three things...

• TH has a hard time in the kitchen. I'm not sure if he's faking it or if there's a male gene that constantly sends him to the wrong cabinet (after 5+ years) for plates, and this am (again) to the cannister of kosher salt vs. sugar. C'mon!! (what a waste of good coffee--but that's what he gets for sugaring up a good dark roast). The sugar has been in the same container forever (12+ years).
• I am sick of MP2 being sick. And of course, his parents now have this same affliction to greater (me) and lesser (TH) extents. Was I not sick just a few short weeks ago with summer flu? And now this. MP2 visited this upon us on last Thursday. His comment "It is amazing how worthless sickness can make you." Indeed--c'est vraie. I should be well into a revision right now, instead all I can make myself do is read another of my ILLs. It is a very good volume--some brilliant contributors--and I'm making notes. I have high hopes that some writing action will happen today--coffee is slowly working it's magic.
• I hate our governor. I know that's a strong word, but I do. AND I've hated him since way, way back when he said "I am an entrepreneur; I know how to balance a [state] budget" (imagine the Austrian accent) and then participated in a recall that displaced our then governor who, frankly, was leagues and miles smarter, because he (at least) understood that the legislature was not a business. He needs to be recalled. Truly, he does.

Week in Review

Last week was incredibly busy. I certainly hope the speed with which it flew by and the number of meetings I had to attend is not an indication of the coming semester. The highlights were:

• The Presidential Inauguration. That was just awesome. I was completely won over by the Sunday celebration at the Lincoln Memorial (MP2's saxophone teacher at UNT was invited to play in the inaugural band). The entire event set a great tone re: the arts. I watched it twice, so I knew I'd be glued to the Inauguration. I was. As an anthropologist, I cannot help but focus on how (and even wonder exactly WHY) we all (ok--many of us) have a new and hopeful sense of collective belonging. We do. It cannot be all about the end of the Bush er[ror]a. We had colleagues over for breakfast and to watch with us (CP and B) and I think they'd agree that it also goes beyond his youth, embodiment of globally, single-motherly, lived-experience and his brains and the adorableness of the first girls and all that. It was kind of like watching a world renewal ceremony in the religious sense of the term. I'm sure I'll be blogging more about that as the economy nonetheless continues it's apparently long-coming dive.
• On fashion and Michelle O. I think she's just young(er) than most first-ladies. And she dresses herself accordingly. I don't think she's the fashion maven everyone is setting her up to be. I think the day dress was great and not the evening dress. It was TOO prissy for her. IMHO. But the pressure is on her now. I wish the press would just let us all enjoy her failure to dress like a frumpy old woman and leave it at that. She can dress herself beautifully and professionally, but the comparisions with Jackie-O seem over the top.
• Wednesday was a first meeting of the semester for the new exhibit. Famous California Indian artist brought some photographs from his personal collection of historic photos. These were taken in the 1920s by Grace Nich*lson. He is loaning them to us for the next show, which will also feature some of the museum's paintings by F*ank D*y. It's going to be a fun and cool exhibit all around (we are also soliciting bits of family heritage from NAS students), but these old photos will be the centerpiece. Thank you F*ank L*P*na.
• Thursday was a looong day. Haircut in the AM, meeting with new (interdisciplinary) museum grad student mid-morning, lunch with my favorite gossip girls at citrus H20 deli, and then dentist in the pm. Actually got some research and writing done that night (though not much, I admit).
• Thursday was also the day our Fall evals appeared in our mailboxes. So for the second semester in a row: 4.97. Yipee. Fall 07--my first semester after official tenure letter, was higher than normal, too--and actually--there's another semester prior to that (the one immediately after I filed, which will count in the next review, too--or maybe it's that whole year. I don't know if they counted my Fall 06 scores. I brought my file up to late November 06, so maybe they did. Ramble, ramble ramble. Anyway, what this tells me is that tenure has been good for my teaching. Er, something. I don't know. I file in Fall '11. Considering there will be a sabbatical semester or year in there somewhere, that's not all that far away. That's the last big, guaranteed raise.
• Friday am we had another exhibit committee meeting and I met three new and interesting people (one student, two faculty). One of the faculty people does ethnography of teaching. I'm stoked. He will be a great help on this exhibit. I looked at his webpage up last night and read a paper he presented at the AAAs in 2007. Very interesting. He's theoretically current, too. Double-nice.
• And finally, yesterday's faculty meeting was not bad. Our new hire will not be axed (I didn't think it would, but part of me was sweating bullets until official word came out). Nor is the WS position. So work on two search committees last semester is going to bear some valuable fruit for the department and the college. Still waiting to hear about the assoc. dean search. I know our dean will appoint one of our two top-ranked candidates, just not entirely sure which one. Especially now that I hear the Dean's Search will also move forward. Change all around next year--but probably the ailing state/univ. budget will drive virtually all decision-making.

