oh, that's HAWT.

I go through periodic bouts of skin problems. Mostly something like allergic dermatitis; while I'm not one of those people who can only use unscented glycerin soap, ever, or who has to avoid nickel in any of its forms, I do periodically get bouts of itchiness.

It's often related to ragweed season. It's ragweed season now. Yay.

So I'm itching. But worse than normally. I was actually getting welts the other day where I was scratching. (I know: "don't do that." It's really hard not to).

So I'm having to take steps to fix things. One thing is putting skin lotion on. The one I have smells like coconuts mixed with mint. And it's very gloopy. Oh, that's HOT.

(But it does have vitamin E and it does stop the itching).

And I bathed the other night in baking-soda water. Yeah, HOT. (I don't know about the medicinal quality of this, but my mom suggested it, and it seemed to work).

And now, I am off to bathe in something called colloidal oatmeal, which the campus nurse recommended. Oh hot hot hot. Just take my panties and call me Paris Hilton.

I swan, at the rate things are going, I WILL be the female version of Felix Ungar (with a little Niles Crane thrown in for good measure) before I hit 40.

I've also been told that stress could be aggravating it. YA THINK? So maybe I need to go into the place where Bureaucracy Wench (the one who made me cry the other day) works and scratch all my dry skin off onto her floor. Yeah, that'd be HOT too.

Seriously, I'm glad I don't have a totally buff boyfriend because it would be too much for me to keep up with right now with my oatmeal and coconut encrusted skin and my weird flakes and welts. He'd probably run screaming the other direction.

Partly figured

I may have part of my distress, general unhappiness, sense of burnout figured.

It's the $*&% new book for one of the courses I teach. This is what is called a "service course." Those of you in academia will know what I mean: basically, it's unrewarding. You don't tend to get very good evals for it because most people taking it are resistant to the topic (it's a non-majors course).

HOWEVER, if you go in with the right attitude, you can make it fun. Which was what I used to be able to do.

And now, now my school has decided it's a good idea to standardize all the "service" courses. To the point where all of us who teach this have a standardized syllabus, we are in lockstep on what we can teach and what we have to dump for lack of time.

And the new book. Oy. It's an "issues approach" book, which I hate with a flaming passion. Because every "issue" has the underlying "You all realize of course that we are all screwed" attitude.

Food and diet: "ZOMG Americans are Teh Fatz and No ONE knows how to eat RIGHT!!11!!"
Biotechnology: "Schmaybe it could help us but every silver lining has a cloud."
Population Growth: "We will soon be drowning in people and we'll run out of food! Run around and scream now!"

(Never mind that in an earlier chapter it was being claimed that people worldwide were getting fatter because of Too Much Food).

And you know? I hate this. I'm basically an optimistic person but this book is really getting to me. I don't like feeling like I have to do constant Scale Back On The Fear gut-checks with my students. I don't like the book's tone. I don't like how it seems to have sucked away everything fun and wonderful about the topic and replaced it with reasons why we should all feel very guilty for being alive, and extra guilty if we are Americans.

And I have no $#()# say in choosing the book. It's done by committee, and frankly, the vote was at a time when I didn't have time to properly vet both choices. (And neither one was very good).

So what used to be a fun, free-wheeling class has become a pain. I didn't realize how badly that would affect me, but it does.

Something

Let's just throw the following on the big giant pile of "Stuff is sucking for lots of people right now" (In the hopes that we may someday get to set that whole big pile of suck alight, and that the fumes blow in the direction opposite of where we are standing).

I'm going to have to tell my mom I can't hear the story of her friend's daughter's impending divorce any more.

My mom has a good friend (like me, my mom seems condemned to have friends older than she is). My mom's friend is somewhere in her 80s, she's divorced (her ex is still alive), she had (I think) five kids. One of them is a daughter who is something like 15 years older than I am.

Daughter's husband had knee replacement surgery. Afterwards, it was like his personality changed. He became difficult, distant, emotionally abusive. Daughter has bought a condo and is trying to move some of her treasured items (family photos, some of her personal stuff) over there before she drops the divorce bomb. (Because, I suspect...once she tells her husband he's going to be her EX husband, if she had any Hummel figurines left at that house, they'd be quickly and in short succession hurled at a wall).

