I've also said no and been told to fuck myself for it, but I've still had the confidence to uphold my dignity that I believe must come from the inner knowledge that if this punk tries anything, I'll totally bring the law down on him.

But that's the difference between me and girls my age living under oppressive states, with oppressive religions and oppressive parents. They don't have that confidence. If punks try something against a girl in a community where she is repeatedly told she is worthless, she is browbeaten and will not find anyone sympathetic to her plight, where even the nice people say she probably asked for it, she'll probably find herself raped and beaten by a man, then beaten or killed by her family, the state, and the church for allowing it to happen to herself.

Where's the strength to stand up for yourself? Where's the self-assurance that comes with knowing this is wrong? Feminism is Western and the West is Satan, so Feminism is satanic, therefore many men are working very hard to convince women that they are worthless and might as well like it that way. How many women in these communities genuinely believe that rape is the fault of the raped? How many mothers feel a strong responsibility to raise their daughters to submit? How many mothers felt that their forced marriage to the douchebag that fathered their children was appropriate? Why?

It's this aspect of the mindset that baffles today's Western woman. It is one thing for a mother to impress upon her daughter that yes, this sucks, and I'm sorry for bringing you into this horrible world, but if you don't marry your cousin willingly you'll just be beaten senseless and married to him by force so you might as well deal with it like I did--but when a mother says "this is what you must do, this is my will, you may not marry the man you love because your father and I want your money" to her daughter without a shadow of empathy or yearning...it just doesn't make a damn ounce of sense. That seems contrary to every basic instinct that makes up the female condition. How can adult women willfully suppress love for the sake of money or propriety? How can fathers so deliberately sacrifice their daughters--entities deemed sacred by their own endocrine systems--to lives of misery and servitude for the sake of their own finances or reputations? How can this behavior continue through the generations? How can parents defeat biology?

Love is not an abstract entity--we know that. It's a huge and complex network of synaptic responses to stimuli that demand we protect our offspring and those with whom we mate. In my culture people who deliberately harm, or appear to not have good intentions for their children are considered insane. Assault and battery are one thing when it comes to strangers, but if you hurt your own kid, prevent her from going to school, make her marry a man she detests, or refuse to let her go outside unattended by a male relative the police inquiry will probably include some Rorschach tests. Child abuse is a sign that there's something terribly wrong going on.

So what does it mean when a culture institutionalizes it? Condones, encourages, even demands it? What we call catastrophic human rights abuses, brainwashing, and the subjugation of over half of the population, Saudi Arabia calls "Thursday." The small clusters of women that do feel inspired to start grassroots equality campaigns are choked out early before they spread, and are often publicly raped or stoned until dead to serve as examples to everyone. These displays don't prove rightness or wrongness to anyone--they just remind everyone that violence will always defeat pacifism. The Westerners who manage to get in and start talking to people are imprisoned for espionage, or simply disappear. These are countries that don't want their people to want life to improve. They'd rather blame the West for their horrible lives than take the initiative and improve them for themselves. It can't be this repressive religion or culture we've built around ourselves that makes us so unhappy, that makes our finest minds escape to America at their earliest opportunity to pursue respectable careers and send their daughters to school, thereby leaving us devoid of modern healthcare or access to legal representation. They appear determined to make a bad situation worse even though they can easily see that their goals are not realistic and their ideals are intolerable. All for what? Spite? God? Didn't they say their god was benevolent? What idiot worships a god that she believes hates her? Why is the pursuit of happiness a sin?

This is the problem. We don't get it. We don't understand. The misery of these women's lives doesn't make sense to us, because to the empowered mind it doesn't seem possible. And it's because we're a little bit empowered. We're not on top, we're still struggling for our own voices to be recognized as true authority and not merely conciliatory authority permitted and supervised by nice men. (Between two equally awesome hypothetical candidates, a woman and a man, I'll vote for the woman out of a sense of "it's about damn time.") Western women have a sense, fulfilled or not, of ideal equality. We seek it, we crave it, sometimes we even feel it. Do oppressed women know this feeling? Do they get the urge to fight? Do they want to?

