Newsflash: Bug Takes Advantage of my Eco-Friendly Attempts to Persuade Him Out the Door

Is this what our natural order has come to?  That a giant, irritating horsefly is not at all perturbed by my attempts to threaten him with a rolled up paper because he knows very well that, no matter how many times I threaten it, I will never actually have the heart to smash him?  His perch on the molding above the door secured, I sit down to write my first blog post in an egregiously long time.

What am I doing?  Well, right now I am not working, as I should be.  My ridiculously awesome job (which will soon be available), which involves my showing up kind of whenever I feel like it, leaving kind of whenever I feel like it, reading blogs with an actual purpose, doing a minimal amount of data entry and mail preparation and always, always listening to NPR at inappropriate volumes, allows me a brief moment to post about the most wonderful of all topics: me.

Why would I leave such a job, you ask?  Well, as nice as it is, it has only enhanced my desire to get back into the classroom, this time as teacher and student.  I have finally been accepted and funded at a few decent PhD programs, and have decided on the University of Kentucky in Lexington.  Which means I will actually, eventually, someday, probably be called Professor.  My wonderful job is ensconced in a scholarly institute and my envy of those harried, tired, stressed academics wandering the halls, in charge of their own time and their own lives and their own interests was just too much for me.  I applied, and I emerged victorious, thanks in large part to the support of the wonderful professors here at the University of Virginia.   So the soon-to-be hubs and I will move in August, and embark upon approximately half a decade of life as a church mouse.  Hey, at least I've got a job for the next five years.  How many people can say that these days?

I also have a new website and blog, Sweater Girl Knits where I discuss my newly found passion for creating my own vintage clothes and encourage other people to do so too!  If you like knitting or vintage clothes, you should check it out.  If you don't like these things, you should consider doing so.  And if you have your very own blog or website you should probably link to me.  Because it will help my google stats.

No seriously, please link to me.

And after that shameless bit of self-promotion, I've decided to institute my very own "How Radical are you?" scale.  Inspired by Slate's "Lipstick-o-Meter" I've decided to keep track of how deeply I traverse the spectrum from insipid dinosaur Caitlin Flanagan to flame-throwing Camille Paglia. (Please note: the likes of Ann Coulter, having frequently demonstrated that they are, in fact, sub-human, are beyond the spectrum.)  

Present Status: Pretty generally pissed off about a lot of things and unwilling to keep quiet about it anymore: Joan Walsh.

Check out her column.  Who knew that the same woman that frequently irritated me when arguing with Chris Matthews and his ilk, was actually a ball-busting lady reporter whom I enjoy reading, and that this fact would further solidify my hatred of all things 24-hour "news"?  Her recent report on the disgusting William Kristol is a good case in point. 

Now, Joan Walsh and I do not agree about everything all the time.  And like many of us, she can descend into group-think and emotional responses.  But I appreciate her guts, and her political engagement.  And if there's one thing I've learned, it's that if I'm going to be a successful academic, and achieve my dream of being a multi-millionaire blogger who gets paid to jet around and have opinions about stuff, I'm going to have to actually.. you know .. articulate opinions about stuff.  Publicly.  And not just to my cat.  Who is a very good listener.  And never disagrees.

So keep checking here and enjoy a front-seat view of my quest to actually become Dahlia Lithwick (who, for the record, is totally my friend, evidenced here by her response to my email!  Though, I would disagree that I was writing to "chide," but ... you know ... eye of the beholder, etc.)  One day, I dream of being able to eruditely explicate just what is so troubling about a bunch of crony Supreme Court Justices guffawing their way to a ruling that Strip Searches of Thirteen Year Old Girls are completely appropriate.

Until next time,

-A