OM Shantih Shantih Shantih OM

Nature is going nuts. Monday Dr. Hamming and I rescued a fledgling robin from a pipe in the ground. Tuesday I found an egg in the grass and saved a caterpiller from a quick dealth on the sidewalk. Wednesday I rescued a toad who couldn't get back up the steps into the garden and a crane fly (mosquito hawk) who mistakenly flew into my office. Today I didn't rescue anything, but I applied for a scholarship and filed my federal taxes. That's not too shabby.

I'm practicing to be a Jain monk. Bless you my child.

Tales From the Gender Zone

Ah, the Conference, Academia's beloved replacement for old white men with pipes sitting around, having a brandy and formulating rhetorical arguments.

You have to love it. It looks so good on your résumé.

Last weekend Centenary (and by Centenary and mean Drs. Van-Hoosier-Carey and Wolkomir) hosted the ASC Gender Studies Conference. Of course we whipped up a panel and signed up. This is going to sound really narscissistic, but I think I'm terribly over-educated. Not just me, but all five of the girls in my panel. The one constant thought we seemed to share throughout the conference was: "some of these people are SOOOOO third-wave." I guess somehow implying that we're all fourth-wave feminists, which means we do whatever we want to and expect everyone to let us. Part of that is that is not only that we expect girls to be CEOs and play pro-Football, but that we expect boys to knit us scarves and fold our socks if they feel inspired.

It's a Centenary thing. I know it must be. There are so few boys here that it seems almost like a relief when they want a position of power. Nearly everyone on my Conglomerate staff is female. There's no competition. I have three straight and three gay professors this semester and four of them are rediculously powerful and independent women (the others being rediculously powerful and independent men). I'm not sure that I'm living in a universe that represents that "outside world" very accurately. This, I suspect, is partly why people just don't seem to get very far away from Centenary--it's so nice here. A dream come true, really.

Anyway, that has very little to do with the conference, which was a smash hit. If they had given out awards, our panel would have gotten them all.

And if you want to see pictures you can go here. I'm not in any of them, but one of them is a classic picture of Tim. It's the only picture you'll ever see of him within fifty feet of fried fish. (Say that ten times fast.)

We Didn't Start the Fire

Rather than catching up on the homework I missed through this long weekend of revelry, I'm going to take this time to write about the revelry itself (and eat a hot fudge sundae).

The week turned out exactly as I predicted: history has been rewritten. (Pardon my melodrama.)
Thursday night at Chi Psi (like Chanukah, the Tau Kappa Epsilon Red Carnation Ball is more than one night), all of my questions were answered. You see, last saturday, after two baudy rounds of Scrabble, Jason told me that he was going to propose to Kristin at RCB. Of course, the first thing I wanted to do was tell someone--ANYONE--because secrets like that are way to good to keep secret. I really considered writing Kacie a letter that said "DON'T OPEN UNTIL FRIDAY," but I was afraid somehow it would slip and Kristin would find out. I think if I had ruined the surprise I'd have given myself guilt-induced coronary thrombosis.

So all week I've been freaking out (inwardly, so's not to expose anything), and hoping that Kristin wouldn't be struck mute and unable to say "yes!" She wasn't. She said yes and since everyone in the fraternity and their dates was in the room, there was this crazy pause, an audible gasp, and then a roar. I'll admit it- it was fantastic. And the pajamas helped.

It was also fantastic when Marcus introduced himself and his date, Adam, as the only bi-racial couple at this RCB. He gets funnier and funnier with each successive week, but maybe you had to be there to appreciate it.

The next best surprise was finding out that the lovely Amelia Harrell is this year's sweetheart. Now, not only are we all moving in together, and getting jobs at the same place, but we all get to be on a plaque picture and bake TKE cookies together. I know all good feminists are probably struggling with this one, but they've never thrown a costume party and invited me, or played Trivial Pursuit into the wee hours on a whim. And lest anyone think that any of us is a bad person for loving the boys and volunteering for the dirty work of making banners and treats pour eux, just remember that Amy is the reason Centenary recycles, Kacie has never taken any crap from anyone, and I... honestly I think I got it because I carry around a tool kit and like to paint things.

Anyhoo--all of this led up to a fantastically drama-free RCB in Dallas at the Aristocrat Hotel. It never stopped raining ONCE, but we went out nonetheless. Friday night my camera fell out of the taxi and into the rushing gutter and shattered into seventy million pieces, but I repaired it with Tim's magical surgical tape. Somehow, by the grace of God, it still works (with photographic evidence to prove it).

Abram, Jessica, Kristin, Jason, Tim and I walked to the Dallas Museum of art on Saturday and tried not to drip on the paintings. We succeeded. I took this picture for Tim's mom, without whom I would have no idea who Chihuly is. Those jelly-fish looking hanging bits are actually huge blown-glass sculptures.

