burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

I slept in like whoa today, so I'm catching up on a lot of LJing.

oyceter has a solid post on the privileging of female figure skaters as dolls rather than athletes; also on the appropriation of Asianness in Kill Bill.

Also: say what you will about the Metro, but their front page photos of the women's figure skating results were better than the Herald *or* the Globe.

( So, the gala. )

I came out and heard/saw the little thingie on Tanith and whassisname [edit: Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto] about her citizenship and how they didn't compete in the ‘02 Olympics.  This got me thinking about the Olympics is supposed to ideally be about nations coming together in harmony and the mingling with each other but it's so all about one's own country winning, and it seemed like there was something wrong with things when having a pair from two different countries meant you were unable to compete in the Olympics. (Yes of course I know theirs was an unusual circumstance and all. But still.)

Of course I already mentioned that when Lindsey Jacobellis said something about the U.S. would be on the podium I was reminded of how the obsession with one's own country winning bothers me.

( pairs ice dancing - original portion )

Wednesday

The $50thou Millionaire question I had no clue about (The Model T originally sold for . . . ( answer is )) and usually when you switch the question the new one they give you is nigh impossible, but this one was "which gemstone, whose name comes from from the Greek meaning against intoxication, was supposed to protect one from the effects of drunkenness?" and I knew the answer even before they listed them (only because it was in something I'd read recently but can't recall -- possibly "Golden City Far" by Gene Wolfe in Flights: extreme visions of fantasy ed. Al Sarrantonio, but that feels wrong; probably some Cicada short story) ( and the options are )  I should have known the $100thou ("Exit, pursued by a bear") but didn't ( and the answer to that one is ).

Afterward we watched the beginning of the DS9 ep "Trials and Tribble-ations."

O'Brien: chroniton particles...
me: "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."

O'Brien: There's a ship directly in front of us.
Mary Alice: It's the Enterprise!
Viewscreen: [shows the Enterprise]
Mary Alice and I: [surprised and impressed at Mary Alice's random guess being right]

Odo: "She called it a Tribble!"
Worf: Grr! and fear.
me: I was wondering if anyone remembered.  So he [Kirk] has the biggest file on record; something like this should stick out.

We dispersed back to work not long after, and I Googled to get the gist of the remainder of the episode.

Isabel:  I get out of class at about 5:30, so we can meet for dinner whenever you get out from work (any suggestions about where to go?).
Me: [suggests Veggie Planet]
Isabel: YES! Finally someone who'll go to Veggie Panet with me. I've been wanting to try it, but I'm friends with carnivores opposed to green and grainy things.

One of these days I'll order something other than the same thing I always order there, but this was not that night.  We saw Crash [lj entry here] and because I had plenty of time before I needed to leave to get my train home we hung out in TeaLuxe for a while afterward.

Overheard in Harvard Square: "my LiveJournal post."

Oh, I forgot to mention.  When I was at the library, Saturday before last, some girls (age 12 maybe?) were printing stuff out and I totally saw the fanfiction.net logo on top.  I restrained myself from enquiring as to the fandom.

Proof that I am not all about Teh Gay, Isabel was telling me I needed to see Capote, and what sold me was her talk about a connection between In Cold Blood and To Kill A Mockingbird.

Thursday

Really tired again this morning, natch.  (Home ~11:30 the previous night.)  Was really tempted to ride the Red Line out to Alewife and then back to Harvard so I could get more nap time in, but I didn't.

I was strangely awake all day, though.  Which was good, as I didn't really want a repeat of the previous day when I was ready to fall asleep at my desk around four o'clock.

According to the 2004 Census, the median age of first-time brides in the U.S. is: ( have a guess? your options are . . . ).  They also asked asked the real name of the horse who played Mr. Ed -- ( options are )

I learned that Laura lives in Braintree.  It thus stuns me that she drives in to work.  I mean Braintree is at one end of the Red Line.  Though I don't know what HBS's employee discount for parking is, so maybe it actually is cheaper to drive in to work than to park at Braintree and drive in.  (I didn't ask 'cause we were talking after work and I really had to be heading to the Square -- as it was I ran hardcore.)