In our idealized eyes we know that if we could simply get all repressed women to stand up as one and throw off the shackles of their government they could succeed in overthrowing their way of life. Sadly revolutions must have a starting point, and it is pretty easy to stamp out little fires of revolt. Moreover, even if they did really all stand up as one and demand their government and religion be restructured to include them as equals with rights to themselves, i'm pretty sure they'd be attacked, as one, and wrestled to the floor by their husbands, fathers, brothers, and community men who flatly refuse to allow women to consider themselves people, even if every single one of them demanded it. Because it's not just a small group in the government controlling the masses--the permeation of culture through religion and education allows the masses to control the masses. Just as American education and a lot of Western religion does in favor of women.

Our idealized notion of empowering the women themselves is not going to work because a large portion of their culture was established to prevent them having power, and to prevent the men in their lives from wanting them to have it. Even the men who genuinely do love them. Look at how much American men fought against women's suffrage, for centuries, and came up with a host of bullshit excuses why they shouldn't--excuses as far-ranging as "women don't need to vote because they can't hold land--oh what, now you're going to tell me you want to do that too?" and "women shouldn't have say in what the country does--it's not like it affects them." and "frankly my dear, you're just genetically stupid." Love or no, if you convince a person he or she is better than another flavor of person, he or she is going to have a hard time granting that flavor of person the same rights and privileges he or she enjoys. (for a list of flavors, allow me to direct your attention to the Anti-Discrimination Policy included in most American corporate models. Baskin-Robbins ain't got nothin on it.)

America as a nation is still pretty bad at the whole "live and let live, everyone is equal--yes, even Transvestites, Mexicans, and Mormons, so knock it off" thing, and we claim the greatest Human Flavor Diversity Index of any country ever. (The combinations! The mix-ins! The subtle hints of mocha!) Imagine the difficulty of convincing people who's lineages determine what they eat for breakfast of the equality of all people. (My heritage recall gets hazy beyond my grandma, and in my country that's a-ok--even desirable, as I'm not entitled to anything, but I don't have to apologise for anything either.) Plenty of Americans' backgrounds are so diverse it's easier for them to just mark "yes to all" on the survey sheet. Our ethnic diversity is so great that equality is paramount among all lessons taught in public schools...in our urban centers. In states that turn red on election maps...that tends to be glossed over.

To diverge from my topic (further), I just want to ask Islamic Nationalists which chunk of America they find more despicable--places like New York and San Francisco, urban centers of diversity and typically peaceful interaction among races and cultures, or places like Oklahoma and Nebraska that have reputations for promoting and wishing to impose upon the rest of the world their homogenous race, religion, and ancestors?

I don't know what type of intervention into repressive religious government is appropriate. How was denazification so successful? I guess we...bombed Germany into a pulp and then rebuilt it as the global community saw fit. Somehow, though, I don't think the same technique would be effective in an area we've been continually bombing for decades for no readily apparent reason. I think the trick is to covertly re-write the laws, and when somebody notices, just point at the humanitarian re-write and the Qu'Ran and say "oh, but look--it totally fits! It must have said that the whole time."

Seriously, I don't know how Western women managed it, rising up and demanding to be respected after lifetimes of repression. It's been a gradual process and we're not there yet, but we're the closest we've ever been in centuries, and sadly as our culture has filled in behind the waves our foremothers made we've lost the fire, the spark, the anger that got us here. We have no reason to fight for what we have, and have a hard time doing it when it is asked of us. (Prop 8's success startled many people.) What we have, instead, is a sense of cultural identity built upon the understanding that we are in fact equals, always have been, and always will be. I was born knowing that, and as such can't genuinely fathom an existence without it. I don't know how to fight for the right to self-respect. I sadly feel like Marie Antoinette saying "let them eat cake" simply because I'm truly so far removed from the matter that I don't get it. I don't know how to help.

Oh Come On

This past Tuesday I sent a rather large amount of money to confirm my place in the graduate program I've decided to attend--technically my second choice, but the first had been giving me the run-around and I'd run out of time to wait for them.

So naturally this past Friday I received an email confirming interview dates and times for
my first choice school.

It's just one of those things--I knew it was going to happen, it happened, it annoyed me anyway.

In better news, Congratulations Patrick and April!

Cackalacka

I'm heading to SC for the weekend to witness the nuptials of one of my best friends (and the lovely lady who astonished us all by agreeing to it.) I plan to also give my mommy flowers and hugs in a belated-but-awesomer show of Mother's Day appreciation. Two for the price of one flight. Holla.

