Things just get spookier and spookier

Well, after weeks of nothing to talk about, and all my energy being put into writing a highly theoretical article ("perhaps over-theoretical?" notes the ever-acute Hellraiser), an eventful morning:
1. The article - done! And sent away. Deadlines - so loathsome, but they do force you to actually accomplish something.
2. The conference abstract due today - done! And sent away. Btw, I'll be in Limerick for this conference for the first week of July, and then probably in some European country for a week or so after (or maybe even Turkey, which would be great), so those of you with time/inclination should consider joining me for some leg of my journey.
3. Apparently my polygraph, though three? four? hours long and filled with so very many reminiscences on my part of all the illicit activities I have been engaged in over the last 18 years, was not a failure, and I have now been officially deemed a good and trustworthy US citizen. Hooray? The perks are few, including a move to a basically windowless office (though this one I can maybe bike to, should check routes) and an inability to marry foreign nationals without getting said status revoked (ah, so very, very tempting).

I am all atizzy...

Controversy?

And why is the idea of "porn" coming up at all here, when we all know what the larger issue is?

Pig Porn Controversy
(From CBSnews.com)

SNOHOMISH, Wash. - A mural of pink pigs painted on the side of a barbecue restaurant is apparently too spicy for officials in this city's historic district. The city has denied a permit to Janelle and Steve Carpenter, owners of the BBQ Shack, and the painting has remained veiled behind a white tarp since the restaurant opened last week. The mural features five pink pigs on a white concrete wall, unwilling participants in meal preparation. One is ready to be grilled as another attempts escape in a hot air balloon. The remaining three appear to be to enticing drivers to stop. The Carpenters have appealed the decision. "They think it's very out of place," Janelle Carpenter said of city officials. "It's barbecue. ... It's crazy." The couple had planned to open their restaurant in October. At the time, Janelle Carpenter said, the City Council told her she wouldn't need a permit to paint the exterior of the 600-square-foot building. So began the $3,500 painting of unclothed pigs, as well as one of a black 1957 Chevrolet convertible — the town is known for its classic car shows. But as the painting's neared completion, Carpenter said she was told that while painting a building is kosher, pigs and other objects are considered murals and require a permit. She said the city's Design Review Board, which makes recommendations about exterior changes to buildings in the district, objected to the painting because it doesn't fit the district's landscape and because naked pigs might lead to paintings of naked people. "How offensive can a pig be?" said Tom Grissett of Snohomish, a customer eating barbecue pork at the diner on Wednesday. "When was the last time you saw pigs with clothes on?"

Photo flashback of the week

1971? 1972? I kind of wish I was wearing this little outfit right now (well, minus the white Stride Rite shoes)...

Lying

Polygraphs are fun!

Photo flashback of the week

While we're in the 80s still, how about prom? This is an entirely satirical dress and faux-fur stole, by the way, although I suspect that the satire may have been lost on my fellow prommates (though they were taken aback by the all-white rather than the usual all-black thing I was more prone to do). That guy was my one high school boyfriend, a student at Mannes College of Music brought in as a ringer for our high school musical -- I was playing the role of Hope Harcourt, and after his arrival found myself singing "All Through The Night" (...I delight in your love/All through the night you're so close to me...) directly at the brass section. After scanning this photo, I felt compelled to Google him, and turns out he's still playing trombone, except now professionally on Broadway and various jazz albums. At least one of us turned out successful...

Instant Karma

When Whitey D asked in mid-December if I could pick her up at the airport when she returned from January's big ling conference out in the southwest, I said, "Sure!" I mean, these days I actually periodically sleep past 8 am on weekends, and have been known to stay out until 1, even 2 in the am (!!!!), so an 11 pm pickup was no biggie. And the PM gets good mileage, and BWI just isn't that far away (take note, potential visitors).

Now, I thought that good behavior was only immediately rewarded in fairy tales, like you meet a cursing gnome whose beard is stuck in the crack of a log and you help him out and when released he thanks you using mysterious and arcane phrases and then as of the next day pearls and rubies start falling from your lips when you talk (although I think this kind of thing gets you in trouble with your stepmother). But turns out Whitey D, while no fairy-tale gnome, also believes in immediate rewards for (semi-)altruistic behavior, and now I have these:
How delightful! And how in keeping with this month's cactus theme! Unfortunately, ever since the Tequila Incident of Summer 1992, I haven't touched the stuff. And it seems like it would be inappropriate to drink anything else out of these shotglass lovelies. So they'll just be perched decoratively on the shelf below my saguaro cactus photo, but in the meantime, I wanted to share their demi-kitsch loveliness. Thanks, Whitey!

Mysteries of life

So very many. But today I am thinking of just a few, in particular, whose lavender thong underpants were on the floor just across the aisle of my metro car last night, and how did they get there? And just why did Mr. T. feel compelled to point them out to me, despite the fact that it was 1:30 in the am and such a vision would be difficult to deal with even at an earlier, less-tipsy-type hour?

More compellingly horrifying, however, are these.
Look, not just for strolling, but for jogging too!
Who in the world ever thought this was a good idea, and, even worse, who is buying them? On the other hand, I have been running again what with this unseasonably warm weather (59 degrees = "warm", Mr. T., not "hot"), and the Sveltie does spend much of his day staring longingly out the window...

