DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT OBSESSED WITH MY DOG.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

I'm getting my days started later and later. Sigh. I wish I were more of a morning person. But it turns out I'm more of a sleep person.

Yesterday morning, I went to the Minnesota State Fair with friends. I got to eat a lefse, deep fried cheese curds, and deep fried Snickers on a stick. I also got to see cute little ducklings! They were all yellow and tiny. Oh, and also some lambs and a calf and little piglets that went, "Wee wee wee!" We also went into a not-so-scary but very dark Haunted House. I kept thinking I was going to walk into a wall or a person or fall down a flight of stairs. I didn't go on any rides because I need Rob to hold my hand. Nor did I try my hand at any of the games because, again, Rob is supposed to win giant stuffed animals for me. He doesn't know this yet.

Now I will take puppy poopy back home and then head over to campus. Today's goal is to make substantial progress on my syllabus (i.e., start working on it).

      >> 9:51 AM
 

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

"Public transportation is for jerks and lesbians." -- Homer Simpson

      >> 6:14 PM
 


This book was in my mailbox at work.

      >> 4:33 PM
 

[Dog crashes car during driving lesson.] Oh noes!

      >> 4:17 PM
 

It's frustrating being in a classroom technology orientation with old people.

      >> 2:27 PM
 

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Lucy Lawless! What happened to you?

      >> 8:34 PM
 

omg celebrity duets on fox. what.

      >> 7:55 PM
 

I suppose I should head home to puppy. I've been lounging around in my office all afternoon. After the human resources orientation ended, I had some coffee with a couple new faculty who are also Chinese. (They're both from China with US PhDs.) Then I came to my office to do some stuff on the Internet with bill payments and all that. I think I'm going high tech with all my new bills and doing the electronic statements and payments. Less paper clutter, please!


      >> 5:23 PM
 

Happiness is stepping outside and realizing it's cold enough for a jacket.

      >> 7:55 AM
 

Monday, August 28, 2006

Giles curls up at my feet under the desk when I'm sitting at it. :) Christina's new album is most excellent. :) :) Mood: v. content

      >> 8:45 PM
 


Giles curled up in bed.


Giles sleeping half out of bed.


I would totally buy this shirt if they had it in my size.


I almost bought these black cat boot slippers for Giles.

I made a Target run just awhile ago (where the SpongeBob and cat things lived). I picked up [Christina Aguilera's] new cd Back to Basics. I can't wait to go home and listen to it. I'm currently ripping the music to my computer and drinking coffee (much needed) at Cahoots.

I also got Giles licensed in the city. And I bought some food stuffs at a Chinese supermarket. I also made aborted attempts at getting a replacement bulb for the burnt out headlight on my car and turning my car title in to the car license place (too many people in line).

      >> 4:03 PM
 

Ooo! There's a haberdashery in downtown St. Paul!

      >> 2:29 PM
 

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Giles keeps stealing my spot on the couch when I get up for something. :P

      >> 9:18 PM
 


What kind of special torture is reserved for spazzy dogs?


Saddle bags!!!


We walked to the Mississippi River.


And stopped at my office after getting mauled by mosquitoes.

      >> 6:39 PM
 

Tomorrow's morning errand is to get Mr. Giles licensed in St. Paul so that there won't be any issues with using the [dog park] in town. I'm going to see if Giles is interested in walking along the wooded trails with me rather than picking fights with dogs in the open area. I still have to dig out his vaccination and neutering records from boxes. Ugh. This morning I flattened all the boxes for kitchen stuffs and freed up a lot of space in the kitchen. I still have to put down fresh contact paper lining in the cabinets so that I can put everything away, though.

It's been sunny and a bit on the warm side here today. I think after I get my coffee fix here at Cahoots, I'll go back and take Giles for a walk along the Mississippi River. I think Cahoots is totally going to be my hangout place. Great coffee. Free wi-fi. Countercultural-ish sensibilities but without the pretension of the Dunn Brothers on Grand Ave. Also quieter than the Dunn Bros. I tried to stop by there this morning but there was literally a line out the door.