It's just one of those horrible sad situations. I can't do anything about it but pray for the woman and her husband and for my mom's friend. And you know what? My "prayer concerns" list is SO long these days. SO LONG. So many people going through bad stuff. I'm almost kind of frozen. I just say, "God, you know all these people have bad junk going on. I don't have the energy to concentrate on each one."

And I know on some level my mom needs to talk to someone about this. My dad isn't the ideal person for this. Not that there's anything wrong about this, he just has difficulty understanding and dealing with these kinds of situations. (Perhaps, like me, he's had too many students going through this agony and having used him as their "trouble tree."). My mom's BFF in the town where they live passed away a few years ago; she lost her sister this summer. I recognize that she doesn't have too many people she can share this with - people she would trust not to gossip about it.

but it's just something that's hard to hear and that makes me sad.

And it's another one of those situations where I kind of despair...if this couple can't make it, what chance would there be for me if I ever were to "meet" anyone? Why are people so broken?

And in my more positive moods, I think, well, it's a good thing I didn't "settle." It's better to be alone than to be in such a soul-crushing situation.

But you know? There are times I wake up in the middle of the night after a bad dream. Or times when I've had one of those days where everything's gone wrong, and I just want to cry on someone's shoulder a little. Or times when something really good is happening and I'm just bubbling over with joy and need to share it. And there's no one to turn to. And it's hard. I don't know if it's harder than trying to build a life with someone, because I've never really been in that situation. I just know it's hard. I know it's humanity's lot to suffer (for whatever reason you believe), but it just seems there's way too much to go around right now.

And this summer and into this fall, there have been a lot of little "I'd really love to have someone that I felt like I could cry on the shoulder of" moments where I've just had to suck it up and plod on. And I wonder if maybe in the long run that isn't good for a person, if maybe 20 years down the road I'm going to be facing heart disease or some kind of chronic condition and it's going to turn out to be "my" fault in the sense that I didn't have someone else there....and I don't know.

I literally don't know how to date any more. How to go out and meet people. The rules are so different and so convoluted and to be honest, the "third date expectation" makes me want to puke because the third date is, in my humble opinion, waaaaaaaaaay to early for that sort of thing. And so I've kind of walled off that part of my life behind a barrier of Not Possible And I Don't Want To Deal With It. And so though I avoid the difficult and icky stuff (like telling the guy that I won't be "ready" by the third date), I also wind up avoiding some of the wonderful stuff.

And I don't know if that's an OK tradeoff.

Then on the other hand I see people with relationship trouble and I decide maybe it is.

And I don't know any more.

just one thing

I EFFING EFFING HATE DEALING WITH BUREAUCRACIES.

There is one "petty tyrant" who is not even that highly placed who is making my life MISERABLE, she does this every stinking SEMESTER, because she has something I need and she makes these petty rules to prevent me from being able to do my JOB without jumping through a million jillion hoops and having to beg friends for favors.

I HATE BEGGING FRIENDS FOR FAVORS. ESPECIALLY BECAUSE OF ONE PERSON WHO IS IN TOO MUCH LOVE WITH HER POWER.

In a really really bad mood today. I made a friend angry with me because I misunderstood his offer of help and assumed it was greater than it actually was.

all because of this woman.

I want to cry. I just want to cry. This week has sucked eggs for sure.

Awwwww....

Sometimes, when the crap is hitting the fan*, you just need to pull back and remember the good things:





I LOVE ICHC. It has made me laugh, it has cheered me up when I'm down, it's calmed me down when I was close to going off on something, it's given me those "Awwwww" moments.


(*Not just the whole "ZOMG Wall Street Is ASPLODING!" headlines; more locally, I just got an e-mail announcement of one of those administrative things that makes me twitch a bit and worry that our university administration is gearing up for a massive "Your asses belong to US!" tattooing campaign.)

And hey....

I changed up my links page to reflect the changes below.

And to correct one long-time admission: Half a Pica Distance, aka Cullen.

I'm sure once he's back from surgery he'll be THRILLED to know he's right below Ken's banjophilia site.

