New Levee Article!

My latest article from the April issue of (satirical newspaper) The New Orleans Levee, "Popular Girl Goes Berserk on Losers," is live at nolevee.com.

I also would have you know that my knowledge of deep nerd/geek culture seems to be stuck in 1999, back when I was a graduating senior and a years-long member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Gaming Society at my high school. I saw wolf shirts and scrunchies aplenty. (I myself had a Nine Inch Nails shirt I wore at least once a week--no wolves standing on snowy hills for me!)

Things That Brought Me Delight This Week

The end of the semester is very hectic, which is why I haven't been posting much lately. Enough of that! I've discovered a few things lately that you'll likely enjoy if you have a love of borderline offensive jokes, outrageously clever language, and overpriced hippie cereal.

First, the borderline offensive to really offensive jokes! Depraved Jewish Mom (on Twitter) is hilarious...the kind of hilarious you're not sure you're supposed to laugh at, sometimes. The kind of hilarious you share over brunch. The kind of hilarious you think about hours after you first read her tweets. She plays on the stereotype of the Jewish mom and twists it to make the reader really think about the roots of the stereotype. The humor is smart and dark, touching on women's self-esteem and weight issues and kind of pulling the curtain back. Someone give her a book deal, please!

The Australian Phryne Fisher books are amusing, sexy mysteries with a bit of an educational bent. I love Kerry Greenwood's use of language and indirect British-inflected humor here. (Unlike actual British humor, I get it a. I think it's easier to read than to listen to. They speak so quickly!)

I had a weird incident at the Whole Foods the other day. I was looking for a particular brand of cereal I like and I couldn't find it. An employee asked me if I needed help and helped me to find my cereal as I extolled its virtues. He then turned to me and said, "If you like this cereal, I know a cereal you'll love. Here. Try it," handing me a box of Alpen muesli. I'd never eaten muesli before; it looked like sawdust with raisins on the cover of the box. He told me to take the entire box as a sample, which was unexpected, but the store apparently allows that. I was dubious about the cereal, but I tried it on the recommendation of the bearded fellow cereal enthusiast, and--hot dog!--that muesli is tasty. It also stays toothsome in the milk and it's easy to chew (for people with jaw issues), unlike granola. Alpen muesli is expensive and the box only contains seven servings, though, so it's not a good deal.

Have you discovered anything awesome lately? If so, tell me what it is in the comments and explain why it's awesome.

Thrifting Methodology

Yesterday, I went thrifting with a group of friends, some of whom are in town for Jazzfest. They decided to take a break from festing to explore the boutique consignment stores and the hidden-treasure Goodwills  all around town. Some of them said they never had any luck thrifting until yesterday. I shared my "how to have a successful, or at least efficient, thrift shopping trip." My method goes from more global concerns to the specifics (echoing my essay-grading methods...yeah, I'm applying pedagogy to shopping).

• Go to the stores nearest the more well-off neighborhoods.
• Use the internet to find them; also, check with your friends who thrift.
• Decide on categories of things you want to look for that day.
• This keeps you from being disorganized and from buying too much stuff. 
• I usually look for dresses and skirts, since those are the things I like to wear the most (and it is very hard to find nice plain non-button-down blouses, which I like to wear, in thrift stores).
• Stick with a certain color palate.
• For example, looking for "things that are orange or yellow" within a certain category will help limit you.
• Know your style.
• If you know the sort of thing you love and wear all the time, it becomes easier to pick it out in a sea of clothes.
• For example, I can spot an Ann Taylor or a Banana Republic skirt in a pile of Forever 21 castoffs; they have a certain aesthetic that appeals to me.
• Touch the clothes to make sure you would want to wear it and have a list of "I would nevers."
• You don't even have to try something on to know that it will feel agonizing against your skin. 
• Some of my "I would nevers" include polyester shirts from the 60s, 70s, or 90s (sweat!!!), "clubwear," anything with shoulder pads, items with too many gewgaws and doodads, and tailored clothes that really, truly need to be drycleaned (unlike silk and wool, which can be washed by hand).
• Don't be turned off by sizes.
• As Yentine at My Edit has said in her thrifting posts, sizing varies from brand to brand and from decade to decade, so try on things that look like they might fit in a range of sizes. 
• So, if you are generally a size 8, try on items in 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12; you'll have more options that way.
• Try it on.
• A lot of stores have no-return policies, so you want to make sure it fits and the zippers and buttons work...and you also want to make sure you can get in and out of it unassisted.
• Funny story: I got the zipper from a dress stuck on my underwear as I was pulling the dress on. It took some contorting to get free. I prayed the lock really did work on the door because I didn't want anyone busting in on that scene. (I bought the dress.)
• Be picky.
• There are so many stores containing so much merchandise out there; you can afford to be picky and only buy what you love.
• You don't want your closets to be bursting at the seams.
• The pleasure of thrifting is mostly in the finding and the evaluating; being picky allows you to do that longer.