      >> 3:47 PM
 

When I stop to talk to people out and about, I always try to move us out of the way. But lots of people aren't especially courteous in this regard. I just came in the coffee shop where two people were blocking the counter. I had to interrupt them to get by them. And as I was ordering, a third person joined them and formed a roadblock. So I again had to interrupt them to get by. Why can't they just step out of the way of foot traffic? It's not that cramped in here. Maybe I'm just grumpy for lack of coffee yet today. (I'm quickly remedying that, though.)

      >> 3:31 PM
 

Saturday, August 26, 2006

There are people reciting/practicing Mandarin in the back of the coffee shop.

      >> 7:17 PM
 


This morning I made masala chai at home in my new yellow teapot.


In the garden patio of the coffee shop, there are bricks with names carved in them.


Giles asks, "Can I have some of that artichoke-garlic pizza?"

      >> 6:10 PM
 

Friday, August 25, 2006

A friend sent me a link to this site: [Delocator]. It helps you find local coffee houses, bookstores, and movie theatres in town. I think some of the discourse around the spread of major chain coffee houses are a bit too doom-and-gloom, but of course it is a bit scary when everything gets standardized around the country/world (coffee is quickly equally Starbucks, for example). I mean, I don't think Starbucks is a bad company or inherently evil because of its expansionist project, but it is disconcerting when their stores open up across the street from local coffee houses. My experience with Starbucks stores is that they do have some individual characteristics, and local people make particular stores their own space. It's not one whole homogenous thing. This is not a new argument amongst globalization theorists, something dealt with in the global/local debates, "glocal" discussions, and attempts to think in scalar terms (not just global and local, but at individual, neighborhood, regional, and other ranges of social collectivities). I also feel that Starbucks has been instrumental to making coffee house culture more widespread, bringing these kinds of spaces to cities and suburbs that would never have seen such places before.

      >> 10:39 PM
 

I think I might be allergic to humidity.

      >> 5:42 PM
 


Giles says, "Coffee? Meh."

      >> 10:40 AM
 

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Eek. Scary thunderstorm with tornados. Giles and I are curled up on the couch.

      >> 6:53 PM
 

Oh, faced with the arduous task of unpacking. It's a bit harder than packing because I have to put things away and wash certain items (like newspaper wrapped dishes) first. I guess as long as I do a few boxes in the morning and a few in the evening each day, with a bigger push on the weekend, I should be able to get things squared away by the end of next week. I can't believe we had over 150 items shipped. :P It's also not going to be fun dragging five or six boxes of books to campus. The chair of my department saw me lugging the one box I brought to campus today, though, and mentioned that there are carting utilities available in the office. That should be some help.

It's stormy here today. The local news weather people kept interrupting the morning shows to give updates on the impending doom of the storm. I swear they did it at least every fifteen minutes. They did show a ginormous piece of hail, though (baseball-sized).

I'm all official-like now, too. I just got my campus ID card printed. And I got the PIN setup for me to access class information on-line. I think I'm all ready to go now! Well, except for the writing the syllabus part.

      >> 11:24 AM
 

Wednesday, August 23, 2006


Stop here on red =).

      >> 10:40 PM
 


Giles says, "I don't want to unpack!"


A couple of very unfortunate cuts on my fingers.

      >> 9:49 PM
 

Ugh. I totes have way too much stuff. Four hours later, the movers have finally lugged it all upstairs.

      >> 6:40 PM
 

Fuck. I have way too much stuff.

      >> 5:41 PM
 

Movers are here. Woo. Giles is whining on the balcony.

      >> 2:41 PM
 

Garg. It's one of those minor frustrations days....

On my shit list:
  1. The movers. On Monday, the central office told me I was scheduled for delivery Wednesday between 8:30 and 10. I wait in my apartment all morning, having planned to do all my errands in the afternoon instead. At 10:01, the driver calls from some other town in Minnesota and says he'll try to make my delivery in the afternoon. He says he called yesterday but didn't have my new number so couldn't reach me. He wouldn't really give me a specific time for this afternoon, either. I told them to be at my place at noon.
  2. The university ID card office. I just tried to get my card, and of course their computer system is currently down. And it won't be up until this afternoon when 127 transfer students will be queuing up for their cards.
  3. Update: Sucky movers, part two. They just called at 11:45 and told me they can't make it at noon but will try to be there by 2 pm.