I also plan to change out seasonal clothes and shoes so I may look a little funny if my bags get opened by airport security. "So you're taking sweaters, snow boots, heavy socks, and a giant woolen coat...to South Carolina. In May. Right. So why don't you just make this easier for everyone and dig out the contraband?"

New York City Smells of Urine

That is all.

I think the most profound difference between scientists and religious followers is that scientists are looking out at and trying to figure out the baffling vastness of it all, while the religious believe the vastness has it all figured out and is looking in.

O Ralph

I may have mentioned this before, but Ralph, the God of Plumbing, enjoys testing me. Every house i've lived in, no matter how long, has had crappy plumbing of one shape or another, and always, Always, the water-related problem has reached critical mass when I've been the only person around to deal with it. Today, naturally, was no exception, but it was a small matter--the outflow pipe from the kitchen sink detached and created a large puddle in the cabinet underneath, but it's drying out okay. But every time--and believe me, there have been dozens--that my plumbing goes awry I shake my tiny fist and fight the urge to shout "O Ralph, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?"

Anyone who has lived with me in the past few years and seen me go all twitchy when the shower rots out, the toilet won't flush, the intake or outflow pipe corrodes, the basement floods, the bathroom floor goes swampy, it won't get hot, it won't get cold, it's been three days and the water is still running red, oh my those tiles popped off and now a plague of locusts is swarming into the tub (true story), may be interested to know that I was adept at handling a toilet snake when i was 6. I'd been using my bathroom on the third floor of my new house for about a month with no problems, when suddenly it backed up in the middle of the night and started overflowing--from the bowl, from the tank, everywhere. I didn't know how to turn off the intake valve, so i tried to mop it up with a towel, but it kept getting worse, so, being 6, I screamed. My daddy ran up the stairs and, after stymieing the water, showed me how to use a plunger. Sadly for the lesson, it didn't work--by two a.m. the bathroom was soaked and dad grumpily admitted defeat. The next day he bought a toilet snake and ran it the length of the pipe to try and find the blockage--it went out a full 30 feet before it reached something that wouldn't budge. After fighting with that for an hour he called a plumber, who eventually followed the line down to the basement, tapped around, and cut the pipe just below...a big wad of construction materials. yep, concrete, kicked in by construction workers or crammed in by punk kids, gave me hours of joy standing in half an inch of water tainted with my own wee, throwing out my minuscule back with the strain of fighting an intangible obstruction and set the pattern for my encounters with plumbing from then on. To give you an idea of how far-reaching this curse of mine is, I can say "The toilet is clogged" in three languages. I've bought metric and imperial pipe fittings. I'm known on site in hardware stores in four time zones. I've troubleshot heads on historic ships, had toilets fail at thirty thousand feet, and prevented an overflow from flooding the Louvre. And I'd just like to make one thing perfectly clear. There is nothing remarkable about my bowels, there is nothing reprehensible about my toilet practices. I use just enough paper to do the job. I clear my hair out of the drain after every shower. I don't try to cram crud down the sink. I have a responsible attitude toward plumbing, but I guarantee you if I ever move to Niagara it will somehow clog.

O Ralph. Why me?

Books on a Train

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Naomi Wolf's 1991 bestseller The Beauty Myth, and it has been on my mind a lot lately. I would have finished it a lot sooner if it weren't for my new habit of only reading on trains--if there's one thing New York public transit has taught me, it's to always have a book on hand.

An unfortunate strength of the book is how relevant it continues to be, nearly twenty years after it was published. It is soul-crushing to have pointed out to a reader, in explicit detail, exactly how marketing and sales interests have worked throughout our lives to chip away at women's, and more recently men's, sense of self-worth until we lose sight of what is worthwhile in life and instead waste all of out time, money, and energy worshiping and attempting to embody intangible, impossible, unhealthy perfection. It hasn't gotten better since the '90's, women haven't stepped up and stripped off the shackles of perfection ideology, we're still strangled, distracted, and berated by the need to be objectively beautiful, still taunted and tsk-tsked like four year olds with beauty do's and don'ts that constantly contradict themselves and get more expensive.

That's something I've found funny--women did speak up and complain that it wasn't right that we were being targeted as objects of aesthetic scrutiny, that every element of our culture was pressuring us to not only buy beauty products and gym memberships, but to adhere to them religiously, feel guilty when we didn't, and allow ourselves to be chastised ruthlessly when we aged and fattened anyway. So the market responded--they roped men into it too. Now Everyone feels ugly, fat, and unlovable. Progress!

