Sgt. Peeper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Once more, I procrastinate on grading by constructing Peep Art for the Washington Post's annual Peeps Diorama Contest. Although this year's entry isn't quite the tour de force of last years National MVSEVM of the American Peep, I also didn't spend a whole damn week on it. Just a weekend.

So let me introduce to you, the one and only Sgt. Peeper's Lonely Hearts Club Band:
There is Mr. Kite (flying his kite) with the poster for his benefit tonight behind him:
At 5 am (according to Big Ben) the yellow chick leaves home:
Here up front, sending each other a Valentine and a birthday greeting, we have the couple that still needs and feeds one another at age 64:
Lucy in the tangerine, marmalade sky with diamonds:

The Peep offering services to fix holes, be they to keep the rain from coming in or that are filling the Albert Hall:

Speaking of the Albert Hall, there is the green Peep getting the News Today (oh, boy) that the English Army has Just Won The War:

Beware, there's lovely Rita, Meter Maid:

Here are our Fabulous Four of Peeps (with mustaches), getting by with a little help from their friends and not singing out of tune:

Sgt. Peeper's Reprise:

*No vinyl copies of this album were harmed in the making of this diorama.

Bragging on Myself

Thank you, everyone, for your lovely support on my last post. I feel myself growing TALLer with every day; although, I worry that maybe my head is the only thing expanding!

My event on Monday went better than expected, but just as well as I had hoped. One of the professors from the self-proclaimed main campus actually came to ours to give a talk on a sainted president and his relationship to African Americans. It was surprisingly good. I had feared that it would be that the sainted president just lurved the black folks from the womb, which seems the party line, but he gave a much more nuanced discussion showing a development of the saint's ideas and behavior.*

Putting together this event was surprisingly fun. I requested the perfect room, right next to an art exhibit on the sainted president; designed, printed, and distributed fliers; got the event publicized on the school's main webpage and on these t.v. screens around campus that display announcements; spammed everyone's e-mail once a week (and the culture of "reply all" gave me some cool responses that I can put in my portfolio!); announced it in all of the regular school places; and announced it in community newspapers. I learned quite a bit about publicity venues and which media are most effective.

I also learned that "extra credit certificates will be available for students" is a BIG draw. Heck, I even dropped my own "NO EXTRA CREDIT!" policy for the event. Most of the students in the audience were there for the extra credit. Still, they came for the extra credit, they stayed for the education!

Walking toward the event, I had visions of the place being packed, with my chair, and the dean, and the the president of the university -- heck! maybe even the president of the United States -- in attendance. "Calm down, Clio," I told myself. "If five people show up, that will be o.k. You got it this far." This is, after all, a commuter campus with no students living closer than at least a train stop away. When I got to the room -- albeit 15 minutes early -- it was empty except for my speaker and the ITV guy.

The ITV guy!!!!!

I nearly hugged him. I had contacted them, and heard that they might be able to film but weren't sure about the schedule. When I followed up, I got no reply. They are incredibly busy, so I took no offense. A DVD and podcast would be nice icing on the cake, but not necessary to the overall production. Again, I reminded myself, this is the first event and part of a learning process of producing successful events. To find ITV there? Seriously, I nearly hugged the guy.

Then, the students started to filter in. Turned out the filter was pretty darn porous. Ten minutes into the talk they had to sit in the aisles because all of the seats were taken. My chair showed, one of the lead librarians showed, several faculty from several different disciplines showed, directors of different programs showed, my students showed, other students showed, even a student reporting from the student paper showed. When the speaker finished speaking, people wanted to talk and talk and talk with him about the sainted president and African Americans. I had the room booked for two hours and we used every minute of it! I wanted to hug each and every person who attended.

This is all to say that the event proved a resounding success! Setting them up turned out to be much more fun and satisfying than I anticipated; but having one turn out so well proved the big payoff. Plus, now I know how to do such things and feel empowered by that knowledge. I can make shit happen!

Now we shall see how this next event, this coming Wednesday, goes. I have already been warned that ITV may not be able to attend; and I have to warn the other speakers that I can't promise that ITV has room in their schedules, so if a camera isn't at their event, it's nothing personal. The director of ITV said that he can set me up with a lesson so that I can just check out the equipment and tape it myself. My inner tech geek and former film major self says, "AWE! SOME!"**

The speaker this coming week addresses an issue that affects a huge major in our college, and I have her set up to give her talk in that major's building. See? It's such a big major that they have their own, shiny new building. Since it also involves women, and March is Women's History Month, Women's Studies is a co-sponsor; and I'm advertising it as in celebration of Women's History Month, just as I advertised this last one as in celebration of Black History Month.

Yesterday, I saw the person who will give the talk on the following week (I really didn't plan for one each week, it just turned out that way). He's getting excited about his own event, which has to do with peace. We have a massive faculty contingent who are all about peace and protest and heavily into the current anti-war movement and setting up a curriculum that includes all of the above. So, I'm able to bring that into the advertising. I could do more if he were going to speak on our campus (and maybe I can talk him into it for next semester), but he preferred another campus, which works for my portfolio in regard to service to the college. More of the peace faculty are over there, too, so the turnout may be better there than here.

