wickedqueen.net

Isn’t it cute how I totally thought I’d be writing my dissertation by now?

To be fair, I do have a paper I wrote this spring that I plan to transform into a chapter, and I also didn’t realize when I made the post linked above that I would be spending Spring 2007 as a not-TECHNICALLY-enrolled visiting student at MIT rather than taking classes for actual credit back in Madison. I’d still only have a semester of coursework left, except that our required methods course is ONLY offered in the spring. It’s not so bad; I’m going to be TA’ing anyway, so a light course load is a good thing. And I HAVE passed both my prelim exams, which is probably difficult to appreciate if you don’t have any of your own to take, but believe me, it’s a relief (even if no one can figure out how I managed to finish prelims and still have classes left to take). Finishing up my coursework this spring, I should still be able to get out by Spring 2010, which puts my time in the program at the average for students entering without an MS (seven years*).

I still want a dining room table. And possibly another cat,** because I have not done enough damage to my marital prospects with all this graduate education.

I’ll be back in Madison in a week.*** It’s a little weird to consider, having spent a year away in places with TRAINS and many sources of Indian food, but at least they got a Trader Joe’s, and I miss my friends there. I’m feeling more positive about it this week than I have pretty much since last September, which I suppose could be a last-ditch self-preservation trick of my subconscious, but you know, whatever, I’m willing to just think I’m content if necessary. I’m looking forward to the farmers’ market, and having my cats again (and a vet who I trust at the UW vet school), and half-price cocktails at the Opus (the Cha Cha Cha matches my hair, and as we have recently learned, is a vital source of antioxidants by virtue of containing berries in its alcohol). I’m looking forward to classes (yes, finishing them especially) and being a TA.

I’m also looking forward to buying a commuter-road bike. Any recommendations on where to buy a new bike in Madison? Preferred retailers, etc.? I sold my 10-year-old mountain bike on craigslist this weekend,**** so this week I am riding my absent housemate’s commuter-road bike. I feel as if I have gone from a comfortable, well-bred mule to a high-strung Arabian warhorse, but this is probably largely due to the bicycle frame being too big for me, even with the seat all the way down. I still don’t want another mountain bike; even the good ones are too heavy for my needs. I do, however, anticipate that I will probably have to paint the new bike myself if I want it to suit me.

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*Mention this figure to a student in the hard sciences and watch them recoil in horror, but I sort of like the symbolism of it–v. folkloric. About the length of time you’d expect to spend, say, in the thrall of an evil witch+ or asleep inside a pearl at the bottom of an ocean of dragon spit.

+Not to imply anything about my advisors. No! Really! Please let me graduate.

Note: It’s sort of buried, so I thought I’d just add an opening note that the point of this whole entry, aside from how cute I am in my cycling clothes, is that I made my first 30-mile ride yesterday. This is somewhat less impressive in light of my father’s latest exploits, but we all have to start somewhere.

I got this jersey half-off from Sierra Trading Post, so it was a reasonable price instead of the usual crazy high one. Another cyclist complimented me on it while I was out riding, and she didn’t even get the full effect of my hair.

As you can see, however, it also pretty much matches my helmet. Also oleander.

I love oleander.

Soon after I took this photo of the fancy houses from afar, I discovered I was hopelessly lost. I don’t know why I continue to be surprised every time this happens. Eventually I had to call my sister and give her my location so that she could figure out how the hell I was supposed to get to Arastradero.

I got so lost that I got to see some of these houses up close. Los Altos Hills is full of them.

Of course, it’s also full of hills. This one has been magically flattened by the act of photography, apparently; I assure you that it was nearly vertical. I actually attempted to bike up it and had to give up about a third of the way up–WALKING up this hill was punishing. Then it turned out to be a dead end. Thanks for signing that, City of Los Altos Hills.

I did eventually make it to Arastradero. Apparently this is what lies beyond my turn-off for work–some kind of mini-vineyard.

Once on Arastradero, I actually even figured out where I made that first wrong turn, so next weekend maybe I’ll actually be able to do the route my landlord recommended, instead of random riding around, getting lost, backtracking, etc. At any rate, I still made 30 miles, so I was pleased. The jersey, in addition to suiting my personal style, was indeed very lightweight and comfortable. I’ve ordered a couple more, plus real bike shorts,* from Sierra Trading Post, since they have a bunch of stuff on clearance and they’d sent me an additional 20% off coupon.

