Being on Break also means I've actually been reading the most recent Harvard Magazine.

[hermionesviolin]

I was researching Bluetooth today (very cursory, like pulling up the cell phone website and clicking on Accessories to see what the options were like) and dude, phrases like "Up to 8 Hours Talk Time"?  And for under a hundred dollars.  I may need to get me one of those.  (Though I asked my brother and he said: "a headset does prolong the life of a phone battery cuz i guess it takes less power to transmit the voice to the headset then to actually make noise. but that 8hrs is how long the headset can be in a call without charging or changing batteries. two different batteries.")

---

I spent much of today eating myself sick on post-holiday half-off dark chocolate peanut M&M's because I have a tendency to fail at productivity.  (Also, the CD burning program I have was refusing to cooperate, so hopefully I can finagle something when I'm back at work.)  But I have fic recs, which is worth something.

How I Met Your Mother
    I read all the How I Met Your Mother fics in the Yuletide archive, and none of them are bad, but there's only one that I'm certain I'm going to be reccing: "Leave No Man Behind" -- Barney and Robin get a marriage of convenience.  And it is legendary.

Wonderfalls
    "Jesus Complex" (Jaye, PG)
The show often felt too cynical/meaningless for me, but this fic feels believably true to canon while actually being quite sweet.  [Jaye is institutionalized, and the fic is told from her doctor's perspective.]
    "Jolly" by Amy (Jaye-centric, PG)
That said, I love this fic (Yuletide 2004) all about Jaye being entirely unfestive at Christmastime.
      "Twisted Santa" by Keswindhover (Jaye-centric, PG)
(Yuletide 2006) I wasn't super into this one, but I love the twist at the end.
    "Urban Maneuvers and Mountain Escapes" (Sharon, Mahandra)
Sharon and Mahandra get locked in a closet together at The Barrel.  Which in and of itself is good fun, and then there was a bonus surprise at the end when stuff got connected in a very episode-esque way.  [Also: Fandom should provide (me) more Sharon/Mahandra.  Thanks.]

The Princess Bride (movie)
    "There Will Be No Survivors (Except for the Survivors Behind the Curtain, But Pay No Attention to Them)" (PG-13, post-movie)
Authorial Summary: Westley wants to turn the Dread Pirate Roberts gig over to Inigo, but things aren't going quite as smoothly as he hoped.
This starts out slow, but by the end I was really quite enjoying it.

---

jennyo made a post about being a Monica (from Friends -- "the neurotic intelligent brunette with control issues and upper middlebrow tastes") and as the post went on she said, "capitalism is gutting a lot of patriarchy's unbearable aspects, because capitalism doesn't want to lose my utility to the system for something as meaningless (in capitalism) as my plumbing," which of course made me happy, because hi, I am not entirely kidding when I talk about free market capitalism as democracy.  And she goes on to talk about how "you can't escape Empire" and says:

I can say, "no! no maids!" and clean my own damn house, replicating the unpaid domestic labor that reifies capitalist patriarchy's place for women, or I can exploit poor women who may or may not mind the exploiting depending how they view the interaction. I mean, because my role is in part to be be a conscience, I get to wail, "I'M EXPLOITING MY LATINA HOUSEKEEPER!" and my housekeeper can reply, "Yes, Senorita White Lady, that's right, it's all about you. Senorita White Lady and her power to exploit. Because your Latina maid is so ignorant and poor she can't organize herself. This is of course about your white guilt and your white power to exploit and by the way, Ugly Betty has better ratings than 30 Rock. PWNT."

I appreciated this because while I recognize that systemic oppression exists and I am all about education and everything, I often feel like liberals get very White Man's Burden -- like I remember at Smith I often felt like the general idea was that if only those uneducated/misinformed people (usually imaged as Southerners) knew what "we" knew then of course they would agree with us, and while that makes some degree of sense it's problematic when it's coming out of a context of already looking at Those People as people you don't really like or respect.

---

joy sadhana for Christmastide (4)

"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy." -mylittleredgirl [more info]

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.  And they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.
-Isaiah 9:2

Five good things about today:
1. Despite going to bed later than I should have, I still got up before 9am.
2. Yuletide fic!
3. Omar called me mid-afternoon to say that work stuff had come up, it being end of year time, so he wouldn't be getting off work until like 8:30 tonight and that would probably be too late to go out for a drink (I agreed), so he suggested rescheduling to next week.  I said a friend of mine was gonna be in town but that we could tentatively make plans.  We didn't actually pick a date, and he said he'd call tomorrow to say hi.  It's funny, I was totally dreading this "date" tonight 'cause I felt like there were no sparks, but the fact that he's going to call me tomorrow just to say hi made me feel all giddy.  It is of course not news that I am incredibly easy -- not in the "will put out after first date" way, just that one needs only be a little bit attentive to me to make me terribly pleased.  And come on, regardless of whether anything actually comes of this, he's actually trying, and how often does anyone do that for me?  (Which is not to belittle the fantastic friends I have, but you guys don't have to try)
4. Cat IMed me.
5. I was idly checking the Harvard Extension School website, and the syllabus for Classics of Western Thought II is up. 

The following texts will be used:

Rousseau, J.J.; The Basic Political Writings
Voltaire; Philosophical Dictionary
Burke, Edmund; Reflections on the Revolution in France
Paine, T. Rights of Man
Smith, Adam; The Wealth of Nations
Hume, D.; Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
Kant, I.; Grounding for the Metaphysic of Morals
Mill, J.S.; On Liberty and Other Writings, Cambridge
Marx, K., Engels, F.; The Marx/Engels Reader, Tucker, ed., Norton.*
Appleman, P.; Darwin, Norton Critical, second edition. *
Nietzsche, F.; On the Genealogy of Morals
Freud, S.; Civilization and its Discontents

* indicates no substitution for this edition.

Three things I did well today:
1. Despite going to bed later than I should have, I still got up before 9am.  [What?  Accomplishments can totally do double-duty as good things.]
2. I read and feedbacked Yuletide fic.  (And feedbacked some non-Yuletide fic I've had lounging about for overlong.)  And worked on my recs page update.
3. I made dinner for myself.  (Prince shells&cheese from a box, yo!  And it tasted more like it does when my dad makes it than usually happens when I make it myself, which was pleasing.)  And washed dishes thereafter.

Two things I am looking forward to (doing [better]) tomorrow:
1. Reading more fic.
2. Ordering books for my spring semester extension class.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I can say, "no! no maids!" and clean my own damn house, replicating the unpaid domestic labor that reifies capitalist patriarchy's place for women, or I can exploit poor women who may or may not mind the exploiting depending how they view the interaction.

The easy economist's reply is that since your latina maid has agreed to this arrangement, it is almost certainly better than her alternatives. She has worse alternatives than you--but you are now making her better off than she would be if you didn't employ her.

The harder-edged reply is, "Raise her pay until it's high enough for you to stop feeling guilty. Your guilt doesn't pay her rent."

(Or you could give money to some political/activist organization, where it would probably go to people like you, but you could tell yourself it's eliminating the root causes of oppression so it's actually really in the long run going to the poor and oppressed, and you can feel righteous.)

RAS