In any case, for the rest of the semester, between this, my sudden involvement in another program's film series, Women's History Month, Arab American Heritage Month***, and some of the peace folk, I swear that I'm planning at least one event each week from now until the end of the semester. It's lots of work, but I enjoy the hell out of it. It satisfies my need to make shit happen to a degree that is difficult to come by at this level in other parts of my life.

Moreover, I'm starting to feel like I care about something. I can't precisely put my finger on what. Perhaps "care" isn't quite the right word. Let me put it this way: a former friend contacted me once more recommending that I apply for a job elsewhere. It would be a more prestigious position, but definitely not as geographically advantageous being in the middle of Texas and all. This time, my resistance to applying had a new component. I feel like I am finding a home here. Not just a job in a good city near my research sources, but a home. I'm making contact, I'm finding friends, I'm settling in a way that I haven't done in any place, no matter how hard I tried, in nearly a decade. It's a bit scary because being invested in something means that you start to have something to lose; but it's also important. I start to feel real and connected; and, being as it is new, it feels like a whole new type of adventure.

So, an assignment that started out as a pain in the butt, a punishment, and with the stupid goal of "rehabilitating Clio's tarnished reputation," has turned into something pretty darn good that has given me some marketable skills, and proved personally and professionally satisfying.

There is a funny little coda to this week, too. One that, if I'm being paranoid, involves the Nemesis; and, if I'm not, means that I have a line on some cash that could mean more names to campus. After the success of my Monday event, I got an e-mail from woman who works in a program that runs a series of speakers and that falls under the same umbrella as that infernal fellowship. In fact, she reports to the Nemesis. She wants to help sponsor my program. My first reaction was, "cool! She has money!" Plus, I've liked her the few times that I've met her. Of course, I also liked the Nemesis the first few times that I met her, so clearly my judge of character is a bit off.

Then, I started to Zapruder her e-mail -- always a bad sign of paranoia. She didn't exactly offer any money, just publicity avenues and fliers. Now, while their fliers will be more professional and will mean that I won't be paying for brightly colored paper so that my fliers won't melt in with all of the other white or dully colored paper fliers, she doesn't really have access to any other publicity venues. Furthermore, she first brought this idea up to my chair back in January, that she sponsor his talk in April because she needed ideas for her own speaker series. He had already committed to me and recommended that she and I work together. I was apprehensive simply because of the connection to the Nemesis, but decided to quit acting all scarred, get over it and welcome collaboration, especially collaboration that comes with funding. Then, I didn't hear from her, and haven't really heard her publicize any other events all semester.

Now, my event is successful and I hear from her. I respond, still trying to maintain the positive attitude toward collaboration. Didn't hear back from her. I began moving forward on my chair's event -- and his really is an Event, involving both a talk and a field trip -- including her in on the e-mails, and still haven't heard from her. She's probably very busy; but I'm learning that you have to move fast on events because you are competing with other people for reservations. Not viciously, mind you, but other people have things going on, and space on the website, with ITV, and facilities, gets assigned on a first-come-first-served basis. In other words, I can't sit around waiting for e-mail replies, dammit!

Then my inner Paranoia, a nasty little gremlin with big, bulging muscles and long, sharp claws, crawled out and perched on the bones of my inner ear. "NOW you hear from her," he whispered. "You do something good, and NOW you hear from her. AND she's associated with the Nemesis. They want to co-opt your program!"

"Assholes!" I agreed.

"They want to co-opt your program after ONE event," he sneered. "They want to take it over and push you out."

"Bitchez!" I said, fearing the revocation of my feminist card for my sexism.

"They want to push you out and you won't get any credit and then your project is gone and you have nothing to do and they can use that against you," he whispered.

"Oh my god!" I gasped, "they do!"

Then, the Paranoia-fighting gargoyle showed up. She's bigger and not so muscle-bound. She dragged the Paranoia gremlin off and tied him down with duct-tape and told me, "so what if this asshole is right? You have a million other ideas and a million other things you do and can do!" Dis I mention that the gargoyle is smart, too?

So, yeah. Let them co-opt it, if the Paranoia gremlin is right. If he isn't, then I have a collaborator with money. In either case, I can take care of myself simply in doing things that I like to do. That's a fucking powerful feeling, and not one that I've felt much in my life.

That powerful feeling also goes back to that feeling of finding a home. I'm not running to somewhere else. I'm not overextending myself out of fear that, if I don't, the world will fall apart.

______________
*I could say something snarky here about how this professor's influence seemed to have made no impact upon one of his former employers' exhibits at a certain museum -- and I just did.

**I was a film major for one semester back in 1986. Then, I learned that it was going to be expensive, and that I would have to interact with people. I switched to English so that I could read good books and have what I thought was going to be minimal interaction with other humans.

***I'm not remotely Arab American, but just as I'm not remotely African American, you don't have to belong to a group to have an interest in the history and life. Plus, they need some activities for the month on my campus, my fliers about my own events hit the Arab American Heritage Month coordinator's in box, and so she saw someone with some interest and ability for doing such events, and she contacted me. Since, in my classes, I include the ways that stereotypes have real consequences for the people stereotyped, we are going to do a program on Arab stereotypes. I'm also showing a film on Arab feminists.

