academic overload

It's a strange period of my life in terms of research. After long periods of dormancy following the dissertation and my years of adjunct hell, I am deep into more research than I care to think about.

Just this semester, I am on track to finish:

• a conference presentation and subsequent paper on House and models of authority figures in the postmodern media
  
• a paper on constructions of race and ethnicity in pro football broadcasts (focusing on the return of the NFL to New Orleans)
  
• a book review of a book on New Orleans tourism
  
• a narrative of my year of adjunt hell
  

This is on top of my summer plans to:

• revise and submit my horror fiction chapter of my diss
  
• revise and start shopping around my book proposal
  
• rewrite my diss theory chapter to center on cyberpunk, network theory, and identity
  
• teach myself Gramsci
  

In the midst of all this, I just discovered, while doing research for one of my many papers, the common theme of my current work. I even have a title for book two: Whither Authority? Control, Networked Intelligence, and Authority in the Postmodern Media.

I hope I stop thinking of ideas before I explode.

a special day

Today's my lovely wife's birthday. If there was justice in the world, there would be dancing and street carnivals worldwide.

yesterday's random quote of the day

"It didn't make me throw up...it just made me cry"

new Flickr photos

I have new art photos up at my Flickr page if anyone's interested. I include, for your viewing pleasure, a sample.

hearts and sliders

In celebration of that great greeting card-inspired holiday, the spousal unit and I went to (as I've mentioned before) the White Castle Valentine's Day Candle-light Dinner. And it was everything we expected.

There was a hostess who showed us to our pink table-clothed, flower-balloon-candle festooned table. The store was decorated in pink, with hearts. There were Cupid garlandss adorning the windows.

One of the workers, wearing a plastic apron decorated with hearts, took our order like a real waitress...she dropped off our menus, got our drinks, took our main order, brought our food, and checked up on us a few times. Actually, now that I think of it, we got better service from her than at many fine restaurants. And the whole staff approached the night with much better of a sense of humor than I would have, if I would've been a minimum wage-earning fast food employee being asked to play dress-up.

The meal itself was classic White Castle. My wife and I each had a number of sliders and split a sack of fries. Afterward, the waitress brought us a complimentary cupcake (with a heart ring stuck in the frosting) and a bag of Valentine candy.

It was probably the most romantic V day I've ever had...which says something about me, no doubt. The wife also enjoyed it very much...which, no doubt, also says something about her. This is why I love her.

mental state

In response to my last post, I have already recieved an e-mail and an international call from a worried friend. All I can really say is, to quote "Crash" Davis, "I have been known to howl at the moon."

Anyway, the lovely spousal unit will be home today, so all is well.

absence

She gently brushed her lips against mine, kissing me, before smiling and thanking me for being so understanding. I just smiled and told her to drive safely before watching her drive away. What else could I do?

I felt bad enough as it was. I know that her mother, my mother-in-law, was in the hospital, I know that she was facing surgery, and I knew that my spouse should be there, needed to be there. I knew this, but I still resented it horribly.

And it's not that I don't like my mother-in-law and wish her the best. My mother-in-law is fantastic...smart, funny, insightful, caring. It's awful that she's ill, it's awful has to have surgery, it's awful that she has to travel to Cleveland for competent doctors. She puts up with too much in her life already, and she really doesn't need or deserve any other intrusion.

I know this makes me awful, but I cannot help but resent her a little bit for getting my wife for yet another weekend, in spite of how much I love my mother-in-law and want her to be well.

I am lonely, you see.

It's not like I don't have enough to keep me occupied. I have a presentation in two weeks, for which I haven't typed word one. I have parents, relatives, high school friends, life-changing former roomates, all of whom have been waiting months for word one from me. I have papers to write, book proposals to revise, classes to plan. Instead of doing any of this, however, I keep finding myself just sitting, doing nothing, being lonely.

Lonliness is never like it is in the movies or in overdramatic novels. There's no wailing, no shaking tears, no cavernous bouts of depression. I'm just empty. I have to force myself to do anything, and even then, I'm just going through the motions.