Off to buy frames for the exhibit. Big one-cent frame sale at local Art Supply store.

Houston! We Have a Leader

I. Have. Hope.

Love and Marriage

On the passage of Prop 8...Keith Olbermann says it best.

102 Applications, and Counting?

On Monday morning, the Department received 22 more applications for our TT position. And the afternoon mail brought 2 more. Hopefully that is that last of those that were postmarked by the required date, but were hung up over the weekend in our university mailroom. Great (in a way) to have so many applications, but some are really sloppy, some don't have the Ph.D in anthropology and/or didn't mail all the required components (so they are gone from the pool, gone, gone, gone), and many just do not do the kind of scholarship we are asking for. On the one hand I appreciate it when people don't make an effort on either their letter or their vita to spin their work in our direction (this kind of misrepresentation is always easy to see past), but why waste our time and yours (especially the time of our office staff who must process your application as if it really matters)? Others are doing the kind of work we are looking for (broadly conceived) but haven't got the sophistication to better claim the field (here the committee's work is more interesting, at least), some have been out a long time and are just too all over the place (I mean, really, just clean up your vita--we know you have to make a living--but you're killing yourself with all this extraneous bs on the front and second pages of your vita), and yet others are so incredibly d*e*s*p*e*r*a*t*e to leave their current job (and apparently have this pattern of restlessness) that they are a major turnoff. Also, please make it easy on us, give us a list of courses you've taught, TA'ed, etc. Make it clear. Don't make us search through 65 entries of "Lecturer at Suchagreat University where I taught "Introduction to dumb and dumber," "Folkways of Underwater Weavers," "Post-Colonial Dance for Dimwits." We don't want to wade through narration on your vita. The place for narration is your letter of interest, where you have an open-ended opportunity to let us know that while you haven't taught an entire course in the field we are looking at, in such and such course that you have taught way too many times, you regularly use your fieldwork/dissertation research in the area to discuss this topic. Proofread your letter, or better yet, have two other individuals proofread, just for typos. The sad reality is that we are not reading your letters word for every word, but your errors will always find their way into our field of vision. So far I've read only two really brilliantly crafted letters. They are on topic and use language that demonstrates their knowledge of the field. They let us know that they know the institutional structure and student terrain on our campus (or know our campus, period), manage to convey that they could make a decent life for themselves teaching at a university that is not an R1 without feeling insecure and scummed, sound confident of challenges and opportunities, and so forth. It is also stunning to me how many letters are just pathetically generic. More venting later. I've got to go in and re-read some files. And then hold a meeting that generates a first-cut list.

On an entirely different note: the day before last week's presidential debate, I mailed in my absentee ballot. Since I'm all about blogging my presidential ballots this year, I give you the following photo.

click to enlarge, of course!

Standing Ovation

Wow. I am impressed with Colin Powell. He said it all, and oh so brilliantly. Thank god.

Visions of a (Palin)ation

Need some interactive fun? Try this.