Just When You Think You Are Awesome, Someone Trys to Remind You That You Aren't

Yes, the old Nemesis, the Infernal Internal Fellowship Coordinator, has reared her ugly head again. To be accurate, she reared it at the end of last fall, which I wrote about, but I'm finding out how far her rearing has extended and the whole situation becomes ever more surreal and disconnected from my understanding of reality.

As I may have mentioned, I am supposed to be the Gender Studies coordinator for my campus beginning next fall. This was not a position that I sought or applied for. The program involves all three of our campuses, each campus having a coordinator. My campus being one of the two "other" campuses -- as designated by the self-proclaimed "central" and "main" campus -- we don't have much going on. That is, we don't have many gender courses at our campus, we don't have a budget, and we aren't permitted much of a role in any college-wide events. "College-wide" here meaning that the events take place on that self-proclaimed "main" campus, but with very little involvement of people from other campuses. This practice is not limited to just this program and rankles everyone at the "other" campuses.

The current Gender Studies coordinator got a bigger coordinator position in her department, and, from what I understand, no one else wanted to take on the Gender Studies coordinator position. I was approached kind at what they thought was the last minute, despite the fact that we don't have any women's history classes at our campus (and why we don't and why we can't and why getting a U.S. women's history course approved is a whole other political story involving, of course, the control of that "main" campus). Since the job involves simply publicizing the gender courses, teaching a women's studies class, and putting on a production of the Vagina Monologues (duh! and that's a whole other post, too), I said, "o.k." I mean, what the heck? Anything extra that I do will make me look extra good, right?

Everyone here was happy. The job was filled, it was filled with a pretty darn good teacher (me!) who people here tend to like, and who has a c.v. that cannot be argued with.

Guess who held this same position many years ago, before she took over the fellowships and before she was chair of her department? Yep. The Nemesis. I mention this because her former tenure seems to me the only way to explain her subsequent behavior. She probably still sees the program as her baby and fears harm will befall it in my hands. I get that; but I've also learned that it's stupid and something a person has to get over because you make choices that mean you have to let some things -- things very important to your sense of self -- go.

Meanwhile, when she got wind that I -- me, the abusive, destructive, had-to-be-censored, non-subservient former fellow -- was going to be the new coordinator of one of the dinkier branches of a program in which she is no longer involved at a campus where she no longer works -- well, she had to save the program from me.

Again, to reiterate: she doesn't work at my campus, holds no role in the program, is not even in the classroom, and is no where in any line above or below me in the organizational hierarchy. All I will be doing is publicizing classes (which, it turns out, I'm pretty good at), teaching a class, and directing a play. I may also do other things as I settle into the role, but this is the job description right now.

Clearly, I will threaten the entire program at all three campuses! In fact, I might threaten the whole college itself! Why, even the field of gender studies in its entirety might collapse under the vicious, vindictive, and destructive weight of my abusive criticism! After all, didn't wasn't her own program and the entire structure of a multi-museum national institution on the brink of destruction because of me? Why, I just might be one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse!!!!!11111ONE1!!!Eleventy!

Why, oh, why can I not use my power for good!?!?

Only SHE could save the world from me. She twiddled her butt over to the dean's office at her campus. A dean who, incidentally, is no where in the in the chain of command above below or anywhere near me. A dean who could not pick me out of a line-up. A dean whom I could not pick out of a line-up. Indeed, I don't think that this dean or I have ever met on any occasion. This dean had never heard my name, and certainly had not ever seen my credentials.

The Nemesis recounted my sins, all based on evidence that she herself deleted, and convinced the dean that I would be the utter destruction of the program. They then went to the college-wide head of the gender studies program -- again, someone who has never met me and does not know any of my credentials -- and convinced her of my evil, hateful nature. The college-wide head then contacted the current coordinator and said, "I absolutely cannot work with her." Never met me, but cannot work with me. To be fair, unlike the other haters in this little melodrama, she and I would be in the same chain of command in regard to this program.

Incidentally, I was originally supposed to take over this coordinator position this spring -- as in right now -- but because of these objections, the current coordinator had to stay in the position for the spring, and the person she was supposed to replace in her new position had to stay in it for the spring, despite other professional commitments already made. That person ended up overextended this semester and just had a major medical attack last week that led to time in an ICU. What is that saying about the butterfly effect: that a control freak twiddles her butt on one campus and a professor on another ends up in intensive care?

Meanwhile, the current coordinator (I think I gave her the name Sam? Or Pat? I really need to get my character names straight!) laughed raucously at the "I absolutely cannot work with her" comment. As she told me later, "As if that head actually works 'with' anyone!" The current coordinator says that she does not have to deal with the head on any occasion whatsoever in the regular course of the semester, and only hears from that head when the head wants something, like to approve already foregone decisions such as, "we have already decided to do X, so we need you just to sign off on it."

The last foregone conclusion was a conference. "We have decided to have the conference at your campus this spring and you will have to plan it by yourself," the current coordinator was told. "We just need you to say 'yes.'" To which the current coordinator said, "hell NO," and OUR dean backed her up by saying, "I concur, 'hell NO.'"