Watched Fantastic Four with my mom [lj entry here]

Friday

As previously mentioned, this was a very slow day.

I'd brought a coat in preparation for the evening but didn't wear it at all in the morning and was surprised at just how cold it had gotten when I left work.  I walked to the Square with Alyssa, and we parted ways where the galleria thing is

I was a couple minutes later getting to the T Station than I sometimes am, but there were a lot of people already waiting, so clearly a train hadn't come too recently.

There was a guy playing accordion, and he didn't look so great but the music was quite good so I gave him money.
little girl: "What are you doing?"
guy: "I'm trying to make my rent; that's what I'm doing."

The travel experience was downhill from there.  The little kids weren't that bad -- the "I hate trains" little boy shut up after a couple stops -- but the mom made me seethe.  As the train got more crowded she jokingly yelled "I can't breathe!" and I was willing to let that go 'cause she'd had a long day or whatever, ditto her scolding her daughter like three times for hugging a stranger (as far as I could tell, the girl did it once, but the mom scolded her repeatedly).  One of the kids was calling someone else a vampire and I wasn't sure if it was another kid or a passenger -- by this point there were multiple people in the aisle between us.  Then the mom was griping to her friend about feeling faint (I guess) and how she might fall into some guy, and her friend commented, "make sure it's not an ugly guy" and she responded that it would probably be a lesbian (in this "that would be even worse" tone) and I was kinda seething at this.  Were it not for the fact that there were a lot of people in between us and (and really this was the primary reason) the fact that she was getting off one stop before me and I didn't wanna hold up this ride any more than it already was I like to think I would in fact have lectured her.  After she got out one woman actually vocalized "I'm glad she's gone" (she had been loudly complaining the entire duration between Park and Downtown about how she was gonna have to turn this stroller around and people needed to get out of her way, and I imagine a lot of us were thinking, "Well there's no space to move until the doors open, and what were you thinking at rush hour Friday before a 3-day weekend anyway?").  Park St. was the start of the stupid people standing on the yellow line as if there would magically be more space in the car, and when I got out at South Station I ran almost all the way up and got there at five-forty-one.  My train leaves at five-forty.  I was pissed.

My dad mentioned on Thursday that NHS was doing Doctor Faustus as their competition play.  I'd been meaning to read that (as well as Geothe's Faust) for ages.  Getting in to Norwood Depot ~6:13 would give me plenty of time to walk up to the Savage Center old Junior High North, but 6:45?  Cutting it much closer.  The train got in more like 6:50, and uphill in the wind?  Ow, my legs.  I actually wondered if I should just go home and go to bed.  I only got there a few minutes late, though.  I really like the way they did Mephistophilis and don't really have any other comments, in part because I did doze off at the end, due to the aforementioned tiredness.  It felt like all the events of the play happened way too fast, so I got the play out from the library so I can better critique Marlowe (and also compare Goethe; yay Harvard Classics putting them both in a single volume).

I was gonna go to bed early but got sucked into watching bits of the Olympics with my mom.  I learned that ice dancing is teh boring.  Watching the slalom I told my mom about the Ani lyric -- unable to save ourselves from the quaint tragedies we invent and undo, from the stupid circumstances we slalom through.

So yes, I saw Lindsey Jacobellis.  ( Read more... )

Saturday

I was the Great and Amazing Sloth, which didn't entirely make sense to me as I wasn't that tired during the day on Friday and though I stayed up a few hours later than I would have preferred it wasn't that late; and I'm mostly over my cold.  So yeah, my Saturday was far less productive than I had previously intended.

I went to the library (as mentioned above) and weather.com said it was 24F feels like 9F.  I actually felt less cold coming back when it was supposedly 22F feels like 7F.  Shrug.  I was pleased by the cold both times, natch.

