Armadillos

Today my friend Amanda called and asked if I needed to go to Target. I said ok, since my shopping list was eclectic enough that it required an all-purpose store: vanilla extract, bathtub stopper, yoga pants, lamp, travel-size hair mousse... When she picked me up, she mentioned she had just heard an ad on the radio for Boot City, and that they were having a sale.

Boot City is your one-stop shop for all your cowboy boot needs, but since we are in West Texas, there is no need to include "Cowboy" in the name of the store. Since moving to Lubbock, I've been meaning to get some cowboy boots, but I haven't been able to find anything quite right. I have a great pair I got in Nashville a few years back (seen below - I'm on the left) but I've always wanted a black pair as well.

When we walked in, we found it a bit disorienting, but were soon directed to the clearance aisles. I had a hard time finding anything in my size, so when a salesman approached, I asked him "Do you know if there's anything in a 7?" He looked around a bit, and said "Well, I don't want to tell you we do, in case we don't. Then I'd be a liar." Conversations like this make me happy to live here.

A few minutes later, I started to try on a black pair, and a saleswoman approached and said "Oh, good. You found some armadillos." We looked at her in confusion. She then realized that she had mixed us up with some other customers, so she apologized. I said "No problem. What's an armadillo?" Turns out, armadillos are cowboy boots with patterned leather on the upper (the part that covers your foot, as opposed to the shaft, which covers your calf). I am always happy to learn new shoe terminology, so we thanked her for the tutorial. Not having found anything that suited me in clearance, I started to wander the rest of the store (which is how they get you, of course), whereupon I saw an object of beauty:

The carpet in this photograph is in my house, so it's clear that the boots and I have established a relationship. The display model was in my size, so I tried it on, then immediately searched for its mate (this is a store where the boxes are on the display shelves). We hunted high and low, but to no avail. I went and found the owner, a charming older gentleman in a large black hat, and said "I'm looking for the mate of this boot. It's beautiful, but I won't buy just one." The search was on, and finally he found it at the bottom of a stack. As I took them for a spin, they were a little tight in the toes, but I was assured that "If you're having trouble busting them out, bring them back and we'll stretch them for you." Busting them out? Awesome. Meanwhile, Amanda was trying on a lovely pair with brown uppers and a raspberry and indigo shaft, and found it impossible to leave without them. Another customer said "You girls are gonna have a hard time rolling your jeans down on top of those" (i.e. covering the shaft with your pant leg). I said "Are you kidding? I'm getting a dress!"

When I took my new friends up to the cash, the saleswoman exclaimed "Oh! You got armadillos after all!" I jokingly told her that I saw through her strategy of walking up to customers and "accidentally" planting the idea of the armadillo boot in their minds. She laughed and told her colleague, "See? I just psychoanalyzed her!" Now, that isn't exactly psychoanalysis, but then again, she's not entirely wrong, as I'm sure these boots do communicate a great deal about the unconscious mind of the wearer.

The Walking Desk

This contraption is what's known as a "walking desk" - a treadmill with a desk surface that allows you to work while you walk. I read about this on a nerdy blog, and was intrigued by the argument that since sitting is an unnatural position that lies at the root of back problems, carpal tunnel, heart disease, etc., then walking is a good alternative. Plus, since you exercise all day, you end up with buns of steel. So, I thought I'd give it a shot.

If you google "treadmill desk" you will find many expensive and elaborate contraptions for sale, but you will also find instructions for building your own. Most of these, as you might imagine, involve carpentry. I am not equipped for carpentry, so I thought to myself "I'm a Girl Guide - I can figure this out on my own." I started to look around my house for materials that could be suitably re-purposed. In the back of my closet I unearthed the "Handi Bed" - a camp bed with a metal frame. Since I have no intention of camping anytime soon (specifically, not until the day that I have a child of my own who feels the need to experience camping), I felt like it was time for the bed to start a new chapter in its life. I was pleased to discover that the metal poles were long enough to span the distance between the armrests on the treadmill. I dug around more and found some rope that my Dad had used for securing furniture when he moved my possessions down from Canada.

Finding the rope was a eureka moment. My readers should know that as a Girl Guide, I was a knot-tying maniac. I would read books on knots for fun, and challenge myself to replicate the patterns until I could whip up a bowline-on-a-bight or a sheet bend with my eyes closed. You never know when you're going to have to shorten a rope in the dark. I applied this store of knowledge to affixing the poles to the treadmill. Then, I needed a platform to put my computer on. The solution was to use the lid from a storage bin, and secure it with duct tape. Voila!

It is surprisingly easy to walk and work. I've found that one doesn't get as distracted when doing boring things, and it can be quite good for keeping one's energy up. I'm now walking between 2-3 miles a day while I write. The treadmill is at home, where I do most of my work anyway, but someday I look forward to having one in my office on campus, and having it contribute to my reputation as a weird professor.