Which, now that I think about it, if that is the way that she operates, then she really couldn't work with me because I don't really like being told what my opinion is. Doesn't it suck when a woman, who is supposed to be a sister, mansplains?

Of course, now I'm going on the same sort of hearsay and gossip to judge her as she is going on me. Except, I'm not holding up people administrative changes and causing a lot of people a lot of problems based on that hearsay and gossip. I'm just bitching in a semi-anonymous vacuum with worse consequences for myself than for anyone else.

Anyway, the more of this tale that I learn, the more that I wonder at the logic involved. The fellowship wanted me because I had good ideas and directly relevant expertise on the subject of the fellowship. When I offered my ideas and expertise, I was accused of being abusive, of slandering other people's credentials, and of being destructive. Then, I was censored. I remove myself from the situation, which should have been a relief to the Nemesis, and instead she starts a vendetta. I agree to take on a position to which she has no current connection, which no one else wanted, and which makes happy everyone with whom I would have regular contact, and she has to run a campaign to prevent this. What is her end game here? What is her investment? She clearly want to prevent me from holding the position MORE that I want to hold it.

I write about this here because it is so perplexing. It doesn't affect my sense of myself. My dean gave me some recommendations to "rehabilitate my reputation" with the three people at the other campus, the Nemesis, the Other Dean, and the Program Head -- as if my reputation could ever be rehabilitated with the Nemesis short of prostrating myself before her inflated sense of wisdom, and as if I had a reputation with the other two in the first place. One of these recommendations involved bringing speakers to campus, which freaked me out because I have no idea how to do such a thing.

Rather, I HAD no idea. I ended up drawing upon faculty at all three of our campuses and running with another faculty member's idea (with full the approval and participation of that faculty member) to have a series of speakers to commemorate the anniversary of a Big Historical Event. Now I have different faculty members and their professional friends giving talks on some aspect of the Big Historical Event through the end of the semester and into the fall. I started with our faculty because I had to learn simple things like reserving rooms and publicizing events, and to do it with absolutely no money whatsoever.

Turns out, I'm kinda good at that. Not professional, but I am learning what needs to be done and am doing it. We will see just how good I am at it after the first event happens on Monday. I have a bit of anxiety about getting butts in the seats without the promise of pizza and cokes. Nonetheless, I'm rather stoked about having pulled the whole damn thing together this far. If it is successful, maybe I can beg enough money for pizza at the next one!

That, combined with the fact that I've finished this article, and that I'm having a really good semester in teaching, is the source of my "I kinda awesome" feeling. That feeling makes me look at that Nemesis, the Other Dean, and the Program Head and think that, whatever their issue with me, they are losing more in rejecting me than I am if I am not allowed to take the position. On top of that, I am not engaging in this -- other than sorting it out here -- and I have this serene feeling of rising above it all. There haven't been too many times in my life where I found myself in a situation in which I felt calmly and with great certainty and detachment that "I am better than this," but this is one; and I laugh at the behavior of my supposed "elder sisters."

All in All, A Good Week

Ever have mornings when you feel like your blood runs slow?

Anyway, I made it out of the Snowpocalypse and had a lovely visit with the Gentleman Caller (as usual!). Since the train wasn't running above ground, and since a cab ride probably would have involved the sale of all of my worldly possession and a bank loan, I ended up driving to the airport. Gretl the Garmin took me through downtown, which was surprisingly devoid of traffic. Then, again, the snow had essentially closed down the city. I only really had three moments of pure, heart-stopping anxiety.

The first moment took place when I had to enter a freeway. The snow plows had created gigantic snow banks that towered far above my car and filled the merging lanes. That meant that I had to drive straight into traffic, blind. Nothing like an adrenaline rush to make you feel alive! Or to ensure that your car is powered by profanity, particularly the F word.

Surviving that, I arrived at the airport and headed to the economy lot. At the economy lot, snow covered all of the cars. "Shit," I thought (the car was still running on profanity). "I'm going to have to dig myself out when I get back." Much like the plows at my apartment complex, these at the airport lot had just plowed enough space for one car to wobble its way down the center of the rows of buried cars. That led to more profanity and another car and I nearly engaged in a dogfight when we met nose-to-nose in the center of a particularly long lane and both had to back out.

Then, I noticed that there were no spaces for parking. Not that there were no parking spaces. In fact, a surprising number of spaces appeared to be unoccupied. Unoccupied, that is, except for a 2-foot covering of snow. Whoever called for the snowplows forgot to tell them to plow out some spaces for cars to actually park. When I notices some people leaving the lot, I went in search of their spaces, only to realize that, since those people were leaving in SUVs, they had been able to plow over the 3-foot drifts behind their behemoths and had left behind mounds that may have fit beneath a ginormous gas-guzzler, but would stop my little Mazda cold. (Hee! Cold: a pun!)

With my car still running on profanity, I said, "Fuck it," and went to the parking garage. The price may have been nearly double, but not having to dig out my car -- or, indeed, dig it in -- when I returned, nor having to wait in snow 3-feet deep for a shuttle bus, was totally worth the $85 I paid to park there.

