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It occurred to me this week that I could get my graduate degree from Columbia University in New York. Theoretically, this is now a possible thing.

The thing is, the prestige of the school is daunting, as is the percentage of applicants accepted and the fact that it's jumping into the deep part of a huge pond I never expected to be swimming in. It was on my list because the list started out as every program in the area up to an hour away, which is about a dozen before I began eliminating.

Just reading the summary of their program and philosophy started an achy glow in my chest; the kind of therapist they seek to train is the kind I want to become, someone not only comfortable with being a first-line health care provider, but someone with the understanding and training to handle management as well. Training to be an excellent clinician and to also help direct how that profession fits into the bigger picture of health care and the even bigger picture of helping communities.

When I see myself as a therapist, I don't just see myself working with people to improve how their bodies function. That's a big part of it, being a source of guidance and expertise as people heal. But I also see myself heading a team. I see myself responding to a community's needs, reaching out to people who are under-served and creating what's missing. We ignore too many people in medicine (people without resources or power), and we turn away people (due to race, culture, LGBTQ and social issues), and as I don't want to be that kind of status quo uninvolved practitioner I need to educate myself carefully. I need to know how the bigger systems work and I need to be socialized as a mover and shaker in addition to becoming the best therapist possible.

I need high standards as much as they scare me. That was the whole point of failing to be happy as a cog in cubeville. But I feel like a pup who dreams of eating bison, and damn, that's a pack of big dogs I need to learn to run with.

My thanks for the gift of paid time! It's an encouragement to get back into the journaling habit now that I have time to think and write again.

I've been writing fiction, if one can call opening an old file, editing 5k words, adding another 1k and actually having an idea where it may go for a change 'writing'--which I absolutely do, as it's more than I've accomplished on that score for more than a year.

Could be decent. Could be dreck. I'm embracing the idea of the shitty first draft this year, so I'm practicing the discipline of withholding judgment until I finish the damned thing. To spite me, another story is now scratching at the door to come out of the rain and into Schroedinger's box. The spouse keeps pushing the idea that I should find a writer's group out here, but I'm hesitant to dip into the pool of random stranger critique when I've only just now reached a delicate detente with my own brain in getting this stuff on the page to begin with.

I may post a bit here on a filter, if anyone would like a peek, just drop a note here and I'll add you. I trust fic writers to give thoughtful critique; the beta tradition of our society, the relatively non-hierarchical mentorship and playful remix ideals of this culture feel like safe spaces.

In other news my ancient fic website was deleted with our old cable subscription, which means I should probably dust off that AO3 invite and figure it out.

The more I settle in to this de-leveraged lifestyle, the more I become convinced that--while we were giving our damnedest to make it work--our previous life would have killed us. That it was killing us, slowly and inexorably. The last four months have been defined by things falling away; bad jobs, the house, all kinds of stuff and commitments, even a few loved ones. It's been a nonstop mixed bag of tricks. I spent 70 days sleeping on the floor of an attic, a kind of ascetic quarantine between my old life and this new one still forming, which sucked for about a month until my back began to recover from being a desk jockey.

I've gotten to know my kid better, I've reconnected with my love, I'm sleeping well, I'm unpacking the house and making it work, and I have a sunny quiet spot where I can write. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Instead, I get huge flaming omens that I escaped the gerbil wheel just in the nick of time.

I'm trying to figure out how this is supposed to work. I'm so used to the necessity of constant effort and vigilance, of never having a moment to stop and think, that I'm a bit confounded as to where to even begin with a slower pace and a far more reasonable set of duties. My wardrobe does not have to conform to a dress code. I am in a complete and total Results Oriented Work Environment--and I get to determine what those results are to begin with. So there's a lot of thinking going on these days, and not the kind that keeps you up at night, but the kind that ferments and distills and blends.