Gag me

Five minutes into the debate and I'm already gagging on Mac.

Video of the Day

Palin Disney Trailer

Bye bye summer...

The fall semester is underway, whether we like it or not. And we do NOT like it. On Thursday morning, with caffeine in hand, MP1 and I went for pedicures.

This was a spirited act of resistance that did nothing to hold back the formal opening of the semester. Thursday afternoon I went to our College's Fall Reception (despite the fact that I had a raging headache.) The President's BBQ dinner followed that, but wild horses couldn't have dragged me over to that venue to eat heat-compromised dairy products in 100 degree temps. But, the Dean's Fall Reception was very nice and relaxed. He announced that under no circumstances would he continue on next year as "the default Dean" (he stayed an extra year for us this year, because we had a failed search last year), so I hope that this year we have a good search committee with faculty who know something about the dynamics of FTES and research and our student demographic and some really good applicants for the position. Preferably a sociocultural anthropologist among them (why NOT shoot for the moon?).

Met with a grad student on Friday morning, and in the afternoon we had our first faculty meeting of the year. Here, I am going to find something nice to say. Let's see.....hmmmm. Oh yes--two things. First, it was a fairly colleagial meeting (considering the history of my department) and second, a colleague who is teaching his very last semester passed around his newly published book.

Cooper, the dog, is a masterful begging machine.
Yesterday was wine country--V.Sattui--with extended family (we missed you MP2). Excellent weather, good food, great wine.

Lots of weddings are held in the courtyard to the left of this building. On the right is an antique sign posted on one of their equally antique trucks parked between the picnic grounds and the vineyards.

Raced back here for the tail end of a tailgate party and the opening-season football game (which, shock of all shocks, we actually won). "It must be the new field house" we all say in unison. Lots of faculty and their kids in attendance. Today, I woke up worrying about Gustav (I am *so* sad for New Orleans), called my mom (who is going to vote for McCain now; she listened to some effing NPR show featuring the biographer of Sarah Palin and now she is totally S*O*L*D on her--and here's the kicker, she hates McCain) and then we went to breakfast (where I refrained from ordering a stiff drink) and then shopped for and bought MP1 a new bed (and 2 new iPhone cases for moi). So, on some levels it's been a very productive weekend, but I DO have to get that damned paper edited and cited before tomorrow night, so I really can't put it off any longer. Or can I?

ETA: Damn, it's due tonight. (I thought tomorrow was the 31st.) Okay, all the better, I can do this.

Nice Try Mac

But I'd be more impressed with Miss Piggy, for god's sake!! And Palin, who is pro-life and has little political experience, would be a nightmare in the Oval Office if she had to step in to finish out your term. Are we supposed to be impressed that she hunts moose? Is for gay rights but against gay marriage? I think this is a condescending pick, frankly--more proof McCain and his cranks don't "get it."

On Pins and Needles

I should be prepping for my seminar, but I'm completely distracted by the primaries in Texas and Ohio. Focus, focus, focus. On other fronts, my father-in-law wants to race me. He just bought a Camry hybrid (which is good for the environment on every count, since he lives pretty far from the university, and refuses to retire.) I'm up for it, though. Especially if the Texas primary goes the right way, I'll hop right onto Hwy 10 and give him a run for his $. I'm feeling a little bit homesick anyway.

Too Funny!

Tina Fey on being a bitch.