In the airport, I expected to see hundreds of people camped out up and down the concourses. I just knew that the line through security would stretch around and around for miles with people tired and grumpy and just wanting to get the hell out of the city. I anticipated harried airline clerks and security drones. I expected a riot.

So, imagine by combined disappointment and relief when I saw that the place was practically deserted. "Damn, no blog post!" I thought. "Hallelujah! No line!"I exclaimed. I had plenty of time to disrobe and unpack, then re-robe and re-pack at X-ray machines.

As I skipped away from security (as much as anyone dragging a suitcase with a jammed wheel and a ten-ton computer bag can skip), a voice from on high announced, "mrmmrmmmh flight cancelled." I froze mid-skip. "No." I said. "NO!" That was the second time that my heart-stopped.

Then, the stampede. A herd of people burdened with suitcases and coats and Mardi Gras beads swept past me.

Mardi Gras beads?

The announcement repeated, this time more clearly. "Flight xxxx to New Orleans has been cancelled due to weather. You can only be changed to a new flight at the ticket counter."

"Hallelujah!" I sang. "Awesome!"

Wait. A flight to New Orleans has been cancelled "due to weather"? A hurricane? In February?

I later heard from my aunt down that way. They had snow. The flight to central New York was on time, but the flight to southeast Louisiana, the swamp, was cancelled due to snow. Maybe this really is the apocalypse.

My flight was on time, the Gentleman Caller picked me up; and we were so cute that, if you saw us at any point over the next five days, you would have gagged right before you fell into a diabetic coma. I also finally finished the overhaul of my Frederick Douglass's sister article.

Then, I had to return, which was when I encountered by my third moment of anxiety. I stepped up to the kiosk to check in and the screen said that it could not find me on my flight. I tried again. Again, the computer could not find me on the flight. Knowing me as I do, I thought, "It would be just like me to have completely flaked and booked my flight for 5 AM instead of 5 pm." I pulled out my flight plan.

No, I got the time right. There I was, all booked to fly out at 5 pm.

Five pm on Monday, MARCH 15th.

"I am the stupidest person in the world," I said. The ticket agents demonstrated that customer service that airlines are so noted for when, at a ticket desk with no line and no other customers, I approached them to ask them to change my ticket. They must have been talking about something of vital, national importance based on their highly insulted reaction to my request. I made sure to thank them profusely when they were able to get me on the one remaining seat on the flight that I wanted -- at an extra charge of $150 (It's been a long time since I've had Ramen noodles. I think I may want some for the next, oh, two or three weeks). I think that one of them may have been hearing disabled because, after I said "thank you thank you thank you" and turned to head for the gate, one of them replied, "THANK YOU" in that voice that your mom uses on you to prompt you when you have failed to show your gratitude.

The flight back ran a little late, and was so small that I thought I was in steerage. Perhaps that might be a good name for an airline: Steerage Air. Their slogan could be, "We pack you in as tight as the laws of physics will allow, all for an arm and a leg!" Seriously, I've had more room in a Cessna. I was supposed to sit by the window, but the person who had the aisle ticket had already taken that seat. I didn't fight him for it because there was really no room for us to change positions and because I was already getting claustrophobic on the aisle where at least there was room to breathe. By the window, with the overhead bins, a passenger next to me, and the assholes in front who don't realize that other people exist and lean their seats back? I'd have lost my damn mind.

By the way, the novel that I read on the plane, a work of historical fiction set in the reign of Elizabeth I (and is not by Philippa Gregory), involved a character shut in a tiny little cave of a space called "Little Ease," as a form of torture. I felt his pain.

Despite my usual bitching and moaning, I arrived home in one piece, didn't have to dig out my car, and was actually rather relieved to return to work after a week and a half of quarantine by snow.

Where Love Begins, Reason Ends

The snowing has ended, but the wind and snow remain. Drivers sail down cleared roads between walls of filthy ice. Parking is a bit of a problem, as is walking on sidewalks or waiting for the bus since the snow has to go somewhere and curbs, sidewalks, and bus stops seem to be that somewhere.

Meanwhile, I'm supposed to fly out to visit the Gentleman Caller this evening. This has been my main anxiety in this latest deluge of snow. This last gap between visits has been the second longest since we've been together, and our happy, in-love selves were fortunate enough to have this opportunity fall on Valentine's Day. Normally, I hate the day -- and I can save those stories for another post -- but he just brings out the complete, goofy, sappy idiot in me, and I adore it. I adore it especially because he isn't given to patronizing remarks, ignoring me, or treating me as an audience or a blow-up doll, and he never ever mansplains. I adore it because I know that he's actually on my side.

Anyway, enough of the gush. I'm supposed to fly up to see him this evening, and have been holding my breath about the airports being open. Of the three in the area, the one furthest away has opened. The one I'm supposed to fly out of is still closed, but they anticipate it being open later today. The problem seems to be lack of places to put the snow; but the runways end at the confluence of two rivers, so you would think that they could just shove the snow into the water, right? I suppose it isn't that easy. Still, it seems like an idea.