I read the saddest books I can find, and they suddenly move me not in the slightest. I try turning on the television, but that's no good...everything on the TiVo is one of "our" programs, and there's utterly nothing else that draws me in even a little. I try splurging, fixing myself a thick steak for dinner, but as good as it is (and I find myself knawing on the bone, regressing into a neanderthal), it doesn't really bring me any joy...five minutes later, and I am back on the couch, staring blankly into space. Nothing works, and there is no escape. Finally, I give up, crawl into bed, stretch out fully...but I keep looking over to her side, reaching out my leg so that I can feel her warmth, and she's not there.

It will only be a few days, I know. My love will be back on Sunday. Right now, though, that seems unimaginably far away, deep into the future. I want her here now. I want to see her eyes that can light up the room, see her flash that smile that makes me want to explode. I want to make her laugh, I want to hold her close, I want to smell her hair and have her body pressed up against me.

Before I had someone, I used to be scared of giving myself completely to someone else, of putting myself at anyone's mercy. Now, it doesn't frighten me that I've invested so much of myself into her as I thought it would, because she brings so much to me, makes me such a better person. I just need her, and when she's away like this, it reminds me of how much. Now, I'm just a little scared because I know why, deeper than ever, that I don't like being alone, apart, separated.

She did call yestersday, so I did get to hear her voice. It was lilting, beautiful, vibrant, and it filled me with so much joy yet also so much sadness. I wanted to talk to her forever, but after she left, nothing really happened to me, so I had no real tales or events to relate, and I couldn't really think of anything to say...so the call was entirely too short.

There was so much I needed to say to her, but I had no idea how to say what I needed to say, which always seems to be the case. How do you say the things you really need to say? Can you even really say them, without holding that person close?

That's why I'm lonely.

deconstructing food tv

Yes, I still don't have time for this (I haven't e-mailed my own mother in weeks, yet I post here), but Anthony Bourdain has a great take on the various Food Network personalities. Read it if you're as much of a geek for this channel as am I.

wither sex advice?

I'm really way too busy to be posting anything (3 weeks 'till a conference presentation, and I haven't written paragraph one), but The Onion A/V Club has Sarah Silverman answering sex advice questions...it's brilliant but not for the faint of heart.

pain and weather

Today, it was so cold that my face hurt after walking from my car to the office. We had a low of -1 F. People live in weather colder than this. I have no idea why.

Screw you, you ratbastard groundhogs.

greetings on this, the most Freudian of holidays.

Even the damn groundhog's in on global warming...Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow, so even less winter this year.

Hope your day doesn't keep repeating.

the weirdest product ever

I was with my wife at the in-laws this past weekend, and we went to the Dollar Store to pick up supplies. They had, and this is no lie, "Placenta Shampoo."

Apparently, when you sell your products for a dollar, you have to do away with such fancy things as "marketing" and "product names that are not utterly disgusting."

As soon as I can get the photo off my phone, I've gotta post it.

I'm living in a third world town!

When my wife was home for lunch yesterday, someone from the city came and told her that our house was under a "boil water before drinking" advisory. Don't they only do this in places where people don't have shoes?

how lucky I am

Today is the anniversary of the day me and my spousal unit got legally connected, contractually bound. When we were talking about the occasion the other day, I told her that I can hardly remember what it was like before I met her...all I can remember are long nights curled up naked, in the fetal position, sucking my thumb, and letting out slow wails of depression.

Okay, I exaggerate. There was also drinking involved.

So, what did my lovely wife want to do to celebrate this special day? We're going to eat barbecue and see a Ben Stiller film.

This is not just an isolated incident. For Valentine's Day, I made us reservations for the White Castle Valentine's Day candle-light dinner. Now, it would be one thing if my wife humored me in my love for kitsch. But she is actually quite thrilled at the prospect...she did her happy dance.

I told my friend Bob about this, and he said "it looks like you two have a lovely, laid-back life together." I couldn't agree more.