What really gets me, however, in this text, is exactly how relevant Everything she says is to me. I don't merely breeze through and occasionally stop and reflect when she's right-on--my progress through the book has been sluggish at best because I have cause to reflect at least twice in every paragraph. I find this personal accuracy on the part of Wolf both reassuring and distressing--I applaud her insight, but am irked by the fact that I gelled so neatly and uniformly into the mold she describes for modern women. Dammit, I thought I was an individual with quasi-unique concerns and interests, not some stamped out fembot with pre-programmed personality paradoxes and marketable mental hangups that were clearly itemized before I was born. But Ms. Wolf actually wrote out, verbatim, the circular reasoning that entered my head during puberty and continues to this day which has prevented me from accepting a compliment...when I was 7.

Nothing he can say about this is right. He can't speak. Whatever he says hurts her more. If he comforts her by calling the issue trivial, he just doesn't understand. It isn't trivial at all. If he agrees with her that it's serious, even worse: He can't possibly love her, she's fat and ugly. If he says he loves her just as she is, worse still: He doesn't think she's beautiful. If he lets her know that he loves her because she's beautiful, worst of all, though she can't talk about this to anyone. That is supposed to be what she wants most in the world, but it makes her feel bereft, unloved, and alone. (Wolf, 170)

This just isn't fair. How is it that in twenty years I haven't done something about what was going on, how my culture has not only played upon my insecurities, but Given me insecurities to play upon and make money off of? How I was given beauty magazines as a child and encouraged to learn from them what big girls cared about, as though it was privileged information for adults and I was being bad-ass by reading. As though Seventeen magazine isn't written with impressionable twelve year olds in mind. I felt fat before I had fat. I felt short when I was taller than every boy in my class. I felt ugly before my skin knew how to produce oil. I had those mass-market insecurities deeply ingrained long before I was a viable buyer. The last time I looked at a mirror and didn't suck my belly in I was an infant. I can actually recall being about five and having a cashier tell my mom I was a very pretty little girl, and automatically dropping my eyes, fidgeting, and saying "thank you" without any sincerity. Somehow even by then I'd been trained to not believe it, knowing that adults were required to provide children with empty platitudes and compliments.

I tell you something, I've never felt pretty. If I am, I don't know. I can clearly recall my first insult, but compliments bypass my self-esteem like the breeze. (for anyone curious, a male classmate called me "bug-eyed" in the lunch line one day in first grade shortly before flicking a rubber band in my face. When I sneered and turned my back on him, he spat his gum into my hair. It took my mom hours and a full jar of peanut butter to get it out. I still hate that child. Six years later another boy spat gum into my hair on the school bus. I punched him in the face, and although it bruised and clearly hurt he laughed, lest his ego also be bruised, and mocked me for hitting like a girl. When moments later I was reprimanded by the bus driver for fighting like a boy I was left baffled, and realized that both comments were degrading. That was about the point I started hating being a girl, and I've lived with it since.) Every compliment I've ever received has been meticulously analyzed by my Self-Hatred Committee (I think their offices are near my left ear) and has only reached my starving Ego with a lengthy note attached. "He says you're pretty because he thinks you're trash and wants someone easy to have sex with him." and "They say you're smart because it's an easier lie than 'you're pretty.' Read: you are ugly and stupid." are the two form letters that get pinned to compliments most frequently.

I'm insulted when people point out I'm pretty. I'm insulted when they don't. All in all, I hate it when people notice and/or fail to notice that I'm visible. When my other half thinks he's covering his ass thoroughly by saying that I'm both pretty and smart and neither asset detracts from the other and he in fact values both independently but finds that my intellect makes me more beautiful but I was pretty to begin with I am able to retort that he's a bastard who doesn't care about me because he acknowledges that I have an outward appearance at all. When he acknowledges that that's true only to the extent that if I had no outward appearance I'd disappear from view, I tend to agree that that would be best. He has since resorted to only giving me compliments when I'm too tired to argue.

This is frustrating to no end--I would absolutely love to be able to say "thank you, I feel pretty, I think you're pretty too, lets curl up and look at each other and enjoy it," and leave it at that. But, while currently that would be a logistical nightmare anyway, no matter what is said something in my head has to pipe up and contradict it, say he's lying, or simply remind me of the areas of my body I've been trained to despise. It's as though I've got a little Scorpius hovering on the edge of my consciousness, a pop-up ad in my soul, brought to you by Proctor & Gamble.

