Battle of the Subfields, Part II

"Why isn't Queen Elizabeth's husband a king? He's Prince Philip...."

"Because you can only have one king or queen. It's a monarchy. You know? Rule by one?"

(boring discussion where I refuse to accept that a happily married king and queen doesn't exist follows)

"Oooohhh...who knows that kind of stuff?"

"Every other political scientist in the world."

"Ouch."

My professional integrity has been laid broken on the floor.

That's Such a Chick Move

So last night was our first dinner party at our new apartment, where we pretended to be grown ups and have actual friends over for actual food that someone actually cooked with our actual pots and pans.

And the someone in question was Biker Boy. My culinary skills are quite limited and the whole idea of making a gluten-free, vegetarian meal with three or more food groups almost made my head spin around. So Biker Boy diligently slaved over a hot stove for the better part of an hour making a delicious risotto. And I diligently hovered at his back, asking if I could help. Finally, he told me to sit down until it was time to make the green beans. Okay, folks, green beans. The easiest thing to cook in the whole world. You boil some water, throw some butter in it, then throw the beans in for seven minutes. That's it. Let it not be said I didn't teach you anything today. So, basically, he was telling me to get out of his kitchen.

So I then decided that I desperately needed to clean the apartment. It had been cleaned pretty thoroughly when Biker Boy's sister and brother-in-law were here a couple of weekends ago, but I insisted that vacuuming the rug and Swiffering the floors had to be done before anyone showed up at the door.

But the bathroom!! There was no time to disinfect everything and scrub the sink, so instead I cleared off the counter (stupid shaving brush and razor!) and lit a scented candle. Biker Boy then yelled from the kitchen that he needed a stirring break (stirring risotto is hard work, dudes). I happily took over stirring duties (look, I'm helping!).

When he came back, all BB could say was, "did you light that candle instead of cleaning?" When I nodded, he said, "that's such a chick move."

Hee.

Seriously secret addiction

Okay, everyone knows about my Big Brother addiction. But the seriously secret addiction is The Hills. I only watch it when Biker Boy isn't around. And I turn the volume down way quiet so that my neighbors don't know how invested I am in the lives of Lauren, Heidi, and Audrina. It's embarrassing, but so true. (Although I came home this morning after dropping BB off at work and my downstairs neighbors were blasting Jesus Jones "Right Here, Right Now" and I was instantly transported back to 1990 - so maybe I shouldn't worry about my cool cred with them).

Anyway, Heidi's evil boyfriend reminds me of a guy I used to date, who lived in California and looked very similar to Spencer and acted similar to Spencer. And every time they show Spencer, I am shocked about how seriously she takes him. Stupid Spencer.

Oh, and yes. I have to watch it on the MTV website because we don't actually have a cable package that includes MTV. Only my computer and I know.

P.S. Okay, folks. I hate to admit it, but Big Brother has finally lost my interest. Basically they allow this giant asshole to threaten to rape, as well as to assault and harass women, and they (I purposefully left this pronoun unmodified - the houseguests? the producers? the CBS brass? I don't know who it should be) do nothing. So, I'm out. I don't care who wins. It seems like everyone involved is complicit in allowing this behavior to continue. Good ratings or not, it seems like we have to vote with our watching and I'm not going to continue watching.

The Hills it is!

The Battle of Subfields

"No one's emailed me to get into my class."

"It's because no one likes math. In a popularity contest, philosophy would win over math."

"What the fuck are you talking about? No one likes philosophy. You can't read that shit. Someone's in a cave...someone's blind...blah blah blah. What's that about?"

"Whatever. To teach math all you have to do is get a PhD in math and speak English. To teach philosophy you have to be good at it."

"We don't have PhDs!!"

"Or speak English?"

You Can't Spell America without Eric

So, for you Big Brother watchers out there (it's more than just me, right?), I have to say I am pretty upset about the way this season is moving along. First of all, I thought that violence and threatened violence were grounds for immediate expulsion from the game. And for that, Dick should have been eliminated a long time ago.

I usually just blow off reality television shows and the people on them because who are these people who audition for these shows? But, in this case, the fact that the Big Brother producers decided that an arrogant, homophobic, misogynistic hundred and fifty year old guy deserves airtime is disturbing. Did they think that would make for good television? I seriously stopped watching the show and simply read the recaps because his foul mouth and insults insult me.