Cough Drop and Theraflu Diet

I'm still sick, sick, sick. Yuck. And I find it fascinating that even while napping to HGTV and the Food Channel all day, I have no appetite (there is NOTHING worthwhile on regular daytime TV and I cannot concentrate on my seminar readings for more than three coughs in a row--the new temporal unit of measure). I'm sure the menthol in the Vick's cough drops is the guilty taste suppressant. Plus, MP1 insisted I try theraflu, so I've made myself drink that awful stuff for the last two nights (it tastes a lot like Koolaid on steroids--only hot). Speaking of MP1, she made me very happy yesterday (which wasn't easy given my feverish-self) by telling me that she had joined a Facebook group of alums from her all-girls HS in support of Hillary. And best of all, it was formed by two of her closest friends. Yay. The tuition $ continues to pay off. And the Catholicism? Well, ya know, she learned a lot of world history through that framework. Actually, I guess [male saint] High School doles out a LOT of history. One year of world history, followed by two years of AP American history (freshman year I think they took world geography), PLUS 4 years of theology, ethics, and humanism alongside it--all in a historical and philosophical context). Didn't change her ramrod rationalist nature (that's in the DNA on her father's maternal side), but it did help her to learn about social justice issues and feminism. Money well spent. Of course, many young women "get" what is at stake in this election through the subtle and not-so-subtle lived-experiences and side-bars of partriarchy. All the better.

Lime Tree

While himself is struggling to finish his syllabus, I'm watching the Screen Actor's Guild Awards and trying not to gloat. This is such a change in work patterns; I'm usually the one knocking myself out all hours of the night for work. Not tonight, for once. But then he's teaching so some other person can have release time for advising work, so I should have sympathy, I guess.

The storm of a couple weeks ago had its way with our little lime sapling, stripping the leaves completely off a couple of the newer branches. It is really pathetic-looking now. BUT, all hope is not lost. Today I went out and discovered that a single bud is still clinging to life. Yay! I hope it makes it to maturity. AND, the last ballots are in from this address. Three for three. Not bad.

And the Semester Officially Begins Tomorrow

Revisiting my to-do list on the last morning of the Winter Break:

Abstract written and submitted.
Hotel and plane reservations made.
Registration paid in full.
Car rental options checked out, in case I decide to take a side trip up the 405. . .
Course web site created and electronically-available reserve readings uploaded.
Held myself back from spending my own good time scanning the 5 articles that are not available electronically and dropped them by the reserve room.
Mini-grant proposal completed and submitted.
Survived first faculty meeting of 2008.
Updated critical portions of the museum website (the rest to come during the month of February, when I am stuck in the gallery 4 days a week).
Sent campus announcement for current exhibit.
Scoped-out two beach rental communities that are much closer than Sea Ranch, and don’t give me that good old morning-sickness-feeling to get to. However, they are way more $$. But, they also have more (and better) shopping than Gualala. Which, frankly, is a huge plus—since even grocery shopping is pretty iffy, and expensive, up there.
Got some reading done that will help with ms. revisions—going after that from noon-6 today. In front of a nice cozy fire. In a quiet house. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

Other good news of last week that has absolutely nothing to do with my to-do list:

A favorite former intern (for whom I have been serving as a job reference) got a fulltime job on campus after months and months of competing against already classified full-timers looking to make lateral moves.
A colleague in the research/archives/library world (for whom I am also a referee) got a new and wonderful job working in the real world on exactly the kinds of issues with which our academic research is concerned. Celebration dinner next month!!
Met with MF-W who is making incredible thesis progress and will finish well ahead of deadlines; we have booked my house for a graduation party following the ceremony—which reminds, me—will the in-laws be flying in, too?

And I voted. Yes, it's a done deal. So you campaign callers can just drop our phone number from your list, because, while mine went in the mail yesterday, two more from this address will be going off tomorrow, and they are identical in the presidential column. Knock yourselves out.