Oh, and my dad made stir fry tonight and he made stir fry tofu for me and I appreciated the protein but . . . flavor. My dad said he thought when I said I didn't like food with flavor I was just joking. Now okay I have had food that I find unpleasantly tasteless, but clearly he hasn't been paying attention. :) [Course, we so rarely have food at my house, how would one even know ;) ]

I neglected to mention that last night I took the escalator up from the Red Line to the commuter rail (I wasn't in a rush, but I also didn't feel like walking up all the stairs) and there were a lot of people on the escalator but the people on the left were actually walking so it was fine.  The righthand side was mostly occupied by standing persons, and at one point the guy walking in front of me slipped over into an open standing slot and I realized that he had been walking only because there was no room to stand and I almost stopped and thanked him for having escalator etiquette (i.e., not stopping in the line of traffic).

According to weather.com, this morning it was 20F feels like 9F.  The past couple days even I've noticed the cold -- primarily because after all the mild it's a shock to the nervous system, I imagine.  So not complaining, though.

Amanda got breakfast at Finagle a Bagel and got me an everything bagel with veggie cream cheese as a thank you for holding down the fort in her absence.  I really didn't do much, but I certainly wasn't gonna turn down a free bagel :)

The remote control tech guy liked the bear I have on my desktop :)

12:13 I called Eric about lunch.  Usually he's all discombobulated and has lost track of time, but today he was prepared, all "Yes, it is in fact lunchtime" -- simultaneously doing "I'm treating you as if you are slow" and "I'm giving you answsers/responses that really don't give you any new information or any help" all in that exaggerated polite faux-innocent manner.  I informed him I was going to hit him when I came back (I was going to buy lunch and he was having leftover pizza in the fridge) and he was fine with that.  I had called him "terribly useful" and he was telling me it was an oxymoron (given him, I think it was an appropriate phrase).  I wasn't sure quite what I wanted to eat, especially as I was still somewhat full from my bagel, so I was chatting with Amanda and she was telling stories of her father's adventures in cooking -- one time when her dad was in the army they had left bread out and it got ants so they put in the microwave and it caught fire but didn't kill the ants so they threw it out their fifth floor window and then her dad put a glass of water in the microwave and steam killed the ants.  I thought it was a fabulous story, but Eric wasn't a fan.  He had come down, hoping I was back from getting food, and was giving me grief for not having gone yet.  So I went, got expensive fancy hot chocolate ($2.75/6oz, has almond and stuff in it), came back, got my yesterday's clementine from the fridge, and found that Eric had gone back to his desk.  He doesn't enjoy Amanda's stories like I do.  When I called I could tell he had me on speakerphone and when he came down he said Barbara had been laughing at it, so when I went down to get him I greeted both of them and she said he was "in rare form" today.

Amanda and I went to the conference room and Eric lagged behind, microwaving or whatever.  Amanda and I were snarking about this since when he had come down he was all "Why haven't you gone already?  Go now."  Then we got to talking about how it would be so fabulous if the doors locked and we could lock him out and just ignore him.  So he did show up and he asked us about our weekend plans and Amanda's going to an inn in Vermont with her husband (postponed from last weekend) and he was asking her why Vermont (was there anything special about the place they were going, etc.) and she kept giving -- with a sickeningly sweet polite face -- answers like "Because that's where the inn is" and when I realized what she was doing I was like, "I love you so much right now."  I told some story about one of our cross-country trips and Eric was in disbelief that we didn't all kill each other and maintained that I was not a normal teenager (duh) and so we got into a discussion about being problem children and he had lots of examples.  One he said he didn't remember and I asked how old he was ('cause it wasn't the sort of thing a toddler would do) and he said he was 7 or 8 and when I asked he said he doesn't remember anything (which okay, I so believe, having worked months with him and his "why did I come down here?") and then continued to say that he remembers stuff that didn't happen -- like growing up in feudal Japan or the Great Depression.  So every new topic when I disagreed with him I was like, "You have no credibility."  After a bit of this, Eric said something like "I just won't talk for the rest of the day," and I was like, "best lunch evar," and then I started talking about taking up an office pool for how long that would last, and Amanda and I were just going on and on and it was great 'cause he couldn't say anything back.  After about twenty minutes maybe I made the mistake of commenting that this would make it difficult for him to do his job (since we answer phones and stuff) so he decided to just stop -- and proceded to talk like nonstop for like 45 minutes.  He talked a lot about Bruce Campbell and I thought of Emma :)  He raved about Bubba Ho-tep and as he described it Amanda and I were like, "You're kidding, right?"  (The bizarre factor kind of reminded me of Time Bandits, though -- probably 'cause I was already in an Emma headspace.)  He also praised Brisco County, Jr. and when he described I was like, "Firefly" ('cause I keep nagging him to watch Firefly) and he tried to elaborate with "cowboy hats and spurs and horses" and I said again, "Firefly," and he said "big black guy with curly hair who kicks ass" and I said "Gina Torres" and on it went.

