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February 28, 2006
What, You Were Expecting A Quilting Bee?
"Alpha Gamma Rho is all about integrity and decency" and goat fucking. Over at the Western Kentucky University chapter two weeks ago, amidst the run-of-the-mill homosexual antics fraternities are chock full of, bestiality put it a guest appearance: a noise complaint resulted in the discovery of a goat (a he-goat, if you care) kept in a closet, mired in its own excrement for the purpose of what fraternity men love to do most in small, dark, excrement-filled spaces.
Further support for my extremely complex theory of human sexuality-- sometimes called the "men stick their penises anywhere they think they'll fit" school of thought-- comes from yet another goat-related news item. It seems a Sudanese man, has not only fucked a goat but also taken the cloven-hooved beast as his bride:
Upper Nile: Tombe, a Sudanese man, has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal.
The goat's owner, Alifi, said he was surprised to find the man with his goat, and took him to a council of elders.
Alifi, Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February, and immediately rushed outside to find Tombe conjugating with his goat.
"When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up".
Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case.
"They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife," Mr Alifi told the newspaper.
The council also ordered Tombe to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars (about Rs 3,000) to Alifi, whom the considered the “father of the bride"."We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are ill together," Alifi said.
Those elders went all Pee-Wee Herman on his ass. Like, "If you love that goat so much, why don't you just marry it?"
Ah, how wise the elders are in their infinite elderly patriamalarchy. The punishment must fit the crime and teach a lesson. Look now, what you're doing here-- now, we save it for the ladies. Got it, bud? If you're raping this animal, that means to me you think she is a woman. As long as you insist on pretending that sheep is your fiancee, I guess we'll all just have to see that you get married. Right away. That's right. Maybe next time you'll think twice before you use someone's sheep like a dirty woman again.
But have fun on the honeymoon!
Posted by hissycat at 07:19 AM | Comments (8115)
February 27, 2006
Paperback Of The Week
Posted by hissycat at 05:10 PM | Comments (6)
Sad
Octavia Butler died on Friday.
Posted by hissycat at 12:20 AM | Comments (1)
February 22, 2006
Excerpt From Letter Recently Sent To Thesis Advisor In Which I Seek His Advice On A Number Of Topics, Including Grad School
. . . Since 'leaving' my job, I had a streak of astoundingly awful luck: my boyfriend broke up with me and then I crashed my car. It was really a pretty awful time. I expressed my feelings by not showering or washing dishes, which probably did not help me feel any better, either, but then, I suppose that was part of the point. However, I'm doing so much better now, although I still very much miss my car. I'm even seeing this new guy who likes Scrabble and Gravity's Rainbow! Just like I do! Brett, my old boyfriend, is my friend again, which is excellent, and we mean to start up a Finnegan's Wake reading group with our friends like we had been planning before we split, and also I can borrow his car to go driving since the insurance wouldn't pay to fix mine!
I really miss being a student. I have fantasies about grad school, but I feel like I'm just getting my bearings in SF, and I don't want to leave yet. I wouldn't know where to call for Chinese, and I'd have to make all new friends-- that's very stressful, you know, just the thought of it is making me tense. And where would I go? It's true I'm not really writing piles of fiction so much these days, but I still like to think that I could, if I wanted to, even though I really probably can't, but either way, the idea of attending an MFA program is entirely unappealing, and attending an MFA program seems like the one reasonable thing I can do to be serious about fiction writing. And its probably a bad thing that I'm so put off by MFA-y situations anyway. It probably means I hate myself or want to sabotage myself because I can't stand other people who do what I am or want to be doing, which is writing, but to be fair, I was unfairly encouraged to believe that half the appeal of writing was that it could be done totally away from other people.
I also had the thought: Master's of Library Science! I'd be such an awesome librarian! I love libraries! That was when I was working at my job that I hated and I was trying to think of some kind of job that would give me health insurance that wouldn't make me want to kill myself. I came up with librarian. Useful, interesting and I could totally make it work with my fantasy life as a writer by working part-time at a library, getting benefits, and writing my books on the side. Maybe I'd even have to shelve my own book, who knows? Crazier things have happened!
