bad news week

I’m depressed at work and want company. I’ll leave gun violence aside, since while my views are pretty black and white, the people who run our country seem to be, at very best, too chicken shit to even start a conversation. I’ll also save the research I’m doing on wage theft for another day. (I had a guy at a party last night tell me that he has a simple plan for gutting unions that even I would agree with: all we have to do is make laws that guarantee people certain wages, certain number of days off, and access to a certain amount of sick leave. At the time I chalked it up to him being foreign, but the more I read about the myriad ways low-skill (and sometimes high-skill) workers get screwed at every turn, the more I think he’s just an intellectual victim of his own life-long affluence because 1) anyone who’s ever worked for minimum wage knows it’s totally bullshit that that’s the “minimum” anyone would need and 2) minimum wage is already a fucking law and there are still hundreds of thousands of people who fail to earn it.)

I digress. What I actually wanted to write about is “right to work.” Obviously my home state has been on the front lines of this clusterfuck of “debate.” (Sure, we can debate whether or not workers have rights, but not whether or not people should be allowed to carry fucking guns in fucking schools.) I digress again. We were up in Lansing protesting this week, which was as fun as it was ultimately fruitless. But it was nice because it was a way to participate in a political process that has become more and more oligarchic at every turn. Yeah, that election euphoria didn’t last long.

I also wanted to give any of my friends who are unclear of what “right to work” really is some talking points in case they’re ever at a party where some fucknut is telling you that the best way to get rid of unions is to pull unicorns out of your ass. I wrote one of these posts for work, but my boss ended up rewriting it because she’s trying to single handedly pull off an epic epistemological shift in which “right to work” becomes “union insecurity.” I admire the effort (“right to work” is a pretty damn catchy bit of branding) though I worry that we’ll lose some people by changing the name without telling anyone. So here’s what right to work/union insecurity is in a nutshell:

If you work in a unionized shop in a non-right to work state, you have two options: you can either join the union and pay dues or you can decline membership and pay a fee to cover the services that the union provides for you even though you are not a member, including 1) negotiating your contract 2) filing grievances on your behalf 3) lobbying for safer working conditions 4) fighting to keep your pension checks coming etc. In right to work states, however, you get a third option, which is to pay nothing. You still get the benefits of the union (ie you can still insist they file a grievance on your behalf—at their expense), you just don’t have to contribute anything to make that happen. As more people realize they don’t have to pay anything to get the good stuff, fewer people do, which hobbles the unions which makes the contracts shittier, which WAS THE POINT IN THE FIRST PLACE. This is how it works. Seriously, tell your friends, because I’ve been amazed at how many ridiculously over-educated people are unaware of this.

And that, dear friends, concludes my bad news week.

ball of nerves

I need this election to be over. Now. After months of anxiety, I’m starting to unravel. On the one hand, it’s great that my job is one where we’re all campaigning one way or another all the time. This is good. But for the last two months I’ve been writing a blog every day about how we’re better off than we were four years ago, and let me tell you, ignorance truly is bliss. Four years ago was shit! I’m not sure if it’s because I spent the majority of 2008 either in Germany or in a fellowship bubble in the Cornhole and thereby failed to understand the epic magnitude of the clusterfuck or if, as in giving birth, one instinctively forgets past trauma so as to be able to keep on going. But the more I learned about four years ago, the more convinced I’ve become that if we don’t win this one our whole society is going to fall apart. Today might not be great, but it beats the hell out of four years ago.

We were out canvasing all day today, which was good. A little fresh air, a little exercise—and several consecutive hours away from my desk so that I am not exposed to the constant barrage of useless media interpretations of whether the eleventh hour instillation of unapproved software on 39 of Ohio precincts’ voting machines constitutes an attempt to “steal the election.” Also sick of: old white men talking about rape and Republicans not even pretending to help anyone but themselves by disenfranchising poor people. Don’t get me started on the disenfranchisement of poor people.

