December, 2008

  1. Currently stressed out about:

    December 29, 2008 by ms. xandra

    1. Teaching section this quarter because I don’t know how,

    2. Masters’ exams in the spring because they are scary,

    3. What if there is no money for the Echo conference because all of the money in the world has vanished (see: “economic crisis”),

    4. Dying in an earthquake because I live in California.

    Luckily, in a week and a half, I will be in HAWAII! I will be in Hawaii where I will be presenting two papers. On the same panel. I have been put on a panel with myself.  But luckily the Xandra Show is on the first day and then I am going to spend the rest of the conference sitting around in my leopard-spotted bathing suit, making unreasonable demands of cabana boys.

    Category Academe, Angst | Tags: | 6 Comments

  2. It’s Christmas: time to get serious.

    December 25, 2008 by ms. xandra

    1.  So, it hasn’t been a very good month or so, for those of us who, um, have rather specifically nerdy tastes in rather specific areas, for we have lost three of our greatest Grand Crazy Ladies:  Yma Sumac, Majel Barrett Roddenberry (wife of the late Gene Roddenberry and voice of the computer on numerous Star Trek series, not to mention the actress responsible for creating the inimitable Lwaxana Troi), and, today, Eartha Kitt.  Miss you, Eartha.

    And yesterday we lost Harold Pinter.  Wonderful people are dropping like flies, what gives?

    2.  I found myself in this really weird position oh, a couple of weeks ago, I guess, where I found myself in an argument defending Catholics. This was weird because, once upon a time, I was Catholic, but I’m not anymore because, well, I don’t actually believe in the Christian god, and I have obvious huge political reasons for wanting to distance myself from the doctrine of the church because they continue to preach some pretty fucked up things.  And also I am a huge fan of birth control.  It’s the greatest.  So I am pretty much a non-fan of the Catholic church.  (And also, transubstatiation is just plain creepy.)  But anyhow – having said all of this, I think it’s really important to distinguish between the offensiveness of church doctrine and the way church members actually live their lives, because there are thriving leftist activist communities within religion that work for inclusion and change but often get overshadowed by the crazies.  And although I’m not religious by any means, I have a lot of respect for the work that they do, often in opposition to official policy, but the person I was arguing with was a pretty ignorant jerk who would have none of this. Anyhow, the point of all this rambling is:  this post, about a Christmas service with Benedictine nuns was up at Shapely Prose (best blog ev-arrrr!) today (re-posted from last year) and it is really wonderful and great and really makes an important point about the kind of alliances we need to be building as feminists and activists.  And also it’s just a beautiful thing to read for Christmas.

    (Cross-posted at Through the Bassline)

    Category Culture, Music, Politics | Tags: | No Comments

  3. Singalong, with apologies to Frank Sinatra

    December 25, 2008 by ms. xandra

    Some days,

    When I’m awfully low,

    When the world is cold

    I just get a glow

    WHEN I SUDDENLY REMEMBER THAT IN MY KITCHEN I HAVE ALL OF THE INGREDIENTS FOR GIN MARTINIS.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Career prospects

    December 21, 2008 by ms. xandra

    So, given the state of the economy and how it has resulted in a staggering number of academic job openings being canned, I have been thinking of what other career prospects might be open to me (besides the obvious top two: burlesque dancer, mistress to a wealthy executive). Last night I went to see James Bond, and in one of the final scenes of the movie, we meet this woman who is, inexplicably, a Canadian intelligence agent, which of course made me laugh and laugh and laugh because why on earth would they make her a Canadian intelligence agent? It’s ridiculous. But anyhow. That’s what reminded me of CSIS! If the academic job market is still shit in five years, I am applying to CSIS. And thanks to this handy, comprehensive, eight-question quiz, it is undeniable that I am fully qualified to be a Canadian Intelligence Officer. Based on the picture that accompanies said quiz, I have surmised that the job entails modeling a pantsuit in front of some currency symbols. I can do that.  I excel at striking poses.