I am very pleased with yesterday's trip. Not only did I find a dress, three skirts, and a shirt for myself, I found stuff for my friends that they loved: green cords and red pants for A., a delicate floral A-line skirt for V., and various paisley and purplish skirts for Debs. Knowing your friends' styles also makes for a successful group thrift trip.

Pictures to come! 

This weekend has been a glorious interlude in the midst of the end-of-semester grading frenzy, which I'll return to tomorrow, better dressed and relaxed.

Photo Booth: Jazzy

Every day is filled with hustle and (even better!) bustle. What's a girl on the go gonna do when all her fuddy-duddy workaday clothes have lost their razzle dazzle, their come-and-get-it, their get-up-and-go?

Polka dots and bows. That's what a gum-snapping, knee-rouging, lindy-hopping young filly should do.

Dress: Thrifted Liz Claiborne; Shoes: Naturalizer; Camisole: Forever 21

Time for almost jazz-hands!

Every day needs more zazz!

Fun Meets Frantic

It's crawfish season, y'all. It's also festival season here in New Orleans. The weather is warm, but not too hot--tonight, it's actually rather cold, due to a weird front--and it's sunny and breezy most of the time. Friends and tourists are coming into town to enjoy these things. There are lovebugs flitting about, making love as they fly through the air, getting all up in everyone's stuff as they get freaky. It's a time of rejuvenation.

It's also when big projects are due in academia-land.

When I was in school, I was always working on an annotated bibliography or on a research paper on postmodern blah blah theorycakes when everyone else was chowing down on seafood, spicy corn, and hot potatoes at the campus crawfish boil. I was staring red-eyed and hurty-handed at a computer screen as friends frolicked on the Fairgrounds, eating fried alligator and drinking tooth-achingly sweet strawberry lemonade.

Now that I'm on the other side of the academic fence, I'm...still writing stuff on deadline (or procrastinating on writing stuff), plus I'm working super hard on grading all that end-of-semester work. (I'm the sort of grader who writes paragraphs of comments, both in the margins and at the end of the text; by the time I'm done grading, I don't want to type anything for myself. I'm so spent.) I had a coughing cold for a week and a half. (That's my second bout of illness in one season!) I'm stressed out and I don't know why.  It's illogical. The grading will get done; I always get it done. There's something about the mood of the end of the spring semester that makes my jaw tight, though.

The night before last, I had a dream in PowerPoint. It was text-based and featured that page-turning animation. The font was Times New Roman.

I'm trying to chill out.

I went to my friend's lovely crawfish boil today and talked to all manner of people, from lawyers to OSHA specialists to engineers to DJs. It's fascinating to talk to people from all over the world who work in such disparate fields. It's also delightful to stand under a tent on a lush lawn and eat pounds of food, the lake breeze tickling the soft skin on the back of my knees, peppery juices running down my wrists.

I cleaned and did laundry. I bought groceries. I made lists. Order begets calm, right?