Life is wonderful when you're with the perfect person.

warming up to the truth

I'm sitting in my home office, looking at the massive Ohio snowfall. So far, we've hit 1/4" for the year. My first year in Ohio, I was hit by a 10" blizzard right on New Years. This year, I"ve only had to break out my thick jacket once so far. This clearly is not right.

Personal experience tells me that this whole global warming thing is definitely not a myth. The research backs all this up. The vast majority of scientists at the American Meteorological Society agree that global warming is caused by human pollution.

Personally, I think that global warming is the nuclear war of the 21st century.

Our president seems uncertain, however, and many people who don"t think these things out on their own and just parrot his language like to avoid the evidence and research. This scares me, and you see this manifest in the tremendous number of high rise pickups, humvees, and minivans on the road.

You know what cares me the most, though, is an article from Reuters that outlines how a coalition of major corporations (including Alcoa, General Electric, and DuPont) are petitioning W. Bush to tighten environmental standards. Even major companies are willing to go through major regulation and expense? Global warming must be worse and more imminent than we thought.

Break out your speedos, because those oceans are rising!

specialized Mike vocabulary

I'm trying to start a movement to get people to incorporate more colorful language in their daily lives. The first work I'd like you to use is "squadoosh," meaning nothing, nada, zip. In a (true, unfortunately) sentence:

"Even though I've had several bites, leads, and promises in my 2006-2007 tenure-track job search, so far they have come to exactly squadoosh."

C'mon, use it in your own conversations!

cheap sensationalism...or art?

Is anything off-limits as a subject for art? Is there anything we're not ready to deal with as a culture? Should there be?

All of these are questions raised (or at least addressed) by a great article in Wired called "I, Colombine Killer" about a video game which puts you in the perspective of the Columbine shooters. It's a great read, and it will really make you think about the uses to which art can be used.

cutting it close

Way back when, I used to be a wild, unadulterated metalhead. I had the requisite long hair, which marked one as a metalhead, and also as a rebel/freak/dangerous person.

(To be fair, I also had the spiked wristbands, the fingerless leather gloves, and oodles of concert shirts, all of which also similarly marked me...but that's another blog post)

Having long hair, for a time, seemed to make one an acceptable target for prejudice and discrimination, especially among those old-line southerners. The police, for one, really loved me. I got thrown out of a McDonalds. I had my car searched. I was frisked at least once. From the non-police side, I also was refused service in a few restaurants and bars, was stared at repeatedly, and so forth.

Part of the fun of having the hair was entirely, I admit, in this shock value. It was always interesting to see how angry some people could get over a simple fashion choice. However, the further we went from the eighties, the harder it became to really provoke a reaction with the hair. Before I went to college, I was working as a temp in a business that required formal wear. More than one of the suits had long pony tails. This was a sign that long hair had gone from political statement, past avant garde fashion, and had become mere yuppie wear.

If it wasn't going to shock, what, I eventually had to ask, was the point of long hair? For those of you who've never had long hair, there are plenty of drawbacks.

1. You go through a tremendous volume of shampoo. This gets to be pricey.
2. You spend an inordinate amount of time getting ready to go in the morning.
3. Ever driven in a car with the windows down? This leads to, in those with hair, massive tangles...and these suck.
4. Getting rid of tangles really hurts.
5. Does anyone really have the time in their schedule to devote to dealing with split ends?
6. Burning your hair when the wind blows it into your cigarette is very stinky.

What are the advantages? More than once, I had some hot blonde want to discuss hair care or offer to crimp my hair (hey, it was the eighties)...but if a woman is really interested in your conditioner, I seriously doubt they're looking at you as an object of lust. At the very least, it never happened to me.

All these things and more were on my mind when I got my hair chopped. The long hair had quit doing what I wanted. Instead, it merely became a social marker, signaling me only as a member of a particular group...and, especially as I was getting ready to move across the country and restart my life, I had no real desire to have any concrete social marker at this point of my life...so the hair went.

