It's Not Ambivalence, It's Emotional Multitasking!

So this blog has two new posts to tide me over while I'm out of town. I'm sure this one will be deleted once I regain my senses, but for now...

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I probably shouldn't post this, but I am very sad today. FOUR people gave notice at my work over the last week--and one of them is my manager. He's the best manager I've ever had, and he's leaving. That's it--without him, there's no more cool team initiatives. No creative vision for our sector. And also no one to go to bat for me when something bad happens, or fluff me up when I'm feeling put upon. The broken parts of my company are becoming so intolerable that it's driving good people away in droves. The rest of us are scrambling to get to a safe place, kind of like roaches when you turn on the light. We're making phone calls, we're scheming and sighing, we're taking bets on who will be next.

I fear it's the end of our team, and that also makes me sad. More on that soon as I mentally process all of it.

Today I formally requested a transfer to another team. Before all of this went down. Because I can't stay where I am (probably for the same reasons why my manager is leaving...). I should feel good--I beat the mad rush to the doors at the Great White concert. But whatever happens with me, I won't be taking most of my colleagues with me. We'll all go our separate ways.

When I think back to six months ago, I can't believe how different I thought it would be: I thought I'd be promoted, have direct reports, and be building my career within this team. Well, I got my promotion, but nothing else has worked out, and now it looks like I'll be giving up my new title too.

I think the lesson for me is to not be so emotionally involved with my job--but I don't want that to be the lesson. I want the lesson to be that Bad Things Happen to leaders who don't lead effectively, and they will Face the Consequences of their myriad sins of omission. But that's not the lesson. Right now, our fearless leaders are booting up their CYA drives, while the rest of us are already walking off with furrowed brows, wondering if there was any way we could have made it end differently.

I Can't Help It...Because I'm a Cracker

So part 2 of my musings about this conference is about my ambivalence …what am I doing at an academic conference? I left academia, demmit! I have no idea what I’m going to do for those 2 days, given that I no longer do sexuality research. I fear I’ll be sitting on my butt, zoned out and dreaming of a drink + cigarette, while everyone around me pontificates in fluent pomo. (Although I genuinely love the slashes, parentheses, and geographic metaphors… someone had better mention the interstices of fragmented identities of post/colonial wo(men)--right now! Go Talk amongst yourselves!)

What's wild is that there are at least 2 people attending whom I knew from grad school, and I didn’t even realize were SSRC fellows! They became fellows after I left. I only know something like 5 people in the entire world, so it's quite a coincidence. I hope I can connect with them this weekend…and I genuinely want to hear what T is working on…it’s very strange, I feel like a lot of people are coming back into my life suddenly…


There’s a ‘who’s who’ worth of famous sexuality researchers attending. Really big names, as far as that kind of thing goes. And I confess it does make me a little wistful about leaving academia. Frankly I don’t miss 99% of it, but I do kind of miss hanging out and jabbering about Big Ideas. All of it takes me back to my last Big Idea before I hung up my tassels. Graduation tassels of course, not stripper tassels—I will nevah hang up my stripper tassels! I started down that Big Idea path at my last SSRC conference, so it’s fitting to think about it again…

The Big Idea is how gender stereotypes are expressed in hetero romantic relationships. In social psychology, the current perception is that stereotypes are only useable when interacting with strangers. The idea being the more you know someone, the more you’ll be using that information to explain their behavior, rather than relying on broad stereotypes about them. From a certain perspective, this makes sense—several social psychologists have extensively studied the situational and cognitive factors that affect people’s reliance on stereotypes. And from this same perspective, psychologists don’t even use “stereotypes” in exactly the same way that most people use the phrase…it’s more like an assumption, or a belief about a group or people, or someone within that group, and the belief may or may not be factually true. But if you know someone (because you’re dating them), then you shouldn’t need to make assumptions, right?


But more recently there have been other lines of research trying to understand the social utility of stereotypes, not just the cognitive utility. So some folks look at how stereotypes serve to justify the current political system, and others look at how stereotypes contain information about the abilities or skills of different groups that can be used to “explain” ambiguous behavior. My friend T has done research on how the content of stereotypes match exactly on to the real social dynamics between different ethnic groups, sometimes causing people of differing ethnicities to have exactly opposite stereotypes about the same ethnic group (whites are smart vs. dumb, tall vs. short…).

The idea that stereotypes have social utility is not new—duh, stereotypes justify the system—but the new aspect is combining the cognitive part with the social part. And so there is a disconnect between the idea that stereotypes are used to explain the behavior of strangers and acquaintances, and the reality that gender stereotypes are used strategically in male-female relationships all the time. Gender stereotypes provide the rationale for traditional divisions of labor, and “explain” and constrain how sexuality is expressed in these relationships.