The hair in these photos is already out of date, however, as following my triumphant return I redid my dye job–I’m back to solid Atomic Pink, thanks to Cyn. I couldn’t find the vaseline when I was getting started, which led to an unintended second bike trip to Long’s for supplies (you need vaseline to minimize hairline staining), which I have to say I did not really enjoy–I’d sort of been planning to be totally done with biking for the day. I also picked up some bleach wipes and leave-on spray cleaner for the shower, though. Just trying to reduce my environmental impact.

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*In fact, I ordered two matching ensembles, one purple/rose, one orange/coral. Rest assured I will post photos.

Yesterday, even though I was tired** and the weather was so crappy that if it weren’t California in July I’d have thought it was going to rain, I finally rode my bike out to the Mountain View Kwik-E-Mart, which I’ve been meaning to see since the locations were announced.

I know, the lighting is bad. You let me down, California.

“Color booster” lets you make it pretty cartoon-ish, though.

I don’t really like Bart and Milhous on the front facade; it defeats the point of making a “real” Kwik-E-Mart, dammit.

They refused to do Duff Beer, so I bought a donut instead. $.85, or $8.50 for a dozen.

Carbs are important when you’re cycling.

Simpsons donuts go with my hair.

Sadly, I did not get a photo of any of the employees in their special Kwik-E-Mart shirts, because it was pretty busy and I didn’t want to bother them. Maybe I’ll go back before the movie opens–I don’t know how long they’re running the promotion.

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*Normally I prefer the spelling “doughnut,” but when it’s prefaced by “Official Simpsons Movie,” I figure it has to be of the “donut” variety.

**I have mystery insomnia this week, except I think it might not be so much “mystery” as “getting super stressed about where the hell I’m going to live in Madison.”

I haven’t been posting because I was in LA visiting my cousin, which was fun, especially when I a) got to go to the BEACH and swim in the OCEAN for the first time since I was like 8,* and b) wore my nerd shirt to an art opening and thus attracted the attention of probably the only other gamer-type in the crowd, who was lots of fun to talk to. Jade’s boyfriend Ian was amazed that nerds can home in on each other like that; I told him that wearing identifiable clothing helps.

I also got to hang out with Cyn, my doppelblogger. Originally we just referred to each other as doppelgangers, based on being grad students with (usually) the same color hair (Special Effects Atomic Pink), and sharing a host of other small traits (like being attracted to Ugly Sweater People**). Anyway, I’ve decided that we need a special word for internet doppelgangers, and although I realize not everyone online is a blogger, I feel like the term “doppelblogger” nicely captures the connotation while retaining the general sense of the source word.

To sum up, you can refer to anyone who eerily resembles you who you meet or learn about online as a “doppelblogger.” Pass it on.

It’s funny how similar our hair looks even now, when mine is actually a mix of Cherry Bomb, Blood Red, and Napalm, with nary a drop of Atomic Pink in the mix.*** Cyn was nice enough to bring me a bottle of it from her local Hot Topic, because I’ve been wanting to dye it back but there has been a SHORTAGE. Every online retailer that carries Special Effects has been out of that particular color for a MONTH–the guy at the Garment District in Cambridge told me last year that it’s like a two-person operation, so I suppose demand often outstrips supply. Anyway, I will probably be redoing mine in Atomic Pink this coming weekend, after I do that 30-mile bike ride I wanted to try. No point sweating pink all over myself IMMEDIATELY.

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*It is now somewhat more embarrassing when a strong wave knocks me out of my bikini top.

***On reflection, I think even our ROOTS are kind of the same color.

So yesterday I was sitting in my office searching hours of video, and I smelled this acrid smell, like something burning. I went out into the hall on my way to the bathroom and it was stronger; I spent a minute or two just kind of standing there in the hall sniffing the air like Natty Bumpo until I decided that it wasn’t like there was anything I could do and if there were a fire IN the building they’d evacuate us.

Five minutes later, a troop interns came excitedly down the hall, led by one of the full-time PARC people, who poked his head in my door and said, “Cabell! You want to come see the fire?”

So off we went to the top of the ridge next to PARC, from whence was visible, in fact, a fairly impressive fire:

Working its way towards Pagemill.

I look at the fire.

That orange stuff is actually fire retardant, dumped by that plane. It seemed to help.