To top it off I’ve still got this crusty cold I contracted about a week and a half ago when I was staying every evening to call random people on behalf of various (seemingly random) Senate candidates. So now, I am a bona fide mouth breather.

In conclusion and to sum up my current state of affairs, I really need a win tomorrow. My sanity has always hung by a slender, fragile thread, and giving in to snot and despair does not seem like a good move for me. Also, either way it breaks, I’m going to need a new project in about 36 hours.

hanging chads

I had a blog post all written and wittily titled that languished in my email because I don’t like messing around with my blog at work, while typing in a word document seems like a perfectly legitimate use of time. But that one was boring anyway. It was about moving, which is just slightly more interesting to read about than it is to actually do. And the whole move can really be summed up thusly: it is not yet done, it may never truly be done, and the $500 we saved not hiring movers doesn’t change the fact that I have never been in such pain ever, even after I ran a marathon four days after defending my dissertation.

 But I’m not going to talk about that. Today I want to talk about voter ID laws.

 I know that we feminists (and especially academics) are supposed to reject any consideration of changing oneself for a man, and I agree! Women should not change for men. But, antiquated as it seems, Steve and I want to make babies someday and I want us all to have the same name. So I decided to take his last name. Did I think about my feminist forebears as I sat at the DMV? Sure. Did I feel slightly guilty that I was betraying a foundational tenet of a belief system I hold dear? Absolutely. But deep down, I’m with Shakespeare on this one, and whatever people call me, I’ll always smell as sweet (or, given that the laundry facilities in the new place are down, as whiffy.) So it was the right decision for me.

But there was another, more defiant (if you can call it that) motivation. Since I got married, I’ve been genuinely afraid that if I changed my name I would end up disenfranchised like the 900,000 other people in our fair state whose picture IDs do not exactly match their registrations. It sounds silly but consider this: One of my coworker’s wives (who has volunteered every year as a poll worker back too far to count) could technically be in trouble because she spells her name Diann, which is what’s printed on her voter registration. But on her driver’s license, it’s spelled Dianne, whether through oversight or error or whatever. She got a letter from the state informing her she needed to resolve this issue before she could vote. (Ironically, because she’s lead poll worker, any appeal or question of identity at the polling place would technically go to her, but that’s really not the point.) Other people in the office—who are also extremely politically active and vote religiously—received similar notifications. Many of these discrepancies are of a married name/maiden name variety. So it was with no little trepidation that I relinquished my secure status as a “legitimate” voter.

But I realized that by NOT changing my name I was letting the Republican A-holes in my state capital win. They wanted to brow beat women (and poor people and the elderly) into not voting—or failing that, making it so their votes don’t count—but standing on principle is only going to get me so far, and letting their stupid laws change the way I would normally live my life only gives them more power.

I was satisfied to see that I was not alone in this mentality. The DMV being the DMV (or as they now call it the DOT) was naturally packed, but in addition to the 16-year-old crowd, the new residents and the inner-city crack addicts looking for a place to pass the time, there were numerous 90+ year old women alongside me—some in wheelchairs(!)—also verifying that they have what it takes to vote. I’m sure that for every one who was there, there are four more who can’t access her birth certificate or doesn’t have the two hours/$13.50/ride downtown necessary to make it happen. But it warmed my heart to see so many old ladies with the same screw-you Gov. Jackwad attitude I had! (Plus, their walkers took up a lot of space and they moved REALLY slowly, which annoyed all the state employees, which amused me.)

 Ok, so back to my real point. Sure on the surface complying with an asinine law doesn’t seem like a defiant act, but, as much as my coworkers might disagree, it’s not all lawsuits and protests rallies. The best way to not become disenfranchised is to not become disenfranchised. Not everyone has that luxury, obviously, but for those who do, we just gotta keep voting—and maybe whacking poll workers (but not Diann!) with our canes. I always dreamed of someday becoming a cranky old lady, and now by virtue of the company I keep, I’d like to believe I may have finally achieved this goal.