It isn't fun, it isn't easy, and its more common than influenza. Somehow a large group of people, purporting or perhaps even intending to be helpful, have encouraged me to see artificially enhanced young women as the beauty ideal and attempt to emulate them. They've convinced me to try to become them because that's what boys like, and have encouraged, through helpful language like "You have the power to be beautiful" me to hate myself when I fall miles short because I eat when I'm hungry, I don't have a team of dedicated photo artists on hand 24/7 to clear my skin, and I'm not being paid to work out and have pictures taken of me.

That's just it--beauty is not my job. Unlike models and porn stars, far from being compensated for my efforts to become pretty, I'm expected to pay for it, and take time out of my day in excess of my day job (or worse, take money out of my savings when the temp agency doesn't call) in order to attempt to achieve what "beautiful" women have made a career of doing. I'm sure many struggled and strove to get started, and smaller-time models probably have to pay for their gym memberships themselves, but they can see a direct cost-reward line between working out and getting paid. The rest of us are supposed to somehow work out, never eat, be productive in our fields, have energy for family and friends, be happy and interested in our worlds, and not go into debt over our heads. There are two approaches I could take to this--I could try and fail, or I could not try and also fail. I choose the latter because its cheaper and, as I'm not Catholic, I don't harbor guilt.

Which brings me to the issue of models and porn stars--the image they generate of pretty, skinny women participating in sexual acts, not for pleasure, but for pay, is frustrating. Women like sex, and as biologically the whole point of sex is the transfer of genetic material into a woman, you'd think that as a culture we'd make a point for the sex-act to be about pleasing women. Sexual encounters effectively end when the man comes to orgasm, right? We know he's going to keep at it until he gets off. That in itself is not noteworthy and it requires no extra effort on the part of a woman to achieve it. If you want to suck his penis, fine, but it's the same sensation that leads him to orgasm no matter where he gets it. Women...not so much. It does require extra effort to stimulate the same receptor cells and achieve the same physiological response that men achieve through coitus--due to some odd evolutionary snafu the clitoris is not directly involved in the sex act. She may enjoy penetrative sex greatly, but it simply does not stimulate the same nerve group or elicit the same spasmodic reaction as clitoral stimulation. It doesn't.

So you would think that, seeing as a man's orgasm generates the risk of pregnancy in a woman, so she is running a big risk by allowing him to come near her at all, he would be expected to do something to earn the right to. I.e. he should bring her to complete and satisfying clitoral orgasm before proceeding to use her body to bring himself to one. This still isn't remotely fair considering she's still risking 20 years of responsibility and lost self, or an expensive avoidance procedure, for that orgasm, but at least for the sake of leaving both participants satisfied it is a reasonable arrangement.

Unfortunately, when sexual activity is depicted on film for the sake of educating the men and women of tomorrow, this arrangement is never seen. Almost invariably the woman in the demonstration is subordinate to or a mere vehicle for the man's enjoyment. To draw the power structure visually, she begins and ends the encounter on her knees. Some demonstrations include brief, cursory woman-pleasing scenes, but the technique used (generally understood to facilitate the camera operator) is either so ineffective as to be pointless or appears painful. For the most part, however, the woman performer goes directly from orally stimulating the penis, to vaginally stimulating the penis, back to orally stimulating the penis, before the encounter ends with a mess on her face. While she may make a lot of noise during the encounter it is understood by both performers and audiences that she is not having a particularly good time but is, in fact, imagining the fat paycheck at the end of the shoot.

Which is fine, opponents to my frustration claim--porno is intended for male audiences, so why not pander to the audience?

Because men aren't the only watchers of pornography, and teenage boys are not the only people who are in a position to be influenced by it. Let's be honest with ourselves--security pages on the internet are there to inconvenience the very people who are most able to bypass them. If you put a lock on a cookie jar, you're going to wind up with it mysteriously emptied but the lock apparently untouched. Young teenage girls crave porn, and why wouldn't they? It's interesting, it's risque , and it helps them safely satisfy their very real and urgent sex drives--which started developing before the boys in their classes lost interest in cooties. Locking porn away from children is adults' way of pretending that their children are asexual, and will remain so until they're 30, married, and have children of their own. So the internet has done the next best thing--it has locked the porn away to appease parents, and made the lock page far easier to overcome than those pesky tops on the Vicadin ever were, to appease kids.