    Category Academe, Canadialand | Tags: | 5 Comments

  5. Dear the Baby Jesus,

    December 21, 2008 by ms. xandra

    I don’t actually believe in you or anything, but since your birthday (or “birthday”?) is coming up I just thought I’d say thank you.

    Thank you for all of my friends who are lovely and amazing and nice to me and send me messages to cheer me up when I am being sad and angsty. Thank you for friends who tell me I can call anytime, and thank you for friends who promise me New York snowballs. Thank you also for fabulous ladyfriends who are still in town and respond to my statement of “I need to go do something completely mindless and distracting” by going to see James Bond with me. (A little Daniel Craig for what ails you.)

    Ok, now I am going to see a Swedish Teenage Vampire movie with another fabulous ladyfriend.

    Love,
    Alexandra

    PS: Thank you also for knit tights from H&M.

    Category Angst, Fashion! | Tags: | 2 Comments

  6. Damn you, holidays/time zones

    December 20, 2008 by ms. xandra

    I just really need for somebody to tell me that I am not awkward and weird and hopeless or for somebody to tell me that I’m awkward and weird and hopeless but that it’s ok to be awkward and weird and hopeless but everybody is either gone away for the holidays, or is in the wrong time zone and therefore unphoneable (although it’s almost 2 am here so even if you are in the right time zone, we’re way past the point where phoning is appropriate) or both.

    Hello, my name is Alexandra, and I am clearly a lost cause.  And also I have a tummy ache.  Probably this will turn out like that horrible Bette Davis movie where she gets a headache and then dies.

    Category Angst | Tags: | 6 Comments

  7. Rapunzel speaks

    December 18, 2008 by ms. xandra

    I got a haircut today.  Nothing exciting, just a long overdue trim.  But I’m excited because I think my hairdresser fixed the problem I was having where the front of my hair would curl but the back of my hair wouldn’t because whoever cut my hair last time gave me this blunt bob that was all heavy in the back and wouldn’t curl for shit.  But anyhow.  We have fixed this using layers, and you probably won’t actually be able to notice the difference but I will, oh yes, I will, and it will restore my inner peace (hair-related angst being, naturally, the chief deterrent to attaining inner peace).

    This haircut was kind of notable for me because this was the third time I have visited the hair cutting establishment in question.  I have a history of being a bit of a stylist slut.  I rarely go back to the same salon twice.  The reason for this is that somehow hairdressers manage to come off as so much cooler than me and I assume I have made them think I’m an awkward idiot because I’m not good at small talk and also I feel dumb because I obviously don’t know what products to use in my hair at home or, for that matter, what to do with them.  (I am also a product slut and marketer’s nightmare for that reason – god forbid I get the same brand of hair goo more than once.  Of course, this also leads to awkwardness when hairstylists ask what product I’m using and I can’t remember so I make something up.)  Like today, my hairstylist, Max, taught me how to actually use mousse properly.  Who knew.  Anyhow, these days I go to Shorty’s, the gay hipster barbershop here in West Hollywood, and I like it a lot for the following reasons:

    1.  I can get a really great haircut for twenty-three dollars.  TWENTY-THREE DOLLARS.  I have not paid twenty-three dollars for a haircut since, like, the early 1990s, and even then it was my mom paying for it!  And this is not a shitty haircut!  This is a really good haircut, complete with “here is how you actually use this hair product that you have been abusing for millenia” tutorial!  I am telling you, that is amazing.

    2.  I don’t have to make an appointment.

    3.  For some reason they make me feel less stupid than other hairdressers do.

    Anyhow, as I was sitting there feeling less dumb than I usually feel when getting my hair done, occurred to me that somebody should start some kind of feminist hair salon (which, depending on where you sit on the spectra of feminisms, might be an oxymoron) where I can go in with my unkempt messy hair and not feel like I’m being judged for being hair stupid.

    INTERESTING BONUS FACT:  Every hair stylist that I have seen since moving to Los Angeles has been shocked to learn that my hair colour is, in fact, natural.  Let us pause and consider what this tells us about the City of Los Angeles.

