Hallway to Nowhere

Category: personal

  • Wild Scrabble

    Wild Scrabble

    So I followed the World Scrabble Championship match Sunday with bated breath. Kudos to Brett Smitheram who won with “braconid” and thereby earned the game, trouncing his partner by a whopping 174 points with that one word alone. I f you are wondering just what the word means, it refers to a parasitic wasp. I love Scrabble and play online at the Internet Scrabble Club. Before I found that site, I played on FB but playing there was frustratingly slow, and the quality of players I would encounter were variable. Sometimes  the responses were downright bizarre. I had one person-(I assume this was a male but don’t know for certain)- demand that I take my clothes off before playing, telling me that “this was scrabble for the grown-ups, chickie.”  I declined to play this person. It traumatized me to the point where I shut down my FB profile altogether, something I had wanted to do anyway. I had found The Internet Scrabble Club, a MUCH more professional venue for serious Scrabble players and am very happy there.

    But let me recount my Scrabble adventures in RL! I mourn the loss of my Scrabble buddy to relocation. He was a colleague from work, a fellow librarian, and the only person I’ve found willing to play around here. We’d meet every Friday evening for dinner and a game. When I initially moved here, a friend who lives in a much larger city, suggested that I advertise on CraigsList for a Scrabble partner. Naive me, I did so. That might work in a larger venue. HERE, it only garnered me offers to play for kinky sex. I quickly took the ad down, horrified at the responses. I only wanted a plain vanilla SCRABBLE PARTNER. People apparently thought it was code for something else, but I’m still not sure what. SMH. I can’t find ANYONE who will play me. I’ve got a nice board, the latest edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary…..I’ll provide endless cups of very high quality hot tea to fuel the game! Of course, I DO play for blood and don’t consider a game well-played unless both players have scored well over 400 points.

    My landlord loves me. I pay my rent early.  I always inform him if there’s ever a problem (and he always gets it fixed). I look after his place, should his family go on vacation. My dog plays with his dog. I never throw bashes. A hotly contested Scrabble game is as wild as I get. What better tenant than a librarian with a non-barking whippet? (The whippet yodels, she rarely barks. And she has my landlord wrapped firmly around her front paw. He not only brings her steak scraps, he brings whole steaks, plus organic treats he buys specially for her from the vet’s office.) Now, if ONLY I could FIND a Scrabble partner!

  • Tea Lust

    Tea Lust

    My fellow/sister/whatevers, I confess: I have lust in my heart. I want two binchas of tea that will cost more than I afford at the moment…but…but…one is ON SALE and they sound sssssssooooo mouthwatering….and I can get 10-percent off …and I haven’t bought ANY pu’er in SUCH a long long long long time….oh, fuck, somebody shoot me before I talk myself into buying these! While we’re talking tea and ruinous expense, I also have my eye on some Camellia Crassicolumna Black, a rare and little-known yabao from Qianjiazhai, China for those times when you want tea but no caffeine. And I’m thinking about a new Yixing pot for blacks, b/c I’ve gone back to blacks, thanks to the wonderful He family in Laoshan. Of course, I can’t get a Yixing pot for what I could, say 20 years ago. Now it’s going to cost me dearly. But one must sacrifice for fine tea. I’ll get one this winter. I know the artist I want to buy from. He makes truly amazing pots.