Liz Lemon

Steve’s out of town this week at an all-expense paid stay at a snooty resort in the mountains to participate in an academic seminar in a tent in the woods (and it’s not as rustic as it sounds—they have electricity and wi-fi in addition to coffee and scones). And in his absence, I’ve learned something important about myself—outside of the fact that I for sure picked the wrong discipline. I don’t eat very well when left to my own devices. Sure, I sort of picked up on this in grad school, but there I found the perfect solution. I would simply run until I couldn’t run anymore and then I would be ravenously hungry pretty much 24/7. I ate everything, and everything tasted great. (Sometimes I would even deliberately run more so that I would be even hungrier if I knew I was going to be eating something I especially liked.)

But I also realized that in addition to an “eating week” (D coined the term in a fit of genius, and I’m totally embracing it) I also have a “nothing sounds that great week” or if you prefer a “I can’t be bothered week.” And unfortunately that week is this week. When Steve is around my “I can’t be bothered week” isn’t usually a big deal because, just as he was resolutely confused when I tried to explain the concept of “eating week,” he remains hungry during the times when nothing sounds good to me. He’s hungry; we eat; we both feel better. If I can’t be bothered to cook anything, he’ll order us a pizza or take me to get pho. It’s a sensible, masculine sort of approach to the problem.

I, on the other hand, handle it less well. Last night after I got home from work and an hour on the sofa watching reruns of the Big Bang Theory, I realized it was after seven and I should probably eat dinner. Jimmy Johns stymied me with some glitch in their online ordering system and since calling would have required getting off the sofa and finding my phone I decided to just lie there for another half hour. By then even I had to acknowledge that if I didn’t eat soon I’d get seriously cranky, so I wandered into the kitchen and ate the following (in more or less this order): a lemon poppy seed cookie, three fruit jellies, half a box of leftover macaroni and cheese that absolutely should have been thrown out after I ate the first half, and a raw tomato. The tomato was for sure an afterthought that ran along the lines of: I should eat something that is made out of a plant, but our fruit basket is empty except for those three tomatoes. This may demonstrate that I’ve grown since my early days of grad school, but apparently not much.

summer fare

The worst thing about summer (and I can list a whole ton of them) is that it really is too hot to eat soup.  Sure, we could all go the gazpacho route, but I'll admit here and now that I just cannot do gazpacho.  I'm sure there are some perfectly lovely ones out there and I believe I am capable, but every time I think of gazpacho I have some pretty vivid flashbacks to a concoction my mother used to call "gazpacho" which still triggers my gag reflex (think canned tomato juice with chunks of sour cream and raw mushroom floating in it. Blech!)  So soup's out.  And I like to believe I've come up with some pretty creative replacements.

In the spirit of Olympic multiculturalism, I give you my new summer favorite, tofu banh mi (serves 2 if one of you is willing to make yourself sick):

One package of extra-firm tofu (I used the high protein kind from TJ's pressed between paper towels under a cast iron skillet for about an hour)
1 large carrot shredded
As much cucumber as your husband who hates cucumber will eat (c. 1/3 cuke) sliced into thin ribbons
3T rice vinegar
1 T plus 1/3 c sugar
Salt
1/4 c butter at room temp or mayonnaise
1 T (or to taste) Sriracha sauce
1/3 c soy sauce
1 T fish sauce (optional)
1 large onion thinly sliced
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper (or to taste)
1 baguette (I went to the bakery but you can make a killer one fairly simply recipe to follow)
1 c fresh cilantro leaves
1 jalapeno seeded and diced

1) Drain, dry and press tofu.  Cut into 1/4 inch slices.

2) Combine carrot, cuke, 1 T sugar, 2 T vinegar, and a pinch of salt  and allow veg to gently pickle

3) Blend butter or mayo with sriracha and stick back in fridge.