I know there's been a lot of press about another person in the house, Amber, making anti-Semitic comments, but from what I can tell, it was one time and it wasn't over and over and over again in such a threatening manner. Dick deserves to not only be kicked out of the house, but he shouldn't be allowed to do any post-publicity and he should not get any money for anything past when he was aired on television. End of story.

And...and...America's player? Was there ever a worse idea? This poor guy can't play strategically in any way whatsoever because whatever "America" decides is what he has to do. And that...sucks. I mean, regardless of if you like Eric or not (and I honestly can't decide), he's doing the best he can with the bucketful of crap he's been handed.

As if you haven't heard enought about it!

I feel like this should be updated, but there’s so much to say, I can’t decide where to begin.

Biker Boy and I moved in together. It does strange things to my mind to see our stuff mingling. We made dinner last night and used my skillet and his wooden spoon, my table and his silverware. There are two toasters in the cupboard. Our bikes are on the same tension pole. It’s wonderful to know that every night we get to crawl into the same bed. It’s hard not to have all my pig stuff out. It’s nice to cook for two people. It’s hard to have to be quiet in the morning so I don’t wake up Biker Boy, but end up waking him up anyway. It’s nice to have access to his huge stores of music. It’s hard to find time to listen to my music (does anyone think that Biker Boy wants to listen to “Back to LA” or “Two Beds and a Coffee Machine”?). It’s great that I don’t have to drive across town daily. I miss the cats.

It’s really amazing. It’s so much easier. It’s better for our relationship. But I feel a small piece of my hard-won independence cracking away and it’s a painful crack. I don’t want it to sound like I’m unhappy – completely the opposite, as a matter of fact. But there are two sides to every story.

Last Wednesday evening, I was at work. I was teaching a class. It was me and five other women in the classroom. My phone was going insane, every time I glanced at it, I would see another missed call. I rolled my eyes because it would happen that everyone would call me on the one night a week I couldn’t answer my stupid phone. Around 6:30, a man burst in to the classroom. He was sweating profusely, wearing bike shorts and a bike helmet. I grinned, thinking he must be in the wrong classroom. One of my students said in the voice we all would if we saw this happening, “Dad?! What’s wrong?!” He nearly scooped her up in a hug so big I still get tears in my eyes when I think of it. “The bridge on 35 collapsed and I thought you might be on it.”

Without a word, I grabbed my phone and immediately tried to call my parents. I didn’t want them to hear about this and have any doubts about my safety. Unfortunately, that’s what everyone in the 612 area code was thinking and I couldn’t get my phone to work. I used one of my student’s phones and made a call to my sister and left a rather frantic message for her, assuming she would pass it on to my parents. I couldn’t get another phone call made, so I wandered back into the classroom. Everyone was staring at each other, not knowing what to do.

I couldn’t get my voicemail. I had missed about six calls and had three or four text messages, including one for Biker Boy. He, too, was at work. I text messaged him back, letting him know I was okay. And then I began to teach again. But, this was no ordinary class. Students kept leaving as their phones rang. I stopped the lesson and began a vocab quiz. I did what I could to keep some sort of normal atmosphere, but ended up letting them leave a few minutes early. I left once to answer my phone to let my best friend know I was okay. She’s eight months pregnant and I saw no reason to let this upset her.

I drove across the Mississippi on the Washington Avenue Bridge to pick Biker Boy up. Considering that one of the main arteries crossing the River was closed, the Washington Avenue Bridge was not congested at all. But once I got off at Cedar Avenue, the traffic was overwhelming and it took me almost ten minutes to drive the four blocks to the bike shop. I wasn’t scared, but even in that drive, I went over two bridges. The city is built with a river running through it. Bridges are a fact of life.

The city has been subdued since this has happened. Despite the constant presence of politicians, including our governor, senators, the president and the First Lady, the city has been quiet.

And here I am worried about how I can’t put up my pigs. Stupid. Really stupid.

Left Behind

I had typed a long thing about the bridge on I-35W collapsing yesterday. But words can't describe what's going on in the city, in my life, and the lives of everybody in the Metro area. I am fine. Biker Boy is fine. I'll write more when it's not so fresh and scary.