It drew a pretty big crowd.

Some people settled in for the long haul.

My PARC colleague remarked, “Some people think earthquakes are the quintessential California natural disaster, but I think it’s grass fires.”

Thanks to Takashi for the photos.

Like this one, say:

(I’m pretty sure the one on the right is biologically female, anyway.)

But obviously not as fabulous. As my father remarks, she makes me look kind of pale by comparison.

This guy kind of looks like he raided my room.

And to think, Kristin once called ME a peacock.

I was actually trying to get a full-frontal shot of this guy, but this is probably better.

Rainbow socks were VERY popular. I guess they’re easy to come by and can be worn on occasions other than Pride.

Of course, this dress bears some similarity to the one that I wore to Greg and Anna’s wedding…

I got a lot of pictures of people’s backs, but I just like how this one turned out.

Unfortunately, I got to the parade pretty late yesterday (probably around 1:30), and most of the super-good stuff happens early–it starts at 10:30. There are so many fabulous costumes everywhere, though, that I felt pretty satisfied. I don’t think I’ve been to a Pride event since I was 16 and went to the one in St. Louis, and SF raises the bar a smidge anyway. I love costumes–as my colleague Bob remarked, a large number of Pride attendees really seem like they’re cos-playing Second Life or something. Virtual avatars made flesh. Crazy wigs all over the place, which always makes me consider shaving my head and just starting a massive wig collection for everyday use. I already have plenty of rainbow-striped socks.

More verbal content coming at some point. I have been scouring the interwebs for vegetable lasagna recipes, because I am having dinner guests on Wednesday–lasagna is a dish that exists in infinite variations, even when you’re only looking at the vegetarian ones. Also, I really want to spell it “lasagne” but American English apparently does not agree with me. Perhaps if I use goat cheese it will be suave and European. I’ll let you know how it comes out.

So today is my third day biking into work, and my second making it here in approximately 40 minutes due to not going seven miles out of my way. So far, the wind has been against me every morning, which also happens to be the direction in which there is more uphill going; this is fine with me, since it means that on my way home in the evening I am going mostly downhill with the wind at my back, and I shower after I get to work in the morning anyway.

On Tuesday, on the way home, I actually stopped in at Trader Joe’s near my house for a few additional grocery items I’d forgotten when Stevie drove me around on Saturday to run errands. This involved going a few blocks down El Camino because I hadn’t yet discovered how to get there on California;* although I am normally a strong opponent of sidewalk-biking, El Camino is insanely busy and has no bike lane, and I do not have a rearview mirror.**

Not that a rearview mirror would do you much good against a guy leaning out the passenger-side window of a pick-up truck and SCREAMING IN YOUR EAR.

This is exactly what happened to me, within my first block of El Camino. I narrowly avoided running into the bus stop that was coming up ahead of me. The subsequent yelling, which continued for the next three blocks every time they passed me (there were unfortunately a bunch of red lights), was at least not as startling, although it did become even more abusive in tone after I gave them the finger.***

Everyone to whom I’ve mentioned the incident is just floored that such a thing could happen in freaking Mountain View, California. The only thing that would have made sense would be if they’d been giving me shit for being on the sidewalk, but the content of the yelling was actually mainly centered around my hair, which is somewhat visible even when I am wearing a helmet.**** One would of course imagine that most people in Mountain View have seen freaky hair as well as cyclists, but perhaps the combination was just too much. I haven’t been subjected to ANY other negative behavior on my bike, though; people actually let me make LEFT TURNS, for godsakes. Sometimes they even yield to me when they have the right-of-way.***** El Camino aside, most of the major roads I want to ride on have bike lanes. I am totally ruined for trying to bike in most of Missouri, from whence I can only imagine the assholes in that pick-up hailed. Or maybe they have family there.

Or you know, maybe it’s me and my attitude problem. I think I might have what they call a “haughty bearing,” although I didn’t think it would be so obvious while hunched over my handlebars, and much like my tendency to attempt to lead while dancing, I’m not sure I can turn it off. The bird-flipping, though, I should probably try to work on.