4) (This is the pain in the butt part) put 1/3 c sugar and 1 T water in a large skillet over medium-low heat.  cook, shaking pan occasionally (but not stirring) until the sugar is mostly melted and golden brown about 10 minutes.  Slowly drizzle in soy and/or fish sauce and remaining vinegar and then add the onion.  Cook stirring often until the onion is tender c. 10 minutes.  Add tofu and black pepper and cook turning tofu occasionally until it's absorbed most of the sauce.

5) Drain carrot mixture.  Split baguette (remove inner part if desired) spread butter/mayo mix on one half add tofu, carrot, cilantro and jalapeno.  Close sammich and eat quickly before someone else does.

James Beard's French Bread (which I also don't recommend making on hot days, but which smells amazing and works with any pot of soup you could ever make):

3 1/2 t dried yeast
1 T sugar
2 c warm water (c. 100 degrees)
1 T salt
5-6 c flour
cornmeal
1 egg white beaten gently with 1 T cold water

Combine yeast, sugar and water allow yeast to proof (get foamy) for about 5 minutes.  Add salt.  Stir in flour 1/2 c at a time until you have a "stiff dough."  Knead on floured board about 10 min until no longer sticky.  Cover and let rise in  a warm place (I use a cold oven) until doubled in size about 1 1/2 hours.  Punch down, roll into french style loaves.  Place on french bread pan or baking sheet covered in cornmeal.  Slash tops of loaves and brush with egg wash.  Cook in cold oven set at 400 degrees about 35 minutes.  (This recipe is awesome because it only has to rise once and goes into an oven that hasn't been pre-heated.)

guilty pleasure

I have a problem. Usually I’m pretty good at looking out for Future J (we’re counting the PhD as a pass and a hard lesson learned), and I’m not usually especially over-indulgent with things like staying out all night, my credit card, or (believe it or not) calorically dense fried potato products. I exercise, brush my teeth, eat vegetables, visit the doctor annually and occasionally call my mother. These are all Grown Up things that I do because Future J (and increasingly Present J) will thank me for them. What neither Past, Present or Future iterations of myself needs is Dear Prudence.

For those of you who don’t read the Washington Post or Slate, Dear Prudence is an advice column. Never having been a “Dear Abby” fan, I’m not sure how it stacks up, but I am desperately, embarrassingly, no-hope-in-sight hooked. I think part of it stems from my epistolary instincts and my deep love of wit—and while I’m confessing—puns (we could call it word-play, but that’s euphemistic at best). Part of it too is that my favorite kind of freude has always been schadenfreude. But deep down I think it’s just that I have a bit of downtime and I’ve succumbed to the age-old satisfaction of other people’s problems being more interesting than mine—and having the rush of having someone snarky tell people what to do about them.  I know, I know, I might as well spend my days watching talk shows.

But now that I’m deep into back issues of the column (it will be a sad day when the archive finally runs dry), I think I might be sabotaging Future J a bit. For example I’m so horribly embarrassed about reading this that I keep minimizing it whenever one of my co-workers walks by. It’s wicked conspicuous and they probably think I’m looking at something far worse than I am, but given the hours I sink into this, I *should* be embarrassed. The other problem is, the real news doesn’t seem interesting any more. I get three lines into some rant against Romney’s tax returns or Marcellus Shale or Joe Paterno and SNOOZE. I want the good stuff: the I slept with my daughter’s boyfriend and now I’m racked with guilt but secretly want to leave my husband and run away with him since I’m carrying his love child anyway grade A shit. And then I want a clever pun about quasi-incest and terrible mothers and stifling the selfish urge to elope. And then possibly a pro-choice lecture about how some choices are better than others. I want—no I need—to catch the media high, and the presidential election is not doing it for me; I need socially sanctioned voyeurism.

All the education in the world and it’s come to this.

(Not) Lacking Prudence

The Wrath of K--m

Since all the cool kids are updating their blogs, I thought it might be time for me to too. I think you’ll find I’m easily swayed, especially by the likes of WCFC and D’s Unfinished Business. They are so very cool.

So what caused such a hiatus? Such an agonizingly long gap between agonizingly introspective interludes? Well, I’m glad you asked.