Saturday evening was the actual ball and about that I have only one negative comment, and that is that different gravies should not be mixed on one plate. Beyond that, everyone and everything was just great. It felt so good to just be around everyone in a brilliant mood and fancy clothes.

Oh yeah, and that dress is the one that makes me cry to look at it.

I'm so glad just to be here and to be invited to such things. When I came to college I imagined that I'd buckle down and make all sort of intellectual achievements alone in a dark library. What an idiot. Thank God I have friends cool enough to be addicted to.

P.S.> Come to the Gender Studies Conference this weekend and participate in our round table and we'll give you the secret to gender equality.

And the Envelope please?

If you find that I'm hard to get ahold of this weekend, I'm gone for the Red Carnation Ball--gala to end all galas. I've already got more news to tell you than you can fit in Shea Stadium so hold on to your hat. (But please not you're breath, as I will be gone the whole weekend.)

TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE, TKE...

His Hair Was Perfect

"I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's,

His hair was perfect." -Warren Zevon

What a weird freaking day this has been. This week will go down in history.

FEMA: Fix Everything My Ass

Well, we got back from New Orleans at about 11:30 last night after four days of hoopla and ballyhoo and I honestly miss it already.

Before you read on, take the time to read this galant article by Bill Joyce, about "Katrinarita Gras;" you'll find it here. The New Yorker cover is the one that got bumped because our Vice President can't tell the difference between a 78 year-old man and a spotted ground bird.

I don't have my camera with me right now, so I'll post my photos as soon as I get a chance, but I don't think anyone needs photographic proof of the fact that New Orleans and Mardi Gras are the epitome of a spectacle.

6 months later the city is still struggling to maintain a modicum of normalcy. Traffic lights aren't just turned off, they aren't there. A jumble of hieroglyphics marks the front of each house lucky enough to remain standing, explaining what--or who--was found inside. Some streets have been reduced to pathways by piles of rubble. Dead cars, dusty and missing tired, windows, hoods, have been deposited by some anonymous hand underneith every single overpass. Half of the businesses have signs that say: "help wanted!" Half say: "CLOSED FOR GOOD." Buildings in seemingly undamaged areas of town have been visibly looted. Street signs are wrapped around their poles. Every imaginable kind of debris lines the highways from the center of the city well past Baton Rouge: wheelbarrows, sleeping bags, dogs, fence posts, tree limbs, whole cars, shoes, toys, carriages, grills, planters, ovens, hats, doors... you name it-- if it's a noun, it's been lost in the city of New Orleans.

But that's what Mardi Gras is all about. It's about recognizing all of the dirty, frightening, repulsive symptoms of life and dressing them up in drag, flipping them over and riding them all the way to the party.

I'll admit that I didn't want to go to Mardi Gras this year because I thought it would be more dangerous than ever. While it may have been more dangerous, for all intents and purposes, it didn't fell that way. It felt like a relief.

After 20 years of rejected invitations, a group of actual Zulu warriors from South Africa came to be in the Zulu (Social Aid and Pleasure club) parade, rumour has it, at the personal behest of none other than Nelson Mandela. The theme of Rex was "Beaux Arts and Letters," which I thought should have been "Beaux Arts et Lettres" or "Fine Arts and Letters," but not a combination of the two. That's a French and English major thing, I think. Anyway, my two favorite floats were "Clementine Hunter" and "John James Audubon." I'm not sure I have pictures of the two but I'll see.

The two parades were well worth the sacrifice we made by getting up at five a.m. to drive to St. Charles Avenue to see them. We didn't catch any coconuts. We had to walk 3/4 of a mile to pay a dollar to pee. We saw a couple wearing suits made out of umbrella parts and a man with his hands through a sign that said, "Free Mamograms, Place Breasts Here." Later I saw Marie Antoinette stand on her tiptoes to kiss (and by kiss I mean lick) an astronaut through his helmet.

There are WAY too many stories to bore you with telling them all here, because I know that even though it was excting for me to get a bracelet from a little boy dressed like the grim reaper, and even more exciting to find eleven dollars on the ground on Bourbon Street, and even MORE exciting to remember the toilet paper in my purse in a scary port-a-potty on the Canal Street neutral ground.

In short, New Orleans is still there. It looks like it was rode hard and hung up wet, but it's there. We had a blowout and almost got killed by a roadside slasher trying to get out of it, which I think is all the more proof that people need to come back to New Orleans and stay there--and from the looks of it, that's what all the wonderful freaks are planning to do.

Mardi Gras Trivia: The official colors of Mardi Gras in New Orleans are purple, green and gold, symbolizing justice, faith and power. When you dress an entire family in matching polo shirts of these colors it is a fashion crime against humanity.