An open airport is only half of the problem. The other half is getting to the airport. Normally, I drive to one of the train stations that has extended-stay parking, hop on the train, and hop off at the airport. No muss, no fuss, I can read on the way. The trains, however, are only running below ground. Below ground train stations don't have parking, much less extended parking. My usual station is at the end of many, many above ground stops.

This means that I'll have to drive to the airport, which lies to the far side of the city. Enter part b of problem 2. What will the traffic be like getting there? The traffic on a significant chunk of the highway there is legendary, so what will it be like today? Fewer people on the road, since most business have closed for the rest of the week; but those on the road will be cramped into fewer lanes because the snow has to go somewhere and the side lanes are that somewhere. Should I head out now, 10 hours early?

Once I get to the airport, I anticipate part c of problem 2. Will they have parking spaces? Lots of parking garages have let people keep their cars in them rather than park on curbs in order to help snowplows clear the roads more efficiently. Also, this part c of problem 2 will most likely coincide with part b of problem 1 in that, with all of the cancelled and delayed flights, the airport will be packed with frustrated, angry, exhausted travellers.

You just KNOW that the airline policies will not be particularly accommodating to their needs, either, because airline companies are studies in abysmal customer service. I'm envisioning a riot between passengers and the employees on the front lines, both on their last nerves, who start by slugging each other and throwing luggage and pulling hair and gnashing teeth. Then, they will all turn on the airlines and rip down signs and commandeer airplanes, shouting "power to the passengers!" They will overwhelm security, who will all say, "fuck it! I don't get paid enough to put up with this shit" and start flinging bins and smashing wands and overturning metal detectors.

Wouldn't that be awesome! I'll take pictures if that happens.

Meanwhile, why do I insist on going up to the far north to see my Gentleman Caller? Why not reschedule, since the airline is allowing rescheduling without "penalty" if your rescheduled flight departs within fourteen days of the original flight (so very kind of them, don't you think)? Why not wait until next week, or the next week? Why now? Why today?

Because I want to see my Gentleman Caller. Because, where love begins, reason ends.

OMG! Will It NEVER Stop?

Yesterday, I wrote that I was a little worried about my roof falling in. I was actually kidding on the square, with a little more kidding than square. Then, I went to the gym. The gym has a flat roof, too, where manly muscled men heaved big heaps of snow to the sidewalks below*

When I returned from the gym, I found this scene on the roof across the street:

That's a team of workers trying to shovel snow off of the roof of the shopping center before the storm sets in. As you can see from the lack of piles near the ground by the building, they seem to be just moving the snow about. The storm began during the time I took this picture and the time that I de-saltified in the shower. These guys were still out there, vainly trying to keep the accumulation to a minimum.

They aren't out there anymore, by the way.

This morning, the county sent out an alert that people should not try shoveling snow off of their rooves for fear of falling off. I was perfectly willing to go on top of our building yesterday to avoid the inconvenience of having a ceiling and 6 feet of snow on my floor. As I wrote, our buildings have flat rooves:

Being an alleged 20 floors up with gust of wind blowing over SUVs** and forcing snow plows off the road, I think I'll risk the snowy living room. Still, I'm a little more square now, and a little less kidding.

Here is the tennis court below. The middle net has almost disappeared, as have all of the dog trails and the fleur de lis:

Here is the horizon to the west:

Here is the horizon to the north:

Here is the parking lot:

What I think we have here are white-out conditions, like I read about in Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter. That book is my reference point for winters after having grown up in the deep south. Well, that and an early childhood in Minnesota and Iowa. When you are two feet high and the snow drifts are two feet high, your perception of snowfalls gets a bit warped.

Growing up in the deep south, having those memories of the far north, and wishing that my life resembled some archetype of normal as depicted in Currier & Ives or Norman Rockwell or even Little House on the Prairie, I desperately wanted to live in a place with snow. Lots of snow! Lots of snow days! Lots of snowmen and snowballs and sledding and cross-country skiing. Trust me, September in southeast Texas will make you long for days like the ones I depicted above. Anything but sweltering, melting heat!

Now, I think that I'm living in a big, wet case of being careful what you wish for.

*Because, as this Washington Post article that Roxie pointed out reports, teh menz just LURVE shovelling snow. It makes them feel butch. I sense a writer getting snowbound and trying to sucker someone else in her household into clearing the sidewalks.

**HA! Serves them right for thinking that they are exempt from disaster in their big ole gas-guzzlers. In fact, if this storm is a product of global warming, then overturned SUVs seem almost poetic justice.***

***I don't have issues with SUVs, do I?

Blahblahblah....

More "Too Long for a Twitter, not long enough for a blog post.":

1) Last week I had a bizarre feeling. From out of nowhere, the sense that I was awesome overcame me. I was just working. I think that I had just finished putting together some touches on the accommodations for a speaker, and the idea organically rose. "I am awesome!" I thought.

It wasn't a pep-rally for myself feeling. It wasn't a conceited or narcissistic feeling, at least not more than usual. It was just a simple sense that I was all right. I mean it in those two words, too. All right.

