Old Lady Syndrome: blathering whenever I want about whatever

Dear Landlord With the Beige Jeep

2009-10-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

You may have recently noticed, when backing into the middle parking space in front of our house, that you stopped. You probably thought this was due to your brakes, or hitting the curb, or some other such reasonable and responsible explanation.

Alas, no. In this instance you stopped because my car's pesky license plate jammed itself onto your trailer hitch. The rest of your SUV managed to avoid touching the top of my hood by mere millimeters, while you remained a casual 2 feet from the car in front of you. I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation for your careless parking job. Perhaps you were rushing inside to fix the problems in our apartment, like the busted doors or the backed-up sink or your child's tantrums (though I haven't seen the results yet...). Whatever the reason, please avoid parking so poorly in the future. It would really be great.

Sincerely,
The blue Civic with the square-dented license plate, owned by your patient tenant downstairs

On living beneath one's landlords

2009-09-21T14:15:00.001-07:00

My room is probably the quietest in our apartment, being completely isolated from everything else and its walls being filled with sand, but it also tends to amplify the noises I can hear: those through the sandless door and above my head. Mostly generated by the landlords' 9-year-old daughter, The Child.

I have learned her routine so thoroughly that I only half-wake at 7:15 every morning when she begins clomping around and bouncing a ball. The only exception being The Child's thankfully less routine tantrums, which involve a great deal of door-slamming, stomping, screaming, and the occasional throwing of things. I am not a light sleeper (I slept through earthquakes and a massive oak tree falling in our front yard as a child) so it's a little jarring to wake up regularly to outside forces that aren't, you know, natural disasters. Which is probably why the dreams I've been having lately are about The Child, including one in which she falls through the ceiling and this morning's where she enters my room and wants to play.

Weird!

Negative Nancy

2009-06-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

I feel like I should start blogging again, but I'm afraid that little I have to say these days would be positive, and I just feel like a broken record complaining about the same things.

Let's give it a shot.

The things I contemplate hourly:
-A 3BR apartment does NOT include "2 bedrooms and a partitioned living room." That's a 2BR with a partitioned living room.
-Why can't I pack until I get an apartment, and why can't I get an apartment until I get a job, and why can't I even get a job where my college degree is merely "preferred"?
-If you're merging in traffic, you still have to use a turn signal. It's like asking if I'm using the empty chair at my cafe table. I know you want it, but I'm less likely to let you have it if you don't ask.

...yeah, maybe I should stay on sabbatical until I have a regular income.

So done, I don't even feel like posting.

2009-05-22T18:26:00.001-07:00

So there.

The cruel and bittersweet truth

2009-05-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to graduate in a couple hours, but I still have two large papers due tomorrow that I have barely started. LAME.

too brain dead for title or grammar

2009-05-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

I wonder if the reason we call it "senioritis" is because there is a point in finals week during which you become physically incapable of re-memorizing facts, and it becomes worse to the point where you can barely bring yourself to care about re-memorizing facts. Maybe it appropriately bears the "itis" suffix, meaning "inflammation," as some indication of brain sufficiently swollen to the skull's capacity. And yet none of this pondering is really getting to the crux of the matter, which is, I am 7 days away from never having to experience this again and why does 7 days feel like centuries?

I apologize to any friends, family or acquaintances I will encounter this week. Most of my normal brain functions are currently muffled under a haze of regression lines, normal curve approximations, and expected values (for sum AND percents!). It doesn't help that I currently harbor enough enmity toward my Statistics book that selling it doesn't sound half as much fun as watching it burn.

Senioritis for overachievers

2009-04-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

Over my academic career, from kindergarten to the present, I would not be exaggerating to admit to intentionally skipping fewer than 10 classes. Ever. Counting illnesses or field trips, that number goes up only as high as 20. And if I had my druthers, those numbers would be lower, but I am really adamant about missing class only when I absolutely have something more important to do. Like jury duty. Ha.

I think this places me in a special category of Nerd, but at the same time, having opted for a 21-unit final semester, I'm sort of tired. I have 20 days until graduation, by which time I will have written 20 pages worth of final exams, memorized 20 chapters of statistics and applied for 20 jobs (maybe).