Severe winter weather in Michigan is an ice storm coating everything an inch thick, with downed trees and power lines aplenty. Severe winter weather in Michigan is a nor'easter out of the Yukon that will freeze-dry your face on the ten steps to your car so effectively that when your lips crack, the warm moisture of your own blood is soothing.

Severe winter weather in Connecticut is ten inches of snow overnight and gusts of 50 mph as you try to push your car up a gentle hill of shifting snowbanks. That's going to take some adjustment of thinking.

I'm also not used to the landscape--I come from a land plowed smooth by glaciers, and the craggy improbable hills with their tenacious bushy trees look like so many enlarged bonsai plantings amid stacked lego buildings. Lousy with old stone churches. Some of which have been repurposed into random businesses. There's more diversity than I expected, which is mainly due to our choice of venues, but the white people are way more caucasian here. Shallow cheeks with sharp cheekbones, narrow pointy noses with bridges like prows, long faces and limbs, to the point where I suspect 'Irish' is still a bit ethnic in some circles.

I bought a toilet seat at a hardware store that had the Zagat guide by the cashier for impulse purchase.

So things don't look right and I'm at loose ends. I did as well as I could this last term, living in my folks' attic with my four-year-old while we rebooted our life using dynamite and chutzpah, but now the dust is settling and I'm no longer under the gun of having too much to do and being spread too fucking thin. I've spent the last two weeks sleeping, doing dishes and unpacking. Catching up on dream sleep. Trying to process the struggles and the losses of the last four months. Failing.

I dreamt I was combing rocks out of my scalp, lodged in the skin like they sink into the tideline of a beach, pretty agates polished smooth.

I left Michigan in a flurry of car repairs, final exams and the last frayed bit of mental rope I had left. I found out later that if I'd watched the news the night before I left, I would have heard about the murder of a friend from work. Cold-blooded, heartbreaking, unfathomable. And people wonder why I'm a misanthrope.

I've got nothing right now. I should be looking at local schools. I ache to be writing. The house is still a mess and snowbanks have been plowed around the car, and I'm at the eastern edge of a timezone I used to be on the western edge of so dusk starts at four which is ridiculous. I'm ragged and spent and tucked into the couch under a cat.

My parents are awesome, and have been really there for my family while we deleverage and reinvent. Pretty much anyone who meets my folks adores them, including me.

That said, a person gets used to controlling her own environment after a few decades of householding, and it can be a big adjustment to go from a sparse diet of sci-fi and caper shows (Dr. Who, Leverage, Castle, Dirty Jobs and little else) to the constant chugging of the DVR hard drive as it churns through cooking shows, hokey paranormal schlockumentaries and sociopathic criminology shows featuring murders both real and fake. Also, their hearing has taken a hit since I moved out.

School nights are a relief if only for the quotidian quietude. And the chance to use that phrase.

On the plus side, the kiddo doesn't believe in ghosts and loves cooking shows (they keep the bloodier stuff for after she goes to bed, so they're only horrifying me and I should be studying anyway, I guess, which is why I bought earplugs).

Corpses and Cooking. Which is like a mocking commentary on my course load of Physiology and Chemistry. When I get to the east coast it's going to take a week of alternating between Arrested Development and a black float tank to deprogram me.

Since we last met here, a great deal has changed. No longer stuck and desperately clawing at the status quo (fearfully clinging, viscerally rejecting), we have instead launched into the wild blue yonder of deleveraging and reinvention. And like the first astronauts rigorously trained for the unknown with best guesses and perched atop a combustible tower of low bids, we sail off into the future with verve, grit, and a keen knowledge only of what conditions are *in*compatible with life.

We were wilier than many of our peers; we bought well within budget and so kept the casa through two rough periods of unemployment (hers and then his). Some of our friends never could establish themselves in Michigan. We were luckier than many of our peers; we weren't taken out by an illness, injury, family misfortune, vicious work politics in a state where employees are dirt cheap, or the wild wooly roulette you occasionally have to spin as a fertile het couple in a world of imperfect contraception.