The feeling stunned me. "Whoa!" I thought. "Is this the way normal people feel?" By "normal," I mean people who haven't been told from the womb that, whatever it is they are doing or being, it's wrong, people who haven't accepted that they are so wrong that they gravitate toward more people who think that they are wrong, which only reinforces the belief that they are wrong. Wrong down to their very souls.

"Do other people just have this simple feeling?" I wondered. "Do they understand that they are o.k.? Do they go around all day with this understanding?"

Let me tell you, it was intoxicating!

2) NO MORE SNOW! Really, we just dug out and now we get more?

Of course, I have these images of living in 30 or 40 years, where the entire continent is a vast desert and there are no polar ice caps, and fondly remembering the days of blizzards.

Meanwhile, they have to start letting flights out of the big airport. I want to see my Gentleman Caller this weekend, dammit! I haven't seen him in over a month and I miss him! Get those planes in the air! (Because it IS all about me and my romance.)

3) I am hoping that the roof doesn't collapse. That never seemed like a possibility until the news started reporting rooves caving in across the city. I live on the top floor of a building with a flat roof. I just don't want to deal with the annoyance of having my ceiling on my floor, all under six feet of snow. That would be a pain.

4) My efforts to "rehabilitate my reputation" -- which I cannot say without a massive eye-roll -- are going well. I have managed to set up three speakers drawn from our own faculty, reserved the space for the speakers, arranged for most of the publicity for the three speakers, may be able to have the speakers filmed for podcasts, and may end up having refreshments if my contact in the student service office can scrape up the money. The campus has an event for Black History month that is actually related to black history and an event for Women's History Month that is related to women's history, the dean is happy, my colleagues are happy, and I look good without a whiff of the vengeful spite that hangs about some of my ambition in this.

5) Consequently, my writing is suffering and I have to get a handle on that. Teaching and writing -- especially the grading part of teaching -- somehow seem antithetical to one another and I have to learn to switch gears more efficiently between the two.

Speaking of which, have you ever been writing something, and as you write, you realize that what you thought you were trying to say is no longer valid, or not valid in the way that you thought it was? I was trying to make a point about Douglass and the ways that he diverged from Harriet/Ruth Adams (his not-sister) , and realized mid-argument that the differences were more subtle than I thought. Now I'm stuck trying to ferret out exactly how they are different or even if they are at all different. After all, there is some sort of qualitative difference between invoking the Haitian and American revolution to warn about the consequences of the Fugitive Slave Act and actually taking up a weapon in preparation to defend oneself. I'm just trying to spin out this argument and am hitting a wall. I think Douglass is talking a good game, and is not completely opposed to the need to resort to violence in self-defense; but, again, he isn't taking up arms himself as far as I can tell, and his position to talk that good game is quite different from Adams's family and seems connected to his class status -- which is really the bigger point that I'm trying to make.

Shoot, I can't even articulate the point that I'm trying to make here with any eloquence. Time for more freewriting and shitty drafts. Perhaps I also need to read more to get more of a context about what other black organizations are doing in response? I just don't want to end up in that position of never finishing something because I can't stop researching and just write. I hate stalling. Stalling leads to nose dives.

6) My apartment complex will now check out shovels to residents. Thank goodness, because there isn't one to be bought anywhere nearby.

7) Which makes me wonder, did Frederick Douglass shovel his own walks. I'm sure Thomas Auld made him shovel them in Baltimore. In New Bedford, perhaps he helped out the person owning the houses that he rented. Heck, given that he had to work at such jobs as hauling coal, he could have shoveled people's walks for cash, too. In Lynn, maybe; but what about when he was off on lectures. Did Anna do the shovelling? Harriet/Ruth? How about in Rochester? Did he hire people to shovel, did he do the shovelling, did he roust his sons out of bed to do the shovelling, did he hire someone, did Anna? In D.C. and Anacostia, too. If he hired someone, that might be a mark of class mobility. If he got his sons, well then that could be interpreted as instilling a work ethic in them, since he was also bringing them into the print shop to work on his paper. If Anna did the shovelling, what might that say about her role or her perception of her role in the house, especially if they could afford to hire someone? I'm actually quite interested in how the Douglass household operated because that seems to be the way in to Anna's world. Also, I like to imagine famous historical figures doing regular stuff. It's kind of like that section in People in which they print paparazzi pictures of celebrities doing their grocery shopping or whatever.

8) Meanwhile, I'm still kinda awesome, just because.

Snowpocalypse? Snow-pain-in-the-a$$!

Someone was really happy about the Saints:

I actually would not have known the context of that fleur-de-lis if it weren't for the fact that The Who played the half-time show. My feeling for football lies somewhere between couldn't care less and loathing (but that's another story).>

The Who, on the other hand, I like very much. What's more, in watching their show, I was struck by the wonderful absence of "dancers." That is, young people, scantily clad, thrusting their crotches and asses at the audience as if demanding dollar bills in their waistbands; or, as comedian Lewis Black describes it "tittytittytitty, assassass." They will all need chiropractors before age 21.

Yes, I am a grumpy old woman.

I was also struck by the awareness that The Who are my parents' age. My parents don't look anywhere near that good. In fact, my parents look like The Who's parents. While Daltry preserved his dignity by keeping his shirt on, I admit I miss the days when his chest was more spectacular than the fireworks. Finally, I was struck by how "Won't Get Fooled Again" is still a pissed-off relevant song.