On the happier side:
  1. I was on a masala chai kick yesterday and had to try THREE different places' versions of it. The first one, from [TeaSource], was my favorite because they used freshly brewed tea and spiced, sweetened condensed milk. I also got some chai lattes from Coffee Bene and Dunn Brothers. Both of those places used a syrup blend and steamed milk, a la "latte."
  2. I saw [Quinceañera] Monday night with friends. It was an awesome movie, but very sad. And Jesse Garcia is soooo cute. I love the scenes where the camera follows him as he walks around, kinda like in a video game.
  3. I LOVE ST PAUL!!!!

      >> 11:08 AM
 

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

There are a million and a half squirrels taunting us here. :(

      >> 7:47 PM
 

[W is in town today.] Whee. An article I saw earlier today noted when and where protestors were meeting for his various stops. I heard a bit of the health care stuff, and seriously, why is everything always about responsibility and accountability? These seem to be key terms for Republican politicians who want to shift the burden of every social service to individuals rather than take on any kind of burden as a governmental body.

      >> 5:10 PM
 



      >> 4:59 PM
 

[Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sleeping.] Ooo. Sounds like a fun read. Rob sleeps diagonally in the bed. And then accuses me of doing so and hogging the bed. Giles likes to sleep stretched across the foot of the bed. Like many other pets, he can expand well beyond his size when it comes to taking up space in bed.


Giles in bed at our old apartment.

      >> 9:59 AM
 


Giles says, "I hate coffee."

      >> 9:41 AM
 

Monday, August 21, 2006

Have I mentioned that I've had bubble tea every night here? All my money is going to that one store.

      >> 8:53 PM
 


      >> 8:35 PM
 

It's so weird that everyone working at my bank branch is young (20s), white, and male. I wonder what that's about.

      >> 4:24 PM
 


Mmmm... Cup o' Mud with a cup of coffee.

Guess where I am? :) So I went to campus to get my photograph taken for the opening convocation and news service purposes. Apparently, at the convocation, they project photos of new faculty on a big screen. Whatev. I couldn't find the piece of paper on which I'd scrawled the location of the university photographers' office. And no one was picking up at their phone number. But I tried the alternate number and someone finally answered. I got my photo taken by the Unabomber. It was loads of fun.

Now I have to do some unpleasant errands like figure out my car insurance. I thought I'd fuel up with some cupcake delight.

      >> 1:19 PM
 

lol. My landlord just gave me a brochure for the Long Yang Club that she picked up at Pride.

      >> 9:51 AM
 


This morning Giles ran to the balcony door. I let him out. He stuck his head through the slats a few times. And then he wanted to come back inside within a minute.

      >> 8:22 AM
 

Sunday, August 20, 2006


Today started off kinda meh. It was fine this morning with our walk and coffee and stuff. And the weather is gorgeous. But then later when I went off to do errands, things kept happening not quite right. First, I bought a doggy gate that was too big for the space I needed it for. Of course, I didn't figure this out until I'd started assembling it. And then I had the joy of stuffing all the parts back in the box. I was able to return it without any problems but on the way back to the store, as I was backing out of the driveway, I scraped the concrete wall on the left side with my car. :( Sooo frustrating. I knew it would happen sooner or later.


I got a new name tag for Giles, this time with Rob's phone number as the emergency contact because last time when I put my number on it, he was all sad.

Then I went to Target again to pick up more supplies. Things started looking up in my day when a handsome man in the clothing section asked me to check the size of his t-shirt for him.

I was able to find most of the things on my list. I bought some license plate frames -- one with doggy paw prints. I also bought a couple things not on my list as retail therapy:


A toy. I don't even know what cartoon he's from. But he's flamey and cool.


I also bought a black canvas bag. It's really awesome except all the velcro fasteners.

I also got a quick haircut at a cookie cutter hair outlet. I'll need to find a cool hairstylist here. I was never able to find anyone in North Carolina who could cut my hair right.

I'm having my second cup of coffee right now with Giles in the back garden patio of the Dunn Brothers. I'd been sitting out front on the busy road until someone told me yesterday that there's a back area that's shaded and protected a bit from the loud cars and motorcycles.

      >> 4:06 PM
 

THE WEATHER IS SO BEAUTIFUL HERE TODAY.