The initial big haircut was done at an honest-to-god real hair salon that a friend worked at, during my lunch break. What made this whole process interesting is that I told utterly no one that I was getting two feet of hair removed. Afterward, when I showed back up to work, everyone to a person let out an "Oh My God!!!"...except one professor (with whom I was working) who didn't even seem to notice. When I went home that night, my parents took a full minute to recognize me. When I went to a bar that night, a friend of mine took five mintues to recognize me. The shock of it all was pretty cool...it felt liberating to be removed from all the associations of long hair.

When I got up to BG, I had no idea where to get my hair done, so I went to one of those "Hair Cuttery" mall-esque places. This was never a good idea. When no one working in a hair place has good hair, that should be a sign to go elsewhere. The only plus was that they took off way too much, so I only had to go every six months. The down side was that I often looked like a weed wacker attack victim. Plus, the hair stylists wouldn't shut up, so I was always forced to have some ridiculously inane conversation about the weather or American Idol or something. Also, they usually played Top 40 Country radio, which gave me moderate indigestion.

I then went to one of the local barber shops, and my hair started immediately looking better. The only real problem was that the bartender insisted on talking politics. This is never good. He was a leftie, which can itself good. However, he's a little to the left of V.I. Lenin, which is just unsettling. He also gets worked up easily, and when he's ranting, he gets really wild, redfaced, and loud. At the best, the quality of the haircuts decline when he's telling me with extreme emphasis how Bush and a cabal of masonic businessmen are going to declare martial law, all the while gesticulating with pointy scissors that come dangerously close to plunging into my cerebellum.

I went to a new barber shop today. My hair looks good. The barbers didn't talk to me at all during the hair cut. They had good magazines to read. I didn't have to worry about being socially marked as anything.

Hey, is it a sign of being an adult/old man that you go to a barber shop? If so, that is one social marking I never expected...

another entry in the ongoing saga of who I resemble

One of my new students told me that my facial gestures reminded her of Napoleon Dynamite.

She must not want to pass.

the best cd of 2006

1. The Drams - Jubilee Dive
Singer/guitarist Brent Best is one of those special breeds. Anyone who followed his previous band Slobberbone knows that when he's on, he can make you want to laugh, scream, and drink yourself into oblivion. With his move over to the Drams, however, Best seems to have decided to try and manipulate every other emotion.

While this not be rawk, it is a tremendously deep, nuanced, sophisticated slab of music. Best lets you know right away that lyrics are important here, from the opening lines of the disk's first track, "Truth Lies Low":

Trumpet blasts blare with ferocity of flame

Is it mourning Taps or Revelry? The email never came

Surely a light will glow

Commonplace come-on's you'd think would never play

Somehow trump the thoughtful things we used to do and say

Sadly these seeds do grow

Throughout this opener, there's a definite sense of disappointment with the world, with commonplace stupidity, with people's expectations, with how we respond to pressure, and with how we go along with the herd...but it still does hold out the slight hope that there are answers, there is truth, and there is a right way, if we're really willing to dig for it. There's also a lot of alliteration, which also amuses me to all ends, and Best plays a lot lyrically, with dual narration, popular references, and the like.

Musically, this album shows a nice range of moods and atmospheres. There are barn burners ("Crudely Drawn" and "Unhinged" are two of the best rock songs of the year), there are lush ballads ("Holy Moses" is something to behold), but then there are song which defy simple description; "Wonderous Life" and "September's High" both show a beautiful blend of creepy, lush, and hypnotic, while building into crashing, eartheal highs. The musicianship throughout is brilliant; guitar and keyboard solos intermingle in "Holy Moses" to near perfect effect, and "You Won't Forget" brings horns into the mix with an uplifting blast, a la The Beatles.

This album is most of what I like about music. It is fresh, it does not follow expectations, it's both approachable and intricate, and there are a variety of moments which refuse to get out of your head.

What's even better, however, is I got to see these guys twice over the past year (including their opening for Drive-By Truckers, my favorite show for the year), and they are, on top of being a great band, really cool people. Don't you love it when that happens?