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update: 01.01.03

As you read this, I am on my way to DC. After a farewell breakfast with my parents, I left Lawrenceburg at ten and should arrive at Taj's swinging bachelorette pad around eight. I just hope she's cleared out all of her lovers by the time I pull into the parking lot. I'd hate to interrupt anything.

I've got a week of excitement laid out before me: I'm seeing the new Lord of the Rings picture, swinging through New York, visiting all of my friends, meeting a few new ones and spending a lot of time under the influence of various substances. Does this remind you of my Spring Break trip?

Being my mother's child, I am well-prepared for this adventure. My bags were packed days in advance, I had a list of things to do entered in the palm pilot and I even prepared a few blogs to post while I'm away. How is that for organization? As a result, you won't be deprived of my winsome voice while I tour the eastern seaboard.

I spent the afternoon puttering around Lawrenceburg yesterday, preparing for my trip. You know, it can be advantageous to be well-known in a small town. Since my parents run a successful business, I was able to withdraw a rather large amount of money from my mother's account (my Christmas present) with no more identification than "Oh, you're Sue's son, right?" And when I rolled Bubba over to see our mechanic Bimbo, he said "You're John's son, right? I'll just put it on the account." It's a wonderful life.

So, when I get back, there will be plenty of Kodak moments captured via the magic of binary code. Stay tuned for that, wish me luck (I constructed a pyramid, Katie!) and have a happy new year!

.::Rob::.

update: 1.3.03

The alleged good manners of Southerners are really just a coverup for people who are as pushy and demanding as everyone else; Southerners use their manners the way a hunter uses a club and beat visitors unfamiliar with protocol into submission with wide smiles and drawling consonants.

Southern people walk around with an attitude of entitlement, fostered by the idea that is is improper to express dissent and make outlandish requests, secure in the knowledge that it is unneighborly to say no. (I once saw a poor character walking along the streets of Shelbyville get assaulted by an elderly desperado who asked him to lift a block of cement into the back of his dualie! "I've got this here spasm in my back," the old man explained. As the stranger huffed and puffed, the old fool stood there nodding his head and muttering "Mmm hmm, mmm hmm.") If the stranger has the temerity to refuse a request, he will witness a delicate lifting of the requestor's eyebrows and then watch the beaming smile gradually become fixed and plastic.

(At my mother's antique mall, about ten minutes after closing)

Annoying Southern Woman:
Oh, sugar, I know you're closin' but I'm just gonna look around for another ten minutes or so!
Rob's stepfather John
Oh, take your time!

(Annoying Southern Woman saunters off)

Rob:
"Take your time?!" Are you out of your mind, she's not gonna buy anything!
John:
You don't know that, Robert!
Robert:
Of course I do, I know these people! Besides, I have somewhere I need to be.
John:
Where is that?
Rob:
Home!

Now, I love my stepfather, but for someone who runs a federal prison, he is remarkably naive. After years of Southern living, he still doesn’t understand the intricate workings of our language; "Well, if you wouldn’t mind..." translates to a rather emphatic "Hell, yes!" below the Mason-Dixon line and "You ain’t from around here, are ye?" is less a question than an accusation. (By the bye, ny stepfather once identified my mother and me as being from Michigan and I nearly went limp in my chair. I am not from Michigan, I am from Greenbrier County, West Virginia! There's a difference!)

Although I hold the title of Most Blunt in the County, John is still much more to the point than the typical Southern personality. That, coupled with the fact that he is not Southern-born, means he simply cannot distinguish between when he is being treated sincerely and when he is being taken advantage of. To him, anyone smiling must be worth something. Fortunately, I am usually in the vicinity, ready to swoop to his rescue like some screeching harpy. But, not always...

(It's now twenty-five minutes after closing and Annoying Southern Woman is still gliding around the store cooing over gewgaws, while Robert and Sue fume.)

Annoying Southern Woman:
Sugar, can you come and put this bed together for me so I can see what it looks like?
Robert:
I declare if I will!
Sue:
John, don't you dare put that thing together for her, she isn't going to buy it! Just tell her we're closed and she can look at it tomorrow!
John:
You don't know if she's gonna buy it or not. We might make a $1200 sale!

(He hurries off to put the bed together. After fifteen minutes of labor and sweat, he stands proudly before the now-assembled cast-iron bed.)

John:
How does that look, ma'am?
Annoying Southern Woman:
Why, it's just beautiful! Well! I think I'm ready to go.

(As John stands there with his mouth hanging open, Annoying Southern Woman sails grandly up the aisle and out the door without buying a damned thing.)