Photo flashback of the week

First day of college, August 1986.

(That shirt, purchased from the hippest of stores in the East Village in 1985, was recently rescued from my parents' garage, and I am wearing it right now, as I type this. The bangs, however, will stay firmly in the 80s.)

Guest photographs

With J-ka's permission, I'm posting some of her Joshua Tree photos here -- I couldn't resist, as they so nicely complement my own (independent confirmation lends credence to claims of all sorts, even aesthetic ones, I think). We begin with the comedy: how many "taken by your right hand" pictures does it take to get three differently sized people looking ok in the same shot? Answer: clearly more than five.
At least you can feel the love.
Some more sunset shots:
This painful cholla attack shows that you should always listen to your sister.
Ocatillo lends itself to arty photographs,
as do cactus skeleteons.
J-ka also found herself taken with (bordering on obsessed with) this geologic formation she quickly dubbed the Miniature Wall of China (which came in various sizes of miniature: Mini, Medium Mini, etc.). Although it does look an awful lot like tiny, tiny people came and built a wee little wall running through the rock, it's actually apparently molten quartz and potassium that squeezed into rock fissures when still melted but then popped out some when solid again. A prosaic explanation, but still pretty cool.

What is up with Hispanic chickens?

A delightful surprise in yesterday's mail: this business card, sent to me by G.G. from the near Midwest (the card apparently made the long journey twice, first with her, then via USPS).
I'll be getting my hair cut just down the street from said pollo sometime in the next few weeks; perhaps I'll report back and tell you just how sabroso he really is.

In God's Country

Phew! After a day of basically complete immobility yesterday (seriously, I didn't really get out of bed until 2, and wouldn't have left the house at all but for the complete and utter lack of food), I am feeling refreshed, revitalized, and already a bit nostalgic about the days gone by. As in the last week, which I spent out in California.

It all began with a phone call from Stovie about a month ago: "Winter break. Road trip. Camping?" As plans go, it seemed a good one, and once J-ka agreed to come along, it got even better. So after an arduous journey to San Francisco (11 1/2 hours door-to-door -- why?), day-long supply gathering, and some madcap socializing (the formerly pregnant Utrecht + child, the really amazingly pregnant Mother of Fatima, and the never-to-be-pregnant-nor-impregnate-anyone The Stik, all in the space of just 6 hours), we were off.

After a brief sojourn in Palm Springs ("So clean you could lick the sidewalks downtown!" said J-ka, although she refused to do it), we ended up here, at our destination, for several days of camping and hiking. If you have only ever experienced the Mojave or Joshua Tree as a mediated experience (esp. if the medium involved is early-90s stadium alt-rock), then I strongly recommend a visit -- it is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. No wonder I keep on describing my puny mid-Atlantic hikes as "meh": they just can't compare to the splendor of the high desert, and it's unfair to even make the comparison.

For example, I present our campsite. Seriously, this was our campsite.
If you look closely at the bottom of the lower picture, you can see the top of the propane bottle for our camping stove. We were the last campsite at this campground, and except for the nightly wind (and excessively flappy tent),
the only noise we could hear was the howling coyotes and us (including some howling on the part of J-ka when little desert rats came to visit our campfire on the last night). J-ka was continuously reminded of Land of the Lost, and maybe because of Stovie's excellent Sleestak impersonation, it did seem likely that some kind of dinosaur would step out from behind one of the rocks. We climbed rocks a plenty, like this one just up the trail from the campsite (that's J-ka up top there),
but rather than dinosaurs, ended up seeing stuff like glorious desert sunsets.
Each day we went for a long hike, saving the (warmer, due to lower altitude) Colorado desert hike for the end. The terrain means that in most places you don't need a trail -- you just pick a landmark, walk towards it, climb up it, and walk back, and everywhere you turn it is beautiful. This was true in the upper Mojave,
the transition zone between the two deserts, overlooking the Salton Sea,
near the Eagle Mountains,
and in fan palm oases (that's a wee Stovie in the lower right down there).
Did I mention there was a lot of scrambling up and down rocks?
Despite the absence of dinosaurs, there was some nice fauna to be seen, like this raptor that we think was a golden eagle
and jackrabbits aplenty.
Some kind of desert creature very neatly eats the inside of these gourds that lie about the desert like bocce balls,
but we couldn't figure out who.

Desert plants grow in the most inhospitable seeming places.
And they are quite protective of their water supplies. Worst of all is the jumping cholla, which I had previously encountered when I spent the summer in the Sonoran Desert studying that language I tend to study. Cholla are mean and scary,
as both Stovie and J-ka were to find out, much to their painful surprise (I warned them!). On the plus side, the cholla is quite aesthetically pleasing, both en masse and separately
and was also in bloom.
Some cholla look like prickly golems,
but luckly proved inanimate,
which was a good thing. Also lovely are cactus skeletons,
other kinds of (scary!) cacti,
ocatillo,
and the beloved Joshua Tree itself.
Even though it got incredibly cold at night (lasting well into the morning),
and the sun set at 4:30, such that you could get exciting long-legged shadows at 2:30,
I got a tan!
That's how I know I was on vacation. Well, that and this vacation-style pic, even if I didn't quite make it all the way in.
I heart Joshua Tree!