The 'Pints is dead...

Long live the Pintsters:

The Fifth String
The Friday Not-Safe-For-Work-Language Thread.

Crap. I'm kind of sad that my one-stop shop for a place to gripe about entitled students and oblivious cell-phone users, share my prodigious and useless knowledge of doo-wop artists, and read links and commentary is going away, but the fact that the FFOT will live on - and hopefully, Ken's trivia quizzes - makes it a little better.


If the Wall Street Financial Crisis (tm) had something to do with this....well, even more reason I want to go and strangle a few investment bankers.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Chicken chicken (N.B.: .pdf file).

A presentation of the same: Chicken chicken


The only comment I can make? Who knew AAAS had a "humor" section? I guess I'm running with the wrong crowd.

a little sad...

Ran out to the super-wal-mart this morning (because I'm less likely to leave wanting to kill someone if I shop really early on a weekend morning). I saw a jar of "Newman's Own" salad dressing.

And it made me sad.

Sad because he's gone...someone who was such a fixture and an icon.

And also sad because I (not being a big movie viewer) know him mainly for his salad dressing, and his cookies, and his marinara sauce, and the lemonade that (facetiously) promised to restore virginity (is that still on the market, or have people so much lost their senses of humor that something like that can't be sold any more?)

Oh, I've seen The Sting and Cool Hand Luke and, I'm sure, other movies he was in that I am now forgetting. But I don't know his work as much as I feel I should.

I will say I know it enough that, to use a generation's-previous-to-me version of the "Brad Pitt or George Clooney?" question (In other words: "Newman or Redford?"), that I'd pick Newman, every time.

RIP.

I will trade wheat for sheep

You know, I've kind of passed from the panic-stage about the whole financial mess, and have entered a sort of bemused fascination. What is going to happen to society as a result? Could, possibly, something GOOD happen, rather than something bad? Maybe a scaling-back, a realization that we don't need giant houses and a new car every three years and a huge wardrobe? (Oh, yeah, I realize some people live like that now, by choice or by circumstance. But the overwhelming cultural "norm," at least as Madison Avenue presents it, is that if you're not a LOSER, you get new cars every few years. And you buy your wife a diamond for her birthday. And your kids have every new toy that comes on the market. And you know? That's not how I was raised. Not even as recently as the 70s. My dad drove his cars until they were literally not worth fixing any more, then bought a new one - and paid cash for it if he at all could. And we got one birthday present - ONE. And I think the only diamond my mom had was in either her engagement ring or her wedding band.)

I've got the news on in the other room and am half-listening. One of the commentators seems to be saying that if you're not buying stuff on credit right now, you will probably be OK. That's me. I realize that that's rare, and I'm uncommonly blessed to be able to provide for all my needs (and some of my wants) out of the monthly salary I make as a professor. (OK: the one thing that might be concerning would be what would happen if student loans went away. Our enrollment would probably drop a lot, and some of us could get RIFfed. Then again, I have more seniority than a couple people, I teach several classes that no one else in the department currently could teach, and if I had to, I'd accept a part-time slot [provided they dropped the expectation that I do research, committeework, and advising]).

Okay, I admit I'd be a little sad if credit cards went away. I loves me some Amazon, as you all know very well. And I adore nothing more than being able to decide I want to make some kind of project, and go on line, and find a yarn or a fabric or whatever that would be PERFECT for it, and be able to have it sent to me. But the truth is? If credit cards went away for a while, I'd survive. I have enough books. I have enough supplies. I could manage by paying cash for groceries and medication, by just planning to have enough fives and twenties on hand for the day-to-day needs. After all, it was not that long ago that only a few rich folks had credit cards...I don't think they were common at all before the mid-70s; I don't remember my dad using them much.

Maybe this won't be so bad. Maybe we'll go back to an economy that's more cash-based, where credit isn't used for so many things. (I once saw a bank advertising that people could take out loans for a vacation. That seemed very wrong to me, but then I grew up going on "vacation" in National Parks and visiting relatives, so my family did "vacation" on the cheap). Maybe people will learn to be more content with what they have, rather than constantly chasing the next thrill.