So you see, Southern people can be as pushy as anyone in the dreaded North, it's just done with more finesse. They may pause in the middle of the grocery aisle to slop sugar and pass the time of day with someone they haven’t seen in an age, but they’ll heap derision on them afterwards with only a "Bless her heart!" and a smile standing between them and eternal damnation.

It's all in the translation.

.::Rob::.

update: 1.6.03

From the Lawrenceburg Local:

"When J.T. S----- introduces himself, a few eyebrows might be raised.

"Holding out his hand for a shake, he says, 'I'm J.T. S-----, a preacher. Did you know Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins?'

"Anyone meeting him initially might, at first, be a little skeptical to his sincerity, but not after listening to him talk a few minutes. Especially if they are lucky enough to have him start preaching the gospel on the spot. When J.T. preaches he stomps his feet, shouts, raises his voice, prays, sings and shares the word.

"His method or his vocation may not be that unusual, except that J.T is only four years old.

"'He's been wanting to preach since he was two,' said his mother, Mrs. David S----- of Junction City. 'He's been singing since he was two and he's been preaching since June.'

"'If you could see him, he really gets with it,' said C------. J.T. was easily coaxed into a brief demonstration and willingly shares that Jesus died on the cross for people's sins and that good people go to heaven and those who don't believe go to Hades.

"'He cries to go to church on Sunday morning and cries when he has to leave church,' said his father, who works at Harrodsburg Wholesale. 'It's unbelievable to see.'"

I'll bet it is.

.::Rob::.

update: 01.14.03

Okay, so I'm back from my adventure. I had a really good time and avoided any near-death experiences on Interstate 64 this go round. I saw most of my friends in DC and NY and photographed everything up and down the coast.

Upon our arrival in Brooklyn, Darren told us an amusing story which we quoted for the rest of the vacation. It seems there was a queen from Queens (whose accent you'll have to reproduce for yourself) serving as a steward on a flight. Two other queens took up seats in first class and the Queens queen was forced to wait on them. For the next few hours the three of them exchanged catty unpleasantries. Finally, the steward had had enough and began to plot his revenge. As the flight was ending, the Queens queen made his way up the aisle with a trash bag, intoning "Garbage....garbage" over and over; when he got to the two queens in the front, he simply said "Trash!"

Needless to say, we repeated "Garbage...garbage...trash!" incessantly for the next few days. Here are a few other quotes from the trip:

"It would be like working in a giant Drug Emporium!"
"That grouper is gonna slip outta the tank tonight and cuddle up to Taj."
"You have a cutesy-poo screen!"
"IS THERE A PROBLEM?!"
"Let it go, man, let it go!"
"I love me some cum!"
"GRRRRRL!"
"Lemme find out!"
"It smells like sweaty balls!"
"Alzucar bambino!"
"Terlet!"
"Are we going to C-Twoin's?!"

On the way home, I called my parents to arrange dinner only my mother argued that it was too cold to leave the house. I decided to pick up something at Wal*Mart instead. When I rolled into the parking lot, I was immediately surrounded by hillbillies; it was startling. Some immediate thoughts upon returning to the big KY were:

"Shit! I'm back in Kentucky again!"
"I see nothing is any different here?"
"School starts on Wednesday?!"

So that pretty much sums up my vacation. I did receive a pleasant surprise, though. It seems my scholarship from the University of Kentucky is for a lot more than I thought, so I should be receiving a sizable check any day now. It's good to come back to that kind of news!

.::Rob::.

update: 01.17.03

Winter vacation came and went so fast it felt like a weekend. The new semester started this Wednesday and I'm taking only three classes because two of them are five credit hours and the other is four. As is tradition, I will summarize my first impressions.

First up was Anthropology, a total breeze. Oh sure, the professor thundered through a fire and brimstone sermon about the incredible difficulties we were about to face, but please; I've heard that before.

I didn't like this dude much. He is very rigid--assigned seating and all this here. He threatened to smash any ringing cell phone to the ground and then stamp on the remains; "You've been warned, so I'm within my rights to do this," he warned ominously . Oh, I'm sure. As though merely alerting someone that you intend to damage their property indemnifies you from being brought up on a charge. Where did he learn this legal theory? Iraq? I guess if he catches you cheating he can poke out your eyes too, with the cursory warning "I'm about to blind you!" Who knew university professors had such power?

He also lectured us extensively on the importance of being prompt, then kept us eight minutes late. My next class, Calculus II, is across campus, so I had to jet and barely arrived on time. There was exactly one seat left, in the worst possible position. I couldn't see the board without contorting myself into positions not legal outside of a cathouse. This is not conducive to learning about the mysteries of the logarithmic function. Anyway, there is one girl in the class, one brother and apparently only one fag as well. Represent!