But now I'm back to my original grad school fantasy, which is a reg'lar old PhD program in lit. That's what I miss. That's what I see myself enjoying the most. It's also the hardest to justify, since I don't feel strongly committed to going into academia once it's over. I feel strongly committed to living in San Francisco or New York, which I don't see changing unless I undergo a radical transformation brought on by trauma to the skull, or something of that nature. So I'd be putting in this enormous investment and then end up, six years later, in pretty much the same position I'm in now: underemployed, sending out (or not, as the case may be) resumes for jobs that, if I think about them, make me want to mash out my eyes with some kind of eye-sized mashing implement.
But then, if I'm just going to end up in the same place, is grad school such a terrible place to spend six or seven years of my life? A lot of people say, Yes! But I wonder-- are those people really as nerdy as me? Really? Maybe. I just don't know. I feel like I shouldn't want to go back to school so soon: I felt really ready for college to be over by the time it ended. Of course, it really wasn't that I was sick of academics as much as I was sick of being on a suburban campus as an undergraduate in a group living situation, no pets allowed, when the only kind of life I've ever wanted involves being left to myself in a studio apartment with books and a cat in a big city with good delivery.
I also feel a little guilty because I am not so successful at the non-school world. Even aside from the first job incident. Maybe this sounds silly seeing as how it's only been eight months since graduation, but I imagine myself, not going back to grad school, trudging through kind of mediocre jobs, just being kind of loserish for the rest of my life and dashing the promise my high school teachers said I was full of. Just kidding. No, but the mediocre jobs bit is true. The work that is available to me is not interesting. Most work, it seems, isn't interesting. Or at least, I don't find it interesting. I have zero interest in getting a job in publishing or advertising or whatever other industry English majors end up working in. I don't see myself having that kind of job ever, frankly. Not for me. I love writing the book reviews. I mean, I love writing fiction, but I'm also reasonable enough to recognize that I'll never be writing fiction for money. But I'm not too shabby at the book reviews. I plan on submitting reviews to more publications. I think I might have a fighting chance of eventually eking out some of the moneys with the writing the nonfiction and the book reviews. And that would be swell.
But I don't know, maybe grad school isn't incompatible with that kind of writing career. In fact, I was wondering actually if it might not help-- or at least provide me with several years of funding with more spare time than I'd otherwise have. I'm just rattling this stuff off out of my ass now-- I have no idea how the world works-- but I'm thinking maybe there's some kind of para-academic life I could make for myself more easily with a PhD than without. Like, you know what I want to do? Read little essays I wrote on NPR. And, like, write the kind of book reviews they print in the NYRB where you read a bunch of books and then think about them. Thinkedy think think. And then write an essay about some topic that the books deal with but that doesn't even begin to review the books until, like, the penultimate column. And maybe there are teachy things I could do that aren't as limiting lifestyle/ location-wise as being, you know, a serious University professor. I don't know I'm just making this stuff up I could be totally wrong! I know about how insanely difficult it is for English PhDs to get jobs, etc. But what if what I want to get into is magazine writing with maybe a somewhat academicky background? And if I had to work work in addition to writing, would a PhD be helpful? Could I teach, like, community college classes or adult education, part time? I imagine you still need a degree to teach those classes. Are those jobs still so difficult to get?
I suspect that if I could get into grad school, that's that kind of thing that I could, potentially, maybe, if squeeze my brain really really hard, and re-read everything twice, actually be pretty good at. I don't know that that's really the best reason to pursue literary studies, but last week my biggest accomplishment, which made my mother "so proud" that I've "come so far" was that I learned how to clean the bathroom . . .
Posted by hissycat at 06:37 PM | Comments (7947)
February 21, 2006
Witnessed Oral Sex @ Ross Dress For Less
Please don't ask why, I was amusing myself with Rants & Raves on Craigslist when I came across this gem:
Witnessed Oral Sex @ Ross Dress for Less (laurel hts / presidio)
Reply to: pers-135780510@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-02-21, 11:08AM PST
in the men's dept. it was empty the other night. i went down stairs to look for some socks for my husband. i saw two men in where the sweaters section is. one of the men was sitting between the clothes and giving the other man a blowjob. i told an employee. i have nothing against gay people, but please, keep the sexual acts at home. then you say you're aren't obsessed with sex. give me a break.today i followed up with ross and they said they two guys got away before the cops showed up. oh well.
no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
135780510
Copyright © 2006 craigslist, inc. terms of use privacy policy feedback forum
It's clearly a filthy lie. Gay men do not go into these "Ross Dress For Less"'s. In Laurel Heights. Never. No.