      >> 9:17 AM
 

[New Kid on the Hallway] returns:

And you know how when you start blogging, you have that weird experience of walking around, writing blog posts in your head about everything interesting you see, and even stuff that's not that interesting? That habit dies quickly. I didn't walk around blogging in my head, and it felt like I'd stopped thinking.

Yes, I know exactly what that's like. I don't know if it's a good thing (can some addictions be good?), but it's true.

      >> 8:47 AM
 

Saturday, August 19, 2006

There are lots of motorcycles around here.

Earlier today, a friend took me to this really cool place -- [Quatrefoil Library]. It's only a few blocks from my place, too. It rocks. I immediately signed up to be a member and a volunteer.


Earlier today, Giles was bored with me and fell asleep under the chair.


We're off to get some groceries now so I won't be eating out every meal. I'll have to buy food that I can eat right out of the package or with minimal preparation since I have absolutely no cooking things yet.

      >> 7:11 PM
 

I might possibly live in the world's best neighborhood. Giles just flushed a rabbit from the grass.

      >> 1:03 PM
 


Cahoots, the coffee place around the corner from me, has a garden patio in the back. I'm here with Giles and wireless access having a blueberry scone with coffee.

      >> 11:02 AM
 

Look! An albino squirrel!!!

      >> 7:34 AM
 

Friday, August 18, 2006


When Giles sits on the floor, his haunches slowly slide outward.

      >> 11:39 PM
 

Giles's barking just gave someone a heart attack. The man darted out around a building and startled Giles. The man kept running.

      >> 7:07 PM
 

Waiting to get my driver's license photo taken. I passed the knowledge test! Woo! I won't get the license for 3-6 weeks, though.

      >> 11:55 AM
 

Thursday, August 17, 2006


Giles, the Watcher.

      >> 7:09 PM
 

I'm getting lunch at the Neighborhood Cafe around the corner from where I live. It's a small diner with free wi-fi. :)

Giles whines whenever I leave the apartment. He hasn't done that for a long time. I guess he's really stressed out and stuff about being in a new place. He's probably also confused about why Rob isn't here with us. :( I just hope Giles doesn't make too much noise whining and barking. He did seem settled when I returned yesterday afternoon after leaving him alone for an hour.

      >> 12:22 PM
 


People smile at Giles when they walk by.


This is the busy intersection by the corner Starbucks.

      >> 8:17 AM
 

Um. It's like, cold here this morning? I didn't really bring many long- sleeved shirts.... Cold is good, thouh, with my non-a/c apt.

      >> 7:35 AM
 

Wednesday, August 16, 2006


The ride was a battle of wills.


The mailman stopped by while we were unloading the car.


We're home!

      >> 3:06 PM
 

We're here! I'm walking Giles around our new block. I am so happy!!

      >> 12:25 PM
 

MINI SODA!!!!!!!!!!

      >> 12:01 PM
 

Now some early Paula Cole. Will keep me from road ragin' but might make me want to run off the road and kill myself. lol

      >> 11:32 AM
 

Mellow Jack Johnson on the stereo, navigator Giles napping in the passenger seat, and Eau Claire exit on the right.

      >> 11:09 AM
 

Two more hours. Ugh. Road rage setting in. Must relax.

      >> 10:40 AM
 

*waves at blueblanket and secretkings* Passing by the Madison exit on I-90.

      >> 8:52 AM
 

Wisconsin welcomes me!

      >> 8:15 AM
 

These toll roads are sucky. Just west of Chi-town now. Giles was not a fan of the motel. Weird smells and noises. slept on leash.

      >> 7:57 AM
 

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Chicago traffic, ugh. Bumper sticker-covered minivan ahead. My favorite: TERRORISM IS A SYMPTOM NOT THE DISEASE.

      >> 10:24 PM
 

Lafayette. Not really sleepy. Will drive on...

      >> 8:46 PM
 

Hello, Indianapolis!

      >> 7:53 PM
 

Dinner break east of Bloomington. Walking around Menards parking lot.

      >> 6:11 PM
 

Louisville traffic. Meh.

      >> 4:39 PM
 

Somewhere in Kentucky. Ho hum.

      >> 2:29 PM
 

The toll collector just said she likes my co-pilot. :)

      >> 1:00 PM
 

Passing through Greensboro, NC. Giles wants to know, "Are we there yet?"

