irony today

I just saw someone post a "support the military" thing on Facebook which implied that if you didn't support our soldiers whenever, you were a bad American. Their profile pic was a Confederate battle flag. The Confederates were active traitors against the United States. In fact, they killed or mortally wounded over 110,000 United States soldiers.

The mental disconnect...it hurts my brain.

why am I surprised?

I've been shaking up my teaching in a whole lot of ways. One of the weirdest (for me, anyway) was to soup up my PowerPoints. No more of the bare bones, basic black text on white slides for me! I'm going to show everyone that I do actually know design. THE WORLD WILL THEN BE MINE!!!!!! MWAHAHAHAHA!

Excuse me.

Today, I'm laboring on Labor Day by assembling a slideshow for tomorrow's class. I had need of an image of a mad scientist for background art. So I did a Google image search. Not surprisingly, all of the results were for white males. I searched for female mad scientists, and then only half of the results were for white males. I searched for African American mad scientists, then Asian, then Indian. In all cases, half of the results were for (you guessed it) white males.

Oh, one other feature of the search results was that in most cases, I got to pictures of bikini-clad women at least halfway down the page. I'm not sure what the connection is between bikini babes and mad science. Maybe a psychology major can help me out.

But I really wanted diversity. So how did I get it? Five words: My Little Pony mad scientist.

praise

Today, I received some amazing praise from an old friend. We were chatting about someone who went to grad school with us, and my friend told me, "you were obviously doing something right if (person X) wanted to punch you."

Some days, you just need to hear words like this. Happiness achieved.

the poetry of grading

I'm currently on lunch break of my job grading AP exams. I can't really talk about anything from the 839 exams I've graded so far, though. What I can do is share my three entries in the Question One Haiku Contest.

Due to the fact that
I don't know what I just read
Please send brain meds now

Your handwriting makes
Me cross-eyed and hurts my brain
Maybe pictograms?

"In modern times..." - Gah
Passive verbs will bury me
Arthritic joints throb

when you are with me

It's my daughter's fifth birthday today. I'm stuck working in Kansas City. I know it's something I have to do; the money's too good, and we're too broke. But still, it's a sacrifice. I'm been dealing with it pretty well. This morning, though, my wife sent a photo of my daughter, sitting on the ground and playing with some new gifts. She's wearing some wrapping paper as a cape. I've looked at it ten times since she sent it. The photo's wonderful...even if her smile does make my heart hurt.

brainworm

There's a company in this part of the country named Toto. They make toilets and related products. And every time I encounter heir products in the wild, my mind clicks into "I know I must do what's right as sure as Killamanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengetis."

Kudos, most pretentious lyric of all time. Kudos.

sentiment

I have a few summer jobs this year, but this is the one I was dreading the most. I am in Kansas City to grade AP exams. I'm not a major fan of grading in general, but the rough part of this is being away from my family. It's my daughter's birthday on Sunday. I'm missing it.

On the way in, my wife called. We talked, and then she put my kid on the line. "I miss you, daddy. I wish you didn't have to do this."

I'm still trying to pull myself together.

timing

When I was recording my album Skeleton Coast (just buy it already), my producer made cheap drum machine tracks for me to follow when I recorded my basic acoustic guitar, so we would start the recording process with everything in solid timing. One of the songs ("Totally Low Standard Blues") gave him trouble, and he couldn't figure out why. Then we got into a brief argument about timing, because he swore the song was in 4/4. Eventually, I convinced him it was actually in 6/8 time, and we got the track done no problem. He did, however, inform me that I was weird.

Most rock, pop, rap, and a decent amount of country is in 4/4 time (du du DA du, du du DA du). As a result, most musicians who don't have formal training are more or less used to 4/4, and anything else gives them a bit of trouble. If you play country, 3/4 timing slips in the mix (think waltz timing--DUN du du, DUN du du). 6/8, though, is a rarer bird.

Recently, I've had developments in my solo career which have pushed me towards preparing solo rock shows, without a band. I'm going to bring my electric and play with some strange pre-recorded drum/percussion tracks (I test this out tomorrow, so expect a progress report later this week). Of course, this means that I need to pre-record said pre-recorded backing tracks. Last week, I tackled "Totally Low Standard Blues," and even though I wrote the song, the 6/8 time signature still gave me fits. This is one in a long line of hints that I might be a weirdo.

