I hate the fourth of July. And not simply because I work in one of the biggest "patriotic" tourist spots in America, though that is a strong contributor.

I get irritated by the people who parade around wearing offensively patriotic clothing (there is a difference between a flag shirt and one that says something like "Love it or leave it"). I get irritated by the assumption that if I am not wearing red, white, and blue, I must be anti-American. I get irritated by the assumption that one either must wholly support "Americanism" or one is "Anti-American." I get irritated by the idea that if I suggest there was another side to the revolution, I'm a bad American (and yes, I get this one a lot, with my job).

I get irritated at the people who use "I love my country" as an excuse to get drunk and be rude. If you want to get drunk, great. But do it because you want to get drunk. Have a cookout because you love your family. Sure, use a federal holiday because you get the day off, wear your red, white, and blue, and eat a flag cake, but do it because you want to do THAT. Don't be rude about it. And for the love of Pete, stop saying "God Bless America" at me.

At work, we tell the British side, more or less. Sure, we capitalize on the fact that we hosted Washington, Hancock, Revere, Adams (pick one), and Franklin, but we do point out the bad things the Patriots did and the fact that, ultimately, we're only the "good guys" because we won and we're in the U.S. More on that. I think it's a good thing we do this, and so do most people. But... to the gentleman who felt obliged to yell at me today for flying a U. Jack - go to hell. Yours is not the only story out there. Paul Revere was an egotistical asshole, John Hancock had a major Napoleon complex, and Benjamin Franklin was a rude sonofabitch. Yes, what they did was amazing and phenomenal, but they were not - ultimately - nice men. And that's okay with me. But I think we should be honest about it.

After all, there are many unsung Patriots out there, as well. Israel Bissel. William Dawes. Samuel Prescott. Thomas Crafts Jr. And my character, without whom - the story goes - it seems that there would not have been a midnight ride at all - Margaret Gage. It took a lot more than Paul Revere to cause the Revolution, and a lot more people than the six (five plus riot-victim) who died at the Boston Massacre gave up their lives for their country - the old one America left as well as the new one it became. And both sides deserve a story.

K and I have been following what's happening in Iran - like many other folks. It's horrifying, captivating, and very, very educational. It reminds me why the Western World is, despite all the reasons I have to loathe certain aspects of it, ultimately a privilege. Not only can we rely on the basic life-necessities on a daily basis, but we have the honor (and, I would argue, duty) of being able to speak out, to type this blog without fear of reprisal, to say what it is we wish to say without fear of death or arrest. Further thoughts.

If you're particularly interested in a politically-savvy voice, check out Brian's Coffeehouse; Brian is a professor of Middle East studies and has a good deal of informed things to say that most of us wouldn't be equipped to talk about. Also, this is a comprehensive streaming list of the Tweets that refer to #iranelection.

Not sure what else we can do over here. But if thoughts count for anything...

The witches are what I'm reading - A History of Witchcraft by Jeffrey Burton Russell. He does a pretty decent job of trying to avoid too much partiality, though he clearly has a bit of a bias toward witchcraft as a legitimate discipline (rather than a superstition). It's a refreshing perspective, given the viewpoint of most such histories I've read. More on this.

Weddings. Yeah. I'm getting sick of those. Good thing I only have one. Too bad it's mine. Flowers seem to be all set, though I should figure out what the "hairpiece" thingy is going to look like. The photographer seems good, and I think we've worked out most of the reception stuff. The cake... well, it will be tasty, but there's some question about the frosting - rolled fondant or regular or marzipan or what the hell is going to be on the outside.
Otherwise, just waiting for RSVPs so I have the right list of dinner requests - official deadline from the reception hall people is July, so I'm still good for a while. But I'm an impatient person. :p
I also have stuff yet to get - a second pair of shoes (flats), underthings, a wrap, presents for parents and party members, favors, mints, a box to put cards in, champagne glasses, place cards, and probably some sort of bowls or something to put things in. Ugh.
metallicearth and ladygaia, do you want to get your nails done that week? I'm going to, and if you want you can tag along.

In today's case, it's both a plane and a flying spaghetti monster.

Planes first.
United has decided to charge its larger patrons double for seats in the event that the flight is full. Presumably, said patrons would find this out AT THE GATE, when they would be shuffled to a new flight and asked to cough up double their original ticket price.

