the educated serf

'Tis a bit of a random Friday.   The Girl Scout cookies have come in, which is rather ironic given that it's Friday and it's Lent here in the highly Catholic suburbs of Pittsburgh.  Luckily for those that have not given up sweets, I am happy to point out that there is no lard listed in the ingredients... The dog reverted to a feral state when she discovered an injured deer on our walk and as I slogged after them through deep deep muddy swamps I decided that, as a form of exercise, this was clearly inferior to yoga.   I also take back anything I may have said earlier in this blog about her lack of instincts, which have now resulted in her being given some anti-inflammatory drugs, glucosamine, very harsh words, and an undefined term of house arrest. My sister sent me this lovely bit about how employees at Lego get little lego people with their names on them to give out instead of business cards.  If I worked for Lego, I would want a Xena the Warrior lego person to give out. ...

Ten Second Rant Tragic Misreadings, Gender Trouble, and Me On my way to teach Paris Is Burning , Judith Butler, and theories of gender and performance। Seat of the pants, as they say, which is probably crazy given the subject matter. For some reason when I type in a title to this blog entry, it automatically converts to Japanese. That all pretty much sums up the postmodern condition as it exists today, here, in Pittsburgh. Sometimes experiencing gender -- and drag in particular -- is a bit like cognitive dissonance. You know something's not quite as it appears, but you can't always name it, and in other ways, at the same time, everything is perfectly natural. Perhaps this is a drag life, in a way, since I have cognitive dissonance about my reality that goes way beyond the grumpy religion state of mind. Tragic misreadings of the map of power, indeed, Dr. Butler. Today it's knowing how to explain Althusser and interpellation, understanding how that works in the other ...

Midget dogs don't usually inspire me much, but to me, this is the iconic image of grumpy .  I am sitting in my windowless office, complete with a tan push-button phone, brown file cabinets, cork board, metal desk, and a chair with no wheels, no arms, and the exact ergonomically wrong size for said metal desk.  I am not angry -- my partner of 28 years often collapses all my "not happy" moods into one lump category of "angry."   But this dog pretty much sums it up.    And honestly, I don't think we should give our emotional states too much press, if you know what I mean.  The business of living is far too complicated to give in to feeling states.  But I do know it's perilous to ignore them, too.   Being grumpy comes from surveying the landscape.  We had what must have been the aftermath of the Oklahoma tornado blow through here last night: not the full brunt, but reported 90 mph winds knocking down branches and trees and a few power lines.   That's a ...