Thing is, luck changes like the weather. Thing is, you can influence the odds on good health, but not if you're working your ass off treading water in a stew of cortisol and flop sweat. Bottom line is, we're breaking up with the casa and its attendant lifestyle.

So two months ago I worked full time, had 12 hours of classes about to begin, my grandma was alive (if only in body), and I lived with my partner, kid and ancient cat in a brick bungalow in the burbs.

Today I am free of cubeville, have 9 hours of school, have said goodbye to my grandma and spoken at her memorial, have sorted and culled a houseful of stuff, sent my parter and cat off to the east coast the day before our 13th anniversary, and am bunking in my parents' cramped attic with the kid while we finish out the term.

It's exactly like being halfway to the moon on a rocket, my path littered with exhaust and jettisoned parts, feeling the cold and eyeing my dwindling fuel.

41 more days until my last final exam, and we get the band back together in a strange apartment in another state.

Just reading the transcipt, this is handcrafted from 100% organic awesome: http://thehathorlegacy.com/midweek-media-jane-austens-fight-club/

Having never watched the old Willy Wonka all the way through before, I've only now just found out that Gene Wilder's singing voice sounds ALMOST EXACTLY like my dad's, a thready tenor flitting into nasal pianissimo and gliding into crooning forte by turns.

I wonder if Willy Wonka knows the words to Smokey Robinson's "You Really Got A Hold On Me"?

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, then time may be used as a measure of just how much backfill is required for any given affection to manifest.

Apparently for me, two decades is just long enough for me to achieve a kind of ambivalent curiosity about my former fellow inmates of [high school redacted].

If my post-graduation journey had a soundtrack, the title of the album would be [High School Redacted].

Hell, I think I just derailed my own post with this idea. So in lieu of forced bloviation, I'm open to any song suggestions for said soundtrack.

Because every GenX milestone event needs a fucking mix-tape, right?

Current Music: Joan Jett "Bad Reputation"

It's Monday, back in the cube, and a paperclip Don Quixote tilts at the lazily spinning propeller on my beanie. My productivity is directly proportional to the distance from my cube, which I'd always thought was an indication of slacktitude from way back.

I mean, since fourth grade I brought books to school to occupy myself during class when I wasn't writing or drawing or daydreaming. By high school I was up to at least fifteen 1-2 page letters and three novels a week, while carrying a low B by acing tests and rushing through most of my homework in other classes (I had a policy of not bringing work home--home was for *writing*).

Yes, I realize now that I spent the formative years of school learning how to keep my sanity in an SD tank. Armed with self-knowledge, I can now decide to stop replicating this experience.

Actually, it's only been the last few months when I finally let go of the idea that I'm allergic to hard work. I kept up with a full time desk job, 10 credit hours, a demanding preschooler making focused study difficult, and I made a 3.5 GPA this term. Things were hectic, losing two evenings of family time each week was sucky, and I accomplished even less housework than usual (which is a low bar to begin with). My partner took a heavy load of kid and house wrangling to make this happen. I had to do a lot of focused practice in chipping away at assignments instead of plowing through them in one session like the last time I was in college. I could have gotten a 4.0 if I hadn't left some points on the table in Statistics. But I rocked hard in the schoolyard because I've finally honed the diligence and skills to match the brains and drive I had all along.

And I realized that I'm not allergic to hard work. I kinda like busting my own ass and making something happen. The deal is that I'm allergic to stupid work. I'm allergic to work with a high noise to signal ratio of bullshit to accomplishment. I'm sick of staring at microsoft office and strategizing how to cover several asses at once and reassure people scared shitless about making a decision outside of committee. I'm sick of spending more time sedating my brain than using it at work. I'm sick of polishing turds and pretending that operating the buffer is a privilege I need to earn every damned day with a smile.

I daydream about pushing a mop and changing linens in a rehabilitation clinic. I fantasize about internships where I get paid in chicken feed and experience. I contemplate the physical wreckage of moving from a desk job to a standing/walking/lifting job with a sick thrill of excitement.

