Yesterday was particularly hot, as others have mentioned, and I had to get in my car and drive to campus to get books, much to my dismay. While chuggin along the highway I noticed that were there is often a message reading 90 W Expect Delays, there was a new message. It read: High Ozone Today, Try the Metro! On my way back on the opposite side another sign read: High Ozone Today, Combine Trips!

So my first question is, what is the idea behind this? To stay inside to avoid the toxic fumes, or to lessen our output of waste because it will only add to the nastiness of the situation. And why is this only a priority when we are having High Ozone days? Shouldn't this always be something to consider?

I myself am a country girl and have never lived in a city, so this was indeed my first experience of a high ozone day. I looked it up and found that it results from excessive heat hanging around in our breathing air, which causes the high ozone and is associated with urban areas, supposing the concrete holds the heat in. Fascinating. I am sure it is more complex than that, but I got the idea.




The house is clean and ready for company. Our first real guests since we have completely finished our aesthetic transformation of this apartment. I am actually excited to show it off. I also get the pleasure of sitting in a nice clean apt. all day with noone here to eff up my lovely cleaning job. This always brings me great satisfaction.

I have to drive to campus today because my Prof forgot to bring the syllabus to class on Tuesday and didn't send it to us until last night and told us not to buy the books until she told us to, which she never did, but the readings for next class are from the books sooooo, needless to say, I'm annoyed.

Tomorrow we have a friend coming to visit and she is brining along her current girlfriend who is also staying with us. Apparently the new girlfriend is from Buffalo and is going to show us "where to go". If she takes us to Roxy's, I might laugh a little. Perhaps there is some secret lesbian bar we don't know about it, but I doubt it. Either way, we are going out on Saturday night.

Ok, I want it to be known, first of all, that I am writing this more for my own pleasure and release than out of an expectance that others will read this, let alone enjoy it or be fascinated by it.

Ok, so this terribly boring liberal feminist philisopohical type book I am reading is by a woman named Martha Nussbaum who is apparently some big shit in the academic world. Wooopty Doo. I decided to cheat a little and look up some critiques of her work in hopes of wrapping my mind around what exactly it is that she is talking about and I found this fascinating little tidbit of info:

"Martha's Protestant father was horrified by her decision at N.Y.U. to marry a Jew named Alan Nussbaum, a linguist she met in a class on Greek prose composition. But she was an eager convert. "I had an intense desire to join the underdogs and to fight for justice in solidarity with them," she has written. For Nussbaum, Judaism offered a sense of community lacking in her own upbringing."

Now, I might be wrong here, but isn't this like, really fucked up? Did she really love this man or had she simply fallen in love with the idea of being an "underdog"?? Was this her pathetic attempt to dissolve her own priveledges and to feel like she was more worthy of attacking oppression, because by marrying a Jew and converting to Judaism, she too could now join the ranks of an oppressed group? This to me, sounds similar to women who, during the 2nd wave of feminism "converted" to lesbianism not because they loved other women in a romantic way, but because it was seen as a political necessity because sleeping with a man was sleeping with the enemy. Gross.

Maybe I am being over dramatic, ridiculous, I don't know. but something about it just scratches at my very core and I can't quite get it to go away.

I am still not quite used to this whole sit on your bum allllllll day and read thing I've got going on. I guess maybe it's partially because today is an exquisite day and I know summer is running it's course and soon to be over and I am stuck sitting on my bum reading. Granted I could go outside on my porch and read, or even drive to a park somewhere but my attention wonders easily and I would start thinking about hiking or swimming or something that involves activity.

I am hoping this feeling of couped-upedness will cease when winter comes and I have an awesome excuse to stay under my electric blanket all day long. And of couse, I get summer vacation! I spent the majority of this summer serving ice cream to little kids who got to be at the pool all day...not that I would want to be at the pool with them, but you get the point.

Anyway, in case you haven't figured it out, I use (E:strip) as a temporary distraction from reading...I have been reading now for about 2 hours...the most awful book about liberal political feminism. Boooooooring! I can't tell if it is this particular author's writing style that drives me nuts (very academic, fairly abstract writing that does nothing but makes her sound smart and make me want to kill myself) or if it the content (which basically is making a case for universalism in an attempt to create equality through political consensus on human rights, or "capabilities" as she argues). Either way, I don't like reading her boring ass book and although I think she has a nice idea, I just don't think it would work when it comes right down to REALITY.

Sorry for that little outburst. Back to the joys of grad school.

So on my way to school I was driving on 290 at a reasonable speed, perhaps 60mph. I saw the car in front of me swerve to the left and then, there, in the middle of the road was a giant piece of carpet. When I say giant I mean it took up the entire middle lane, which I happened to be driving in. The highway was fairly busy and at the precise moment I needed to swerve I could not because people were passing me on both sides, so I hit the breaks. I luckily stopped right before the carpet...I could have driven over it at a slower speed, but at that point I was already at a dead stop in the middle of the road.
So at first I was scared that I was going to get rear ended... and then that the person behind me would, which would then cause a pile up. Luckily, this did not happen. I got around the carpet finally, as did those behind me, but as I looked back, quite a long line had formed in the center lane as a result of this carpet.
I considered calling someone (who?) but before I got the chance I saw someone pull up to one of those cops sitting in between the median. I am hoping that they told those cops to go out their and risk their lives to pick up that piece of carpet, cause it sure as hell wasn't going to be me.

Moral of the story: Make sure your shit is tied down, strapped in, super glued to your bumper, whatever it takes to keep it attached to your vehicle AND watch out for killer carpet.