I know I'll buckle down and do it, most likely as close to my deadlines as possible, but every single thing I do feels like such a chore.

In my first palpable symptom of senioritis, though, I've been late a couple of times to the class I'm auditing because I wanted a bagel on the way. Also, I don't think it's possible for me to stay up all night anymore. Apathy is better than Ambien.

Jury Duty

2009-04-27T16:50:00.001-07:00

It's one thing to be stuck in a room, unpaid, with other unpaid and unpleasant people, none of whom want to be there except the unemployed person trying to feel useful.

It's wholly another thing to wait in the security line outside in the frigid morning breeze for 20 minutes for the opportunity to wait another two hours in a plastic folding chair for your name to be called to go on a break for another two hours, only to return after wandering the streets seeking WiFi to discover the court has postponed our call for another three hours (without telling us or giving us another break), at which point the court releases us because the defendant ultimately decided to settle.

Did I mention I probably would have been excused anyway, given that my parents would likely disinherit me if I served on a jury instead of graduating?

I am so glad the justice system is coordinated enough to waste everybody's time equally. No wonder prisons are overcrowded. If I had been put on a jury after all that, I'd call the defendant guilty, too.

91 days

2009-02-19T01:03:00.001-08:00

Every day of my calendar has a tiny speck of pencil in the corner telling me how many days there are until graduation. I was so excited about having added myself to the degree list this semester that I immediately sat down and counted all of the days, which simultaneously made the end seem closer and farther away.

Right now, and probably until at least spring break, 91 days feels like an eternity of pushing boulders uphill. Not terribly difficult intellectually, but definitely requiring a good deal of effort. I declared to everyone who cared a while ago that I would never take 19 units again, and here I am with 21 (formerly 25, but then senioritis hit). It kind of sucks.

And in case anyone was wondering, I don't advise starting and completing a second major in two semesters unless you have absolutely nothing else to do with your time.

All of this is just me procrastinating reading Judith Butler, because I sincerely believe she is part of the reason I closed the rhetoric chapter of my education so quickly and ended up taking many many units and eating pasta more often than I could have dreamed. I guess it all comes full circle.

To the drunk who ruined my nose last night

2009-02-16T21:16:00.001-08:00

I am so sorry that your efforts to charm me in front of my friends-- which wouldn't have worked anyway, Don Juan-- so utterly failed when your elbow solidly planted itself into my nose, and that the drink you bought me afterward, which my aforementioned friends had to persuade you to buy, utterly failed to prevent the dull but constant pain my nose has suffered the entire next day.

Or maybe it was picking me up and spinning me afterward, like if I was an infant and sufficiently distracted I would forget you had just hit me in the face. Or maybe it was fifteen minutes later, when you came back to our table and tried to make amends by kissing my nose. HARD. Which almost made it bleed again. Your efforts in this respect made some of my more testosterone-laden friends almost hit you in the face, and it took all of my remaining patience not to let them.

I can't smell anything right now, nor can I properly sip from a straw, and if you damaged my nose permanently I will totally bring those friends and find you in your beer-addled corner of Beckett's to return the favor.

UPDATE:
Three days later, I still can't smell (save particularly putrid perfumes), but now the pain has subsided to the type of invisible bruising where I grow complacent and itch my nose, only to relive the pain all over again. I should be lucky I don't look awful, but who knew the tip of your nose touches so many things on a daily basis? This is living Heidegger's equipmentality! I am such a dork.

Women have totally ruined Valentine's Day

2009-02-13T15:58:00.000-08:00

I don't celebrate Valentine's Day with any more vigor than I did when I was seven, which is to say, I still (approximately every other year) buy the Valentine's cards that seven-year-olds give to their classmates because their teachers made them.

