Friday, September 30, 2005

Going back to the incident involving the person wearing wire-frame glasses who asked for directions to the men's bathroom and then dropped his pants before scurrying off, I overheard a discussion in my collegium between 4 female students. None of them were amused. In fact, some of them were quite angry.
Of course I understand the distress the faculty member who experienced the incident must have felt. I do sympathize profoundly. But was she physically attacked? No. Could she have been? The possibility is always present, but I would venture that the likelihood was in the very low percentages. She was in her office in the middle of campus, with the door probably open. This is not a setting that a vicious criminal would choose. The guy was just a streaking wacko.
I may be taking this too lightly, but I still think it is funny.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

This takes place in a catholic university.

I received the following email from Campus Safety:

Indecent Exposure

At approximately 9:15pm on Tuesday, September 27, 2005, Campus Public Safety and Seattle Police Department received a report of an indecent exposure incident, which occurred in a faculty office located in the XYZ building.

The victim reported a young male individual entered her faculty office through an open door and exposed himself, after having asked her for directions to the men’s restroom. The suspect then ran westbound down the hallway. Campus Public Safety & SPD officers checked all areas in the building and the north end of campus. The suspect was not located.

The suspect was described as a Caucasian male, between 26 to 28 years of age, approximately 5’9” tall, with a medium build. The individual had short blonde hair, and wore wire frame glasses, and last seen wearing a dark blue sweatshirt with front zipper, beige shorts (cotton “Docker” type), and white sneakers.

I find the image of the wire-frame-glasses-wearing perpetrator asking a faculty member for directions to the men's restroom and *then* dropping his pants unbelievably hilarious. One of the advantages of going to a school where most of the students are genuinely God-fearing is that the students will do (or get their friends to do) totally wacky things like this. In a normal school, students will let off steam by drinking, doing drugs and fornicating with everyone on their floor. In a God-fearing school, students will take the more salvation-friendly route of showing their unmentionables to crotchety, old Econ professors.

Friday, September 23, 2005

"A Confederacy of Dunces" is my favorite book at the moment. I am reading it for the second time (which I don't usually do). As it is set in New Orleans, it has become so much more poignant to me: I've never been to New Orleans, and now it's all gone.

A couple months ago I went to get a facial at a place in Green Lake. That is because Adam was simply refusing to ejaculate on my face at the time, despite my repeated and multitudinous entreaties. Naturally, I am joking.
The place I went to, called Dermalogica, is located in a cute, quaint plaza right on the edge of Green Lake Park. After I was done with the gratuitous cosmetic pampering, I stepped into the World Wrapps next door. I made my order and handed the cashier my card.
Upon seeing my long and exotic (maiden) name, he asked "Where you from?". Normally, I would expect someone who hears an "unusual" name and is curious about it to say something like "That's a cool name!" which will usually extract details from the bearer of the name. No, strike that! In fact, in a very normal world, I would expect people not to notice "unusual" names in a semi-formal context like making a purchase.
Nonetheless, since I knew that the World Wrapps in question is frequented by students (many of whom are international), I let that slide and I answered "From Romania, actually." "Oh, really?" he said. "So what are you doing here?" There was no hostility in the way he asked the question, and yet I was irked. If he had asked "What brought you here?", it would have been totally cool. But asked me what I was doing, not even what I do. So I answered "I'm married." To which he replied: "Free ticket, huh?"
And so, in the course of two minutes, I turned from the bearer of an unusual name into a mail-order bride.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

(I am typing this at from a public place that was extremely crowded as early as 2 minutes ago, and I have just realized that I had forgotten to zip up after leaving the restroom. That happens way too often!)
My intelligent, effective husband has been shipped to New York for three days to help the Client with the Launch of the Product. In fact, this entails metaphorically rubbing the Client's Foot during times of stress more than doing actual work. But it is good to be on Foot-Rubbing Terms with the Client.
Yesterday evening I was on the phone with the said husband, who was staying in a jacuzzi-endowed hotel room in Albany. At the last status check, he had started to fill the tub and gotten in. Our conversation took the following turn:
Illy: "blah blah blah school blah blah recycling bins blah blah slimy classmate blah"
Husband: "Whoa!"
I: "What happened?"
H: "Oh, nothing."
I: "What is it?"
H: "Nothing... I think I'm just going to sit in the bath tub for a little bit."
I: (Plagued by visions of his testicles being sucked into the jacuzzi; yes, I know he would have sounded much more pained if that had been the case!) What HAPPENED?"
H: "You know, I thought I'd be expedient with the bath, so I only filled it with water past the first row (of jets)... And when I turned it on, one of the jets squirted water all the way across the room!"
I: (Starting to comprehend) "You only filled it past the first row of jets?"
H: "Yes."
I: "And then you turned it on?"
H: "...Yes."
I: (Starting to laugh) "But the jacuzzi sucks out water from the tub and then squirts it out through the jets! How did you think it works? "
H: Air, I thought it was air!
I: (Dying of laughter.)