I read some of Freedom. I've been on this "reading books by middle-class white men who write about uptight middle-class white men who are 'troubled'" kick lately. (They make me indignant.) I still plan on discussing Super Sad True Love Story and The Marriage Plot here, but I want to give that discussion my full attention, and my attention outside of work is fragmented right now.

I exercised. I used the elliptical, lifted weights, and did core exercises (planks, boats, crunches, and so on). That just made me sweaty.

I've done all this, yet my face still hurts a little. I wish I could divest myself of this feeling that isn't even relevant, since I'm not a student anymore. Two of my favorite people ever are coming to visit me (and the city) this week; I'm hoping their cheerfulness and associated good times help me to shake this nasty anxiety.

About Plagiarism (and about my reviews, and specifically about my review of Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter)

Nothing stokes the fires of rage in a teacher's heart like plagiarism does. Plagiarism is lying wrapped in cheating dunked in a vat of stinking laziness.

It's an insult to a teacher--presenting ideas and words that aren't the student's own wastes the teacher's time and seems to say to the teacher, "I think you are so oblivious that you won't be able to tell the difference between my elementary writing and that of a doctoral candidate." It's also an insult to the student's intelligence. Finally, it hurts the person who wrote the original text.

Plagiarism is an all-around terrible thing. I think we can all agree on that.

We can also agree that it happens a lot. A lot. Rashes of plagiarism break out in classrooms all across the country near the end of the academic year. I see them. All teachers see them. It's disappointing and annoying. No teacher likes to assign failing grades; however, when a student turns in plagiarized work, it has to happen.

That being said, I'm noticing that my review of Kyoko Mori's Shizuko's Daughter has been getting hits daily over the past couple of weeks. This tells me that someone probably assigned this book to their students for an end-of-the-quarter book report and that some children don't want to bother reading the book (which is totally worth reading, mind you). As a writer, a teacher, a reader, and a former stellar student, this thought makes me sad. (Maybe students aren't plagiarizing my words and ideas, but the end of the semester is making me suspicious and cranky.)

Children. Students. Don't copy and paste someone else's work and represent it as your own. Take pride in your work and do it yourself. It'll make you a better writer and thinker in the long run, which is why you're going to school. You'll have to think critically on your own when you're a doctor, a lawyer, an electrician, an engineer, a computer scientist, a carpenter, a sociologist, an administrative assistant, or a teacher. Whatever you do with the rest of your life, you'll have to think for yourself. Start now. Don't be a cheater. Don't cheat yourself.

Cheaters are always found out in the end, anyway.

Photo Booth: Spring in My Step

The second the temperature heats up, I shove all my tights in a dresser drawer and revel in bare legs and skirts.

Shirt: JC Penney; Skirt: Old Navy; Shoes: Nurture

This skirt poofs and swishes around when I walk. It's got pockets. It has an elasticized waist. It's a skirt for the woman on the go...and by "woman on the go," I mean "teacher who enjoys snacking."

Early morning is my favorite time of day. The light is the prettiest then. It's filled with hope, with the promise of a good day ahead. (Twilight is the next best, except it's filled with the promise of bedtime reading and sleep, which I like even more than adventures sometimes.)

BONUS PHOTO! I'm doing the Charleston with my friend (who is very much about the privacy, so she's cropped out) here. The dress is thrifted.

I love wearing a dress to swing dance because when the fellas twirl me around, the skirt flies all everywhere and I feel fancy and old-fashioned. I've got a yellow-and-white polka-dotted number that's going to make its debut on the dance floor (and this blog) soon. I'm going to knock them out with my cherry-red lips and bright swirly sundress!

Notes from a Sickbed

• Glee suffers from several terminal cases of "singing face."
• There IS such a thing as a cough-sneeze and it hurts like the dickens.
• All the characters on Mad Men speak very quietly.
• If you watch Mad Men before taking a sweaty, cough-filled nap, you will most likely have a disturbing 1960s-themed dream.
• Why does Pete always say ridiculous things that take away his credibility? Things like, "Oh, I don't have a dog; I was going to get one for the office," and other things I can't remember because I was cough-sneezing at the time? Why, Pete? Also, your tennis shorts are hilarious.
• If you face away from the air conditioner during a nap, you will wake up with a hot face imprinted with pillow wrinkles.
• 1960s nightgowns were so much dressier than modern night shirts. 
• Nothing I eat or drink makes the cough-sneezing stop. Blergh.