  • Reflections On A Privileged Childhood

    I’ve been thinking about class, race, and privilege a lot lately. The struggles of the character in Adam Haslett’s novel to gain admission to grad school and afford to pay for that have lead me to reflect upon my college years and then upon my childhood. I’ve realized recently just how very upper-middle class and indeed affluent my upbringing was and how in some ways I had an extraordinary childhood. I grew up in a two parent household, where both my parents were college graduates. M y father worked for an oil company as a geologist; my mother taught high school biology-by her choice; she didn’t have to work. I was raised by a nanny until I was old enough for school and, while my family didn’t have full-time help, my mother did have a  woman who came in twice a week to cook and clean house.  I had activities such as early childhood ballet and gymnastics ( in the 60s in Mississippi),  was in the band (when my parents saw I was serious, I got private lessons and a professional quality instrument) with trips to music camps, frequent visits to museums and symphonies, and winter vacations in warm climates. My battles with my mother, while important to me, now seem very first world: she wanted me to wear the designer labels she picked out,  while I wanted to steal my father’s shirts and wear them over jeans. I had the best medical care possible at the time (and I needed it, being born 3 months premature). I’m still a little fuzzy on all the details but for much of my early childhood I required daily visits from a nurse and regular consultations with various specialists. And college. That was something that I never questioned as being in my future. Of course, had I not gone to college, I would have broken family tradition bigtime….b/c not only had my parents graduated from college, but at least one of each of their parents had also. As it turns out, I have what a friend insists on calling the ” genius gene” lol and took to all things academic like a duck to water. Though my parents were fully willing, eager, and able to pay for college, my entire academic career was scholastically funded by the colleges I attended and my grad school even threw in a teaching fellowship and paid me to go to school. My parents did pay for a private apartment off-campus, though, which I did not have to share with a roommate. And my father offered me a car, which I declined, as I hated to drive. So I finished with a B.A. and a M.A. with no student debt. I am very grateful for that when I hear friends tell me that they’ve just paid off their loans. I had it very well in many respects growing up. It was not perfect, nothing ever is, but my parents gave me a hell of a lot. I wish I could tell them, “I appreciate it.”

  • Abibliophobia

    Yes, I confess to suffering from a severe and longstanding fear of RUNNING OUT OF BOOKS TO READ! I do not like ebooks; they do not satisfy my addiction to book dust, provide the visceral touch I require when turning pages, or have the needed heft to fill my book bag. No, I require print books, preferably hardbound, to fuel my desires. Nothing better on a Sunday morning than a good cup of tea, a warm whippet, and contemplating a nice stack of books to decide which to crack open next….

    When you see me out n about, I ALWAYS have a book in hand. Like you see kids with their phones? That’s me, only I’ve got a book. I started reading when I was three. ( I grew up in an academic household.)  From all accounts, I moved on to the hard stuff quickly and was reading my way through encyclopediae quickly. I remember getting my library card and the fight that I had to put up to be allowed to read adult books, even thought I presented the library with a letter from my parents stating I should be allowed access to anything I desired. I got a library card to the local college library, courtesy of an uncle who was a microbiologist prof, and what a joy that proved!

    So, now I’ve had to give up my job as a feral librarian due to some ongoing health concerns. This will cut off my supply. Sure, I can still go to library as a patron. But I won’t be there as part of the pipeline anymore. PANIC! PANIC! PANIC! Also, no-one besides other librarians get my jokes that are Dewey Decimal System-based! I am seriously disturbed about this. Enough so that I am folding up habitation and saying fare-thee-well to my cool small town. No job, no reason to stay here. More on this later.

  • Illness Is A Selfish Bitch

    I completely missed the DNC. I hate that, b/c it was so very different from the RNC in tone, not to mention that history was made, with the first ever nomination of a woman for candidate President of a major party! The Democratic party has such amazing women to offer for role models: Elizabeth Warren, Michele Obama,  Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and, of  course, Hillary Rodham Clinton. If I were female or had daughters, I would definitely be a Democrat! (I AM a Democrat, should it not be obvious by now.) I have watched some of the memorable speeches by the Obamas, Khirza Khan, and Hillary Clinton. Such a contrast with the doom and gloom reality show that was the RNC.

    Now, on to the theme of this entry. I’ve been struggling with some health issues that sap my energy. On good days I can read the news and follow what going on. think critically, and write. On bad days I can barely sit up. Unfortunately last week was a bad week. And sickness, I’ve found, is a demanding selfish bitch. I was doing well to take out the whippet. Books went unread. Dust gathered in corners. Laundry piled in the hamper. You get the picture.

    I’ve appointments with specialists. Cardio and gastro are being investigated. I expect cardio to be given a fairly clean bill of health, while something is definitely amiss with gastro. Depending on the results from all the tests I’m undergoing, a move might be the offing. While I love my little town, if I can’t work, then I’ll say goodbye, thanks for all the fish (grin), and go early to live with my friend.