Yesterday, I realized that one of the songs I'm in the middle of writing is also in 6/8 time. Maybe I'll do enough of these that weird time signatures become second nature. Or maybe I just like to make things difficult.

accomplishment

When I still used to think I could somehow become a scholar, I was faced with a quandary: I needed to keep publishing to even have a chance at getting a tenure track job, but since I was in a non-tenured position, the scholarship I did benefited my actual job not at all. In fact, my teaching load was so high, there was no time at all to even think scholarship during the semester.

Summers were the only time I could research and write. And write, I did. I would chain myself to books or to my computer for at least eight hours a day. I did an impressive volume and depth of work during those summers...more (I was told by reliable sources) than some of my tenure-track colleagues. Shame it never actually benefited me, though.

The arrival of my daughter coincided with me realizing I was never going to be a professional scholar, and, in anticipation of my girl coming, I decided I was done spending summers writing articles which never actually yielded tangible benefits. That was in 2011. This summer marks the five year anniversary of no scholarship.

Lest you feel this depressing in some way, I should tell you a little tale. Yesterday, I washed the dishes, made a big batch of burritos for the freezer (bean, mushroom, broccoli, onion, and vegetarian chorizo (the only decent vegetarian sausage)), cleaned the fish tank, and made my weekly batch of oatmeal. At the end of the  day, I felt more of a sense of accomplishment than at the end of one of the writing summers.

Just thought it should be noted. Of course, I did also apply for my third summer job...but you win some, lose some.

fighting a fit

In spite of everything, today largely centered around a depression fit. Yeah, I know "episode" is the preferred terminology, but let's face it: fit fits better. And it was a doozy, intensity-wise. Hell, my daughter's full-throttled glee at the swimming pool being open (yelling "this is fantastic!" and referring to the pool steps as "the dock") only put a ding in the depression fit.

Ultimately, the most potent weapon in the valiant struggle against depression was (as per usual) music. Getting to go to band practice and blast my guitar through a tube amp did wonders, and I returned home a better person (in spite of my singer telling me, "you are the most obnoxious person I know").

Of course, my mind has been focusing on this marvelous property of music to act as a salve against depression. I even thought about writing a song about it. I started humming a melody, and then the phrase "you gotta see my panacea" came forth.

Luckily, I was wise enough to recognize it for the nonsense it was and switch instead to playing video games.

memories

I first got online in 1994. Yeah, I was an early adopter, but there was a lot of history before that. And although I knew a lot of it, it's never too late to learn more. Thanks to Forty Years of the Internet, I learned the first internet message was "LO"...it was supposed to be "LOGIN," but the one of the computers crashed.

Reminds me of one of my early machines.

the perils of teaching business writing

I'm teaching an online summer course in Professional and Business Writing. I don't really want to teach over the summer, but I do need the money. Still, I wouldn't mind all that much except for two things:

1. A lot of this writing is pretty boring. I know this is probably something I shouldn't admit in public, but it's really hard to bring myself to care about how they use columns in their resumes. Still, I could fight this if it weren't for:
2. I have to comment on their document design. No problem...however, one of the things I have to mention is their use of white space. Again, not really a problem...except I find myself accidentally typing "shite space" instead of "white space." I wonder how many times I have not caught my mistake.

Being a teacher is rough.

the perils of beauty

I was supposed to have a photoshoot today, so I did effective grooming this morning. Then the photoshoot for cancelled. Now I have to walk around all day with product in my hair.

I wonder if this is how the beautiful people feel.

a good day

I got to my psychiatrist appointment only to find out that I'm somehow running a credit and don't have to give them a co-pay. Woohoo! It's a good day to be crazy!

a good, authentic coffee

On Wednesdays, my daughter goes to soccer lessons, and I have a little under an hour to kill. My refuge is a local coffee shop. It's a cool place, obviously designed and run by someone who really would rather be in the Caribbean than Perrysburg, Ohio. I'm glad he's here, though. Besides the coffee (which is really good...he roasts beans daily in the shop), it's just a cool little shop that doesn't look like it's trying to be anything other than what the owner wants.

Today, though, the owner's sick, and the shop is closed. So I'm instead sitting at another coffee shop across the street. It's locally owned instead of chain (which is something). But it's...well, I hate it. It's decorated in muted shades of blue and gray. The Batista is dressed like she should be in a boutique. They are playing what sounds like contemporary muzak pop out of an iPhone plugged into an iPhone dock. When the kitchen is open, they serve crepes. In short, it's the kind of place where the clientele is more likely to order double shot iced mochas than an actual coffee.