As someone who flies a lot, I totally understand the discomfort of being squashed into less than my own seat-space, which is, to be frank, too small for most normal humans to begin with. Do I want to be squashed? Hell, no. Do I think it is fair to ask someone to pay double AND take a different flight? Also no. Perhaps shuffling someone to a non-full flight or to a single row (they exist) would be acceptable. Perhaps to first class, where the seats are larger, if that is an availability. I could even see (though not like) charging to stay on a full flight to purchase a second seat or an upgrade to first class. But to shuffle AND charge? That seems rather excessive. The thing is, like millennia, I see both sides. I hate being the person getting squished even more than usual, but at the same time, the sardine-can that is the airplane could be a bit more accommodating. After all, movie theaters have "doublewide" seats that sell a SINGLE ticket. Maybe the planes should have a few of those that passengers might choose (even for the extra $50 they charge for "legroom") if they are larger than average. Or have them reserved so that when a passenger arrives, he or she might be assigned to the "big" seat rather than squish into a tiny one. But that would infringe upon the airline's right to charge extra money (and yes, I know they're all surviving on subsidies, anyway). But I have no answer.

The other thing in the sky to which I have no answer is addressed over here, linked to for your viewing pleasure.

A day of irritations.

So for all the linguists out there...

Why do some people, despite growing up in a specific region, surrounded by people speaking with a regional accent, not have accents?

I've spent most of my life being asked where I'm from - England (Uh, what?), Canada, Europe, or just a plain "You're not from here, are you?"

I am from Wisconsin. I do not sound like it. I don't have the regional accent that my parents or my friends do (and yes, most of you DO have one, even if slight - I can hear it now that I haven't been there). But even when I first moved out to New England, people didn't believe I was a native Midwesterner. Even other Midwesterners in New England didn't believe me until I said "bubbler."

What is unique is that I "hear" with an accent - words sound right or wrong to me based on a regional accent, but it's an accent I don't have for the most part (major pronunciations, such as "Buh-fay" instead of "Boo-fay" for buffet, I obviously have).

How does this happen? How does a person who grew up surrounded by a certain pattern of sounds NOT acquire that pattern?

Wedding news:
Rings, ordered.
Bridesmaids, given coupons and instructions.
Rehearsal dinner, booked.
Registries, done.
Invitations, mailed.
Tasting, scheduled.
Photographer meeting, scheduled.
Flowers, working on it.

Other news:
Finished Breaking the Spell today - worth a read, even if I'm not really the audience he wants to convert. Some good points though.

Only five classes left in the semester, then a butt-load of grading, then the Kzoo conference, then my grandma's 90th birthday/family reunion. Gak.

So in watching The Colbert Report from the other day, I was exposed to this gem of wisdom.

I also learned - from K - that Colbert himself is very strongly Catholic. Odd. That idea made me completely reevaluate how I look at the man. Just my strange thought for the day.

Trapeze. I (and k) flew on a trapeze. Repeatedly. And hung upside down while flying. And flipped over and off. And did a simple catch (some nice man caught us as we were flying and then we were flying hanging from the nice man).

And OMG IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!

We're going back for more.

And my arms are KILLING me. But if the instructors and veterans there were any indication, this will cause my arms to become VERY toned.

When things like plays happen on top of planning a wedding, one tends to forget that one ostensibly has an online presence.

Oops.

Well, working on the dissertation, working on a conference paper for May, grading, and planning the wedding has kept me busy. We also put up The Dutch Courtesan, which was rather successful (one sold out night out of three).

As of today we are now registered, so my mother can stop fussing. She's sending out the invitations this week, so that should take care of that. And we got Rockband 2 as a reward.

Today I also changed my blog address. The "imagisme" is an old holdover, and I wanted something a little less "old me." Admittedly the new one - http://thoughtsherebelow.blogspot.com - is just as dorky, but a little less nonsensical.

Totally unrelated thoughts for today.

Okay, so...
travisfisher, baghy, keyofd

I need contact addresses for you.
It would be great if you would email me: imagisme at yahoo dot com.

I think I've gotten or already had everybody else. :p

So now we have:
1. Venue
2. Reception site
3. Photographer
4. Caterer (by virtue of the reception site)

Next things:
JP
Cake
Pick food
Flowers
Hair appointment
Talk to all potential attendants
Invitations

More thoughts on weddings.

Can I just say how much I adore OpenOffice 3.0? Not only can it convert .docx, but it has added the CTRL-arrow jump from paragraph to paragraph. So happy!

It will also export to pdf now. If only it had a "reviewing" toolbar...

In other aspects of my life... planning a wedding is both more and less fun than one would think.

1. Write more - both on the dissertation and the Book. I want to functionally finish the first and hopefully finish the second before 2010.

2. Stress less. Fat chance.

3. Lose weight. I know, the perpetual resolution. I don't want to lose a ton, but I'd like to fit into that pair of jeans again. This will involve my ass going to the gym, which became harder when I moved away from it.

4. Read more interesting non-fiction. It's something I started doing for no real reason last year, and I've discovered I like it. I'm picky about what kind (I have a penchant for religion, in particular), but I'm enjoying it a lot.

