'nother meme, plus random stuff

Joel tagged me again:

this is one of those "ten years in review thing." The main thing I realize from looking at it was how YOUNG I was ten years ago, even if I didn't think so at the time....

Pets:
1997: My parents' two Siamese cats (I was living with my parents at the time, to save money in grad school.)
2007: No pets - I'm never home and I somehow feel it would be unfair to a cat or dog to be cooped up alone all day, and I really have no interest in fish, snakes, lizards, or tarantulae as pets. I might get a cat SOMEDAY but I just don't feel ready for it now.

Largest Concern:
1997: Finishing my dissertation and managing to find a job.
2007: Doing a sufficiently good job at what I'm doing. And getting more journal articles published.

Biggest problem:
1997: Finishing my dissertation
2007: Dealing with snarky co-authors or journal editors. Longer-term big problem: what is happening with the youth of America?

What I do for fun:
1997: Read, sew, hang out with friends, shop
2007: Pretty much the same except neither my friends nor I seem to have as much time for hanging out.

My advice to the "youth of America"
1997: Work hard and treat other people with respect.
2007: The world doesn't owe you a living, especially one where you make $60K in the first year, ESPECIALLY if you spend all your time slacking. Oh, and treat other people with respect. And stop whining. And turn off the damned cell phone. And take those iPod earbuds out of your ears when someone's talking to you, ESPECIALLY someone who's your elder.

My politics:
1997: Oh, lord, I don't remember. Probably pretty much as it is now.
2007: More-or-less libertarian (small "l" kind) but don't agree with everything they push...mostly I want government to protect me from the "bad guys" (e.g., terrorists) but otherwise leave me alone.

That said: I've become particularly disenchanted with the whole "factionism" thing in politics. I have actually seen people who were friendly with each other prior to learning each other's political leanings stop talking to one another, just because of damn politics. I guess I tend to take the Bugs Bunny approach to the whole thing: don't take life so serious; you're not gettin' out of it alive.


Message to the President:
1997: I am disturbed by your behavior. Both personal and political. But especially personal. (I remember watching the pre-impeachment hearings in 1998, in a motel room, while waiting to go to my brother's wedding. Something about that struck me as ironic: my brother was marrying the woman of his dreams (and, I hope, my sister-in-law was marrying the man of her dreams - at least, I think that's how it was). They had both been "true" to each other the whole time (several years) that they dated (and they are still married, and still true to each other). And here I was watching a world leader who had mainly distinguished himself for being a horndog (or at least in my mind that was what he had mainly distinguished himself for). )
2007: You really need to be harder on illegal immigration. I know you have to compromise with Pelosi & company, but I'm not too happy with what's on the table right now.


****

And the random thing: Burger King has now turned one of my nightmares into a television commercial.

I have to explain: I don't have "typical" nightmares. When I do have bad dreams, they're not about my being chased, or being in a dark alley trying to open my car as people creep up on me, or alien invasions, or anything like that. More often, they're of the "something has gone terribly wrong and I can't quite pinpoint it" variety.

Well, Burger King now has this ad for some kind of, apparently, cowboy-style hamburger. The commercial consists of intercut spots showing that "King" character (which is in itself a minor nightmare) dancing with spots showing people eating the burger and growing a big handlebar mustache.

And they show it happening to women. (and even dogs, but that's not quite as unsettling to me).

And I remember a vivid bad dream I had where I woke up one morning, yes, with a mustache. And I don't mean a "dark-haired Greek lady after menopause" few stray hairs, I mean a full-blown, full mustache. And it took me a long time to figure out...something was wrong and I couldn't quite place it. Then, to my horror (and I had the realization in a "public" place in my dream), I realized:

1. women - at least normal women - are not capable of growing a full-blown mustache
2. and at any rate, not overnight.

I know, it sounds silly now, but it seriously creeped me out. I woke right after the "realization" and was so unsettled by it (maybe? I was questioning my own femininity?) that I had to get up for a little while before I felt like I could sleep again.

So, Burger King, no thanks for reminding me of that. Not that I ever eat at your restaurants but I'm especially not going to now.

(And I'm reminded of the comment one of my older relatives made to my brother, when trying to get him to eat the crusts of his bread - "It'll put hair on your chest!" And my response was: ewww, I don't want to eat the crusts any more; I don't want a hairy chest. {they later explained to me - in a real feat of backpedaling - that bread crusts only made BOYS' chests hairy; for girls, it gave them naturally curly hair. Uh-huh.})