Maybe, even, there will be some kind of underground barter economy spring up (hence my title, an allusion to Settlers of Catan, for the uninitiated). Those of us with talents or skills or even good strong backs might be able to get some of what we need or want by trading. For example: I know how to knit. Perhaps I might be able to, I don't know, get vegetables from a small-scale farmer in return for providing him and his with winter hats. Or when someone's house needs painting, a crew of friends get together, Amish-barn-raising-style, and all do it together - with the promise that when each person's house needs painting, everyone will return to do theirs.

(I realize that this could lead to problems with cheaters - and given the experience I've had with people volunteering to do things and then crapping out on it that seems a real possibility - but maybe in a culture like the one I'm describing, cheating is so frowned upon - as in "fail to show up to help once, and you're cut loose, without help from others" that the whole barter thing could work.)

I don't know. In some of my more musey moments, I think maybe a different path than what we're on would be interesting...a path where people valued people and experiences rather than mere stuff, where having skills like being able to sew or being able to repair small engines or being able to grow and grind grain are valuable things that are important to your survival and that of the community, rather than just being hobbies or some kind of odd thing you do.

I admit, I can be very Pollyanna that way. Very good at imagining the "good old days" without the bad of no antibiotics, no plumbing, racism, child labor...all of those things we're lucky to be rid of (or mostly rid of) in the 21st century.

But sometimes I contemplate a world that's slower and quieter, where people do more stuff with their hands and brains and consume less and worry less about money. So I don't know. Maybe this isn't the "beginning of the end," as some are making it out to be. Maybe it's a "beginning of a new beginning."

After all - Thomas Jefferson didn't have American Express. I bet Ben Franklin didn't buy his house slippers on credit. We've lived differently than we do now before, and we are smart enough to figure out a way to live differently again, if it comes down to that.

It was probably a smart thing, regardless

But I'm still not entirely proud of it.

A few years ago - back when there were greater fears of another terrorist attack on our soil - I had a Safe Place in my dwelling, a place where I could keep a decent amount of money in small bills. Just in case, you know, the banks and credit cards and stuff got attacked, so I wouldn't have to sell my body on the street for a gallon of milk.

As time passed and the worry got less, I spent the money...there were times I just didn't feel like running to the bank, and I needed a couple of twenties, or something. So I didn't have any cash on hand.

Well, as this week progressed, a thought kept nibbling at the back of my brain: yes, my money is in a credit union. Better yet, a credit union that didn't offer mortgages. And I know about the NCUA and all.

But. I kept thinking more, and imagining the phrase "I will trade wheat for sheep" and that kind of thing. And I decided that maybe, just maybe, it would be kinda smart to resurrect the Safe Place plan, and to get some cash in small bills. You know, just in case. Just in case some idiot in Congress decides the smartest way to deal with this thing is to suddenly declare a week-long Bank Holiday, or some similar idiocy.

So, after prepping the Safe Place (and NO I'm not telling what it is. Even though I think only Ken, Emily, and Sheila know my for-real for-true name and even then they probably don't know where I live), I went down to the credit union and drew out a large-for-me but not overly-large amount of cash, asked for it in small bills.

Like I said, I'm not proud of it. I felt like one of the characters in "It's A Wonderful Life," down at the Building and Loan, making a run on the bank while Jimmy Stewart stands behind the grille and pleads for people to remain calm.

But no one at the credit union questioned me. (Though they do have a new rule, which I support: withdrawals over a certain amount have to be accompanied by a photo ID like a driver's license.)

So I have my money squirreled away, in a place safe from fire and safe from all but the most persistent of thieves. Hopefully I won't need it, but will once again wind up slowly bleeding it away at times like when I want a pizza but have no ready cash, or when I need to make a small cash donation for something.

I keep thinking of the old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." I wish they'd be a bit LESS interesting for a while.

I hate it when

I'm grading a student test, I read an answer to a question everyone else has gotten, and my response is:

"the Hell?"

Yeah, that was 10 points that dude just lost.

What did I say?

Washington Mutual apparently had to be bought out this morning.

I made this comment last week.