Anyway, I don't have too many pictures of the Snowpocaplyse sequel because it all looked pretty much the same as the first one, including crappy snowplow jobs.

I did notice this anomaly:
See there by the pole? See how there are foot tracks up to the pole? See how there is one print on the fence opposite the pole? Hmmm.

Those other lines were not just made by humans. Dogs loved plowing through the drifts, too.

My car is down there*:

That picture was this morning. There is considerably less snow between the plowed lanes and the cars. Last night, I went down to survey the damage. A block of snow at least four feet tall stood between be and my car. This four foot block was six feet deep. I do not have a shovel.

Why don't I have a shovel? Because I live in an apartment building in Maryland. For three years, I haven't needed a shovel. Hell, for 8 years I've lived in snowy places and haven't needed a shovel. Now, the furthest south that I've lived during that time, I need a shovel. I would go over to Sears to buy one but they are closed, and are probably sold out anyway. I'd be hard pressed to find a shovel for sale within 100 miles, I'd guess.

I did have one of those scrubrush types of brooms. I used that to chip away and chip away and chip away at the snow. Where the snow was deepest, but not packed, I found that I could move more of it by digging with my hands like a dog. That was actually quite fun, as was falling into the soft drifts -- poof! -- and wallowing. Eventually, someone lent me his shovel, and I made good headway in clearing the snow from behind my car. Then, he needed it back, so I went back to doggie-digging and the broom. When I had dug a nice trench around my car, I thought that I could maybe drive over the snow behind me.

Yeah, rookie mistake.

I see-sawed back and forth, getting a little further back each time, and pushing the drift ahead of me a little further into the empty parking space in front of me. Back-and-forth, back-and-forth: I felt like a demolition derby driver, or some vindictive, angry criminal on a cop show. It was quite fun!

That is, it was quite fun until -- you guessed it -- I got stuck. The nose end of my car burrowed into the drift in front of me. Backwards or forwards, my wheels spun until I smelt the distinct scent of burning rubber. "That might be enough," I thought. Then, I had to wiggle out of the car since the drifts on either side almost had me trapped. The drifts also blocked me from dislodging the snow packed around the driver's side tire. I had lost one glove. The other had become an ice block. My shoes and pants were soaked through. My fingers had become numb.

At that point, the fire alarm went of in the building. Again. As it does regularly. Once a week on average. For no reason.**

While the fire engines roared up and the firemen made their usual run of the building and the residents clustered outside of the stalled elevators, I used the broom to clear away as much of the snow as I could. The problem with that, however, was that there really isn't anywhere to put or push the snow in the middle of a crowded parking lot. I had been flinging snow into the driving lane, hoping to spread it out. At least then it might be picked up, since the little bulldozer that could seemed to be the only vehicle removing snow in the entire complex, and he was trying to make wider lanes at the entrances.

That is, he was trying to make wider lanes until someone obnoxious demanded that he clear a parking space out for them while they left their car blocking the lane because they were more important than everyone else.

Finally, I gave up. My fingers hurt too much and my toes were headed the same way, and my audiobook had ended, and I was getting grumpier by the second. Plus, I couldn't see. I went inside. The elevators were still stalled. "Of course," I thought, and realized that getting one might take a while once they started up because the hall was packed.

"Twenty flights," I thought. "I just got an upper body workout, now I can get a leg workout." At the tenth floor, I gave up. Fortunately, the elevators had started running again. Back in my apartment, I took a hot shower, and poured a glass of wine.

This morning, I found that the complex has one solution for getting rid of the snow:

That's the little bulldozer that could dumping snow into the back of a truck. He seemed to be starting to help drivers minimize the drifts behind their cars. That was too much to hope for. They both took off right after I took this picture, and had only arrived just before.

The airports are all closed, as are the above ground trains. We expect more snow tomorrow and the next day. I'm going to have to get a shovel before then. I'm supposed to go see Gentleman Caller this weekend, too. He has snow on his end; but, being further north, people in his area tend to expect it every year. It's my end that may prevent this reunion. This makes me very grumpy. Very grumpy.

Of course, the airlines are so helpful and accommodating. They will not charge passengers for last minute changes in flight plans, so long as the new flight leaves within 7 days of the original departure. No refunds.

So, that's my bitching about the Snow-pain-in-the-ass. At least the roof didn't cave in, and my car still runs as far as I know, and we have power and....crap! we just lost water.

I think I'd better go dig up a shovel (hee! pun!) now, or at least my car out of the snowdrift. Once you are out in the snow, and don't have anywhere that you have to be, it can be kinda fun.

*Guess which one is mine? I'll give you a hint: it looks like it is rearending a big-ass SUV.

**For no reason except bored kids who don't care if their family gets evicted for pranks such as pulling the fire alarm. Although, I suspect that maybe this time the cause was a frozen pizza burning, since there seemed to be a run on frozen pizzas at the grocery store on Friday. A plague of locusts had descended on Giant and devoured all of the frozen pizza, water, juice, and ice cream snacks. Also, all of the meat.