In related news, apparently chronic boredom at work is more detrimental to your health than classic 'stress'. The hivemind is speaking.

Took Irene for a swing this morning, now that I'm mostly recovered from our first dance on Monday.

So far, I'm enjoying the kettlebell; the momentum and the physical calculations please me--it's like the twisted genius child of weightlifting, bowling and yoga. I'm impressed by anything that can be done in ten minutes, is fun, and seems to hit every muscle between femurs and spine.

I need Iron Man fic. Recommendations?

Bellydance is off the table for this summer, as we've decided to reboot our whole lifestyle by relocating. Which I'm still coming to terms with as not 'a possibility' but a looming definity. This will require taking a great portion of our current infrastructure and daily logistics, throwing them out the window, and building anew. It requires sacrificing some current benefits, and introducing a shitload of chaos into the system. The status quo is exceedingly fragile, likely unteneble in the long term, and taking this chance gives us greater stability and more opportunities for being in a better place five years down the road.

I always thought we could make it work in this state, that we could scramble the resources and rise to the top. And we have persevered despite often sketchy employment over the last three years. But at a certain point it's not just that the job openings are scarce, but that the market itself takes a hit due to brain drain and loss of investment. The economy sucks everywhere, but the rustbelt is in the grip of a decades-long process that isn't going to turn around when recovery comes. We've scrambled for years now and we're treading water--it's time to rethink.

And yes, I'm rationalizing and reassuring myself that this is not a boneheaded idea, but a necessary widening of scope. Possibly both.

For all the bright-sided cheerleading about opening the door when opportunity knocks,
and all the slacker-shaming chiding of how opportunity
is often ignored because it's dressed like work,
what The Man doesn't tell you is that opportunity often takes the guise of a big-ass pearl
hidden in one of many lumps of shit:

The hitch, of course, is picking which lump of shit to delve into.

I'm still waiting on my last grade in english, despite the term ending last Tuesday, and having turned in my final paper more than a week before that. In addition, today I've been freshly rejected by an erstwhile employer and have patiently listened to my partner wax peevish about his job. Regarding my own--I think if I have to fill out one more effing timesheet that extends into column BB I'm gonna just get in my car and not ever come back.

I've kept my desk cleaned for the last 18 months, you see. The only personal item left to pack is my lunch bowl.

I'm sick of the shit economy, sick of forcing myself to do the data entry and endless wanking email circles of this job, sick of sitting on my ass staring at a screen, sick of shutting up because no one wants a cog's opinion, and sick of the balancing act of keeping this ridiculous job by being a diligent idiot. It has health insurance.

I'm the unwashed masses of the underemployed; a career-changer in day-job Limbo, dancing the limbo of trying to raise my sights without prematurely knocking off the ever-lowering bar.

Despite catching up on rest, I'm not adjusting well to the end of the term. Perhaps because of. I had less daily angst about my job when my body was short on sleep and my mind preoccupied with coursework. I could more easily access the automaton mindset of producing bureaucracy. This is what happens when you decide to take your own intellect seriously, when you feed it and free it. It's fucking Cthulhu in your head and you can't stuff it back into R'lyeh because you've seen how the angles are all fucking wrong, man, and the stars don't fucking care about your goddamned TPS reports.

Nota bene for new visitors (hola!): I was going to apologize for the language, but that would be disingenuous. I think carpet f-bombing truly does convey Cthulhu's deep inchoate disregard of your TPS reports.

In other news, I've named my new 20 lb. kettlebell 'Irene'. The kiddo (3.75 years and small for her age) could barely deadlift it a couple inches in the morning--then in the afternoon picked it up and moved it a whole yard. Apparently her brain simply needed to adjust a few calculations re: muscle recruitment and boom! notably effectively stronger. Ask and ye shall receive, baby. Not to be outpaced by the wunderkind, I did a few get-ups yesterday and some swings this morning.