Just Coming up for Air

At dinner on Saturday night, one of my grad students asked which book we would be discussing first in our upcoming seminar. Not wanting to admit to her that I was still (still, still, still) mulling that over, I made a decision in favor of the most difficult first (for both substantive and strategic reasons—the faint of brain will immediately drop). Having made that first commitment, I decided I’d better move this syllabus off the “Still To Do” list asap or I would still (still, still, still) be “working on it” six days from now. Done: 5:30 pm, PST. I’m sure the students in this seminar would be shocked to learn that I have dedicated the better part of the last two days to this task. But, their grad experience and the tone of the seminar over the course of the next 16 weeks will be shaped by this document, so it has surely been a critical investment of time. I kept six of the seven ethnographies and texts that I used when I taught this course two years ago (this decision made six weeks ago, courtesy of pressure from the university bookstore). However, I am mining these same books for slightly different material this go-around. I’ve refocused the thematic emphasis of the course, made substantial changes to list of supplementary readings (updated it with some more recent journal articles and deleted others that are peripheral to the new thematic focus), and altered the nature and type of writing assignments. I have absolutely agonized over the order of readings, wanting to provide solid footing in terms of some standard (though highly contemporary) ethnology, before plunging these often theoretically unschooled students into the fray of epistemological and political critique that inevitably animates any post-colonial-era research and writing about Indigenous peoples (much of it produced by Indigenous activist-scholars who are, themselves, puzzling out and helping to establish both new theoretical paradigms and gate-keeping standards for social science research within contemporary Native communities). In an effort to ease the transition between readings that feel comfortably authoritative and those that require some serious critical and reflexive thinking about disciplinary history, method, and theory, I have incorporated a "buffer session" or two that will examine work by anthropologists who claim Native/Other/hybrid identity as either primary or secondary to their anthropological identities and agendas. I’m hoping that the epistemological plate tectonics to follow (in the next set of texts and articles) will be more productive by this particular route. Cross your fingers. One thing in my favor is that I don’t have an over-enrolled seminar this semester for just about the first time in four or five years; I have only ten students (and surely some of those will drop). Recent changes to our graduate program also mean that there will be very few students in the class who are taking it as a required seminar outside their sub-disciplinary specialization. This means that a) most of the students will come in having a better foundation in cultural anthropology and b) there will be fewer students (and maybe not a single one, dare I hope) resentful about having to take a course in ethnography.

On to the fun part of the weekend. On Saturday morning, MGC and I set off for Sebastopol, headed to an antique shop where, several weeks earlier, he had spotted an advertising sign from the 1930s (?) that he decided he just couldn’t live without. While he ended up NOT buying the sign after all (that’s an entirely different story), it was wonderful to get out of the city and into the countryside. I took a few quick photos I've uploaded below, plus one of my big $9.00 purchase that day—I just couldn’t resist the beautiful graphics, the brilliant green, or even the pelican, which just so happens to be the state bird—albeit in brown, not green—for Louisiana (the state in which I was born).

Where we're having lunch NEXT time we go to Sebastopol

Bucolic Bliss, near Petaluma

Sonoma Vineyards at Dusk

A Great Crate Label (c. 1940s or 50s?)

The Democratic debate tonight is pretty exciting; I think tomorrow’s primary will be too.

Sweeeeeet! And the winner is...

a woman! She did it; this almost makes up for MP2 having to go back to UNT tomorrow (not really, but we do all have to go back on campus sometime). Sigh. Back to election matters. Keep the momentum up--be a part of history. Honor your daughters, sons, and mothers and grandmothers; make your donation today. We need a Women for Hillary group on campus. Hmm. I'm going to have to give that some thought (and here I would do well to remember my new mantra, which is "just say no" unless it relates to my own research). This is, without a doubt, an important collecting opportunity. In fact, this is well past the moment to begin collecting Hillary for President emphemera. And news stories and discourse. Just THINK of the exhibit and archival research opportunities that will come from this in a couple decades. Of course by then we may well have a lesbian (gasp), married (double-gasp) couple in the White House. I'm sure I'll see this very discourse in the press before the election is over. Maybe even before tomorrow morning. We shall see.

New Hampshire

Go Hillary!

Men. Bah!

All of the Republican candidates in the New Hampshire debates tonight, with the exception of Ron Paul are acting like a bunch of balding frat boys. Gag me. Between the condescending expressions they cast upon whomever is speaking, and the puffing up of the chest when they are about to gain the floor, they are all doing a fine job of making Bush look more mature. Run for the hills, everyone. Run now.