The World of Coca Cola

When is a Coke machine not a Coke machine? When it's a carefully disguised door to the employee area at an art gallery in Chicago.

The Proper Topper

I think we can all agree that one of the most enjoyable things about the Royal Wedding was the array of whimsical hats worn by the guests, with top honours going to Princess Beatrice for pulling off a Philip Treacy masterpiece of millinery madness. Of course, I have always liked hats - apparently, as a child, I would wear multiple hats at once, such that my parents developed a "Two-Hats” nickname for me. I've become especially devoted to hat-wearing since living at this latitude, where the practice is crucial to staving off heat stroke, sunburn, and squinting. Indeed, I almost never go out without one, and I’ve learned that hats can come in handy in surprising ways.

For one thing, they are conversation-starters, and I have met many interesting people through hat-related discussions. I vividly recall an encounter in Atlanta where a lady exclaimed with delight “Well, look at you, wearing a hat!” As I replied “Honey, you can do it too!” it occurred to me that since I had just addressed a stranger as “honey,” it was clear that my acclimatization to Southern culture was proceeding apace.

Finally, hats can help you appear put-together, even when your hair is a disaster. Today was such a day. Late this morning I resolved to drag myself to the gym for an exercise class. It is the end of the semester, and I’m exhausted, but I figured aerobics was better than grading, so off I went, grabbing a baseball cap on the way out the door to conceal my unwashed hair.

As I approached the athletic center on campus, three young women were walking in front of me, and I could overhear their chatter. One turned to her friend, and playfully said “…you totally jewed me on that!” For my readers who are not familiar with the nuances of West Texas anti-Semitism, “to jew” is a verb meaning “to cheat” or “to swindle.”

I was immediately angry, and started to think about how to respond. I said to myself “now, don’t go all Inglourious Basterds on them, that won’t help…” but I needed to say something. As we entered the building, it became clear that they were going to the same class that I was, and I thought “Good. This will give me time to think.”

To help you picture the scene, it was a Zumba exercise class. Zumba is essentially aerobics that appropriates various Latin, hip-hop, and middle eastern dance styles. I’m not very good at the Latin parts (see earlier post “The Curse of the Merengue”), but it’s fun, and it doesn’t involve sitting at my desk and thinking about film. On the contrary, today it involved doing hip shimmies and thinking about anti-Semitism.

As I gyrated around the room and tried to keep up with the choreography, I weighed my rhetorical options. Do I bring up my Jewish grandfather, who died in WWII in the effort to bring down, y’know, Hitler, and query as to why she felt it was acceptable to defame his character? I nixed that because I didn’t want the point to be “don’t use ‘jew’ as a verb because there might be a Jew, or a Jew-affiliate in earshot,” but rather, “just don’t be a racist.”

I considered asking if “to jew” meant that you rendered someone analogous to one of God’s Chosen People, or perhaps a descendant of Holocaust survivors. I stepped away from that option too, since the Holocaust is something of a conversation-stopper.

As the class was winding down, and we were stretching our hamstrings, I settled on a Socratic approach. At the end of class, I grabbed my bag, put on my hat, and approached the three students. I introduced myself, and this being West Texas, they responded with a friendly hello. I continued in a high and cheerful voice:

“I wanted to ask you something. I couldn’t help overhearing you when we were walking into the building. You mentioned to your friend that she had ‘jewed you’ - could you tell me what that means?”

I gazed at her with what my friend Amanda calls my “bullsh*t naïve question look.” Her face fell. She replied:

“Oh, no, that’s just something we’ve always said at home.”

I lowered my voice to the “don’t mess with me” timbre I use on bad students:

“Never say it again.”

I have no doubt that she grew up with this, and has never thought about the implications. She quickly apologized:

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“It’s not so much about offending me, as it is about perpetuating stereotypes.”

Her friend chimed in, with “She’s a really nice person!”

“I’m sure she is, but it’s what nice people do, or don’t do, that allows evil to persist.”

She started to cry, so I put my hand on her shoulder, and said “I’m not out to devastate you, but your words matter. Get it?”

“Yes ma’am!”

I exited the scene with “Ok, have a good one!” and walked off to get my Zumba card stamped (if you fill the card, you get free stuff!).

While walking through the parking lot, I thought, “you know, I’m a good teacher.” As I got into my car, I took off my hat. It was then that I noticed that I had been wearing my National Civil Rights Museum baseball cap. It displays the name of the museum, and the numbers 306. The museum is located at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, and Martin Luther King Jr. was standing on the balcony of room 306 when he was assassinated. Not only do hats protect you from the elements, but it turns out they can lend moral authority as well.

It's that time of year...