So I've been lingering at the fringes of the Crossfit/paleo territory, and I think there's a lot to be said for exploring protocols radically different from lowfat diet + interminable cardio (the 'official' protocol for health and fitness that pushes my biology into depression and hibernation within weeks).

I'm a dilitant lifehacker, a garage workshop student of biology, and I like running new flags up the pole to see if I get a salute. My body responds well to paleo-esque fuel and short-sharp-shock style exercise. With school easing up for the summer, I plan to dial up the activity, take better care of myself, and have more fun with my body.

The thing that's beginning to wear on me, even as I narrow my RSS focus to the more physiologically-inclined paleo/HIIT blogosphere, is that the place is overrun by suburban white guy machismo. I understand the motivating idea behind a mental concept of Grok, a theoretical hunter dude making his way in the natural world, as a way to get into a pre-agriculture mindset about activity and food (what would Grok do?). I also think it's a useless construct for many reasons, but the main thing that chaps my ass about the whole Grok thing is that it's just as irrelevant and counterproductive to my own thinking and experimentation as evolutionary psychology is to my understanding of, well, anything besides pedantic misogyny.

In short, Grok is about as enlightening as an episode of Captain Caveman.

Boris links to a delightful video that at first blush parodies this balls-to-the-wall bullshit of hyper-macho training, but as I watched a sense of grim familiarity overtook my amusement. It's funny because it's true, but some things hit too close to truth to be funny (I have this problem with "Office Space" right now). I like Boris's SquatRX blog because he explores the mental discipline of training, and has a Buddhist slant that speaks to me, as someone who often gets in her own way. So I'm watching this Turkish badass strap rocks to his calves and leap like a mountain goat and it's delightful.

Then a doe-eyed woman in flowers bathes his bloody knuckles with herbs and it's not so fucking funny, because right then I'm no longer the badass deadlifting boulders, I'm The Chick.

Yes, this is a youtube clip and not an actual post on a paleo-blog. But it perfectly illustrates the snap-back I get whenever I'm knee-deep in an interesting post and suddenly realize that I'm not the audience, I'm not the person thinking about their squat form, or contemplating a pair of Vibram Five Fingers or adjusting to coffee without sugar--I'm The Chick, Grokette, the girlfriend afraid to weightlift, the woman who has a few token discussion threads to hang out on, the other half of the species that didn't chase down prey like a badass and eat its liver raw.

I call bullshit. I don't come from some mythical Grokette, buddy.

My maternal line has been rocking the digging stick for millions of years. I come from girls who foraged over miles with siblings strapped to their backs, women who processed whole animals into food, tools and clothes, grandmothers who levered over boulders and set bones, and every single one of them survived to hand it off to the next generation. They hauled water and wood, they tamed fire and microorganisms to greatly increase their nutrition, they discovered medicines and drugs and they did so while pregnant, nursing and caring for children in a brutal landscape.

'Gathering' is not grocery shopping, and if we're the legacy of a steroptypical successful hunter, let me tell you fucker, we're also the legacy of a successful gatherer who kept her fire fueled and her toddlers safe while pushing a quarter million calories through her body with each year of nursing.

Momma's buying her kettlebell today.

I had recently advised a friend that, when something is important, it should get the best of you. If your job sucks, don't work hard all day and then try to apply for something new when you're shagged from nine hours of soul-sucking. Get up earlier, put in an hour of your best effort toward yourself, and then let the vampires have the dregs.

As an evening person, counseling anyone to get up earlier is as much anathema as doing it myself. But it's not about the clock, it's about skimming the cream for yourself, and this practice has been working for me recently with school.

As the term comes to a close, and this being my birthday, I've decided to apply the principle to myself. This summer I have one online math class, and hence a big swath of free time has opened up. I will use it to become both sane and healthy. To this end I will not outline a training schedule, choose a prize to work for, set a fitness goal or determine a target weight. At this point, I'd be better off sacrificing a chicken and scrying it's liver to determine a poundage I should aim for anyway. Fuck that. I woke up this morning and decided I've been given a new body for my birthday, and my only task is to care for it from now on and discover what it can do.