Which I guess is fitting, as this is a pretty well-off, upper class bedroom community. I would, however, much rather be in the beach shack coffee place.

the Battlestar is coming to save me

After bashing at it for the last two weeks, I've finally put the final bit of prep onto my summer online class. I've only ever taught one class over the summer, and to tell the truth, I really didn't want to do anymore. However, life (and the accompanying poverty) have a habit of wrecking the most carefully laid plans.

When I need to clear my head, I've been binge-watching Battlestar Galactica. There was a good quote in my lunchtime episode that I wanted to share:

It's naive to think that horrible things that we can't understand have simple explanations, because simple explanations make us feel like we have control, when we don't.

This is one on which to ponder over the next few weeks.

imbalances

Today was the last day of the semester. I taught my final two classes. Only one student showed up to the final class. I came home and started grading. I kept grading until my brains turned to pudding. Then I finished Spaced. The awesome of the latter outweighs the less-than-awesome of everything else.

Sometimes you can find imbalances like that which work in your favor. Tomorrow, for instance, my wife and kid are leaving to visit relatives. Me? I'm staying here to grade. Wee. But I also have band practice, and that should outweigh everything else.

no fear

I have clinical depression. I've had kidney stones. I've had some of the most disturbing surgery recovery one can imagine. I've failed at my chosen career. I've had any variety of shocks to the system, and I'm here to tell you all that there is a bright side. Nothing scares me anymore. Or, as Berke Breathed says:

they come running just as fast as they can

One of the reasons (I like to tell people when they ask...not that they really take that much of an interest) I do the job I do is because there's no dress code. I don't like formal clothes...so I do my best to not wear them if possible. Where I work? Dressing up doesn't help me. In fact, the one semester I experimented with a blazer, it actually hurt my classes, as the students thought I was way too formal and wouldn't talk at all.

 Most people assume this is because I am incapable of effectively dressing up. That is not true at all. I actually own a very nice suit. Moreover, on the rare occasions I do dress up, I've also been told I accessorize and color match quite well. In other words, if I wanna, I can look good.

The issue? Most times, I just don't wanna. I dislike formalism. I dislike the idea that I have to put on a "hey, I'm an adult" uniform. I don't like artifice when it comes to identity. Moreover, I don't like having anything tight around my neck, so I hate ties. This also leads me to not like turtlenecks, but that more influences my ability to dress business casual/preppy than anything else.

Today, though, I found a suit I would dearly love to own. I like it so much, I would dearly love to change careers so I could wear said suit with greater frequency. What is this marvelous outfit? Why, it's the pictured Pac-Man suit. Tell me that ain't just awesomely cool. It would, however, have a fairly big drawback. Where would you actually wear it? I'm betting the bosses who would approve it as professional wear are few and far between. It's probably out for most weddings. Funerals? Also a no-go, I bet.

However, I make you this promise right now, as we speak. If any of you decide to buy this for me, I promise to invent situations to wear it.

Message me for my suit size, please.

stimulation

I like coffee. I mean, really like. Coffee is holy. I have reworked a number of classic quotes to be about coffee. "Black blood of the earth." "You mean coffee?" "I mean black blood of the earth." That one is my favorite, but I also enjoy "no pleasure, no sin, no exquisite rapture greater than coffee." So it is with great that I, as a result of both a decreased ability to process caffeine and on advice of my urologist that limit myself to a maximum of two cups a day. That make every single speck of coffee that much more special.

So you can imagine my feelings when, while doing dishes Monday, I accidentally broke my French Press. There was, for the record, much weeping and rending of garments. I thought I might try to go without coffee the next day, but within minutes of leaving the house, I found myself in the drive-through of a Tim Hortons. Of course, it took seven minutes to work through the refunding of my accidental overcharge before I could get on my way to work. Top this with my four year old in the back seat complaining that she "is gonna be late for class," and you can see why the day least to more anxiety than normal instead of gentle stimulation.

My AeroPress came in the next day. I've never used one of these before, so I poured over the instructions. Then I recalled hearing of the annual AeroPress recipe championships, so I looked them up online. Later that night I decided to check YouTube for tutorials. Next thing I know, an hour and a half of my mother, my father, and I watching coffee making videos and critiquing them had passed. It was stimulating I'm a completely unexpected way.

Not, however, as stimulating as the coffee the next morn.