Now, I don't mind friends and family giving each other Valentine's candy or cards, because there are no politics involved. It's just a nice thing to do and a convenient excuse to do it, and yeah it's commercialized and pink but who cares if there's Sees bordeaux bars or cherry Lifesavers involved? (Incidentally, those are my two favorite candies and the ones my mother has so kindly provided for many of my childhood Valentine's Days of yore)

But why, oh why, does it make seeing people--romantically or not--complicated? I don't want to ask someone for coffee or a drink before or after work tomorrow night (like any Saturday night), only to discover that they think this means something important, that they are My Valentine.

Here are my Valentine's Day plans: To see a basketball game with my dad, and then go to work. And that sounds awesome. I am totally stoked to sleep in and get a hot dog or whatever stadium fare basketball games offer. Not to mention, because it's a Cal-Stanford game, I can't wear red. So there.

I blame women for feeling obligated to even think about it. I recently began more actively swimming in the dating pool, so to speak, and it doesn't surprise me that I have no prospective dates for the weekend. Not that I have time for them, mind you, but suddenly people I've been speaking to have fallen off the face of the planet, probably because they think I am one of those people who will think that it means something more than usual to get a drink after work on February 14.

That this type of person is what a straight single man probably thinks of women (me included) is unfortunate and annoying. This entire discourse, of thinking something means something because of this stupid Hallmark holiday, is preposterous. Further, it causes my frustration with all things Valentine's to put me in a category of anti-romantics, which I wouldn't necessarily consider myself.

Why are women to blame? Because in all things related to love, we are most often the ones attributed to totally irrational behavior and overthinking, which is precisely what Valentine's Day has become: a totally irrational and overthought "holiday."

Boo.

New year, new post

2009-01-03T22:53:00.000-08:00

Obviously I've given up on this blogging thing, and I worry that the waning of this phase in life means that I am the kind of person who perpetually waxes and wanes through various phases and fads. This was true as a child but I had always felt like I would grow up someday and, you know, find and become committed to my true passion. Not that blogging was destined to be, like, my true passion or anything, but I would hope that through all of these phases the light at the end of the tunnel would be there

I also worry that this means I will wax and wane through career choices, and I'm not sure whether these recent reflections say more about my anxieties about life in general or if they actually reflect some kind of truth about my future.

In any case, 2009 will be an exciting year for many reasons. The two most important ones: I will become an aunt AND a college graduate. I've decided to stay in the Bay Area for at least another year's lease and see where that takes me. And even though it sickens me to think about this right now, I remain open to the possibility that I will become so bored with life that law or grad school will become suddenly appealing next fall, in which case I'll take the necessary tests and send off applications and such.

Now, I know that "law or grad school" is like deciding between buying a duplex in Rockridge or a penthouse in San Francisco--equally expensive but totally different-- but I truly have not given it any thought beyond the conceptual ideas. I do not wish to become a lawyer in the long term, but could envision myself as, say, a judge or legal secretary or law professor or something. I have no idea what I would study in grad school; that's just if I decide I hate law school but still want to dick around without a real job.

What is wrong with Nebraska?

2008-11-13T15:24:00.000-08:00

The headlines in the Associated Press read "Neb. parents rush to leave kids before law changes." The sad part is, the headline actually means that parents from Nebraska and states within driving distance are abandoning children, uh, with abandon, in efforts to abuse a loophole in the state's safe haven policies. The AP followed up when Nebraska legislators closed the loophole with a 30-day age maximum for drop-offs, but how did someone in the legislature not notice the loophole in the first place? Especially if people stupid enough to abandon their teenaged children were smart enough to notice the loophole. One would hope the state government were smarter than that.

The law also didn't say that abandoned kids could only be residents of Nebraska, and so a handful of parents actually carted their kids from other states to get rid of their pesky children. Can you imagine how awkward the car ride from, like, Iowa must have been? Does a parent have to drug the kid to get them to willingly be carted to be abandoned? Is there a Chuck-E-Cheese near the hospital to entice them, or what?

Sheesh. I do not want to go to their house for Thanksgiving. Speaking of which, I cannot wait for Thanksgiving.

On, you know, voting.