We've got a history, but it's filled with me not listening to what it has to say and treating it like a mechanical interface with the world that I didn't get to design or choose and so only gave the minimum maintenance. I've been working on that, most recently with the broken toe a few months back. Unlike the previous broken foot, I didn't walk through the pain. I took care of myself as if my body belonged to someone I had compassion for, and every decision I made was different because of that new stance. Total mindfuck.

As a product of my culture I can't quite wrap my mind around there being no division between mind and body--I'm sure it's a profound way of being, but I can't simply experience the mental and the physical at the same time without interpreting it as a relationship between two complexly intertwined entities. It's this relationship that has changed, slowly over the years, and then suddenly in the last few weeks.

What I had taken for practicality was more like punishment; indifference was in fact ostracism. Balanced with a deep vein of scientific curiosity and a daily obliviousness, my attitude on the whole was neutral--but I've always assumed my body would disappoint me, and that it needed to be overridden, coaxed and prodded. It was a finite resource of dubious quality, to be doled out parsimoniously, and subject by turns to sedentary corruption and injurious force of will. Turns out I'd decided at some point that my body was an enemy. Watching my kid discover the wonderment of her own self and what it can do, this is a head trip I got from the outside world along the way.

My body would never fit into the little pink pretty box defined by society, so why care what it looked like? If I could scrape by with something approaching health with minimal input, that was good enough, right? And so I decided to embrace a tentative athleticism--I could be strong if nothing else. It wasn't a 'good' body, but it could be functional. I began to lift weights several years ago, off and on, always coming back to it because I enjoy the exercise of will as much as muscle and bone.

So then I broke my toe in February, in the middle of the night. And I'd been reading some Buddhist stuff at the time and as I lay there in bed trying to get back to sleep it occurred to me that I would never think to tell my kid to just go to sleep if she had such pain, why was I telling my body that? Blew my own fucking mind with that one.

The bone callous is still sore and grumps at the weather, but it's healed fast and well. Turns out my body responds to compassion, so even if I wanted to stick with the stance of dire practicality, I still can't argue with results.

My body has stopped being an ad-hoc interface with the world and become an animal I've begun to take better care of and would like to do more fun things with. I see someone dancing or doing parkour and I discard the reflexive thought of "I wish I could have learned that when I was younger/thinner/more flexible". I purposefully think, "Hey body, does that look like fun to you? Shall we try that?"

I often feel like a jackass when I think this. Then I try to frog hop or bear crawl like my kid, and decide that this jackass feeling is really just a spasm of shame I've been taught because my body doesn't fit the little pretty pink box, and it needs to stop interfering with the fun I want to have. And so it occurred to me this morning that one can also opt out of the little pink pretty box and yet still adorn oneself. Over the years I'd learned to put on drag when necessary, but pampering, primping, beautifying remained viscerally foreign. I am not feminine, but that doesn't mean I can only be functional. Perhaps I could enjoy playing with a certain flavor of fabulous instead.

My body is a lively animal to be graced with lovely touches--this is not lipsticking a pig, but painting a pony. I will love her and pet her and call her George.

Today I woke up in a 38 year old body that has been considered a disappointment, been treated accordingly, and been a trooper nonetheless. Today I decided this is ri-goddamned-diculous. I have no idea what this body really is or can do, and I've taken advantage of its patience for too long.

For my birthday I'm enrolling in bellydance and kettlebell. This summer I will learn to swing cannonballs and make my jelly roll.

Hearing random American Catholics commenting on NPR this morning made me ashamed for ever thinking of myself as Catholic for the brief period before adolescence kicked in and I rejected the raw shit deal I was being offered due to gender. Also, the whole agnostic thing--I don't even have the faith to be atheist, so it wasn't like I was exactly principalled in leaving the church, I just kind of wandered off vauguely disgusted.