Scary. If I thought I really could influence the space-time continuum, I'd say that it would suddenly rain money and all of the financial problems would go away, and the terrorists would all decide that they'd rather learn to play the sitar instead of blow stuff up, and a new candidate would rise up that everyone liked and who could do good things for the country.

But I can't influence the space-time continuum, unfortunately.

Grateful

One thing I'm very grateful for, every morning as I wake up and hear the news-radio talking about more bank failures or buyouts, is that I don't have a mortgage.

That's right. I own my house, and not "own" in the sense that some bank has part-ownership.

I kind of hesitate to talk much about this because I know some people would regard it as me "trumpeting" my "privileged" status. And it's kind of true...I have enjoyed, and do enjoy, a certain amount of privilege, largely as a result of things my father has done.

My father, when he was working, was a college professor and minor administrator. I will observe that he never made a huge salary, not by administrative standards - he never approached $100,000 in a year.

But my father is frugal. And he's incredibly smart about investing. In fact, now that he's retired, I have him managing my stock portfolio for me because he does a far better job than I could ever do. (And may he be able to manage it for a good many more years for me).

He taught me well. One of his early lessons was to never go into debt for things other than a house, and possibly an education...he would argue that there were ways around going into debt for other things. True, we didn't have a lot of the things my friends had - we didn't get cable for a long time, we didn't have a VCR until I was in college, I think - but we were comfortable enough. We took our vacations in National Parks (inexpensive, and in the long run, I think more interesting than going and lying on a beach somewhere or spending megabucks in a theme park.) We did "cheap" things for fun - went hiking, went to the dollar-a-person revival movie house near the campus where he taught (I saw most of the "classic" Disney movies there; I think they did a Saturday "family" matinee with a kid-friendly movie).

So anyway. Those values kind of got passed down to me.

When I started grad school for the second time - when I was going to the campus close to my parents and living with them - I asked my dad if he wanted me to pay rent. After all, I was over 21, "should" have been out of the house on my own. He said no, not as long as I made an effort to put some money away each month for future needs.

So I did. I didn't make much as a TA but in the time it took to complete my Ph.D., I managed to save up a little over $10,000.

That came in handy later on.

Also, my father's frugality and concern for his family helped me in another way I will never be able to repay him for. When his mother died, the resort his parents had owned was sold. Apparently it had appreciated a good bit over the years, and after the large estate tax was paid, there was a goodly amount of money left over, which my dad and his brothers split. His brothers spent their portion on things like boats and vacation homes. My dad told my brother and me - I was in junior high at the time and my brother was even younger - that he was going to invest the money, and if it did well, it would pay for our college educations.

Well, this was the early 80s. You remember the 80s? My dad invested the money very wisely and it did very well.

So thanks to my dad, I had no college loans to pay back. Which I realize now is a big huge deal and something I can never adequately thank him for.

Even more than that...there was money left over in my account when I was done with college (well, the fact that I finished undergrad in three years, and then after that was a TA or an RA every semester, which carried with it a tuition waiver and enough of a stipend that I didn't have to touch that money, helped).

So fast forward to 2001. When I was thinking about buying a house. My father reminded me I had about $30K left in that stock account. And I knew I had my little nest-egg from grad school. And it turns out, parents can make a nice tax-free monetary gift (up to a certain amount) to their kids. And my dad had just taken his second retirement, so he had the money.

He told me that the bigger a down payment I made, the better.

He didn't talk to me about fixed-rate versus ARMs, but I kind of think if I had gone very far down the path of trying towards a mortgage, I would have figured out that if I could have gotten a fixed rate, that would have been best.

But anyway. The area where I live was (and still is, though it's a bit better now) somewhat economically depressed. The "housing boom" never really hit here. And the house I found and fell in love with was an older house - a small, circa 1940s house in a quiet neighborhood midway between downtown and the University.

I spend much of the summer negotiating with the seller - a man a few years older than I am, who was selling the house on behalf of his mother, who was having to go into an "assisted living" facility.

I hadn't really thought about mortgages; I was just holding out hope that the fact that I was a college professor (with a job unlikely to go away) would be enough to get me one.

Then, my dad brought up the option of paying cash, if the seller and I could negotiate a price that would work.