5. Spend less superfluous money. I don't need to buy a lot of things or eat out as often. I want to save more so that when I do graduate, I can pay off my student loans really fast.

( The Recipe: Avocado Corn Salad )

Kalamazoo, that is.

I guess I get to continue the grand tradition of meeting arianrhodgirl once a year in Michigan. :)

First snow of the winter. I love snow. It's so pretty and lovely.

And, okay, so it was pretty and lovely on my way into school to finish editing a script for the read-through only three hours later (we're nothing if not chronic procrastinators), but it was still pretty.

And now K is making beer-cheese soup. Mmmmmmm.

Good wintry things. Snow + soup.

Well, we've had up to 11 people in our house at any given time for the last six days (some more, some less, though today is the first day we've been back down to the normal two). Lots of food, games, chatter, and petting of cats.

I still have food.

But when the waves of people secede and silence returns, there is a veritable mountain of work to be done. And I'm not just talking about the cleaning.

Papers, reading for class, the dissertation, and the new project for next semester. I'm looking forward to the latter, though it will involve more work for me.

But Thanksgiving is over, and Christmas is just around the corner. Time to put on the carols and finish shopping.

And start planning my first "real" vacation since... London. Which was seven years ago. Should be good times.

So this year we're hosting Thanksgiving. Family members are planing and training to get here, and we're serving up whatever I manage to smash together between today and tomorrow.

While trying to grade a stack of papers and hopefully put in a little dissertation work. And read about this portfolio project I'm helping pilot next semester.

I'm dubious about my chances of finishing everything.

However, I cannot even begin to say how NICE it is not to have to pile into the hell that is airport travel during Thanksgiving. We'll be flying back for Christmas, of course, but it's just so damn nice not to have to try to cram my chapter, my grading, and my clothes into a little bag and drag my ass up at 4am just to sit and wait with half the country in airports.

Instead, my house is filled with the smell of baking bread and the curious mews of cats (one of whom has already obligingly tracked little white paws of flour all over the carpet) while I grade, waiting for the bread to rise.

Much better.

Sh*t like this pisses me off.

I mean, really? We're going to prosecute a manga collector for obscenity? As though he's guilty of child porn? I don't really care if it's lolicon or yaoi. It's not OBSCENE. If you're going to prosecute him for that, then you should come and hunt me down for the Laurell K. Hamilton I used to own. For the book I'm teaching my students, Prospero's Daughter, which has scenes of sexual child-abuse. For the Nightrunner and Mercedes Lackey and Romance novels on my shelves. For my copy of Murder Mysteries and my graphic novels of the Dark Tower. All of them have explicitly sexual content. Some of them with minors. Some of it consensual. This is not to say that they glorify this, but it's there.

When society reaches a point when you're not allowed to artistically depict something - whether in images or print - it has reached a point when it needs a good, hard kick in its collective ass. No one's making your kids look at it, so keep your damn nose out of other people's business.

End rant.

Cats are great because they're warm balls of purring fur that sit next to me when I'm working on my dissertation.
Because they chew on my students' papers, thus expressing the frustrations I have with them.
Because they're so damn cute I can't help but smile at them, which makes me stop stressing about your work for five seconds every time I do it.
Because they demand love and attention, and give both in return.
Because they're soft and cuddly.
Because they occasionally walk across the keyboard and send messages to people that make so sense at all, making both of us laugh.
Because they refuse to allow me to sleep in past feeding time (note: this is also why cats are sometimes not great).
Because they wait for me outside the shower as though to say "when are you going to love us again?"
Because they always want to know where I'm going or what I'm doing, unless K is home, in which case they sometimes want to know where he's going or what he's doing.
Because they remind me that sometimes birds are really damn exciting.
Because they always give off the impression that nothing in the world is so important as whatever they are thinking. Including my dissertation. This is especially true when they are napping.
Because I am the most important thing in the world, even if only because I feed them and clean their litter.

Life goes on. Perhaps a bit better, as aaron_pike's post reminded me this morning.

I'm pleased by the election results, pleased in general by the fact that the results show that over half of (voting-age) Americans aren't complete idiots, despite their inability to recognize basic civil rights in most states (makes me glad to live in Massachusetts). Part of me wants to say "one step at a time," but in the circumstances, such a sentiment seems wildly inappropriate. We shouldn't need to take "one step" toward the equality inherently possessed by all human beings.

It seems to me that what this nation - what all nations - need to do is keep their noses out of other people's private business, so long as that business doesn't cause harm. And I know that the conservative argument is that - somehow - homosexuality is harmful, but since there's no actual proof (because it doesn't exist), I call such arguments of "moral harm" bullsh*t.

Fundamentally, I blame our perverse tendency to want to control and order our lives into something we can not only understand, but dominate. Human nature at its best.