So I can't imagine the cognitive dissonance in trying to reconcile a true belief in God's love with the whining of a hierarchy (to whom you look for leadership) who think they're the victims because they got caught abusing power. But the people who deflect, 'This is an overreation because this scandal is peanuts compared to the times when the papacy was really corrupt' are not making the point they think they are.

I mean, come on. They no longer burn people and they totes apologized for Galileo and everything. Why you gotta keep bustin' balls?

In other news the car situation is dire, with the front passenger wheel of the beater about to literally fall off. As we've only recently become a two-paycheck household again after a long stretch, the options at this point are slim and none, and so despite the bad investment of replacing anything on a car just shy of 200,000 miles, we're hoping the wheel can be repaired enough to keep it limping along.

There's nothing like sipping coffee in your driveway (sans milk, because it went bad days ago), when you should be at work at the job you loathe that pays for shit while being slagged on by the AAA tow-truck driver about the state of your vehicle, as an urban forager* liberates half the contents of your recycle bin. At least the birds were singing.**

I slept like crap last night. When I finally dropped off, I dreamt I was only pretending to sleep while Wil Wheaten*** pontificated about white trash economics. This all occurred in a pile of fluffy amigurumi.

*We used to call them "sheeny men", and in my corner of the rust belt it's never meant anything but a less-stigmatized way of saying "garbage picker". As a word nut , for me it captured the earthy practicality of freecycling items without implying the coffee grounds and eggshells odor. Although I've never done it for cashflow, I've sheenied a few things I couldn't believe someone was throwing away. In checking the spelling I find that local quirks aside, it's really an ethnic slur. Ahh, the working class background is a gift that keeps on giving, ain't it? The downside of a personal ethic of kaizen is that for all the shiny new words and concepts you add, there is a tax in losing some of the terms and concepts you grew up with when you learn their history and dark side--and you wonder what other cultural mines are still buried in your fields.

**There's a metric fucktonne of birds this spring. My theory is thus: our neighborhood is near several green spaces, and between the increased density of bank-owned homes and the rest of the folks either renting or just scraping by, the use of lawn care chemicals has plummeted--hence the songbird population is flourishing out of the park woods and into the neighborhood canopy. I wonder if there will be a strengthening in the frog chorus as well?

***Yes, he was wearing a kilt. Why do you ask?

test

We rented Wonder Woman this weekend, and while it shouts, screams and pant-hoots "70's!" it's not as terrible as I'd expected, considering the track record of 'things I adored in kindergarten'.

One thing that struck me particularly* was how utterly unathletic Lynda Carter's WW moved.

*aside from the way the male characters kind of treat Diana Prince like a special prodigy little kid--encouraging and proud, but with little real sense of her being on peer footing. and the fact that WW knows their top sekrit gub'mint business and swoops in to help but no one ever thinks to question her motives or source of intel, because a woman's support is apparently as ubiquitous and benign as air. and that I'm old enough to at least partially understand now why Lyle Waggoner was considered studly. and yes, that does make me feel wrong inside. I blame the complete lack of chest hair on mainstream media men these days. ferfuxsake I can't even get more than a glimpse of Wolverine without the tank-top and you *know* if anyone's fuzzy it's Logan..

But I digress. I was speaking of the culture shock of an unathletic superhero.

Not the lack of muscle tone which one expects in a female leading role actor pre-Linda Hamilton (who felt a hero should look like she could actually save someone, bless her), but the absence of any believable physicality. Grace and poise yes, but no strength or agility, to the point where during some stunts I couldn't parse what she was trying to do until the "Well as you know, Bob, Wonder Woman is holding back that truck" dialogue.

I think she was half-paralyzed trying not to pop out of that damned costume. A woman needs something she can fight crime in, damnit.