  • Something Odd

    An extremely odd thing happened today. I have been expecting a delivery from RL (clothes). I walked out of my apt to take Miss P, my whippet, for her late afternoon backyard jaunt. When I returned, there was the box from RL sitting outside my door. No-one delivers on a Sunday; my landlord’s son had been in the garage next to my apt and had not seen anyone approach the door; we do not know how it got there. Sometimes packages for me get delivered to my landlord’s house by mistake, but he always notifies me about this. This is a mystery. So I take the box inside, where I discover that it has been opened! Now I’m really puzzled: why would anyone open a box that is clearly addressed to someone else? All the items I ordered were there, in their original packaging, though the jeans looked like they had been repacked. Maybe whoever examined everything didn’t like my taste in clothing? Or didn’t wear my size? At least they made the effort to deliver the clothes, albeit by incredible stealth. I wonder, though…should I be thanking an incredibly honest person or just an incredibly disappointed somewhat honest person? I suppose this will probably be one of those mysteries that I’ll ponder from time to time. (The clothes are wicked cool, by the way. All from Denim & Supply.)

  • Raison D’etre

    Raison D’etre

    I have become steadily more militant about politics, religion, gender, and the general idea of making people THINK and wanted a wider forum for my voice than the one I had. My blog was previously located at shoe.org, but I had acquaintances and friends who kept wanting to read what I wrote and one must be a member there to do so, so I’ve moved to a public venue. The desire to make people examine their beliefs is not a new one: when I was a young grad student teaching Philosophy I had “Question Authority” posted on my office door. Then later when I taught Jewish Ed classes, I encouraged my students always to explore and ponder, rather accept what was handed to them. (Btw, I do have religious cred: I’ve a good Jewish education, of course, being Jewish. I’ve studied Torah and can read Hebrew. Re Christianity: I’ve studied the NT in Greek and the Vulgate in Latin; I know the history of the development of the major branches; I’m even conversant with both Protestant and Catholic theology. Re Islam: I’ve only read the Quran in translation, though I’m currently studying Arabic. I’ve read about the Sunni/Shia divide, Sufism, and Wahabism. Re Buddhism: I’ve read many of the books by the Dalai Lama (current); I’ve studied Tibetan Buddhism (several varieties) and Chinese Buddhism. All of these were, alas, only in English. Re Paganism: I’ve read about Wicca and been part of a women’s circle.) So you see, I DO know the enemy. My heroes are Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Rachel Maddow, Jeff Sharlet, and the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Hawkins), to name a few. I read the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC News, Mother Jones, and books too numerous to list. When I’m not breathing fire, I’m a feral librarian.

  • Raison D’etre

    Raison D’etre

    I have become steadily more militant about politics, religion, gender, and the general idea of making people THINK and wanted a wider forum for my voice than the one I had. My blog was previously located at shoe.org, but I had acquaintances and friends who kept wanting to read what I wrote and one must be a member there to do so, so I’ve moved to a public venue. The desire to make people examine their beliefs is not a new one: when I was a young grad student teaching Philosophy I had “Question Authority” posted on my office door. Then later when I taught Jewish Ed classes, I encouraged my students always to explore and ponder, rather accept what was handed to them. (Btw, I do have religious cred: I’ve a good Jewish education, of course, being Jewish. I’ve studied Torah and can read Hebrew. Re Christianity: I’ve studied the NT in Greek and the Vulgate in Latin; I know the history of the development of the major branches; I’m even conversant with both Protestant and Catholic theology. Re Islam: I’ve only read the Quran in translation, though I’m currently studying Arabic. I’ve read about the Sunni/Shia divide, Sufism, and Wahabism. Re Buddhism: I’ve read many of the books by the Dalai Lama (current); I’ve studied Tibetan Buddhism (several varieties) and Chinese Buddhism. All of these were, alas, only in English. Re Paganism: I’ve read about Wicca and been part of a women’s circle.) So you see, I DO know the enemy. My heroes are Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Rachel Maddow, Jeff Sharlet, and the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Hawkins), to name a few. I read the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC News, Mother Jones, and books too numerous to list. When I’m not breathing fire, I’m a feral librarian.