But what these kids are seeing is unhealthy--not because it's sex, but because it's an unhealthy depiction of sex. It's violent. It's demeaning. It's painful. Women are subjected to humiliation and apparently unsafe practices. Grown ups know it's all pretend--everyone there is getting paid, no one is getting hurt, and most of the performers respect each other as friends and colleagues within their industry. But even if kids know that, the imagery sticks far better than the explanation. What we need is to revamp the sex industry and encourage people to produce happy sex--scenes in which obviously consenting teams of normal, healthy adults engage in mutually pleasing activities that leave both clearly satisfied, depict accurate and helpful techniques for pleasing women, encourage the female performers to enjoy actual on-screen orgasms, refrain from putting women in subordinate or demeaning positions, reduce or even negate the emphasis on the blow job, remove the undertones of rape, sex as payment, sex as a means of getting better grades, sex as a behavior women consent to merely to appease men, and sex as a means of perpetuating the idea that women use sex to promote their careers, and when it's over, refrain from covering anyone in slime.

I don't care if your analyists don't think it'll sell. Porn doesn't sell anymore anyway. Everyone who's got half a brain watches it streaming for free and avoids the eyebrow-raising credit card charges and .tmp files. I'd be willing to bet nine-tenths of today's porn consumers have never paid for it and never will. The fact is, young people will get their hands on porno by any means necessary, so it is important that what they find presents them with a good first impression of sexuality. Please don't delude yourself into believing that with guidance and involved parental support young people won't seek it out and be influenced by it. If your fourteen year old tells you s/he's never looked at porn, s/he has learned how to lie. Or that with proper internet management we can keep kids from seeing content that's intended for mature audiences. If the audience was mature, they wouldn't seek it out. Porn isn't just for perverts anymore. Perverts have had to reach above and beyond sex to stand out from the crowd.

I applaud some recent efforts within the amateur community for their attempts to depict natural, happy sex. These unpaid or low-paid exhibitionists are more likely to have healthy body weights, are more inclined to perform only with partners who know them and their bodies well, and are more likely to look like they're having a loving, fun time. Keep it up! (C'mon folks from South Preston--you remember porn-n-hors-d'oeuvres nights. We heckled then--the comment "damn, those shoes are going to perforate that sofa," was one of mine--We can encourage now. We're apparently grown ups.) I think a genuine effort on the part of the porn industry to promote a healthy female body image and a healthy female relationship with sex would work WONDERS toward promoting healthy women in our society. (so of course it won't happen--if they like themselves, they won't buy our products! bastards.)

Hizzle

I sat down and compiled a list recently of all the places I've called home in the past 24 years, and came up, to my astonishment, with 10. I've lived in all but 3 since I started this blog, nearly four and a half years ago, and in that time have gotten so used to moving that all I need is my copy of Ender's Game on the shelf to feel settled. (not my signed one--this is my travel copy. Ender's first few pages in Salamander Army are a little loose but still good.) Anyway, this list attempts to describe the houses and structures I've resided in within a certain set of real estate ad-esque criteria, plus a few market-irrelevant details.

We begin. . . in 1984!

1984-1990 Pineville, NC. (single family home)

3BR, 2.5BA 2 story w/ blue aluminum siding on .1 acre cleared lot. 1981 build. Informal LR, DR, Den. Full kitchen with sm. breakfast area, ground floor rear porch. Laundry, 1-car garage. Tot. occupants: 4. (a number my older sister resents to this day.)

1990-2002. Fort Mill, SC (single-family home)

4BR, 3.5BA 3 story brick on .2 acre wooded lot. 1989 Build. BR 10'x10'. Formal LR, DR, informal Den. Full kitchen w/ breakfast area. Laundry, 2-car garage. 2BRs and Den recently converted to offices. Tot. occupants: 4+1 cat. Smells Like: Home.

2002-2004. Columbia, SC (Preston College, University of South Carolina)

120 double-occupancy 100-150 sq. ft BR, 90+ensuite BA, 3-story concrete+stucco Colonial-style dormitory with front and rear porches on landscaped lot. 1936 build. Formal lobby w/ piano, large aquarium, historic sofa from Zelda Fitzgerald's estate. 100-150 sq. ft BRs. 03-04 partial kitchen (no stove) and small LR. Communal laundry on main floor, staff-only parking. Tot. occupants: 240 men and women+1 dog. Smells like: freshmen, marijuana, scented candles.