Posted by hissycat at 09:11 PM | Comments (8)
February 20, 2006
My Cat Quotes Joyce. Perfectly.
In the kitchen, I am standing in front of the cupboard, holding a can of beans or something. As I start opening the can, Gerty the cat bounds over to my legs as well as a three-legged cat can bound and starts mewling to be fed
Gerty: Mkgnao!
Me: No, Gerty. Your food is in your bowl. This is my food.
Gerty: Mrkgnao!
Gerty: Mrkrgnao!
Me: For god's sake, Gerty cat, I don't care how well you can quote James Joyce, you still can't have any of my dinner!
Posted by hissycat at 10:17 PM | Comments (8)
February 19, 2006
Paperback Of The Week
What I love about this cover is just how goofy this "dance of desire" is. Like, here, let me express my ravenous hunger for your body by flapping my elbows in the air like a woozy pigeon. I'll sort of march in place to demonstrate the fire that burns in my loins. Then I hold up pieces of my hair and pretend I have horns. 'Cause I'm horny. For you, baby. Oh, and I cross my eyes, too. This is The Dance Of Desire.
Look, her lover's so whipped up she got tangled in the sheet. I mean, look at her! It's like she tried to do the dance, but she wasn't woman enough. The Dance of Desire! It'll get her, oh boy oh boy. Look at that stupified grin-- totally defenless against the hair horns of desire. Putty in her lover's hands.
By the by, I bought some new (old) pulps today from some dude who was selling them on the street. Very exciting.
Posted by hissycat at 06:08 PM | Comments (11)
February 17, 2006
Awesome
This totally goes in the guest bathroom:
I think I'll go e-mail this picture to my mom now. She's into home repair projects, and this is exactly the kind of thing she finds rib-ticklingly funny-- she and my dad, in fact, should get seconds of laughs out of this one. That's just the kind of people they are.
You know what word sounds extremeley filthy out loud? Spigot.
Posted by hissycat at 07:51 PM | Comments (1)
February 16, 2006
Steve's Sad Stories About Animals
True:
When Steve was growing up, his family had a dog named Rapunzel-- 'Punzie' for short-- who, as you can guess, was so called for the length of her hair. Sadly for Punzie, said hair had a way of announcing itself in flourishes all over the upholstery, eventually leading to Steve's mother banishing Punzie to the yard. There poor Rapunzel lived out the rest of her doggy days in exile due to the very attribute for which she was named.
So sad!
True:
Steve's sister and brother-in-law had a pet piranha named Killer. Their pet cat ate it.
So hilarious recockulous redonkulous absurd sad!
Posted by hissycat at 11:49 AM | Comments (4)
February 15, 2006
Grad School
I've been having serious grad school fantasies of late. I don't know whether to be alarmed or not. It hasn't even been a year. I was so ready to be done with school last year, I don't think I should want to go back yet. On the other hand, it's not the academics I was so sick of as much as it was campus life as an undergrad-- I wanted an adult life, meaning a studio apartment in San Francisco and a cat.
I've been reading a book of criticism to review, and reading it has gotten me engaged again in thinking rigorously about literary studies. I feel in my element when I'm making notes and responding to authors. I know grad school is something I could be very good at, and I think a large part of its recent appeal has to do with that. As a non-student, I'm just like every other mediocre, loserish twenty-something. I don't have a real job, nor any real career aspirations, and there's no place I see myself going. I'm just totally unspecial. And I don't like that. I realize that if I were still in therapy, my therapist might encourage me to cite this as a reason not to run back to school but so much of who I understand myself to be is a student. What I do is school. What I do well is school. Other things, not so much, but school I do well. School, academics, literary studies, critical writing-- that's where I can plant a foot.
Posted by hissycat at 10:35 AM | Comments (8126)
February 08, 2006
Something To Get Excited About [sic]
I'm such a jaded, cynical bitch, especially when it comes to all things writerly, or more specifically, publishly, that I can't remember the last time I was this unexpectedly excited about anything. I don't think most lit mags are evil or wrong or anything; I just think most of them aren't that great or worth getting worked up about. Most writing isn't that special, or what's being published isn't that special, and even the teeny publications are circle-jerks for like-minded fellows whose minds are not like mine.