I started the Job. It’s a good Job and I like my Employer, but I think that’s as much as I’m willing to post on the internet. It takes a lot of my time and energy and by the time I get home I often ignore the things that used to bring me pleasure—which I guess was the whole point of getting a job in the first place. After four months of work, I am now back down at my pre-unemployment weight because I don’t have the time or energy to bake bread/pie/cake/etc. every day; there’s perpetually a mountain of dishes in the sink (I used to spend at least an hour every day cleaning the kitchen, which didn’t so much bring me pleasure as make me want to punch something, but you get the idea); I only go to Trader Joes once—maybe twice—a week; and I no longer harass my sisters at regular mid-weekday intervals.

I watched the whole Legend of Korra, which had real promise, but ultimately ended up disappointing me. So Bryan Konitzko and Michael Dante DiMartino should be checking their mail for their thanks for nothing cards. And believe me, they're not alone.

I had a student go behind my back and file a formal complaint (my first btws) because I gave her a D. I should also add that the D represented an extremely generous bump because this student failed to take the final and did not turn in a final paper. She based what I felt was an extremely tenuous claim on the fact that I gave my students all of finals week to take the exam any time they pleased and to leave me the papers when they were done and she was confused. In point of fact, I reminded them of this in class (which she did not always attend), I sent email reminders, I sent individualized email reminders to her because I knew she'd be a pain in the ass if something went wrong and I wanted to preserve a written record. It was all for naught. The chair told me I had to let her take the exam a month later and that I should consider changing her grade--because he resists confrontation and she promised to be a relentless pain in his ass if he didn't lean on me. So not going to miss THAT part of teaching.

I also got married—or not. We’re still in limbo on that one since the county clerk can’t find any record of our marriage certificate and has instructed us to send them ours. This makes me very nervous because at best, they are extremely rude and at worst, completely incompetent and Steve and I would very much like to have all this behind us. Some couples like to draw out their engagements without ever making a permanent commitment, but this is getting a little ridiculous. I could go on about how angry the petty, local byzantine bureaucracy makes me in all its stupid, inefficient dimensions, but it would be a boring story that would only serve to beget more resentment against an agency that has already proven that they are only going to help me how and when they are legally obligated to do so.

Finally I lost several weeks to the lords of the health care under-realm. I mean sure, I was celebrating the mandate and all, but where I REALLY lost the time was when I went in to the doctor for a routine checkup with no symptoms, received a confirmation that there was nothing wrong with me, was given an order for a test to confirm this finding and then two weeks and $7200 worth of extra tests (including one very painful and intrusive biopsy) later, my original diagnosis of “nothing” was confirmed. In the meantime none of the doctors I saw bothered to disabuse me of the (never explicitly stated but strongly implied) notion that I had cancer that needed to be addressed immediately, which is, upon reflection, probably why I let them manhandle me so thoroughly when it now seems so wasteful and unnecessary. It is with no small amount of bitterness that I’m handing over my (none too small and rather frivilously computed) deductible, and the sight of the five weeks later still unhealed site where they stuck the GIANT needle in me still acts as a daily reminder of my deeply held resentment and ever-present mortality.

There have been other, smaller battles with other Goliathic (yeah, I made that word) bureaucracies, but they’re stupid, even by the very low bar set by the present entry.

So you see, it was probably in everyone’s best interest that I didn’t regale you with my tales of woe, as there have been precious few victories and several very real temper tantrums. And while I was very happy about getting married, the Powers That Be have managed to sully even that with thick layer of helpless frustration. All of this is obviously compounded by the heat, which Steve has reminded me is not exclusively mine to lament, but has nevertheless kept me from still more of the things I enjoy (namely anything that takes place outdoors) and has microwaved my brain to a gloppy sludge. My Anglo-Saxon stock wins out in the end.

At this point it would seem foolish to encourage any of you to call me, but anyone who feels like embracing their own folly, is welcome to ring.

Things are bound to start seeming funny any moment now.

j