2004-2005. Canterbury, Kent, UK (Homestall, Parkwood, University of Kent)

5BR, 1.5BA 2-story brick facade townhouse (13 of 19 in a rough U, central courtyard with bicycle storage and limited parking.) 1990's build. Full kitchen and small table, no other communal spaces. 100 sq. ft BRs (avg) Laundry, bodega, communal space .2 mi away. Tot. Registered occupants: 5. Tot Regular occupants: 7. Smells like: cooked macaroni, melting pot handles.

2005-2006. Columbia, SC (South Quadrangle, University of South Carolina)

4BR, 2BA apartment on first of 4 story yellow concrete/stucco 100-apartment complex. 2000 build. 49 sq. ft BR. Full kitchen in small LR with square breakfast table. Poorly lit: little sunlight, small windows, no overhead lighting in communal area. Some parking available across street at PE center, laundry down hall, convenient garbage chute. Formal, minimal landscaping. Tot. occupants of apartment: 4 women. Tot. occupants of building: 400 men and women. Hall part of Global Community, most hall mates were foreign. Smell: beer, cigarettes.

2006-Summer A. Noyac, NY. (near Sag Harbor, NY)

2 story gray wood slat house with Mother-In-Law suite downstairs. 1980's build. 4 BR, 2 full BA, 2 full Kitchens, 1 formal Living/Dining room (US) one informal LR (DS). Laundry, driveway and on-street parking, wraparound US deck. Outdoor shower. .2 acre cleared lot. Tot. Occupants: 12 men and women. Smell: feet, sleep.

2006-Summer B. East Hampton, NY.

1-story ranch-style natural shingle house with unfinished basement. Unknown build, converted from duplex to single-family home. 3 BR, 1 BA, full kitchen, large living/dining area. BR:8'x8'. Partial laundry in basement, mud track driveway with ample in-grass parking. 1-car garage (locked and full of lawn furniture), wild wineberry shrubs on .3 acre wooded lot. Tot. occupants: 6 men and women. Smell: fuel oil, mildew.

2006-2007. Berkeley, CA. (Regent Hizzle)

2-story natural shingle house with finished basement (private apartment inhabited by owners), townhouse duplex to rear. 1905 build. 6BR, 2.5 BA, full kitchen with breakfast nook, LR, DR. Purple heart inlay in full hardwood floors. 9'x9' BR. Driveway, timed onstreet parking. Heavily landscaped .2 acre yard w/ fruit trees, tropical flowers, etc. Tot. registered occupants: 6 women. Tot. typical occupants: 7 women+1 man. Smell: women, marijuana, curry.

2007. Central City, CO. (Parish House)

2-story yellow wooden slat house with earth cellar. 1875 build. 6 BR, 3 BA, full kitchen, Formal DR, LR, mud room, semi-detached secret room. 6'x6' BR. No parking, laundry .2 mi away. Un-landscaped small grassy plot. Smell: Women.

2008. Baltimore, MD. (USCGC TANEY)

300' white steel Coast Guard Cutter (retired). 1937 build. 9 BR (4 offices), 3 toilets, 2 showers aft; 80 berths, 3 showers, 7 toilets forward. 5'x6' BR. Partial kitchen with mounted tables, benches. Add'l 5 BRs, Full Industrial Kitchen, Clinic, workshop, bridge, map room, navigation center, engine rooms, boiler rooms, barber shop, gift shop (not for personal use). Typical occupancy (weeknights): 1 permanent resident, 5 seasonal. Typical occupancy (weekends): 1 permanent, 5 seasonal, 80 boy scouts, 15 chaperones, 4 employees. Smell: cosmolene.

2009. Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY

4-story Brownstone townhouse subdivided into 3 apartments (landlord's family occupying bottom two floors.) Front door on second floor. Early 1900's build. Walk-up apartment includes 1.5 BR, 1 BA, full Kitchen, LR. 6.5'x15' BR. All hardwood. Laundry, bodega 1/2 block away, onstreet parking typically available. Small subdivided back garden (not accessible except in emergency.) 2 disused fireplaces. 6min walk from A-C. Tot. occupants: 2 women. Smell: good cooking from downstairs.