      >> 8:54 AM
 

Goodbye North Carolina, Hello Road Trip!

      >> 6:46 AM
 

Monday, August 14, 2006

Exhausted. Didn't sleep much/well last night with all the last minute packing. Just back from final good bye coffee with a good friend. (She brought me delicious mint chocolate cupcakes!) We were going to go for a walk with Giles as well but I am just too tired to move. I was going to try to clean and stuff before leaving tomorrow. But I might just sleep.....

      >> 4:47 PM
 


But what are we to do with all this empty space?


      >> 12:44 PM
 

Well, they're not the speediest of movers.... Two of them are on their cell phones periodically conducting other business. Ugh. I don't understand. Wouldn't they rather get the moving stuff over with and then take a break before taking the truck back to headquarters? (The actual driver isn't part of the crew here.) It's not like I'll be reporting back to someone about exactly when they finish.

Giles and I are hanging out now in the refuge of the cleared bedroom. All the stuff I'm taking with me is stashed in the closet here. I hope it fits in the car!

I'm also hungry. And I want lunch. But I don't really have food (or cooking utensils) here.

Blah.

      >> 11:36 AM
 

All I have to say is I'm so glad I don't have to lift this stuff. Giles did his evil growl and bark at the movers in the bedroom. :(

      >> 9:11 AM
 

The movers have been here for about forty-five minutes. They're making good headway into our piles of stuff. Giles is sequestered in his crate. He really wanted to say hello to the three people here but the woman in charge is not a dog person and wanted him far, far away.

Leaving. Town. Soon!

      >> 8:35 AM
 

Sunday, August 13, 2006


Giles declares us officially pooped.

      >> 2:47 PM
 


I scrawled this on the bar's bathroom wall.

A pleasant evening out front of Joe and Jo's, a local pub in downtown Durham, before going to see Creatures from the Pink Lagoon at the [North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival]. The movie wasn't great but it was somewhat entertaining. It would've been better with a bigger audience, I think. There were only about ten people there for the 10:45 showing. The movie was a spoof of 1960s low-budget horror movies (specifically zombie movies). It was also sort of a play on Boys in the Band. Gay zombies! I so expected more, though.

      >> 12:08 AM
 

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Ugh, the packing, it will be the death of us all!

We've been making a dent in the packing today. I don't think I'm the speediest packer (and a packrat to boot). This time around, though, I'm finding it possible to get rid of old things whereas just a couple years ago during the last move, I clung to every piece of clothing, scrap of paper, and other assorted objects I had ever come to possess. This time, I hold up a holey t-shirt, tell a brief story about it to Rob and Giles, and throw it in the discard pile. For example, I picked up a Daffy Duck t-shirt and explained to Rob that on the day I moved in at college, I was going up the stairs to my room carrying a box and wearing that shirt. And this woman stopped me and asked if I was Paul. She, the mother of the roommate I would live with for the next four years, recognized me from the t-shirt because I had noted in a message to all my future roommates earlier that summer that I was a fan of ducks and Daffy. (This roommate just moved to Minneapolis this summer, too.)

I've also been sorting out clothes I never wear but are still wearable to a donate pile. And I realized this time around, very sadly, that I can no longer fit into many of the pants I have. :( I swear I could still fit in them a couple years ago. Aging and expanding waistlines -- those will be the death of us all!

      >> 4:31 PM
 


Brunch at grandma's.


The squirrels outside her house are enormous.


She loves birds and other wildlife. She has multiple feeders filled with seeds, simple syrup, and other goodies in the yard out back.

      >> 11:00 AM
 

Friday, August 11, 2006

It's really going to happen soon. Driving home from my last day of work, I felt a pang of... something... realizing that I really was going to leave all this familiarity in a few days for new and uncertain territory (career, colleagues, home city, apartment, and all). I realized that I have lived in Durham for six years -- longer than any other place during my adult life. I'm ready to move on, but it's still not easy leaving behind the past.

I'm sitting in my darkened living room with a ginger-scented candle and James Blunt playing loudly over the speaker. I haven't listened to music by itself much recently -- it's always the background for some other task like driving, showering, or walking. And while it's wonderful to have music create a soundscape that butts up against a landscape through which I'm passing or indoor space in which I'm standing, it's something entirely magical to sit with eyes closed listening to music create stories, feelings, perspectives, and ideas in my head.