So in related news I'm beginning to think like a physical therapist. Back on Themyscira I was totally distracted by Lynda Carter's flowing robes showing off her tendency to scapular winging, which totally syncs with the odd way her shoulders move even in the beginning animation where she breaks free from bondage and walks out of the cartoon--though truth be told I was looking for it, as the animation always looked kinda wrong to me as a kid.

Anyway, we watched a few eps and then returned it, unwilling to spend the extra effort of culture commentary for the kiddo. Also, after the ep where Carter wrestles Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth) across a living room, it's likely downhill from there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kG-thkx6lw

Current Mood: blank

I'm moving camp over to Dreamwidth.

I simply do not have the time to police LJ settings and policies and keep those damn kids off my fucking lawn. I'm setting my lawn on fire and moving to that charming cabin in the woods where I can drink beer on the porch sans pants or solicitors.

I'd love to know how to download a copy of this journal for posterity, but I'm not looking to migrate it over wholesale or keep the rubberneck name. Any links for how to pull a copy of my posts and comments?

I'll be posting a link to the new place shortly. If you don't see the link, email me and I'll probably set you up: mochaphineATgmailDOTcom.

Current Mood: rushed

I feel these days I am hanging on by my fingernails.
My priorities in life
are completely inverse to the amount of time
I spend on them.
Though 'spend' is wrong when hours are grudgingly sold
and moments stolen.

I'm reviewing math before my placement test in two weeks, using my mom's college text. It's more portable than the monstrosity I have from last term, stored in a binder because the glue wouldn't hold it together more than 10 weeks under use. Mom's was purchased (used) forty years ago at the same college bookstore I just dropped $300+ at in January. Well, technically the same store--though it's a B&N outlet now. This is the institution my mom walked away from in frustration; sick of misogynistic professors and ever-changing program requirements, among other obstacles. This is my target for grad school, and as a post-bachelor it's showtime right here and right now. Every test and assignment from here on out either adds or detracts from my application to the program this fall.

I have 10 hours of classes: Statistical Methods, Technical Communication, International Health. In the first week of March I have two placement tests: Math and Chemistry. By December I need to have taken math, chem, physics, physiology. By December I need to have worked in clinics to some extent: shadowed, volunteered, picked the brains of therapists and earned their recommendation. It feels impossible because I'm still working.

There's this feel-good story about how people return to college in later life, how they study after the kid's bedtimes, how they plug away for years until that one shining day when they cross the finish line and everyone applauds and they walk into the sunset with their sheepskin and their set of golden bootstraps.

This is not that story.

This is me, annoyed with a cold and dreading tomorrow because on Tuesdays I'm non-stop for 17 hours and I come home to everyone asleep. This is me, with an inch of uncolored roots that are at least recently washed for a change. This is me, thinking I will not make it to the end of this term, when I might have the ability to quit this paycheck and give more of myself to the shit that really matters. This is me, trying to make peace with being mediocre at work and brilliant at school, when I love being brilliant all the time. This is me, clinging to the health insurance and paying down as much of our debt as I possibly can before I finally give up the ghost and walk out the door, sick of shoving my family and my studies into the interstices of 40 hours of brain-rotting boredom and sick being paranoid that this leech of a job will weaken me just enough that I lose focus and blow it.

This is me, at work:

Current Mood: I am feldman's soul blisters

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handypolymath

January 2026

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Page generated Feb. 16th, 2026 01:43 pm

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My, that's a big fucking pond.

Thank you dreamwidth fairy!

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Snow place like home for the holidays

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Candy isn't sweet in suppository form.

Jane Austen's Fight Club

Weirdness

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Sisyphus could tell you it's not the job that kills, it's the pointlessness.

Working on hardware

I need a helmet marked "Intervention". And plasma whips, natch.

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Paleo Rant 1: Skullfucking 'Grok' with a digging stick

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E pur si moronic

Testy & cross

Back when shag carpet covered foyers and chests

Here's the deal.

I am feldman's raging burnout

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January 2026

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