When I mentioned that to the seller, he was more willing to negotiate. I wound up getting the house for something a little less than $60K.

I know that sounds unbelievable to a lot of people - especially those on the coast - but this is a small, older house. It has one bathroom and two bedrooms - not exactly the kind of place most people were aspiring to. But I live alone, so the one bathroom makes no difference.

Also, there had been some "deferred maintenance" on the house - it needed a little work, some of which I could do myself, some of which I was able to hire someone to do.

So we worked out the negotiation, and I handed over my big cashier's check, and got the keys.

The funny thing is all along, I was wondering if I had done the right thing by not taking out a mortgage. One of my colleagues (who was buying a house at the same time) kept telling me about how a mortgage would allow me to "retain the use of that money" and that I could probably negotiate a mortgage with "not very big payments" (yeah, but how much of that would be interest?)

But now I'm SO GLAD I did it this way. I own my house. I don't have to worry about my mortgage being sold to someone else. (The house my parents own...they had a mortgage on it but my dad sold some stock to pay it off about 15 years ago because the mortgage was sold to a different financial institution, and, to put it bluntly, they were a-holes...rude on the phone, sent statements late, just generally were not good businesspeople. So my dad paid off the mortgage to avoid having to deal with them any more).

I really do wish everyone who wanted a home could afford one. But the whole idea that "bad mortgages" were written - ones that the bank should have known the people couldn't afford - makes me kind of sick. (I think, honestly, the banks are probably more to blame than the people. I knew nothing at all about mortgages - other than that you need to pay them, and they last 15 or 30 years, and a lot of what you're paying is actually interest - before I bought this house, and before the whole mortgage mess started up. And I'm a reasonably smart and savvy person, it's just I never NEEDED to know about mortgages before, having always lived with my parents or in apartments. So I place the blame on the loan officers who encouraged people to go for "more house" than they really could afford. And I blame them for perhaps being too Pollyannaish about the adjustable-rate mortgages: I know people with them who never believed that they were going to get hit so hard by the rate being "adjusted." Yes, I know, it was a gamble they took - but I don't remember ever hearing anyone suggesting it would be a losing bet. I know people with ARMs who are scrambling to cover payments now, they never imagined this would happen, because the bank officers seemed to assume that conditions would remain ever the same.)

Things off which can flip.

I know it's a day early for Friday, but I'm angry now.

So here's my list of things that can be infested with the fleas of a thousand camels this week:

1. The printers in my building. For capriciously and unexpectedly de-connecting themselves from our networked computers. I can't print anything. I had to punt on giving a review sheet in my non-majors class this morning, because I couldn't print it out.

(1a. I can kind of flip off as well, for forgetting I needed that until the last minute. And for getting behind the schedule, which is apparently about as bad a thing as "crossing the streams.")

2. The whole ugly mess that is emanating from Wall Street and the investment banks. It has actually passed the point where I even want to TRY to understand it. I just want to assign blame, string a few loan officers up by their toes, and move on. My dad reassured me last night that things were going to be "OK" (for our family at least) and he reminded me that I already own my house (no mortgage), so that's one big thing I don't have to worry about.

He also said he seriously doubted we'd have another Depression. His opinion is that what will likely happen is that the dollar will lose more strength, "people's standards of living will go down and that will be unpleasant but not terribly unpleasant" and that I really, truly don't need to stack up on more nonperishable food than the three weeks or so I keep on hand anyway (as protection against bad weather or trucking strikes).

3. But you know? Standards of living going down can flip off. I have a decent standard of living but I'm pretty frugal and the thought of tightening my belt more kind of p*sses me off. Especially if that belt-tightening is necessitated by those who failed to wear belts (figuratively speaking) altogether.

4. People who text and drive and who talk on the cell phone and drive can flip off. See, people - restrictive laws come when people are stupid to behave the way they should. Texting while driving is now banned in California because stupid people did it, some people died, and now a law has been passed. Wouldn't it have been better in the first place for people to decide, "I'm driving now. I need to give it my full attention." and left the blackberry off? I'm sure the families of the folks killed in those accidents would agree.