2009. Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY

4-story purpose-built double-fronted apartment building. 8 homes (2 per floor) plus above-ground basement. Front door on second floor. Mid-1900's build. Walk-up second floor apartment includes 2 BR, 1BA, large tiled kitchen w/ breakfast table, microwave, stove, Cuisinart mixer; hallway/LR. 10'x12' BR with window AC unit. All hardwood. Laundry, bodega, decent Chinese take-away 1 block away, Food Bazaar 6-7 min walk away. 10min walk from L,M. Onstreet parking generally unavailable. Fenced, poured-concrete pad behind (not accessible except in emergency.) Tot. occupants: 1 woman, 1 man, 1 "non-girlfriend who sleeps over a lot," 1 stinky cat. Smell: Cat poop.

2010. Lewisham, London, UK

2.5 story private home on tree-lined block. Late 18/early 1900's build. Brick. 2 BR, 1BA, tiled kitchen w/ new hardwood counter-tops. Fully furnished, bare floorboards originally carpeted over. 12'x14' master BR, 7'x11' guest BR (with built-in desk and shelving.) Converted attic study w/ 2 skylights, 1 wall entirely built-in shelving. Washer & dryer. Co-Op, pharmacy 5 min. walk away. Onstreet parking scarce. 50'x14' garden, concrete & topsoil. 1 side walled, the other hedged. Tot. Occupants: 1 woman, 1 man. Smell: Usually smells of nothing, but if we've been away for a while, or have visited Ben's family home, it smells like other people.

TRENDS:

While not mentioned above, as time progresses, availability of carpeting decreases

If I've had a stove, I've not had a microwave. And vice-versa.

I'll keep this list updated as life continues to move me.

Snow Gone...

But interestingly, as an update, I wish to inform viewers that I happened upon a Brooklyn Public Library Branch a bit closer to home than the main library to which I could have, had I known of its existence, brought the keys. I'd like to state that for the record this discovery does not diminish the good day that I had in the snow, nor does it cause me to regret the trip I made to get there, as I discovered a large and bountiful fiction section, read a good book, and explored a little more of my town.

but.

It's half a block away from my house.

New York Snow Day

They really don't shut down the city. And there was over 5 inches of snow overnight!

This morning, for the sake of experiencing my first real snow here, I decided to bundle up (in all my handy-dandy long underwear nyoinked from a large donation to LCF--hadn't needed it since downrigging. My tops still smell a little...cosmolene-y.) and go stomp through the snow drifts in the street. While that was fun for about five minutes, I soon felt a need to occupy myself in a more worthwhile manner. So I went to stomp through snow drifts in the local park. After a delightful five additional minutes of stomping I happened across a set of keys. The ring was smushed, and a number of the owner's grocery store discount dongles were torn, but the keys themselves were fine. I initially opted to try and hang the keys on a railing where they'd be visible if the owner came looking for them, but then I stumbled across his or her library card, attached to another smushed keyring.

An idea formulated. I called my sister.

She gave me directions to the closest library branch,which involved two trains I'd not yet taken, and after a few false starts, I managed to stomp my snow-coated way through the doorway of the Brooklyn main branch. It's a simultaneously attractive and hideous building--spacious, interestingly curved, and interestingly painted with what appears to be zodiac symbols, but monolithic, solid concrete, with little interior decoration and that all-too familiar utilitarian government-issue feel to the racks. After surrendering the keys and cards to the security office I meandered into the fiction section and was surprised to discover the first book I saw was a collection of short stories by a favorite author of mine. I proceeded to make myself comfortable at a reading table and systematically execute two hours.

When I emerged from the library, the wind had picked up and the previously delightful chill had become bone-rattling. My eyes teared up instantly, blinding me, and thanks to the snow re-routing the street I nearly wandered out in front of a moving car. On the brief train ride back toward my house I observed that I'd encountered some sort of pocket on the karmic continuum--I performed a small act of charity by turning in the library card, and in return I enjoyed a book that I wouldn't have otherwise encountered. The moment I exited the library, however, the pocket disappeared and I returned to cold reality.

To suggest the trip to return someone's keys was entirely selfless would be fallacious--if it hadn't been for the library card I would have hung them up nearby and hoped for the best. But any excuse to go to the library is a good one for me. I had nothing better to do, and the card, far from inspiring a good deed, triggered my nerd-out response. I hope the keys make their way home, and I'm glad I had the time to take the trip.

"I say, look at that pair of birds. And me with this solitary stone."