So I'm delighted to have accidentally stumbled-- via Craigslist, of all places-- across the website for [sic], a very promising-looking new literary journal out of New York. Here's what I like: this here editor's essay on fiction, which is more like a little statement of purpose for the journal. Just the type of thing, you know, that can't help but be overbearing and aggressive and pretentious and really just stupid in the end. I thought this one was actually quite charming and even moving.
You know, I'm as frightened as you are by this new effusiveness and I don't mean to sound like a commercial, but it's so rare that I feel this way, that I thought I'd share. If it turns out to suck, I'll be the first to complain, but I'm just going to purr over this for a while for now.
Posted by hissycat at 10:20 AM | Comments (5)
February 07, 2006
Paperback Of The Week
My sincerest apologies for the delay.
Posted by hissycat at 04:07 PM | Comments (5)
I'm Such A Bookslut
(Psst. The second paragraph should be blocked. I don't know why it isn't, but I'm a little embarassed about it.)
Posted by hissycat at 03:56 PM | Comments (2)
February 06, 2006
More Musical Theater!
In mid-December, Steve, The Guy I've Been Seeing, began introducing me to some of his friends-- not at all unusual for such a situation, I'd say, in fact, judging from what I've seen the people do on the TV, this is what the people do when they are doing "the dating": They meet each other's friends and/ or pet cats. As I met more of Steve's friends, a pattern began to emerge: a goodly percentage of them were male, and straight. This is not all that unusual for such a situation either, I suppose, except that given the circles I spin in, such quantities of straight men seemed downright exotic. I suppose, actually, that I'm friends with some straight men, but they're the kind of straight men who tend to be the rumored to be gay from time to time, to wear tight pants, and to have more female friends than male. I forgot that people, in the world, watch sports.
Anyway, a while ago, in December again, I was joking with Steve about how I might have to readjust my socially appropriate meter which, let's be honest, is pretty wonky by anyone's standards. I said something like, "Oh, I'm just so out of touch with this crowd. I have no idea what these straights go in for these days. How do they feel about Liza Minelli and buttplugs? Oh no, whatever will we talk about?"
So on Thursday, Steve, straight friend Nick and I were at Steve's apartment smoking pot, etc. There had been some intention of watching Dead Man but Steve forgot to rent it, so to the closet it was to look for something else. It was there that the fateful DVD was discovered: My Fair Lady!
Nick: We could watch My Fair Lady ha ha ha! Because Steve owns it ha ha!
Me: Ha ha!
Steve: Ok!
Nick: The only way I'd watch that is if we got really ridiculously stoned first and then watched it!
Me: Ha.
Steve: Ok!
And then we did. It was totally the same dynamic that leads to group sex situations. People are fucked up, joking around, maybe flirting a little, teasing each other, and then there's one person who is just not kidding at all and suddenly you don't where your bra went, what that girl from your freshman dorm is doing here and frankly you're better off not knowing who the erection pressing against your leg belongs to, because the high's wearing thin and you're going to want to start locating the closest exits NOW. I imagine. I mean, I'm just guessing here. In this case, of course, instead of the whole realizing you're missing your panties thing, it was more that the "Street Where You Live" musical number is beginning and Nick, looking flushed and embaressed, is making a hasty departure for home, but you catch my drift-- no one was comfortable making eye contact afterwards.
Bringing this all full circle, later that night, when Steve and I were going to bed, I said to Steve, "hey, Steve, remember how, a while ago, I was all, 'I guess it's going to be an adjustment being around all your straight friends, and I didn't know what to expect; I didn't know how hanging out with them would be different from hanging out with my gay friends? Well, now I know. It's pretty much the same. Except, you know, straight guys, apparently, watch a lot MORE MUSICAL THEATER."
Posted by hissycat at 02:48 PM | Comments (4)
February 02, 2006
The Palm Beach Post Would Know
I'm a hipster. Officially. See? Bookslut is a "hipster" website. I write book reviews for bookslut. Ergo, I am a hipster.
Posted by hissycat at 01:56 PM | Comments (8293)