(I was almost run off the road Saturday by some dangerously silly woman who was talking on the cell phone, strayed over into my lane (it was on a two lane highway), and because of road construction, I had no where I could safely swerve to - swerving to avoid her would have meant either going into her lane (and hitting the truck behind her head on), or going over the "Warning: steep drop off" edge, breaking the axle on my car, and likely flipping it. Fortunately when I laid on the horn and slowed down (but not too much, so the person behind me wouldn't rear end me), she woke up and got back in her own damn lane. But seriously. How many people are going to die or be maimed before the idiots wake up and realize they can't yack and drive at the same time?)

5. Politics can flip off. I just want the election to be over. And I want everyone currently in Congress - especially those who saw this financial mess coming and did nothing - voted out and sent back home. Preferably to spend the rest of their lives mucking out someone else's stables.

6. The fact that for every thing I complete, I get a list of three more things I have to do. Can. Not. Deal. With. Any. More. Thank. You. I already have the "stealth test" to write for next week, and my annual "Can I keep my job, please" document (aka Tenure Review), and an exam to grade, and other grading to do, and prep for this class that isn't supposed to be a new prep but kind of is and why am I writing on my blog because I should be working....ugh. Next person who "needs" something from me with less than 24 hours turnaround gets it.

'Splain this to me

Someone with more financial smarts than I have needs to talk me down off a ledge, so to speak.

It sounds like we, the American taxpayers, are bailin' everyone out. Bad home loans, bad student loans, AIG, Lehmann, now possibly Caterpillar. The stock market MAY tank, some say. We MAY face double-digit employment, some say.

(Which scares me. As a tenured prof, my job is pretty secure in normal times provided I don't sleep with a student or some equally monumentally stupid move. But there is such a thing as RIFing, which stands for Reduction In Force - where even tenured folks can be let go if times get bad enough).

So - since it looks like my stock investments may evaporate, my non-vested pension plan may go away, and my credit union is paying me a royal (eye-roll) 1.2% on my savings account in times of 3%+ inflation - what is to say I shouldn't just take a big whack of money out of my accounts and just spend it? Buy lots and lots of canned goods that will last a long time (or something like camp food), buy all the books and yarn and fabric and other supplies that tickle my fancy now, because I might not be able to if the whole system tanks and the bookshops and yarn-sellers shut their doors (or in the event I have no money to spend in the future).

Basically go into pre-disaster mode and stock up on everything necessary (food, TP, advil...) and everything that makes life worth living (books, yarn, dvds of movies I love...) with the thought that I may have to figuratively hole up for, oh, four years or so.

Just generally figure we're waltzing on the deck of the Titanic with a big honkin' iceberg in view, so I might as well get my kicks in now, and plan on standing on a bread line come a year's time. (Or maybe go out and buy a rifle and lessons on how to use it, so I can at least have deer meat to eat).

I've said before that it ticks me off - and worse than ticks me off - that I've spent my life budgeting, and saving up money, and delaying big purchases (especially big "fun" purchases like my dvd player) until I have the money at hand to buy them, and there are rafts of people in this country who spend and spend and spend (I work with some of 'em. Honestly, I'm shocked at the level of credit card debt some people I know claim to have), or investment brokerages who take bad risks, and then go,

"Silly me....I seem not to be able to cover this. I would gladly pay you Tuesday for the hamburger I have just consumed."

(Not unlike a guy I knew once, who "conveniently" had left his wallet in his other pants when we all went out for lunch).

And of course, the Government comes in on its big white gelding to the rescue, and not just swooping up the banks that are gasping like goldfish on the kitchen floor, but offering swoop-ups to everyone and anyone who apparently made a bad credit decision - the sort of bad decision that, if I had made it a few years ago and called my dad for help, he would have kind of groaned and said, "I taught you better than this. You can live on beans and rice for a few months. Suck it up and pay the bills off."

In other words: I feel like I'm gettin' screwed here, so shouldn't I be allowed to have a good time first?

(The other thought that crosses my mind: what if the dollar I don't spend today is worth 25 cents in a few months?)

So someone - please talk me down here. Let me know that it's really truly going to be OK and I'm not going to find my money has disappeared itself somewhere and I just have to redouble my working and halve my fun-spending in the future to make back up what went away.