Following a lengthy three hour break during which I made hundreds of phone calls, ate terrible pizza, and drained the batteries in my palm pilot playing Dope Wars, I had my final class: Physics. Now last semester I had such a ruinous Physics professor that I dropped the class after three days and developed a heat rash. This time around I have a smooth dude with a movie star name: Slade Carr, a great big tall thing who smiled the entire time. He is very humble but obviously brilliant. "I teach school," he explained, "because I like to be around you kids. Before retiring, I worked for the Department of Defense developing an 'audiovibratory physiomolecular transport device'!" Mmmm hmm.

It was roughly two hundred degrees in the room and the hillbilly slattern beside me doused herself with cheap perfume after settling in the seat. The blast radius was approximately fifty feet. The dude beside me was like "What is that smell?!" and I was all "Gasp!"

So that about summarizes my first day back. I have a feeling this is going to be a good semester. There were quite a few people I know from other classes around and we sat together. I think some of this material is going to be a challenge, but I'm looking forward to it.

.::Rob::.

update: 01.21.03

For the past year Nancy F has been working as a house mother for a sorority in Colorado. Before returning for the spring semester, she wanted to have us over for dinner. We braved inches of snow for one of her fabulous dinners--canned soup, bagged salad, leftover chicken cacciatore and frozen cheesecake.

I like Nancy F, but sometimes she has no sense of what is or isn't appropriate to say. For example, my stepbrother Bart was roped into carrying the pecan pie she made for our Thanksgiving dinner into the house. As he handed it to my mother, it flipped out of his hands and landed upside down on the floor. Of course he felt foolish but that wasn't good enough. Nancy F compounded the problem by flapping her arms and squawking, "Look at this mess, you've ruined it! Oh, this is just terrible, how could you do this?!" After that, Bart licked his wounds on the porch while puffing a cigarette. Now, if I had labored over a dessert only to have flopped on the floor I'd be a warm sister too, but I hope I would have the good graces to say "Don't worry about it!"

In another incident, Lucinda, a dealer in my mother's mall, told us that her husband's physician felt there might be an issue with his pancreas and decided to screen him for cancer. After we expressed our concern and wished him luck, Nancy F said "My husband died of pancreatic cancer, you know! I hope that doesn't happen to you!" I'm sure he hadn't thought of that.

Finally, we were supposed to spend New Year's Eve at Nancy F's place but one of the cats developed a last-minute illness. As we sped down the Bluegrass Parkway en route to the veterinarian, I phoned Nancy to break the news that we wouldn't be coming. "Oh, the party's just ruined!" she complained. After calming down, she added "I hope they don't have to put it to sleep! My husband was a vet, you know, and he was always putting animals to sleep!"

That sounds rather sinister...

.::Rob::.

update: 01.24.03

I remember ending up half naked on the living room sofa with a boy whom I had pined after for years and suddenly realizing "I don't want to do this." The flirting was fun but I wasn't interested in much past that. That seems to be a recurring theme around here...but that doesn't mean I can't have some fun! Semester six is moving along swiftly and I already have a few boys I'm hangin' with.

First up is an extremely tall fellow who sat next to me in programming last semester and who is in both my Physics and Calc II (P&C) classes this time around. This dude has the nerve to show up an hour late sometimes, while yawning and stretching as though he just rolled outta bed. He talks to me constantly, moved across the Physics lab so he could sit by me and transferred into my Calc II class. I don't know what's up with all that...

Next up is the Genius. He sits beside me in P&C too and is smart as hell. He takes no notes but pays absolute attention to the professor during class and then does nearly as well as me on the tests. The nerve! (Remember, I study all the time and he doesn't even do his homework!) This guy is really good-looking but far out; he reads Stephen Hawkins before bed and prefers to do long division by hand.

My snarls seem to be unappreciated by this alleged Thug in those same two P&C classes. I heard him lecturing his buds on the intricacies of waterbong construction the other day, and getting it wrong. I think he saw me roll my eyes because later, as I made my way to my seat, he refused to move his big ol' Timberlands out of the aisle. I was like "Excuse me!" and he had the nerve to tell me to watch out!

"No, you watch out!"
"Blah, blah, blah" he goes and I'm like "Oh shaddup and siddown!"

Now, whom do you think I like best, hmmm?

In other news, I was wandering around the cafeteria this afternoon and bumped into the LQ. Not only was he excited to see me, but he also gave me a rather demanding quiz on why I hadn't called him!

"I didn't know I was supposed to."
"I thought you would."
"Ah. So, tell me, how is your girlfriend?"
"We broke up."

Shocking.

.::Rob::.

update: 01.27.03

I once read a story about William Faulkner. He was sitting in a Paris restaurant one evening with fellow Southerner Katherine Anne Porter, dining on haute cuisine. Suddenly, he put his fork down, looked at his companion and sighed "Back home the butter beans are in..."