This other gal I went to grad school with looks at how stereotypes contain behavioral explanations. Such as “girls are bad at math,” (so if a girl flunks a math class, well, it’s not really her fault, right? She was born to be bad at math.) Apply that to your typical male-female relationship, and you have a “benign” explanation for all sorts of otherwise threatening behavior. Your man likes to look at girls? Eh, men…they’re dogs, what can you do? Your woman being a bitch? Must be her time of the month. Stereotypes provide a ‘get out of jail free’ pass for behavior that would otherwise threaten the relationship. Wouldn’t you rather your man be a dog (because all men are dogs), than be uninterested in you specifically, or just be an untrustworthy person? Wouldn’t you rather your woman be temporarily ill than a moody lunatic?


Actually, I started thinking about this at the last fellowship conference I went to, where I met this other fellow (can’t remember her name, argh!). We, as white girls, were both dating Asian American guys, and secretly giggled that sometimes, when our guys were acting incomprehensibly or with a strange set of priorities, we’d throw some random stereotype at them to test what was going on. (Actually, to be honest, mine was more like “Stop being so damn Korean!” And then he would call me a cracker.). It’s a strange mix of trying to make explicit some unexplored cultural difference, joking to defuse racial tensions, and actually subscribing to some ill-defined stereotype (which is more comforting than just thinking my partner is nuts).

Such a chunk of writing tonight! More on this later…

Words To Live By

There are words that make me happy whenever I hear them:

polliwog
devouring
oblong
reckon (as in "I reckon so," not "the hour of reckoning is upon us")
coiffed
bloodthirsty
crayon
wabi-sabi
profundities

V for Burger King

(Spoiler alert! I briefly allude to the ending to V for Vendetta. So don’t read if you care. But don’t worry; the movie isn’t that good—you should just reread Alan Moore’s Watchmen instead. You’ll be much happier.)

So we saw V for Vendetta last night. Natalie Portman was alright. If she keeps it up she might work off her karmic debt for making me watch her in the Star Wars movies. But I just couldn’t get into the movie. One of the things that bothered me was the Guy Fawkes mask—I think V was supposed to be creepy, but to me he just looks like the Burger King guy. I kept waiting for him to make a classic football play...

Futuristic terrorist?

Or purveyor of tasty delights?

YOU make the call!

I should’ve known something was up, given that Alan Moore pulled all mention of his name from the credits. (it’s credited as “based on the graphic novel illustrated by Blah Blah”. Not a good sign.) Alan Moore is basically God—albeit kind of a bastard God—so if he’s not happy with the movie, odds are we won’t be either. I wonder if he was unhappy because it read as pretty straightforward good vs. evil, even despite the Portman torture sequence. I read Moore as being more interested in the disconnect between people’s intentions and the consequences of their actions, as when people with good intentions do deeds with evil consequences. But that feel didn’t come through in the film. It would have been a better ending if all of the protesters had gone right up to Parliament to invade it, and V unknowingly blew them up. Or if the soldiers shot all the protesters, then were blown up themselves. Somehow, everyone should have died. Even Baldy-Lou Natalie.

The whole movie left me wishing there was a way in this post 9-11 world to film Watchmen. (It also left me kind of jonesing for a Whopper, but that’s another story.) I know Warner Bros. has the rights, but I’d be amazed if they made the movie anytime soon. How can you make a fictional movie that features a terrorist attack on New York City?

So, fine, I’ll just wait until Michel Gondry’s next movie comes out instead—I think there’s a clip of it here.

Ethics question of the day: my cat has been not-so-patiently waiting for me to finish my lunch. I’m taking a break on it, so I set it on the floor and let her lick it for a while. Would it be gross if I ate it after she was done? I mean, my entire apartment is covered in a fine layer of cat hair and spit (hers, not mine), so does it really matter?

In other news…I now have orange hair. I went to my gal B to get it bleached platinum, but apparently you can’t bleach permed hair, or it will all fall out. (Remember Richard Pryor’s routine, where he has various things going.. ‘fuckit’? That’s how I imagine it would go—fuckit, whoosh!). So B tried to see how light she could get it without using bleach, and now it’s orange. Really. Some would say strawberry blonde, but I call it like I see it. I’m not liking it—I thought I did at first, but the more I see it, it makes me think of my old really bad dye jobs in grad school. Like the dirtiest copper penny in the world. And don’t forget the extant perm, because permed hair + orange = Little Orphan Annie.

I am a sad, sad Glare.

Bird Crap On My Shoulders Makes Me Happy

So I’m starting to think about my upcoming vacation—next weekend all the kool kids are going to New Mexico for a sexuality conference. Basically, the foundation that granted my postdoc fellowship is closing down and throwing one big bash...they’re flying us all out for one last conference, complete with open bar for the reception. Hoo-hah!

