feather2pixels

An instant classic:

(Didn’t he read the syllabus?  I only accept cash.)

While I was away this summer I received an email that looked something like this:

Translation:  your workspace is gone.  This is just kind of how CELLspace works operates and that’s okay.  I took the opportunity to move my whole screen printing operation from the upstairs former craft loft to my downstairs studio .  Space is a lot tighter but if I open both doors and suck in my stomach it still works.  And I have really been enjoying coming to CELL during the long summer afternoons, working while the warehouse is sunny and artists are doing their thing.  Here is the new setup.

09:00 on the first day of school and I’ve already made an ass out of myself. So I am teaching a class called Statics, which is kind of exciting because it’s the first real engineering course you get in engineering school and I enjoy having that kind of impact on college kids. I was under the impression that my class begins at 08:50, which would be true if I was teaching Thermodynamics.

What really surprised me is that nobody said anything for three minutes.

I got this in my faculty mailbox the other day:

Questions:

1. Is it funny that they are distributing fliers for other jobs at my job?
2. Is it funny that the other job in question is a prison guard?
2a. …Peace officer, I mean?
3. Are these the only two women employed at the CA Department of Corrections?

I’m in San Luis Obispo, the most annoying to spell place in America. School sent me here to attend a teaching workshop for engineers at Cal Poly. What is a teaching workshop for engineers? Great question. A teaching workshop for engineers is a type of prison where people who are good at intonating their voice spend three days trying to convince engineering professors to look up from their Power Point presentations. Oh it’s not even that bad–I happen to strongly believe in all this bullshit and appreciate what these people are trying to do–but why do these things need to descend into self parody so quickly? Why is someone ever insisting on receiving my attention to tell me that “getting [students] to remember is hard, but how many kids know every word to the rap music?” Jesus!

At least I get to observe myself teaching on tape (or rather, I will so when I muster the courage to put my pride where my mouth is and watch it) and at least S.L.O. is a lovely place to visit. I am staying with Tom the Historian, from cruise, and tonight he baked beets and pork tenderloin while the central coast breeze circulated through his antique apartment.

Also, cruise was no fluke: that dude drinks like no tenured professor I know.

My roomates three want to hire a maid. A maid! Don’t they understand that I already work a semi-professional job, commute to work, and have a retirement account–any closer to the precipice of middle class hypocrisy and I’ll fall right in.

But there is dust in the corners and I’ve been the least active member of the autonomous cleaning plan. I am not in a position to make a big fuss. To be fair, though, I always clean up after myself and there’s been no formal system for anything beyond that. So we are getting maid.

On the plus side, this will double the number of Latino people I interact with in the Mission since right now it’s just the guy that rolls my burrito at El Farolito. True, this could start to get weird. Luckily, there is plenty of Noam Chomsky in the living room bookshelf. If I start feeling like the politics of my own life are a little off, it will be easy to remind myself where the real problems are situated: with those individuals not associated with the American progressive movement. Can’t do shit about that, can I?