I started this post the day before yesterday, and I could have sworn I saved a draft. But it’s not anywhere to be found. So, I’m starting over. That may be a good thing, because there was some bitter snark in the post, and it wasn’t very attractive. And as I get on in my degree, I’ve been getting more and more nervous about what I say on this blog and how it might be interpreted by the absurdly politically correct academics who may be interested in hiring me. (You’re getting your wish, Mom. I’m self-censoring!) I wish I could just write books and work for myself and then be able to say whatever I wanted to. But somehow, I doubt that is going to be an option. Unless I win the lottery or it turns out I have a billionaire relative who I don’t know about and s/he dies, leaving me a chunk-o-change.

But in the meantime, I need to finish this doctorate degree. The hoop-of-the-month is a qualifying paper — 35 or so pages of coherent prose on “medicine and experience.” This means I have to read an absurd number of texts and string together my thoughts on these texts so that my committee will be able to grill me on the texts (and theories therein) during my oral exam in December. I’m a wee bit behind, per usual.

(Really, more than a sudden gift of a few hundred million dollars, I’d really like the discipline to do what I really want to do, like get my work done on time, get to the gym four times a week, and get 50 pages of my novel and/or memoir written every two weeks. How does one get discipline? Please, if you know, tell me.)

So, in a bit of masochism that all of you sadists might enjoy, I’m going to post my reading list for this paper and cross off each text when I’m doing reading (and writing its entry in my annotated bibliography). Visit this page and see what I’ve read. It’ll be fun if you play along! And let me know if you have any suggestions or comments on the list. And by “you,” I mean the five people who still read this blog.

Here’s the list. It even has subheadings! Read the rest of this entry »

I think what is the most irritating part of all of this is that in another part of the city, gas is more than 20 cents a gallon cheaper. At the same chain. When are we going to be able to full our cars with compost, like in “Back to the Future”? Can’t they get on that a little more quickly?

Beyond a few Twitters about Hillary Clinton’s increasingly strange off-hand comments during the final weeks of the primary season, I haven’t written a full rant about her in ages. I don’t think I even wrote one on this blog, though I did post some angry stuff on Facebook, which led to a spanking by a friend who voted for Hillary for perfectly good reasons. I have a lot of respect for many of her supporters, as long as they supported her for real reasons, not things like “Yay! A Clinton!” or “Obama is a lying liar who lies!” (Similarly, I find it hard to fault someone who is voting for McCain because he’s pro-life and likes to bomb things. If you’re for that stuff, then he is your guy. But if you’re voting for him because you think he’ll fix the government or has any answers to such things as global warming, energy policy, or the economy, then I may tell you that you need to get your head examined.) And I teared up while listening to her concession speech on Saturday, because it was brilliantly written, it was historically aware, and it showed that Hillary understands that it is vastly more important to keep McCain out of office than it is to fight about whether or not the Soviet-like primary election in Michigan was valid. (By the way, it wasn’t. If you are the only person on a ballot, it’s not democratic, and thus the vote shouldn’t count. To claim otherwise is utterly disingenuous.) Honestly, until I fell for Barack Obama in December, I was a full-on Hillary supporter. I only developed a, um, distaste for her as she and Bill became cynical, take-no-prisoners campaigners after her loss in Iowa. The race-baiting in South Carolina was the last straw for me. Also, she had a lot of trouble saying the word “gay” for a long time. And she kept saying that McCain would be a better president than Obama after it was clear that Obama would be the nominee — that’s just nutty strategy. But, whatever, it’s over now. Right? Wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

Via GoodAsYou.

Michelle Obama has some issues with “Whitey,” and that, my friend, is a problem for me. Since I’m a honky. What to do now?

Via Andrew Sullivan, among others. For more info, there’s this.