A Holiday Query

You know the turducken? It's a duck inside a chicken inside a turkey? A beautiful example of how American excess can lead to art. I would definitely want to sample it, though I want to apologize in advance to my animal friends. I wish they could make a vegetarian version.

But if a tofu turkey is called a Tofurkey, what would a tofu turducken be called?

They Say One Was a Sailor

So my brother posted on his blog today that Dan Fogelberg died. He was one year younger than my Dad. My brother posted the lyrics to his favorite Dan Fogelberg song, "Forefathers." Just click here real quick and check it out.

Um, why did this post make me cry? It's Dan Fogelberg.

It reminds me of my Mom listening to this song in her car late at night driving back from the grocery store when she was super into genealogy.

Forefathers belong in faded black and white pictures. They have big beards and nobody except old people knew them. I don't want my Dad to be a forefather. I just want him to still be my regular old father.



I remember thinking that that song was off because those of us who don't have children don't become forefathers. I was wrong, though, because I'm Marley and Jack's Aunt Susanna. And my spinster Aunt Madge, my grandmother's sister, whom I would consider believing in an afterlife for just so I could ask her if she ever had sex, is certainly one of my forefathers.

I doubt I will be a spinster though, and if I end up with someone who is neither selfish, lazy, nor sexist, I might even consider popping one or two out. Consider. I do have excellent, sexy genes.

Now that I'm part of the dead-parent club (we have patches), I hear that many people, especially those who don't believe in harps and bubblegum clouds, find comfort in feeling their parent's presence in themselves. "Though the generations wander, the lineage survives."

I am quoting "forefathers" to prove a point. I have become a monster.

***

Study Break, Wait, Where's my Cardigan?

I finished my Freud class yesterday. Now I can go back to using psycho-babble without fear of infamy. I can throw around fetish, projection, resistance, and sublimation just like I used to when I didn't know what the hell they really meant. My Freud class was alright, but we never really questioned his the authority of his giant phallus. I think I sub-consciously resisted this throughout the semester by drawing curve after french curve in the margins of my paper. Freud isn't what you think his is, though. He's not an asshole, just a pessimist. My main beef with him was that he admitted he wasn't trying to make people happy; he just wanted them to be normally unhappy like everyone else. That's so black-turtleneck-coffee-shop. I like kittens and rainbows.

I celebrated last night by watching a few episodes of the American version of the Office and eating too many cookies and an entire chocolate bar. I can tell I'm stressed out when I eat too many cookies, can't sleep even though I'm tired, and buy $50 Betsey Johnson cashmere tights that I can't afford because they have hearts on them(!).

I had a dream last night that I worked in an office and it was just me and bunch of men. We were doing some sort of team building exercise that required us to be wearing work out clothes. One of the guys was wearing a Hooters shirt. I told my boss very forthrightly, "This is discrimination. It's sexual harassment. I will not tolerate it, and I think to make it up to me all of the men should take off their shirts and serve me."

12 pages down, 40 to go! Onward Ho!

I hereby do solemnly swear:

Today I have made a solemn promise to myself and to my fellow human beings. As my friends, family, and sympathetic subjects, I ask you to support me as I stalwartly uphold this solemn promise for the rest of my life. Should I deviate from this oath, I ask you to hold me accountable and take punitive action, including possible physical punishment, as recourse. If a person's word is meaningless, where lies the fabric of our great society? What can we rely on if not the solemn vows of a strong-hearted woman with sturdy hips?

I solemnly swear that I will NEVER EVER EVER title anything I ever write, including books, short stories, journal articles, crappily written term papers, even blog posts, with ANYTHING in half parentheses signifying double meaning. You will never see any "'World and Time': On the (De)Construction of Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress'" or "Feminist Rewritings of Early Modern Message Books: The (R)evolution of Desire" or "'What Dreams Are Made Of': Problems with Miranda and Caliban's (In)Equality in Shakespeare's The Tempest" or "'Met Him Pike Hoses': (Trans)Migration in Early Twentieth Century Ireland."

I also pledge that, no more than 5 times in my entire academic career will I identify an absence-presence myself, unless I am citing another author.

This I do solemnly swear, on the 6th of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, in the ninth hour and fifty-seventh minute, Pacific Standard time. Amen.

I got herbs and spices in my stomach

I love Vic Chesnutt. He's one of the best song writers. Sometimes the bands he plays with are a little annoying, but usually if its just him, all is well. He's just so damn witty in the way that Southern folks are best at. And like a good Southerner, he can rhyme "epoch" with "got" and almost any vowel together. Mr. Chesnutt's been in a wheelchair since he was 18 and he writes songs making fun of people who patronize him for being so brave. And also like a good Southerner, the song isn't angry; it just makes them look like idiots. Chesnutt has a song about a eunuch who isn't one and who takes advantage of his job position to the delight of a whole harem. He has a song with the lyric "cotton briefs between her cheeks." One of my favorites is a song about how he should have died when he got into a terrible car accident when he was 18 that put him in the wheelchair he's in now. Part of the lyrics are:

"I should have been buried long ago
But they electric shocked me though
I oughta be pushing up the pine straw
But people can't die anymore

I'm embalmed
I'm a mummy
I got herbs and spices in my stomach
And I should be a dirty piece of solid red ground
But because of some cure they found
I'm still around
In amongst the millions
Cause people can't die anymore"



The song below is my little theme song for the next three weeks. I have a two presentations, two 20 page papers, and a 10 page paper due. Happy Christmas. God bless us all, everyone. Bring me some figgy pudding.


Deadline, it ain't moving
Deadline, stiff as a board
Deadline, end is ensuing
But I gotta get something done done done, done done done soon.

Deadline, under pressure
Deadline, it's gonna snap
Deadline, serious semester
And I gotta get something done done done, done done done soon.

Deadline, down to the wire
Deadline, it's bumming me out
Deadline, I'm already tired
But I gotta get something done done done, done done done soon.

Listen to it here:

http://www.rhapsody.com/vicchesnutt/10683059_lefttohisowndevices/deadline/lyrics.html