2008-11-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

An audibly elderly Yes on 8 phone bank caller apologized today to my roommate for her views after he mentioned his homosexuality. Why she apologized is beyond us-- if you put forth the effort to volunteer your time calling in support of a particular proposition, why apologize to someone directly targeted in that proposition? For that matter, who did this woman think she was calling-- like-minded individuals for a cup of tea?

I can't imagine how a conversation between me and a Prop 8 supporter would go, not because I am avidly against it, but because of what it means to even put Prop 8 on the ballot.

But I don't need to climb on a soapbox about Prop 8, especially not while living in a liberal bubble writing on a blog likely read by reasonable people who may not believe in gay marriage but who believe it shouldn't be constitutionally forbidden, either.

But in the spirit of standing up for my beliefs and not apologizing for them, I've decided to list my decisions for the state-wide propositions. It's also convenient since I will probably forget how I voted in this election after tomorrow morning, owing in part to the vast extent of California propositions and even vaster extent of Alameda County ballot measures.

So here we go. My unsolicited proposition choices for the 2008 general election:

1A: Yes
2: No
3: Yes
4: No
5: Yes
6: No
7: No
8: No
9: No
10: No
11: No
12: Yes

And some explication:
1A: Folks tell me 1A is expensive and won't do anything in any reasonable time period, and while that's probably accurate, 1A gets the ball rolling for something that our kids can pay for later. We know that public transportation in this large state is unnecessarily absent. Something like 1A was on the ballot last election and failed probably because of NIMBY impulses against increased train traffic in towns quieted by the slower pace of freight trains. That's a lame reason to vote against a lot of things, among them public transportation and the UC's sports facility construction at Memorial Stadium (where the Panoramic Way residents supported the Tree People merely because they didn't want construction noise).

2: The eggs I eat are already pretty happy and free range and kinda local and stuff. Those are probably better-selling anyway. That aside, if it's an issue about animal cruelty in our food animals, making California a safe haven for our chickens won't solve the problem; it only moves it to other states or countries where standards are lower and costs of transport and demand are higher. A parallel: Maquiladoras in Mexico were/are an easy way for American companies to avoid accountability for environmental impact and gain cheap and abusable labor-- does that make it any more ethical to say that environmental regulations and labor laws have improved the quality of life for those in America whose jobs were lost? (Also, the whole point of veal is that the calves can't move around, whether or not one believes they should have the right to.)

3: I don't really care, but it makes me feel like a better person to support children's hospitals. I'm sure I could find something terribly wrong with the written proposition, but I'm too tired to bother.

4: No question.

5: It's nice to see something.

6: Eh. Seems a bit much.

7: Researchers barely know what "renewable" energy even means, and the government shouldn't be forcing utilities to follow certain timelines dependent upon uncertain technological advances.

8: Shouldn't even be on the ballot; government shouldn't even be involved in the issue.

9: Potential costs outweigh potential benefits.

10: Why is the government/us in the long run helping us buy a Prius?

11: Ugh. More bureaucracy. No, thanks.

12: Veterans have seriously gotten the shaft lately. "Farms" or "home aid" sort of sticks out as an awkward moment, but maybe those are refreshing changes from the battlefields?

Clap your hands!

2008-10-31T00:33:00.000-07:00

The BBC says many Thai people are lately really tired of clapping their hands. So tired (or lazy) that plastic hand clappers are a reasonable and suddenly fashionable substitute for actually clapping one's hands.

Are they attending a lot of performing arts events or something?

BREAKING: rampant use of ironic headlines renders them less funny

2008-10-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

An unsolicited style note from a neurotic Strunk & White reader:

Not that I didn't use this witty strategy myself back in ye olde Clogging days, but seeing as the Clog failed to publicly archive any posts from the time I was actually working, I can't prove the infraction upon its use I've observed in recent weeks. (And, more importantly, neither can they.)

I'm talking about headlines. Breaking! Important! Ironically important BREAKING NEWS that isn't really breaking but is sort of funny anyway because the subject of the article is painfully and hilariously so obvious that the article itself would clearly be less funny if the painfully and hilariously obvious nature of the article wasn't alluded to in the headline.

Only under the aforementioned circumstances should such a headline be invoked, and only sparingly for optimal effect.