Passover, Easter, and the Rituals of Spring

I love spring. Spring features some of my favorite things: warm, not scorching sunlight; cooling breezes; flowers; multiple academic breaks, and holidays that celebrate life and freedom.

When I was a child, my mother, stepfather, and I celebrated Easter in a not-very-religious way. My mother wasn't religious; I wasn't even baptized or christened. (I still haven't been; I have no religion.) My stepfather--and before him, my adoptive father--is Catholic, so I'd get dressed in a flowery Sunday dress and my mother would bedeck my hair with ribbons and go to church with him (and, sometimes, my mother, if she felt like it). Inevitably, I'd fall asleep with a mouthful of jellybeans, my head on a parent's lap.

When I was a teenager and my grandmother got (mildly) religious and started attending a Methodist church, I stayed awake by daydreaming about vampires and romance throughout the service.

Sometime late in high school, I managed to get out of going to church on Easter. I wanted to focus on the food (HAM) and family part afterward. Before my grandmother got sick, we gathered and ate in the dining room--with overflow cousins and kids in the kitchen and in the den--and took naps in various parts of the house. I loved the slipperiness of my stockinged feet in my Mary Janes, the crispness of my dress, the fluffiness of my hair freed from its customary pigtails.

I love those things still. I still dress fancy for Easter, even though I don't go to church.

My friend M. invites friends over to her house for Passover every year. She and her mother make all the food and set the table with bitter herbs, charoset, horseradish, all manner of other food, Manischewitz,  packets containing prayers, songs, and the story of Pesach, and all other necessary items. We go through the ritual every year, laughing together, getting full, getting tipsy, the youngest of us looking for the afikomen, getting sleepy. I love how happy and convivial everyone is at M.'s seder.

I also love how the seder follows a set pattern. Despite the general levity at her seder (because what do you expect from a bunch of theatre people and lit nerds?), there is a sense of seriousness about it all. I feel the most uplifted at M.'s seders than I ever did at church. Is it the people involved? Is it the ceremony? What is it?

I'm sad that I missed it this year. I missed all the holiday celebrations because I've been having a disgusting upper respiratory thing...because I fall ill the second I go on break. Next year, then. In the meantime, I'll celebrate spring on my own.

I Cannot Be Cool around a Celebrity

Let me preface my story by saying this: I've been around celebrities before and not acted like an ass. I've been in a room with Allen Toussaint (it was a group dinner we were both a part of); I was fine. I was in a crowd at a protest march and Anderson Cooper was in the same crowd; much as I adore that silver fox, I didn't shove people out of the way to fawn on him. Tonight was different.

My friend and I were leaving an eatery when I saw Wendell Pierce (of The Wire and Treme fame, New Orleans native, generally nice man from what I glean from the newspapers) sitting at a table with two other people. I broke away from my friend's side and went up to Pierce, tapping him on the arm. I smiled at everyone at the table and told him, "Hey, I'm a big fan." He nodded and murmured "Thanks." The exchange took fewer than thirty seconds. I then walked off with my friend.

She asked, "How do you know him?" She didn't recognize him.

I said, "He was on The Wire. And Treme! He's from here."

I immediately felt terrible for interrupting his quality time with his people and for touching him without an invitation. To be fair to myself, I usually tap people's arms to get their attention when I don't want to say their names out loud or draw attention to myself; however, I should not tap a celebrity's arm...the arm of someone I don't know. Also, I should not interrupt a celebrity's snack/coffee time. I'm so rude. The worst part is that I did all this without thinking! I couldn't help myself.

I clearly can't handle being in the vicinity of a celebrity I like, an actor whose work I enjoy. I'm glad he didn't chastise me for my behavior; it was within his right to do so. He's a quality guy.