    Category Los Angeles | Tags: | 6 Comments

  8. You don’t know from snow.

    December 17, 2008 by ms. xandra

    Yay!  It’s snowing a tiny bit and everyone is freaking out!

    (Not in the city – I haven’t actually seen anything but rain, rain, rain.)

    (Although, yesterday I was in Silver Lake and I could see snowy mountains in the distance.)

    Category Los Angeles | Tags: | 1 Comment

  9. Query of relatively nominal importance:

    December 13, 2008 by ms. xandra

    If I were to embark on a career as a Sassy Girl DJ, what should my DJ name be?

    (I have already thought of DJ Barbarella and DJ Dana Scully.)

    Other, unrelated items of little interest:

    1.  After Monday, I will be done with all work for this quarter and I have no intention of going to campus until January.  Instead I will be doing the following things:  maybe finishing that conference paper, finally finishing that Djuna Barnes novel I have been reading for ages, really finishing that Shangri-Las themed embroidery project I started in August, going on some long walks.

    2.  I have suddenly been filled with an overwhealming urge to get a kitten.  I blame the animal rescue organization that had cats for adoption in the Whole Foods parking lot last week.  It is noteworthy that this urge to get a cat (and name it Harrison Ford) seems to be coninciding with a mild identity crisis and loss of all libido and sexual desire on my part (which seems to result from my realization that Everything Is Horrible and Love is Lies, which is something I always instinctively knew, but which has become much clearer over the past few months), suggesting a disturbing potential for me to slide into crazy cat ladyness.  Luckily, my roomate is allergic to cats, which is keeping me on my decidedly less depressing chosen path of Fashionable and Increasingly Cynical Young Lady About Town.  Why do I write such long sentences?  Nobody knows.

    3.  Did I ever tell you about the time we went to the Cowboy Museum? It was awesome.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 2 Comments

  10. My kingdom for a meme!

    December 6, 2008 by ms. xandra

    Kariann tagged me below – so here’s some memetastic fun!

    The rules:

    1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

    2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog – some random, some weird.

    3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.

    4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

    5. If you don’t have 7 blog friends, or if someone else already took dibs, then tag some unsuspecting strangers.

    My seven facts:

    1.  Through this meme, I learned about two things that I didn’t know I had in common with Kariann, who tagged me:  an affection for hats (in high school, I used to collect vintage hats, and I have a pretty nifty collection of them living in my parents’ basement.  Sadly, I could never actually wear any of them because I have a giant head), and a predilection for going to the movies alone (in fact, it’s my preferred way of going to the movies and I do it all the time).

    2.  My earliest music-related memory is of being maybe four or five years old and dancing around the living room with my sister to my mom’s copy of Cyndi Lauper’s She So Unusual.  It was on vinyl (of course), so we had to be careful not to incorporate any jumping into our choreography or the record would skip.

    3.  One of the things I am most passionate about is sex ed.  I think this is because I never got any, and had to teach myself.  And I think that if this academia thing doesn’t work out, I would love more than anything to become a sex educator, because I think it’s so very important.

    4. My current favourite song that I just can’t stop listening to is “Good Things” from Sleater-Kinney’s Call the Doctor album.

    5.  One of the worst things about living in California is that I had to leave behind my extensive collection of fantastic vintage coats when I moved here because I have no use for them here.  Highlights from this collection include: my floor-length, blue velvet coat which I named Buckingham; my brown, wool houndstooth with orange lining; my blue floral tapestry coat with a fur collar; and a green leather coat with a removable fur collar that once belonged to my grandmother.

    6. I think that it’s bad luck to turn the page of the calendar before the first of the month.  However, if you ask me, I will claim to be completely unsuperstitious.

    7.  I never fall asleep before midnight, and usually I’m up until around 2:00 in the morning – I’m just very night-owlish, and I’ve tried so hard to get onto a less stupid sleep schedule, but, really, it’s a lost cause.

    Tag, you’re it – Three Amys:  Amy G, Amy B, Amy R; Tanya, Carly, Dawna, and Candace.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

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