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

A few days ago I went on my yearly Back-to-School shopping spree. (I only indulge in two such sprees every year, in Fall and Spring, so really, you have to commend me for that!) To my utter delight, I was able to purchase pants! As in normal, adult-sized pants (size 0 but hey, the size exists and it fits!). Naturally, the pants were too long, because most white women are not endowed with a ghetto booty and being 5'6" at 100 pounds, however scary, does happen.
The pants also passed the Vagrant Man Test (TM), which means that I was very loudly and graphically complimented on my censorable anatomy while wearing them. It is called the Vagrant Man Test (TM) because I have never elicited such comments in any male who looked like he a) had taken a bath in the last week or b) had a job. Over the past year or so, vagrant men have told me:
"That's the finest booty I seen all day!"
"Ooohweee, fancy pussy!" (perhaps my favorite)
"You got a nice lil tush down there!"
"Look at that fine breast! Mmm, that's a fine piece of ass! Oh yeah!"
"You are one hot-assed bitch!"
Since most of such remarks come from black men, I almost tend to feel flattered, for two reasons:
1. Most of the black men in question are either pimps or wannabe-pimps. And while, granted, those particular black men don't usually deal in the finest material, they still have a presumably professional eye for nice-looking ass.
2. Black men generally like a brick house. I'll admit that I am still too slender for genuine brickhousiness, but I like to think that their hooting and their hollering conveys a sense of brick house potential.
This is probably one of the most politically-incorrect entries I have ever posted. Of course, political correctness is very good.
For me to poop on.

Friday, September 09, 2005

take me home!

Yesterday we went to Chinook's with our friend Alex,
who is visiting from New York. As we were about to
walk into the restaurant, we saw a doggie tethered to
one of the pillars of the awning. He looked quite
forlorn, with his head drooping almost below his
shoulderblades, and we commented on the meanness of
leaving one's dog waiting outside while one is
stuffing themselves with food. As we were walking out
one a half hours later, the doggie was still there. He
was curled up on the pavement, looking lethargic, and
we had to stop by and say hello. He met Adam's initial
head scratching with a look that said "You are not
Master, yet I will begrudgingly accept your
scratching." After a few seconds he progressed to
"Your scratching is good, so I will allow myself to
indulge in this fleeting, ephemeral moment of
pleasurable human contact." After yet a few more
seconds, he lay on his side and exposed his belly,
signaling that he had understood that Adam is a
massage therapist. Finally, as Adam was rubbing his
belly and I was simultaneously scratching his head,
he looked at me as if to inquire "You wouldn't happen
to be in need of a dog, would you? I am cute, clean
and I don't lick my balls in public."
By the time we had pulled out of the parking lot I
swear that the doggie's gait was a little less droopy!

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Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Peter Weller, a.k.a. RoboCop, is very cool.

Yesterday I made the delicious desert illustrated below: dark chocolate cups with whipped cream and berries. Adam expressed his approval of the desert in just enough instances so that I can be sure it was a huge hit.
It is interesting how closely my enjoyment of food and of food preparation is tied to the way I feel. When I'm feeling good, there is almost nothing I like more. Cooking, like working out, is a meditative experience: my mind empties and my body switches to auto-pilot. When I'm not feeling good, however, the thought of coming close to food sickens me, and I can barely walk in the kitchen.


Delicious desert. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Now that I have been living here for two years I am finally starting to have enough distance from the Old Country that I can surf Romanian forums or even (gasp!) contribute to them. I've been spending a lot of time on a couple of immigration forums over the past couple months; the posters are either living here or wanting to come here. There are a lot of very emotional stories. And the people are more different from each other than I would have expected.
Most of the posters either have come here through marriage or are about to do so. They are mostly female. Some of them are very Romanian-housewife-y, complaining about everything that is unlike back home, from credit cards to dishwashers to people smiling as a matter of course (that is actually one of the chief complaints I've heard from Romanians living or visiting abroad; it makes me wonder about the pshychological makeup of a people that is made uneasy by courtesy). Some of them are independent and enterprising, having gotten jobs or gone back to school the first chance they had. Unsurprisingly, the latter group enjoys being here much more than the former.
Another group of posters have come here through employment. They tend to be well-adjusted but somewhat reserved. It is as if their work were their main tie to the US, with Romania predominating in their private life.
Yet another group has come here illegally. Since I think that immigration regulations are bullcrap and I don't find that abiding by the law makes one a decent person, I was surprised to find that most of the illegal immigrants don't seem to be very well-rounded. It is true that the stress of living illegally influences one in negative ways, but most of these posters had bad grammar (the worst of the forum groups), were more likely to use swear words and less likely to have a college degree. This means that 1. people with college degrees are more likely to find (residency-related) jobs andpositions here and 2. people with college degrees have good enough jobs and positions back home and are, therefore, less inclined to leave.
Differences between groups aside, I was surprised by how gracefully some of the posters seem to juggle being both American and Romanian. One of the best exchanges involved discussing the merits of the favorite football teams in great detail, and in Romanian!