The judging the former is up to the reader, but the latter? Twice in one week is sort of pushing it.

Choking on the sweet, sweet air of freedom

2008-10-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

I already have spring fever, and nothing confirmed this more than my sheer glee while registering for classes (classes I'm not terribly interested in taking) for the last time in my undergraduate career. It's not that I'm particularly looking forward to moving on or finding a job or paying my loans, so much as I'm just really, really over the whole "school" thing.

In other news, I still have no idea what to do with my life, and I have a paper due tomorrow. As typifies my behavior as a quasi-jaded senior, I have neither finished the reading nor started writing.

A mid-midterm evening

2008-10-14T00:25:00.000-07:00

My first night without rehearsal or performances since September 2, and I'm spending it writing a paper for the director of the play I'm about to finish this weekend.

I don't know what's different-- maybe senioritis, maybe complacency, or maybe being just plain tired-- but I am so much less motivated to write this darned thing than any class I've been in while in college.

Frankly, I'm cool as a cucumber about having finished less than 2 pages in the nine hours before it's due. I know I should feel the pressure soon, the pressure that kicks me into a writing frenzy and cranks out 7 pages in a matter of hours. Deep down I know I want to do a good job, but just above that deep down feeling is a general wash of apathy.

Why can't the occupants of the offices of Eshleman Hall spell its name?

2008-09-25T16:46:00.001-07:00

There's a big sign above the main door!

And in the most recent email from the ASUC, which I deleted because I was so irritated with their abysmal attention to detail, they spelled 'Eshleman' as 'Escheleman' or some equally annoying bastardization of the name.

The same goes for the return address on every paycheck I ever got from the Daily Californian.

The University, interestingly enough, does not misspell the name of its buildings (in an e-letter sent to the students about a week after the ASUC's), even buildings like Eshleman Hall which are occupied by allegedly independent student organizations like the ASUC and Daily Cal.

I'm nonplussed by the ASUC busily scheming to make absolutely no meaningful use whatsoever of my fees, nor the conceptual misgivings of its constitution (as highlighted by Beetle, in his day). But misspelling the name of your office building? Totally lame.

At least the marketing firm from Woodland Hills, CA--the people credited at the bottom right corner of the ASUC website--can spell it. Though I wonder how they know if they aren't expected to be in the building ALL THE TIME.

...Dude. Get a life?

2008-09-19T01:20:00.000-07:00

So... Facebook is a little less intuitive, and a little less pretty. Admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of the new Facebook design. But I'm not vehemently opposed to it, especially now that I've left the phase in my life where facebooking my roommate to meet for dinner was more effective than a phone call.

But I've received several invites to many large groups against the change, and on a casual perusal of the opposition, I came across an excerpt of a stunning revelation by Cherri Borg, from a Canadian network:

Maybe if each one of us sends them a postcard or a fax or an empty envelope with 4 simple words on the front : OLD FACEBOOK BACK PLEASE..... maybe then they'll get the hint that over 2 million people are pissed right off.......

This will disturb their mail process and hopefully finally get their attention. Daily operations are a delicate balance..... can you imagine how irritating it will be to discover hundreds or thousands of these in the mailbox with their daily bills and on their fax machine every morning?? Kinda like how irritating it is to those of us who are spending way too much time navigating over this cluttered mess.

I'm serious about this and I hope you are too. Right now they think we will just accept it and carry on regardless of joining groups and signing petitions. Let's stop with the threads that the powers that be never read and the schemes to collect 1 penny from every user to sue with. Let's get in their faces instead. I for one do not want to lose my beloved facebook but I fear that their actions will indeed cause the end of this site.

A few things about this (portion of) commentary concern me. For one, she assumes that people care enough about Facebook to spend money on envelopes-- not to mention stamps. That's what email is for, right? For a free service, it seems she's spending a lot to keep it the way she likes it. Secondly, and I'm not sure I understand her English, she mentions there's some scheme about gathering pennies to sue with.

Sue? You have to be kidding. On what grounds would anyone (even 2 million anyones) sue a business for the right to do what they want with their (virtual) property. Oh, right.