It's that time of year again, when I am grading my students' final papers. Grading is a chore, but the bright side is that it often yields unintentional hilarity. My students are writing papers on their experiences of going to a movie at a public cinema - they are asked to think about how things like the architecture and interior design influence audience behaviour, and also to contemplate the way people act while watching the movie.

One student went to see Red Riding Hood. The paper wasn't very good, but I was especially annoyed at the time-worn strategies she used to make me think that the paper is longer than it is - using space-consuming fonts, and unusually large margins. I want to tell her, "Honey, I've been hanging around universities for most of my life, so you're not going to trick me with your margins." Still, I'm not that annoyed, because it gave me the opportunity to write the comment "What big margins you have." See, it's Red Riding Hood, so...get it? I feel like it would be a fun challenge to come up with a pun-based comment for every paper.

Even more delightful is when students' papers contain unintentional double entendre, usually caused by a combination of bad grammar and a misplaced faith in spell-checking software. Get a load of this sentence:

"The staff itself was very friendly, in fact, one of the employers who checked my ticket was 'very good' and he hoped I enjoyed it."

I hope she enjoyed it too, "it" being a man employing a friendly staff. Where is this movie theatre, and when can I go?

The Unsuitables

As my readers know, I am a good sport about Lubbock. I love the big sky, the kind neighbours, and the unapologetic expressions of frontier culture. However, there is one crucial area where Lubbock has let me down. I have alluded to this issue in the past, but West Texas has proven to be a land of epic romantic failure. Allow me to offer some illustrative anecdotes. This will likely be the first in a series.

Tonight started out as a high-calibre Lubbock evening. It began with a potluck at my house, with my friends from the vegetarian dinner co-op. We had lots of laughs and talked about strategies for using all the chili peppers from the CSA shares we'll start receiving in a few weeks. After dinner, I headed to campus for a meeting of the Secret Movie Club. The Secret Movie Club (don't tell anyone) consists of a group of faculty members and their cronies who make use of an auditorium on campus that is equipped with a fancy high-definition projector. It's "secret" because technically we aren't supposed to be in there, but we are a lawless bunch of cinephiles. Each week one member is responsible for picking the film, but they don't tell anyone what it is, so it's a lovely surprise every time. When it was my turn, I showed the Blu-Ray of the newly restored Metropolis. Other evenings have featured The Terror of Tiny Town, among other classics. Tonight it was Black Narcissus, everyone's favourite insane nun movie. After the film I went to the gym, then stopped off at the grocery store. While I was shopping, a guy at the store noticed my t-shirt, and he asked if it was a joke about the heavy metal band Iron Maiden. I held my breath for a moment. Allow me to explain.

Last year, when I was in Los Angeles, I purchased a t-shirt with this design on the front:

I found this hilarious. See, the font is based on the logo for Iron Maiden:

But instead of Iron Maiden, it's Ingmar Bergman, creator of many a depressing Swedish art film. If you're not familiar with Bergman's filmography, it is heavy on bleakness. In his masterpiece The Seventh Seal, a knight returning from the Crusades plays chess with Death. No, really. So, here we have a t-shirt that combines heavy metal with Swedish art cinema. It's incongruous! Ha ha! Let's all be witty together!

When I acquired this shirt I had a bemused moment where I thought that if I ever met a guy who got the joke, then he would be a promising candidate for the Tapdancing Aviatrix Experience. So, when grocery store guy expressed this inkling of recognition, I wondered if he might have potential. We discussed it further, but it turned out he was only halfway there - he recognized the font, but hadn't heard of Ingmar Bergman. Then he tried to crack a joke about John Lennon's murder (!), but referred to Elton John instead. I found this inappropriate on several levels, so I departed the store without securing a date.

Now, this may not seem like a big deal. Don't I know that there are people starving in the world, and my biggest problem is that a guy doesn't fully appreciate my t-shirt? Really? Well, what you need to understand is that this is just the latest in a stream of encounters with the unsuitable men of Lubbock.

On Friday evening I had yet another excellent Lubbock outing - I went to the First Friday Art Trail, a monthly event where all the galleries in town have an open house. I got myself dolled up and went out with some friends to admire paintings and drink local wine. As we were walking through one of the galleries, my friend Renee gestured toward me and accidentally hit a guy who was standing right behind me. She apologized to him, but the reason this happened is that he was following me so closely he was very much in my personal space. I turned around and he introduced himself. Now, his description of his professional status - a chemist at Texas Tech who works on counter-terrorism - seemed quite promising. He informed me that I was gorgeous, which is also a good sign, but alas, he was rather inebriated. I was forgiving about this at first, since the local wine is not to be trifled with, so we had a chat for a little while, and even exchanged numbers. Ok, I thought, maybe I'll hear from him sometime.