I really like riding my bike, though. I definitely plan to keep it up when I get back to Madison, which is fairly decent for bicycling, especially by general Midwestern standards. My friend Keely recently suggested we should take one of the little bike maintenance classes that one of the shops offers; I think I’ll take her up on it. Whee.******

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*It often takes me a very long time to learn new routes places, because my sense of direction is so bad that I am loathe to experiment. California runs parallel to El Camino, however, and has a nice bike lane, and I’ve pretty much got the six or seven block stretch of it that I need down, I think.

+Although I have considered nail polish lightning bolts.

So it took me 90 minutes to bike into work today, but I think I can shave off some time tomorrow by not going 6.2 miles out of my way.*

First I forgot my cell phone. That cost me about a mile, but the real problem was when I forgot that Arastradero doesn’t start until after you cross El Camino, and failed to turn left on Charleston. Because I had written down directions for myself off the Gmaps Pedometer route I plotted over a map of bike lanes in the area, I was TOTALLY SURE that I was not supposed to turn left on Charleston, despite the niggling doubt in my mind as I sped through intersection after intersection with no sign of Arastradero. This is the peril of documents,** even ones that we ought to know are not exactly 100% reliable given that we created them yesterday and are notoriously bad at navigation in general. They just seem so authoritative. Oops.

So I didn’t lift any weights when I got in as I’d originally planned; just showered and changed and came upstairs to my office. At least I know how to get from home to work now, and am in good enough shape that I can handle a 6.2 mile detour.

As you may have gathered, I am safely in California–mostly moved in, even, largely thanks to the tireless efforts of my friends Greg and Stevie, who let me ship my many, many belongings to their apartment, helped me get my luggage and packages from my motel to my summer lodgings, and even took me in to the bike shop to get my bike reassembled this weekend. The house where I’m renting a room is pretty nice, and has pretty much everything I could ask for in the kitchen; I’ve already been baking up a storm. I’m hoping to finish organizing all my crap this week, so that my room doesn’t look so much like a dozen boxes of clothing, jewelry, and office supplies exploded in there. And I’m also planning to actually update again; I know everyone will be so pleased.

AMAZING CALIFORNIA DISCOVERY: There is a box karaoke place in Cupertino*** that has Belinda Carlisle’s “Summer Rain”**** in their catalog. This is like the holy fucking grail of karaoke for me; now I just need to find “Season of the Witch” and “When U Were Mine.”

And Stevie even took the best karaoke photo ever, as a bonus.

BEDSPREAD UPDATE: So Stevie took me to Target to pick up all the random stuff I still needed despite having shipped a dozen boxes of my crap to California, and I got a new bedspread to replace the one that, you may recall, I jettisoned in Boston because I hated it. At first I wasn’t seeing anything that really appealed to me in Target Housewares, but then I realized it was probably because I was looking in the adult bedding section. In the children’s section I found a comforter in PINK CAMOUFLAGE. Naturally I pounced on it. Now no one can sneak up on me when I’m sleeping! It is, after all, when I am at my most vulnerable.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR COMMENTERS: If at any time you ever posted a comment here and it never showed up, it’s because it got lost in comment spam. I had like 10,000 of the freaking things and just mass deleted them all, so I’m sorry if I accidentally trashed any legitimate comments along with the rest. I’ve just enabled a special spam-busting plugin that will hopefully solve this problem, though.

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*Yes, that pretty much doubled the length of the ride.

****No one ever knows this song. Belinda Carlisle is probably best known for “Heaven is a Place on Earth” and possibly “Circle in the Sand”; at least these are the two songs you can expect to find at every karaoke joint. They NEVER have “Summer Rain,” except in Cupertino. Lyrics here.

Seriously. I counted, and I have moved five times in the last twelve months. It is FUCKING CRAZY.

Right now I am bleaching the shower. I have to do this every time I move, because I am basically a big reddish pink contaminant, and lately I keep getting these unbelievably bitchtastic landlords as if to punish me for the SAINTLY landlord I had for two years in Madison (Bruce at SRM; he is awesome).

A friend is giving me a ride to the airport tomorrow, thank god; I spent today running around doing last-minute errands–like shipping my bike, which as it turned out really shouldn’t have been a last-minute errand, but it’s done.*

So: I fly to San Francisco tomorrow. It’s a direct flight, which I guess is sort of nice, except it means I’m in the air for six hours and I don’t have an aisle seat and I have to get up every 45 minutes or so for a little turn around the cabin, lest I get a blood clot and die. The last time I tried to use this little factoid to maneuver the old guy in the aisle seat into switching with me, he just made a face at me and told me to get over myself. So at least I didn’t have to feel bad about making him get up every 45 minutes.