Giles just crawled up on the sofa and sprawled out next to me. :)

And yes, I'm avoiding packing. It's so hard!

      >> 8:15 PM
 

Thursday, August 10, 2006

So the Margaret Cho concert was fun. I'd forgotten how delightful it can be to be in a large auditorium packed with giddy, giggling gay men. Margaret Cho rocks for starting off her show talking about the terrorist plot scare du jour that has led to the banning of all liquids and gels from carry-on bags. She talked about how, in packing for her latest flight, she had to wonder about her hair care products. Since I have not a comedic bone in my body, I forget exactly how she wove together the terrorist plot, hair care, and mock outrage. But it was hilarious. And the best part of the concert is that I got a neat little epigraph from her for my comedy and accent bias law chapter: "I love Asian accents."

      >> 9:52 PM
 

Oh noes! [Poor doggies killed in China because of rabies scare.]

The reaction of groups and individuals, often through the Internet, also provides a striking illustration of the emergence of true public opinion in China, unmediated by the official press or censors.

This statement is odd with its simple connection of Internet with "true public opinion." I'm sure media studies people would have a field day with such a claim.

      >> 7:58 AM
 

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

[Oh noes! Don't eat the barf, doggy!]

      >> 1:40 PM
 

[Joe.My.God. video post.] Unbearably (groan) cute.

      >> 12:45 PM
 

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

The question I wake up to every morning: Why am I still here?

I printed out a copy of every chapter of the dissertation this morning. Despite all the pages I still need to write, this thing is starting to look like a manuscript in length. I'm pleasantly surprised by how long it is!

I haven't done much packing since I boxed up all my non-dissertation, non-teaching-this-fall books. I guess I should get going on that stuff. Moving time makes me hate being a packrat.

I'm compiling a spreadsheet of student organizations at work. It's amazing the range of groups on campus. In addition to the expected cultural groups, pre-professional organizations, fraternities and sororities, hobby clubs, and sports organizations, there are some officially-recognized groups that are surprising -- like a BBQ group and a pot law reform group!

      >> 10:46 AM
 

Monday, August 07, 2006

Yesterday's accomplishment: New tires for car.

Today's accomplishment: New mobile phone numbers (and "family share plan") for Rob and me.

[Dog park plans gain council OK.]

I really am itching to get out of here.

      >> 7:18 PM
 

Sunday, August 06, 2006

[I started punching the otter in the face.] Oh noes!

      >> 2:40 PM
 

[Politicians nickel-and-dime Target.] This argument makes me so sad. The logic underlying it is so resolutely about how corporations making profit is the True American Way™. And anything that might sit askew of that profit-making goal is "so dimwittedly Marxist, and therefore so unwise." Ugh. What's troubling to me that this logic is all about shutting down any claims that might give preference to other cogs in the economic wheel besides the big corporations. Plus, would raising the minimum wage of store employees really shift the corporations' bottom line more than, say, slashing head honcho salaries? And if Target were really so truly about feeding the poor (through offering cheap products), as the columnist asserts, wouldn't they just suck it up and really help poorer workers by giving them all a raise? Just the use of "nickel-and-dime" in the title is so egregiously smug that I want to cry.

      >> 9:09 AM
 

Saturday, August 05, 2006

My dog's breath smells hellacious.

[Zoo meerkats test negative for rabies]:

The girl had to work to get her hand inside the enclosure. Zoo officials said she must have crawled over a driftwood barrier, climbed up more than 3 feet of artificial rock and reached over 4 feet of Plexiglas to get her arm into the exhibit.

This news item update about the meerkat euthanization really points out how stupid the whole thing was. I don't know why parents think their kids should get away with everything. Not only should this girl have undergone the rabies shots but she should've been punished for messing with the meerkats in the first place! And the parents should be punished for letting their child run around to do stupid things. Grrr.

      >> 8:35 PM
 


Mmmm... Three chocolate mousse....

      >> 8:16 PM
 


Spazzy dog.