There is nothing quite like the South. I know, I know...I worry myself into a frazzle about Kentucky twenty-three hours out of four and, yes, I do dislike people who smile in my face when I know they'd like to put a knife in my back. But, in the end, these are my peeps.

Where else can you pull off the road and collect a mess of wild collard greens for supper or else watch as kudzu devours a hillside? Where can people drawl "My eye" into one word or say "Wull ah prolly oughta quit ritcheer" and be understood? And where else do grown men still refer to their fathers as Daddy?

I want to give a shout out to my Southern peeps living in the North. I know you all get a little homesick from time to time; I certainly did in DC. I remember Chris saying that, while she loved a bagel as much as the next girl, there was nothing quite like a plate of biscuits and gravy on a Sunday morning. Testify, sister! Darren, Southern by association, not only makes a mean biscuit but also made a plate of the best fried chicken I've ever had in my mouth. Taj, while only half-Southern by birth, demonstrates her true blood by traveling hundreds of miles for a taste of barbeque and greens. And while Katie isn't technically Southern, she's been bit by the bug and can appreciate a bowl of brown beans and cornbread like any dyed-in-the-wool belle.

So, the next time you all are getting misty, sit down on the back porch, snap a few green beans and throw them in to boil with a little fatback for a few hours. It'll take the edge off.

.::Rob::.

update: 01.29.03

Monday is my long day; I have three classes, then a two hour Physics lab. I am at school from noon until nine. I wasn't looking forward much to the first time when I'd actually have to stay that long, but it turned out to be good times.

After working at the Medical Society in the morning, then attending Anthropology and Physics, I schlepped to the library in the bitter cold. My Anthropology professor insists that we learn about science by writing a critique of an actual scientist's efforts and I was off to look for an article. Within the restriction of three possible source materials, I came up with these possibilities:

"Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others" by Lila Aub-Lughod
As the abstract states, "rather than seeking to 'save' others [...] we might better think in terms of (1) working with them in situations that we recognize as always subject to historical transformation and (2) considering our own larger responsibilities to address the [...] global injustices that are powerful shapers of the worlds in which they find themselves."

"China's One-Child Policy and the Empowerment of Urban Daughters" by Vanessa L. Fong
This article argues that "urban daughters have benefited from the demographic pattern produced by China's one-child policy."

"The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes" by Don Kulick
This "essay discusses how an analysis of the gendered practices of Brazilian transgendered prostitutes (travestis) can illuminate the ways in which gender in Latin America is bound up with sexuality."

As I pore over the articles for the next few days, I'll decide which I want to work with. Any favorites?

Having made my photocopies, I ventured over to the Physics room and proceeded to eavesdrop on the Thug, in the midst of a riveting tale. It seems he was dining at Denny's the other night when some character across the way began staring at him. Being all hard and tough, he glared back and before too long they were exchanging words. "You better hope I'm not outside when you leave" he threatened. Finishing the tale, he exclaimed "I'll bet that dude is still sitting in the restaurant," with some satisfaction. He's so tough, as any white boy from the suburbs of Lexington, Kentucky would be.

Meanwhile, I'm in the back thinking "He's misshapen and a dumbass, but...he's kinda cute." I began to debate whether I should wander up the aisle and tell him to get his big feet "out my way," but the professor started his lecture and thwarted my plan.

Following a quick background test ("d/dx ln x = ?"), we walked to the lab. The Genius and I worked together and discovered that we are members of the Brotherhood of Ubergeeks. Using a motion detector, we observed a car rolling along a track, then plotted its motion in the Cartesian coordinate system and analyzed the results. While everyone sighed and groaned, the Genius and I giggled like school girls and tried to come up with the most elegant graphs possible. "Print that out!" I hollered, over and over.

Finally, as I walked across the vast parking lot to Bubba, the Tall Dude ran up behind me and said "Let's walk together!" What am I, a fool? I'll never turn down an escort to my buggy on the arm of a handsome young man, much less when he whips out a joint and says "One for the road!"

"No, no!" I protested. "I have to drive in the snow!"

"Well, maybe next time" he said.

Yes, maybe next time.

I arrived at home in time to hear my Pop's story of the Dude who Dared to Bounce a Check at My Mom's Store. After months and months, he has yet to repay it, though his girlfriend is a regular visitor. "I dare her to ever set her split hoof in that store again!" I declared, then went to bed.

Monday was a good day.

.::Rob::.

update: 01.31.03

From the "Ms. Zbornak eats shitake mushrooms" Department and via Chris comes:

Which Golden Girl Are You?

.::Rob::.