I will be wearing my anti-clotting prescription pantyhose, and taking aspirin, and possibly drinking heavily. I picked up four trashy paperback thrillers at the library sale table today for a grand total of $1,** so at least I don’t have to pay airport bookstore prices like I did on the way back from Chicago***–$35 I paid for TWO BOOKS, although I admit one of them was a hardback. It was the only thing that looked good to me. The books from the library sale should be better than staring at the back of a fellow passenger’s head for six hours, anyway.

Then a friend is picking me up at the SF airport, and I’m hanging out with her and her fiance (with whom I went to junior high, so I actually knew him first) over the weekend, and heading down to Palo Alto on Monday, where I have a motel room for the four nights until I can move into the room I’m renting in Mountain View. I start work on Tuesday. Oh, this whirlwind life I lead.

So you can understand why I may well not post for another ten days. But eventually there will be pictures of the Bay Area to make up for it.****

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*Let’s just say it’s probably a good thing I was wearing that wonder bra when I set out to talk the bike shop guy into packing my bike in an afternoon instead of, like, three days.

****And also of my empty Boston apartment, in case at any point in the future I need evidence that I did not, in fact, wreck the joint.

Oops. I went a week without updating.

I’ve been BUSY, okay? I discovered episodes of Daria on YouTube, and in less than an hour I will be leaving my rented rooms forever, taking a bus to the CalTrain station, taking CalTrain to Santa Clara, and then taking another bus to the San Jose “International” Airport.*

Last night I shipped most of my stuff to my parents’ house in Missouri and my storage unit in Boston. The FedEx Kinko’s on California is open 24 hours, and at 9:30 the employees are starting to get a little punchy. I was greeted with, “You must have spent some time in BOLIVIA. …You know, when you spend time in Bolivia, you come back colorful?”

When I came out here, I shipped five big plastic tubs of stuff. One of the tubs got pretty banged up in transit, so I didn’t ship it back. In addition to my four remaining tubs, I shipped a liquor box (full of books), a standard-sized paper box, the box my full-size memory foam mattress pad came in, and, uh… five 20″x20″x20″ FedEx boxes. One of them weighed 50 pounds.**

Where does all this crap COME from, a person might wonder. I mean, there were some things I bought here that I probably should have just shipped from home, since work was paying: a backrest pillow, hangers, that mattress pad, a crockpot, some dishes… On the other hand, hangers are bulky to ship and cheap to buy. And I’m shipping all that stuff on to Boston, so I’ll be using it again.

And there were Christmas presents. God, were there Christmas presents. I made one last run into the city with Katherine on Saturday, and picked up a few things I’d been meaning to get. I also visited an H&M for the first time. They put one in Madison right when I left for California, and if they had them in Tokyo, I didn’t know about it–on a related note, for like the first six months I lived in Tokyo, I thought Tower Records was a Japanese chain, because I’d never seen one before. Now they are going out of business, and they sell DVDs and books as well as CDs, so I encourage you to seek out your local store, if you’ve got one, for some discounted loot. And you can marvel at how 40% off $18.99 is kind of like a reasonable price for a CD. No wonder they’re going out of business. Anyway.

Still. My ability to accumulate stuff–oh, there were also those two Palo Alto public library sales I attended–is kind of ridiculous. The thought of what I could do in a semester in Boston with an entire apartment to fill is a bit daunting. I bet they have H&M there, too. Oh, for the first couple of weeks, with the memory of having to clear out this place AND my Madison apartment still fresh in my mind, I’ll be cautious. I’ll avoid garage sales.*** But as the weeks wear on, and I forget about the horrors of packing and moving…

Of course, I’ll have my cats. They’re bound to destroy a few things. God, I miss the little fuckers. Homeward!

One last picture of the yard for my rented rooms:

You may note that my landlady did, in fact, get rid of that toilet. No one is more surprised than I. Well, possibly Katherine.

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*It is the dinkiest little airport you can imagine. It’s like if Madison’s airport was “international.” Apparently they have flights to Mexico.

***Which reminds me, I am leaving a nightstand for the landlady to deal with, because it was $2 at a yard sale my first week here and it is made out of particle ROCK or something; it weighs a ton. I definitely wasn’t shipping it.