It may be the fever-pitch of the final days before the election manipulating my observations, but as far as I can tell, as I take the dog on her evening walks around the neighborhood, she only makes deposits on the lawns sporting McCain-Palin signs.  And its not always the same yard, so its not like she's remarking territory or whatever.  And there are other yard signs out - the hospital bond issue for one - but those lawns she leaves untouched.  Perhaps I am signaling her somehow with my dismayed sighs as we march by.  Or, as stated before, maybe I only notice when there is an antichrist sign, not when there's not.  If only there were a way to double-blind this.  Additionally, this behavioral trend presents an ethical dilemma for me as I am then truly torn about cleaning it up, her partisan poo.

Also, today it was so cold and blustery I had to wear a scarf!  A scarf!  Am I a wimp?  No.  You're a wimp.  Mississippi is a wimp.

Lastly, I'm taking suggestions on Halloween costumes.  Something that can be constructed for $8 or less with materials from either the Superwalmart, the Dollar Store, or the farmer's cooperative.  Is there a way I can somehow use hunter's camo and bulk flouride-free toothpaste to be "a paradigm shift"?

Hey!

It turns out I have a blog!

Sorry, lovable chickadees, for my absence.  One of my very favorite people was visiting for the last five days and I was, um, indisposed.

I just got an email from my old LA roommate - another one of my very favorite people - and she informed me that she just got an ice cream maker.  And that she made chocolate cinnamon ice cream the other night.  I have to admit this set me back a bit.  It was like finding out the guy you dated for years and years went and did something sweet for his new girlfriend,  something that he never did for you no matter how much you hinted about it (y'know, bringing you flowers or cookies or a debt forgiveness plan).  Like I wouldn't have loved to sit around in my pajamas watching Battlestar Galactica and eating homemade ice cream until it ran out my nose?  What has this fiancee of hers got that I haven't got?

Today I got the order form for the MSU Collegiate FFA holiday fruit and meat sale.  I don't usually eat meat but I may make an exception for the Smoked Cajun Turkey.  Proper Thanksgiving fare methinks.  Which means also that by Hui-house-smallest-traces-of-Chinese-cultural-tradition, the day after Thanksgiving will be followed by Smoked Cajun juk.  As my little bro says, we have to rep the Mississippi Chinese.  Yup.

Does anyone want 7 lbs. of Natchitoches Meat Pies?  Because I get a discount as a faculty member.  I'd also like to know what they are.  And if they're anything like frito chili pie, which I ate after a serving of fried pickles, before funnel cake, after already feeling ill from too much street fair food over the weekend.  blech.

My roommate reports that it was Tornado Awareness Day.  Hence the sirens at noon.

I was unaware.

I'm pleased that I promptly put away the pitchfork I was turning the compost heap with away in the garage rather than just standing there with it, listening to the sirens.  Just like I would if a real tornado came.  This is why we practice.

The civil defense sirens are sounding.  Which must mean one of the following:

1. A large tornado is right this instant bearing down on Oktibbeha County (that's right, we're the original OC).

2. air raid.

3. The dead have woken and are stumbling around downtown Starkville, marauding City Bagel and Erin's Salon.

4. The first shot has been fired.  We are for sure seceding this time.

5. The intern just started pressing buttons at random to see what would happen.

6. tsunami!

7. giant eagles!

8. The fire station just had its 1 millionth customer.

9. a bank run (the state pension fund collapsed?).

10. The chickens have turned on their keepers.  The poultry science school is under attack.

So, because there's something pitiful about spending the last minutes of one's life working on a lecture about the Gregorian Reforms of the Catholic Church, I think I'm going to go get myself a bowl of ice cream and goof off for a bit.  Maybe call my loved ones...

oh my god the Metropolitan Opera is restaging Dr. Atomic.

I wanted to see it in 2005.  I want to see it now.

It is history of science.  It is music.  It is John Adams.

There are like eighty-five different reasons that it is me.

Also, the recent wind storms have resulted in strange behavior by the local fauna.  As follows:

1. squirrels, as far as I can tell, wander out to the ends of the tree branches in order to be flung to their death in the middle of the road.  Or at least the road was littered with unsquashed squirrel bodies this week and I can't think of any other explanation (there's a why did the squirrel cross the road joke in here somewhere).

2. beetles wander into the house, flip onto their backs, and kick their legs in the air frantically (me! me! me! me!) until I right them and chase them back outside.

Beetles - 1

Mammals - 0

Tonight I go to a Trotsky cocktail party.  I have no idea what to expect.  There's just no way that mead and cabbage can be classy.

When you watch the debate alone, in rural Mississippi, nobody can hear you scream.

It's Existential Crisis Tuesday!

It probably isn't helping that its pouring rain.  And that I have the Tony Takitani soundtrack on repeat.  Then again, if I'm ever in a place in my life where Sakamoto's piano isn't deeply moving then I need to seriously take stock of where my moral center wandered off to.

As if I'm not all wound up in my head taking stock right now anyway.

I haven't written much these last few days because little has happened.  We're on fall break so I've been hunkered down in the house reading Cormac McCarthy novels (also not helping my increasingly Manichean worldview) and trying to get ahead on my lecture prep.  I journeyed to Alabama for some shopping on Saturday (yes, I need to cross state lines to buy the bras I want).  I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised that sizing varies regionally but it sure seems like vanity sizing is a little out of control here.  If I'm a size small in sweaters here then, well, where do people that are actually small buy clothes?  Gap Kids?  Tennessee?

Also I want to complain about the fact that I've managed to aggravate an old shoulder injury in such a way that it really hurts when I run.  AND too much yoga recently has made my hamstrings super tight.  I honestly can't walk like a normal person right now.  I kind of lurch around with my shoulder down like some character out of a Victor Hugo novel.

Good God, look at all this name dropping.  

I am quite the intellectual snob you know.  

I daintily litter the waters with little morsels of high culture

to hide the fact that I might be drowning.

I own only first editions of Goethe.

Am verbiage incarnate.

It's funny that

A comment like that

Was kinda made to,

I don't know,

You know...

Reporters.

* I highly recommend Hart Seely's article on Sarah Palin's poetry here.

Unicycle Watch 2008

Now they carry hockey sticks.

Sunday is Waffle Day!

I ate twenty-three...

Four days straight with no pants whatsoever!

Roomie is gone!  I have the ranch all to myself for fall break.

Finally, a reprieve from his watchful eye, ever scrutinizing, ever judging, ever eating canned soup.

I have all sorts of grand plans to organize my syllabi for next quarter, get ahead on lectures (none of this winging Nietzsche nonsense anymore), buy plane tickets to Pittsburgh, and finally catch that eNORmous spider that has been scurrying about the bedroom floor all week.  I pointed it out to the dog and she looked at it, looked at me, and walked out the door.  Worthless, that one.

The weather is now perfect.  75 degrees, no humidity.  I love it.  Perfect for long runs.  Earlier this week I was passing through this wooded section and looked over to see three deer and a fawn loping along side me, about twenty feet away.  And I think I saw a fox too.  Its a Mississippi wonderland.

Come visit!  You can try on all my roommate's clothes while he's gone.