I was mainly thinking about the social parts of the weekend; I’ll be there with my gal D, and my gal T, whom I haven’t seen in forever (since she got hitched? Could it be?). Then D’s B and my bud J are flying out too, and we are a complete mess when we all get together, so this oughta be good. After the conference, we will be going out to Ten Thousand Waves, my all-time-favorite spa, where we will spend FIVE HOURS getting our asses rubbed by trained professionals. Okay technically, I’m also getting a birdcrap facial, and a massage, and a hottub soak and a sauna session, and I’ll probably get my shop on in the gift shop, but the most important thing is that I Will Be SaltScrubbed. And I’ll be there for 5 hours. (Is it possible to get bored at a spa?)

Wait…what’s that? “Birdcrap?” says you, my loyal imaginary reader… “Was that a typo?”

No, actually, it’s not—you can check it out here. Ten Thousands Waves is a Japanese-style spa that features a special facial traditionally used by geisha. It uses pulverized (and sterilized!) nightingale droppings, which is supposed to do God knows what, but I do know it works. Last time we were planning to go there, we were all on a conference call reviewing the spa offerings, and ohmygod we got a good laugh out of the birdcrap facial. I mean, honestly. But then, damn if D didn’t pick that as what she wanted! I mean, we all knew she was a Product Whore, but we had no idea she’d go so far to satisfy her jaded appetites… Our other friend B heard about this and told her she really didn’t have to spend $90 on such a thing—for $75 he gladly crap on her himself! But D had fabulous skin when it was all over with. Like a baby’s butt. We all took turns stroking her cheeks, in this really obsessive-compulsive way (sorry D). So I’m gonna give it a try. I need a lot of help, so just keep that bird crap comin’, buster. And yes, you may obsessively stroke my cheeks afterwards if you like—apparently people at work feel free to do so, so what the hell.


BTW, I’m experimenting with using initials for names—partially because I’m lazy as hell, but also because it reminds me of a Bronte novel or something. You know, where Mr. B--- declares his undying love for Miss C--- while they are at a party in G---- Manor. We are all so fabulous that we need to be a little incognito.

"May" be?

Son of Glaring Plot Holes: A New Beginning

So this is hopefully the first of many posts to this blog (actually, if I can get past 10 posts, I'll count it as a resounding success. I'm a quitter, man, just a quitter.). Really, just naming this thing has already taken the Best Years Of My Life. But since I'm always identifying and savoring said things in movies and TV shows, I'm going with this name. Don't take it away from me; it's all I got! Or at least all I can come up with that doesn't involve tacking a "26" on the end, or something duurrrrrrty. I thought I'd do a pirate name--I'm on a big pirate fix right now, but apparently so is everyone else on blogspot. Aye, huzzah for ye jackasses that stole all my good pirate blog names!

So I've got my Rio Carbon set on random reggae songs, and Pass the Dutchie just came on. Sweet.

The biggest decision ahead of me is whether to tell anyone I'm doing this blog. On one hand, it'd be nice to have a vast army of devoted readers--and then people would be all caught up with my life and hopefully not pissed if I didn't email them back. Man, my email etiquette sux and I'd love to not take a hit for my antisocial unibomber ways. On the other hand, if I had a vast army of devoted readers, then I couldn't very well talk smack about them, couldn't I? Which is also very tempting. And there's something appealing about being able to send my rants out into cyberspace without repurcussions. I am *all about* having opportunities to freely bitch; it's like finding 5 bucks in the street. And Lord knows I have odd relationships with people that should be Ruminated Upon. (the thing about my friends, relatives, and colleagues--if they do read this, I'll end up having conversations with at least 5 of them about whether or not they are the ones I'm Ruminating Upon... I say if you want to ask the question, then the answer is yes)

On the other other hand, I have been influenced - nay, goaded! incited! - to start this by my colleagues at work. We have started a wiki with several blogs on it, and they seem bueno. Plus one of my teammates has been blogging for a year now, and it's been interesting to read 'bout his bidness. I should join the party--of course, I have no bidness to speak of, but perhaps I can write entertainingly about my lint collection, or my prediliction to sneeze when I comb my hair.

So: I think what I'll do is write about whatever I want for some period of time - a month, or even a week if I get all cocky - and then see if there's anything too incriminating to tell people about. Let my big fat mouth be the deciding factor. (my big fat hands? it doesn't have the same ring...although I do have a sweet bruise covering a finger- more on that later perhaps.)

In closing, all Hail this First Mighty and Noble Post that I have created. Even without the cool pirate name.