      >> 3:06 PM
 

It has cooled off noticeably here though it is still too warm and humid for my tastes. I'm just back from sitting out at the local coffeeshop with Giles where we had coffee and a snickerdoodle cookie while I read Barthes. There was another dog outside when we got there. Giles was pretty good, though, and didn't growl or bark at the dog until the dog was getting ready to leave. Then, Giles barked once.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm kind of excited to be working on my dissertation at the moment -- perhaps in contrast to the drudgery of my part-time receptionist job work. I think it's also because I've abandoned the difficulties of finishing up drafts of the body chapters and am now drafting the introduction in which I'm feeling less tied to the specific bodies of criticism (such as on a genre, cultural object, or within the field of Asian American studies) that each chapter addresses and am more broadly discussing criticism that attends to sound.


Giles thinks we should have stayed outside in the heat and run around like mad men. He's pouting on the bed next to sleeping Rob.

From the dog files: [Dog parks have fur flying in some communities].

      >> 11:34 AM
 

Friday, August 04, 2006

[Meerkats didn't have rabies.] This story makes me mad because some stupid kid tried to pet a zoo meerkat and got bitten, the zoo officials killed all the meerkats to test them for rabies. Grrrr.

On the brief bus trip to the park-and-ride after work today, there was this little Chinese boy who was so cute hanging out with his father. The bus was packed so he was standing in the aisle next to his father. And he had his head buried in a book from the library about dragons. At a particularly bumpy part of the ride, the boy fell over a man's legs stretched out behind him.

      >> 7:44 PM
 

This morning one of the people at Starbucks greeted me with, "I dreamt about your scones." It's a very sad thing; when I went in for my usual on Monday, there were no reduced fat lemon ginger scones in the case. I figured they had just run out since those are THE BEST SCONES EVER. But when I went back on Wednesday, there were still no lemon ginger scones, and my favorite coffee bar worker told me the person ordering pastries for that store had stopped stocking them. We were shocked and outraged. The workers told me maybe they could work out something where they stockpiled a bunch and just slipped me one every morning on the sly.

This morning I had to settle for a blueberry scone, which is smooshier than the delicious and perfectly-textured lemon ginger scone.

      >> 8:22 AM
 

Thursday, August 03, 2006


After work, a cupcake and coffee at [Amelia Cafe] with friends.

      >> 8:45 PM
 

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

I don't know the first thing about tech stuff or how those cables and modem things give the wonderful internets. But gosh darnit, I wish the tech people could explain to me why I have to call every couple weeks to have them fix the high-speed connection. The problem is our connection starts going in and out sometimes. And it gets worse and worse as the weeks go by. Unplugging the modem and then plugging it back in doesn't help. But when we call the tech people, they just drag us through the whole rigamarole of turning the computer off and back on, turning the modem off and back on. Finally today, after calling this same problem in yet again, I kept the tech guy on the line, through multiple lines of questioning about what might be wrong, before he finally said that what he does is a full reset for the modem because we have a digital phone modem that has a battery backup. He still didn't really explain why the phone modem would affect the high speed connection, but at least this was some explanation of what they did that seems to solve the problem. After all, on my end, I just do the same things I do on my own, but for some reason, turning things off and on only works when I do it on the phone with one of the tech people. I just want them to explain what is going on. At least this last person told me the next time we have connection problems to ask the tech person to do a full reset.

      >> 6:47 PM
 

In Inspector Gadget 2, Brain is played by a beagle. Therefore, Giles can certainly be Brain to my Penny and Rob's Inspector Gadget for Halloween. IG2 was horrendous, unfortunately. I caught bits of it on television this past weekend. Though I didn't see the first live action movie, I'm sure it had to have been better -- with Matthew Broderick, Rupert Everett, and Michelle Trachtenberg! I can't find a picture of the dog that played Brain, though IMDb says someone did the voice of Brain. (The sequel just has Brain doing cute beagle sounds.)

      >> 1:29 PM
 

[Missing pooch found after dognapping.] Oh noes! There are actually mean people who dognap????

      >> 10:28 AM
 

Hmmm. Since Apple Education is offering a free iPod Nano with a new computer purchase and there is a no tax days special coming up this week, I might just HAVE to get a shiny new MacBook. I need it in order to finish my dissertation, obviously....

[Dog Whisperer to Critics: My Technique Is "Instinctual."]

      >> 9:00 AM