I don't know if...

Sarah Palin does crafts (she's probably too busy), but I think this is one she could get behind.

(Though I tend to prefer the alternate wording of, "Don't bring a knife to a gun fight").

Ike photos (Boston Globe)

These photos make me sad.

(Though #25 cheers me up somewhat - hooray for the men who go into potentially dangerous situations like that to help people.)

I hope everyone who's affected by Ike either gets their power back on soon, and gets stuff back to normal, or decides to move somewhere more inland.

I know coasts are beautiful and it's hard to leave them once you've lived on one, but I really don't think I could live in a coastal area that might get hit with a hurricane.

When t-shirts become TMI-shirts

One of the guys in my non-majors class showed up yesterday in a somewhat surprising t-shirt. It said, "Fiscally Republican/ Socially Democrat/ Sexually Liberal"

Um, dude? There's at least one fact on that shirt I didn't need to know about you.

"free" does not equal "worthless."

As you might remember, I go in for weekly allergy desensitization shots. Fortunately, the campus nurse is willing to do this for me, so I don't have to go out to a doctor's office or even schedule an appointment - she kind of knows to expect me between 3 and 3:30 on Tuesdays, and in return, I am content to sit and wait until she has a moment to attend to me.

So as a result, I see some interesting behaviors in the campus nurse's office. And sometimes, I think that maybe, some of the odder ones are the result of the students' not paying (well, not DIRECTLY, anyway; it's part of their fees) for the service.

I saw another case of it today. Guy comes in, looks around the waiting room, announces he is a half-hour late for his doctor's appointment. (A doctor comes to campus two days a week, on loan from the local hospital).

(In cases like that - where someone announces something like that to a room full of strangers, I'm always tempted to say something borderline snarky like "Congratulations!' or "good for yooooou" in a Squidward Tentacles sort of voice, but I never do).

The receptionist looked at him and said, "I'm sorry, then you will need to reschedule, because you missed your appointment time."

He gave no explanation - no excuse. Just reiterated that he was late. ("Again...good for yoooooouuuu")

The receptionist then said: "We have other people waiting for their appointments, the doctor does not have time to see you today now."

"But...but...Can't he see me NOW?"

"He is in with a patient," and she gestured to the three or four other people waiting with me "And these patients are next."

"But I just need to see the results of my blood workup!" (Don't even try, HIPAA)

"You will need to reschedule."

"Can't one of these people wait while he sees me?"

Okay, this is where I get kind of infuriated. Yes, I can understand life-emergencies. But you did not cite any life-emergency - for all I know, you could have been playing Nintendo Wii or taking a nap or watching ESPN and then gone, "Oh crap...my appointment was 15 minutes ago." And if it's that important...you work around it. I have students leave my class on a regular basis for doctor's appointments. I hate that they do - but I understand that if you're sick, or your kid is sick, you sometimes take what you can get in terms of appointments. And you make an effort to show up on time.

But if all of those things amount to a big FAIL, then you suck it up and reschedule. You do not demand to be seen right then. You do not say (in front of the patients who showed up EARLY for their appointment) that they should wait, because you're an extra-special snowflake who deserves coddling.

The nurse responded to the guy's sorry request with: "The doctor's schedule only allows him to be here until 4:30. There is not time for him to see you today, even if you waited until all these people had been taken care of."

He kind of spluttered at that.

Finally, she said, "You need to come in the other room and I can reschedule you."

(I kind of wished that "rescheduling" came with a side of ass-whuppin', but I'm sure it didn't).

But seriously - who, when they go to a "real" doctor's appointment, one they are paying at least a co-pay for, shows up late with no excuse and then demands in front of the people who are following the "rules" (i.e., the patients who showed up a few minutes early for their appointment) that the rules should be broken for you?

An actual-factual doctor's office would laugh in your face. And charge you for the visit any way.

Entitlement behavior ticks me off. I hope this dude learns pretty fast that he can't change a light bulb in a ceiling fixture by holding the new bulb up and waiting for the Universe to revolve around him, because he's apparently not learned that yet.