the gendered construction of public toilets
Music: The Cure: Carnage Visors SAYING GOODBYE
Last night Michael and Ruth Bowman hosted a going-away party for the exodus party (Wesley Burkle to eastern Tennessee, yours truly to Austin, David Terry to Chapel Hill, and Justin and Jess Trudeau to Dallas). When folks are sad to see you leaving, but also visibly happy for you as well, its easy to get verklempt. Rog gave me a toast with love and "payback" in equal measure that made me get all weepy. The other toasts were similarly moving and love was thick in the room. One thing that the LSU community has that I know is unique is a strong sense of community and an active cultivation of caring. I left "early" and got home around midnight. If I stayed with everyone I would have cried and become overly emotional and, as we all know, "boys don't cry." I am going to miss these people so very much. As for the place . . . yeah, I'm going to miss that too. I hate the ritual of leaving love, and trying to sleep with the loss.
EXPENSIVE FOOLISHNESS
Thursday afternoon I received an unexpected package of ten copies of my book. It is a weird feeling, at once both anticlimactic and exciting. I need to take it to a bar and just gloat . . . but I worry I'm going to find more mistakes (I already found one big one just thumbing through it . . . not my fault, neither!). I think the design is nice, with a groovy booger-green cover. It's a little scary now that this thing is ready to go and to be judged by others. It's just a retrofitted dissertation, and so I shouldn't expect too many oohs and ahhs . . . it's simply nice to have it over with. I'm not saying it's shit (well, it is shit, but it’s my shit!), just that its pretty much what I was thinking over three years ago, and I've changed my mind about a lot of stuff since then. I think the anxiety most scholars experience when their tome is published is that it will be read as their present "state of mind," that one will be held to which-whatever silly ass mistaken thought she had over four years ago. Well, anyway, I hope someone enjoys it, or finds it fun or useful. It lists for a whopping $50, which pretty much kills the chances of it ever going to paperback (though I can get copies for $35, so, if you wanna save some dough and would like a copy, just email me). Well, perhaps it will bring anger or delight for at least two years before it is remaindered at Labyrinth Books.
ASTRONAUT, SCISSOR-SISTER STYLE
All-powerful Mindy Fenske hooked my shit up with some primo seating for the upcoming Duran Duran show in New Orleans on July 13, as well as a fully autographed glossy and compact disk. Master-Piercer Jen P. and me will be jamming to the hot new sounds of 1984 up close and personal in a few! w00t! The new(er) album is "ok," if only because they stopped trying to sound "un-gay." I'm particularly amused by the title track, which precedes a song titled, "Bedroom Toys":
Makes my hair stand up on end, Something alien happening, Sychronize but don't comprehend, 'Cause where I stop that's where you begin!Another moment I commit, A pleasure as I'm gonna' take the hit, And I'm addicted to the state you're in, 'Cause you're getting me out of it!
So, clearly this is the 2004 version of "Cocaine Sex," right? Where one stops is indeed where another begins, hand in glove. But then the song gets stupider:
Saturn's holy rings? Twins? This is all so hotly and deliciously ambiguously homo-erotic. You gotta listen to the track, because of the way LeBon sings "Astronaut": "Ass" is emphasized in a high falsetto. This is no mere paean to drunken anal-sex! It's an all out attempt to get a song featured on Queer Eye!Wasted, there's nothing gonna ace this, And were gonna go to space it, 'Cause I'm leaving with an astronaut!
Groovin' out to X-ray specs, Something tells me your the alien sex, I can't imagine now what comes next, When this astronaut connects!
Coming on when I touch your skin, A kinda' strange light you emit, I hear you're gravity pull me in, Now your getting me out of it!
Wasted, there's nothing gonna ace this, And were gonna go to space it, 'Cause I'm leaving with an astronaut!
There, feat for quantum leap, Because space is hot and deep, And we follow giant footprints, As we fall in, falling like the twins, Through Saturn's holy rings, And if they can't hold us, where it's gonna end up, Anybody knows
Boxes and Bangs
I've noticed I have much more time to blog than usual. Why? I should be packing. I hate packing. Ok, so. I'm going to pack now.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: Miss Panda has bangs! Very hot. I got hated for not noticing IMMEDIATELY. But it's true: I like banging.