Later that evening, when my friends were driving me home from a late dinner of enchiladas and margaritas, I received a text message from the chemist that read as follows: "2 first names.. One is followed by Dr?" People, whatever you do, don't drink and text. For readers who don't know me, both my first and last names can function as given names. My interpretation of his message is that he can't remember which name comes first, but he has a vague notion that I have a PhD. This does not impress me. C'mon, man, remember my name.

Ok, two unsuccessful encounters in one weekend is a bummer, but surely this is an anomaly?

Wait, there's more. Since moving to Lubbock I have tried many dating websites, but with limited success. This January I joined eharmony.com in hopes of meeting someone suitable. I realize that eharmony is part of a right-wing conspiracy (more on that another time) but I figured I should give it a shot. Now, to be fair, it did allow me to meet one guy who was very nice, but there just wasn't any chemistry. Other than that, it has been a nightmare. For example, I recently met a guy who seemed suitable on paper - he's doing an MFA in photography (artsy! educated!) and we seemed to share a number of interests. I met him for a coffee date. This date was so unsuccessful that every time I think about it, I remember yet more reasons that it was a disaster. I met him after returning from New Orleans, where I was speaking at a conference. I had given a paper on 3D movies, and I mentioned this early in the date. He immediately started to tell me all the reasons that he thinks 3D movies are lousy. Emotional intelligence, anyone? I just told you that I do research on 3D movies, so now might not be the time to complain about how you don't like the glasses. I felt like getting up and walking out at this point, but I wanted to be polite and give him another chance. Silly me.

He mentioned that he is from Sweetwater, a nearby town that is famous for its annual Rattlesnake Roundup. The Roundup is a festival where like-minded people get together to hunt, kill and eat rattlesnakes. Now, you would think that if you came from a town with such a tradition, you would have interesting stories to tell. Alas, you would be wrong. I asked him if he had "ever had a rattlesnake burger," and he replied that rattlesnake doesn't taste very good. Instead of following that up with a description of rattlesnake meat, like an interesting person would do, he instead offered a boring story about how he enjoys pork sandwiches. I kept trying to extricate a rattlesnake anecdote from him, but to no avail. Any sensible person would realize that the very utterance of the word "rattlesnake" automatically makes a story more exciting, but this was lost on him. He said something like "It's a fun festival overall" and I attempted a witty retort along the lines of "I imagine the rattlesnake community doesn't agree." He then proceeded to explain to me that rattlesnakes don't think like that. I was momentarily dumbstruck - did he think that I was anthropomorphizing reptiles? Did he think that I believed that Diamondbacks all get together for community meetings, produce a monthly newsletter, and keep in touch over facebook? Things weren't looking good.

I tried to change the subject, and mentioned that I was working on ideas for my graduate course next fall. The course is called "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and it is about the relationships between transportation and communication technologies and the cinema. I mentioned something about how many nineteenth century films are about trains. He jumped in and made the fatal error of trying to impress me with pronouncements about film history. He began by saying that in the early days of cinema, they didn't have any editing. Now, there is a way in which this is true (it's not really, but I can understand why one might think that), but the kicker was the following statement: "They didn't edit their films because they didn't have the technology for that." I thought, "The technology for film editing? Like, scissors?" To be clear, the problem is not that he isn't a film historian, the problem is that he says dumb things, and is persistent about it.

Stay tuned, there are lots more where these came from.

Terminology

Last night I enjoyed an evening of roller derby. The bout was between the local team, the West Texas Roller Dollz, and their opponents, the Oklahoma Victory Dolls. As we sat in the stands trying to figure out the rules, we noticed a few significant differences between the teams. The Oklahoma women look like they actually go to the gym, and their outfits were quite modest and athletic-looking. We speculated that they might be a Christian team. By contrast, the Roller Dollz come in all shapes and sizes, sport a significant number of tattoos, and their "uniforms" consist of personalized combinations of shiny tights, hot pants, sequins, and in the case of a skater who goes by "Wild Wookie," purple fur leg-warmers. The Oklahoma team ended up winning the bout, but the local girls put on a great show.

As one might imagine, half the fun of these events is in watching the crowd, and there are some truly devoted followers. There was a young man in the audience who was a passionate Oklahoma fan, and he came equipped with a sign. The sign was meant to indicate that the Oklahoma Victory Dolls are a fine team, and therefore "kick ass". Since roller derby is a family activity, he was considerate enough to spell the potentially offending word like so: "A--". Meanwhile, the abbreviation for Oklahoma is OK. So, his sign, which he held aloft while running back and forth in front of the bleachers, read:

"OK VD Kicks A--".

This gave me pause.

It occurred to me that given the man's youthful appearance, he probably grew up in the era of the STD, the sexually transmitted disease, as opposed to the more euphemistic VD or "venereal disease." Either that, or he's issuing a warning to anyone who feels a powerful attraction to women in skates and helmets.