BFH: Counting Calories Drives Me Crazy

I tried tracking my food and calorie intake for about one week a couple of Decembers ago. It drove me nuts! I haven't done it since.

My method of keeping track of my diet (not depriving-myself diet, but general daily food intake) is to make sure I've eaten certain amounts of certain kinds of food. Specifically, I aim for at least three servings of fruit and at least one of vegetables, although I frequently have two servings of vegetables because I eat one-cup portions of everything, and one-half cup is a serving of vegetables. I also aim to eat mostly, if not all, whole grains and some sort of lean protein item, which is usually beans, yogurt, cheese (not lean, but delicious!), or nuts. I don't like to eat meat very often.

I find prioritizing the fruits and vegetables helps my diet to be healthy and full of fiber and vitamins. I also drink at least one giant metal bottle of water while I'm at work, along with multiple glasses of water and mugs of tea at home; staying hydrated helps me to not mistake thirst for hunger. I'm drinking a glass of water right now, actually, while typing this and listening to the thundershower hitting the roof. (It's lovely.)

For an example of what I generally eat, I'll tell you what I ate today.

Breakfast: mug of English breakfast tea with soy milk and honey, one serving of oatmeal dressed with a dab of peanut butter and a sprinkling of cranberries, a banana, a few tamari almonds

Post-breakfast, pre-class snack: one of those individual-sized packs of raisins and another cup of tea

Lunch: chicken sandwich (sliced poached chicken, Creole mustard, and spinach on 12-grain bread), about 1.5 cups of red grapes

Mid-grading, mid-afternoon snack: a Snickers bar (terrible, but I heard crinkling paper outside my office and it made me want a candy bar real bad, and also, grading)

Dinner: one half of an everything bagel smeared with Neufchatel and topped with smoked salmon and capers, a pear, a few more tamari almonds

I should have eaten more vegetables today, but I didn't want any carrots or celery, and those are the only other "can be eaten raw" vegetables in my fridge right now. It's too hot for hot vegetables. For the most part, I eat balanced meals and whole foods, except for those snacky-snack urges. I exercise and eat reasonably-sized portions; I figure it'll all work itself out.

Smoothie Recipe! (Plus Other Stuff)

It's so hot in New Orleans already. This morning, I took a walk for about 45 minutes and got back to my building just in time to run into my cute neighbor on the stairs. While we chatted briefly, the sweat rolled down my face and my sides. (Why do I always run into this guy when I am sweaty and red-faced, have a pair of granny panties at the top of my laundry basket, or have spilled a copious amount of something on my bosom? My stairwell is like a repeating scene from Bridget Jones's Diary.)

After a heatstroke walk, or when you just don't want to heat up the kitchen at noon, a smoothie is the best thing to drink (after a glass of water, of course). Today, I made a strawberry-banana-carrot smoothie. It was sweet enough without honey or sugar and the carrots were barely detectable. I approve of this smoothie!

Sneakily Virtuous Strawberry-Banana-Carrot Smoothie

• 1 cup soy milk (I used a light soy milk...I think the only difference is it's less sweet than regular)
• 3 strawberries (frozen or fresh)
• 1/2 banana, chopped
• 1/2 cup of shredded carrots, or about 1 shredded carrot 

Blend it up! This makes about 1 1/2 cups, or about 12 ounces, of smoothie. (It fills my regular drinking glass, which is a beer glass from Crate and Barrel that they sold about two years ago.) Also, I recommend shredding a couple of carrots at a go and keeping some in a Tupperware so that you don't have to dirty the shredder as much, if you drink smoothies daily. Carrots keep in the fridge. Also, you could probably freeze shredded carrot and it would be okay.

I'm going to be getting more inventive with the smoothies in the near future because I'm getting braces in a month! I hear the first couple of weeks of braces-wearing is painful or uncomfortable, so I'm planning on making a lot of nutritionally-balanced smoothies for that time period.