The very fact that this Cherri woman is contemplating the various ways to best "reach" Zuckerberg and his evil cohorts is vaguely disturbing. But I guess it's probably more disturbing that the commenters following for the most part support her.

Tree people are STILL HERE.

2008-09-09T12:09:00.001-07:00

As if the saga couldn't have ended, like, last year, or even the year before that. It took millions of dollars and wasted hours on journalistic coverage to come to the same conclusion the university did more than the 21 months ago that tree sitters first invaded.

And now I have to walk to school or home hearing the constant hum of helicopters and buzz of street chatter about the Lone Tree and how sad it is that it's finally ending.

Come on.

These people aren't even university students, but they've made a fool of Berkeleyans in the eyes of people all over the place. As a friend of mine pointed out, mention of our school prompts "oh, with the tree people?" instead of "oh, with the atomic bomb?" or "oh, with the free speech movement?" Just to name a couple potentially more notable things.

How pathetic.

Missing Rice student found in... Dwinelle?

2008-08-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

I always thought Dwinelle was a black hole, and now that Rice University student Matthew Wilson was found there recently, my suspicions are confirmed.

Sure, his car may have been found on Allston Way in June, but by that point he had probably already been sucked into the depths of Dwinelle, never to be seen again until 8 months later.

I would not be surprised if he had lived there the entire eight months he was missing. Who would notice? And even if some lost freshman did recognize him and care (unlikely), how would the finder lead the police to him? Telekinesis?

Cleaning up

2008-08-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed I updated the blogroll to reflect Websites that actually exist or get updated on a moderately regular basis, and also to reflect the sites I actually read (for the most part). About the time I slowed down on the blogging, I also slowed down on reading blogs. Perhaps there's a correlation, but I still haven't caught up to all of my old bookmarks yet.

I also changed the title and description again, because (big surprise) I'm procrastinating and the previous one was stupid. Not that this is much of an improvement, but I'm more satisfied with it at the moment.

Now I'm off to scrub the stove and clean the bathroom and the other two square feet of apartment, because there's no better way to procrastinate than to please one's roommate with one's cleanliness.

And I didn't graduate early because....?

2008-08-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

I know this is totally unprofessional of me, and I promise it won't happen again, but anonymously vent I will. This on-campus job I applied for* in mid-July asked for a phone interview yesterday, to which I happily agreed because it's a job I would enjoy doing and I think I could do it pretty well.

I was so excited about it that I told the good people who offered me a different, lower-paying job at a café this morning that I'd have to wait and see about this other job first. Then the campus job (that took forever even to give me an interview) tells me they can't hire me because I'm a student.

Isn't that illegal?

I don't have the time, energy or willingness to devote to fighting it, but I'm annoyed that a job I would have done just as competently as an outside contractor (and for lower pay because it's a university) isn't available to me on grounds synonymous with "my paycheck would go right back to the university."

*by "applied for," I mean did about $50 of sample work for free, explained why and how I did the work in the cover letter, and researched relevant competitors. At least now I have an unpublished writing sample? Though I will be supremely peeved if they use the work anyway.

UPDATE: I've done some Googling, and it appears that my position as a student would not preclude me from entering an independent contract with the university, but my current employment with the university (in a different capacity) would.

Yes, the white girl said it.

2008-08-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, look. I don't want to make waves or anything, but I am glad Prop 209 was passed in California and I'm sticking to it.

I harbor no enmity against the family I've left over at the Clog, but I will heartily disagree with the sentiments expressed in this post.

I don't disagree that minorities have had problems because they're minorities, and some of those problems have contributed to making it more difficult to afford college. But whether or not minorities are more prone to these problems than people of other races, a person's racial status shouldn't factor into his or her merit as a student.

Does this make me an evil conservative? I don't know. But as someone who has been economically disadvantaged as a result of her race-- yes, the white girl said it-- I am tired of people assuming that race, socioeconomic status, and opportunity are necessarily correlative.

Maybe I'm missing something besides eligibility for 85% of available scholarships.