I called him about something later in the afternoon and he answered the phone, "Yes, ma'am."

Prof.B. met with some kid this afternoon and after the meeting said kid was in front of my desk scheduling a follow-up meeting and then Prof.B. walked by and started talking to him again about his trust paper and about biases that can hinder, or help, a negotiation -- for example, self-confidence bias.  "Elizabeth doesn't have any of these," he joked.  "Yeah, but I keep your calendar, so I win," I shot back.  With that he left, but when he walked back he said, "I like that line, 'Yeah, but I keep your calendar, so I win,' " and he started talking about as an interesting negotiation tactic, to say "It doesn't matter what other things you have, I keep your calendar so I win."

I was going to see a studio in Allston at 6, so I had no rush to leave the office at the end of the day.  I chatted with Alyssa for a bit and then headed up N. Harvard St.  (And I see a beautiful sunset as I'm leaving the school grounds.)  A 66 bus passed me but they're supposed to come every 10 minutes or less, so no biggie.  Two 86s come in the next 10 minutes or so and then nothing.  Though I do see something like four 66s and two 86s going toward the Square.  So I've been waiting for about about a half an hour and it's nearing on six o'clock.  It should only take abut ten minutes to get where I'm going, but who knows when a bus is gonna come, and the sky is dark and it occurs to me that (esp. given my track record) it isn't the best idea to be attempting to find a place I've never been before.  Plus my feet are getting cold (literally -- the pun actually hadn't occurred to me at the time).  So I call to reschedule.  Tomorrow will be better anyway 'cause I can take the Green Line out, find it in the daylight, and then ride the bus back to Harvard and see that in the daylight too.

In the ten minutes it takes me to walk back to the bridge two 66s going in the direction I wanted pass me.  I see two more after the bridge.  Oh well.  I see Isabel in the T station, which is fun.  I browsed some at South Station (I almost wanna read this book; mostly I wanna see someone write a story including how a vampire would react to someone of Christ's bloodline) and read my book and get on the 7:35.  I'm tired, duh, and I fall asleep -- which I do a lot.  I wake up to these girls being all "ohmigod, this our stop, hurry!" and startled I hurry to the door and get out (so many of the stations look almost the same).  It's Endicott.  And the train has begun to move.  I probably could have gotten back on, but I don't.  I really should have known better 'cause I always wake up around Islington.  Sigh.  So I call home and we discern that an attempt to walk home would be a bad idea.  Thankfully the next train is only in about an hour and twenty.  (My mom has the car in Bennington, so my dad can't come get me.)  There's a convenience store (and another one attached to a gas station across the highway) and a Fisherman's Restaurant or something, so I go into the restaurant, order a hot chocolate ('cause I can't just loiter) and watch the Olympics coverage they have playing (the end of a Michelle Kwan interview, downhill skiiing, and Bode Miller).

The train track curves, so when I was waiting for the train I saw the white light before I saw the train (though I had been alerted by its sound).  Beautiful beautiful sight.