Only God can see the intents and thoughts of your heart

which is why I totally agree with this video which I first saw over at Kate's:




And it is why I feel comfortable in saying to this officer: you didn't say Gates was a "banana-eating jungle monkey" just that he was acting like one. Well, I'm not saying you are a racist, I'm just saying you're acting like one.

When art imitates life

Sometimes it feels like this artist is reading my journal.

A room of one's own

With the start of my new faculty position next month, I will have an office of my own. I am very excited about this. An office! Of my own! With a door that shuts! But I've also been thinking a lot about the message I want my office to project. I'm going to be at a teaching university, so I expect (and I may be wrong about this) to have students in my office on a regular basis. The student body is overwhelmingly socially conservative. The faculty are not as socially conservative as the students on the whole, but as a religious university, the students and faculty are part of the same social system when it comes to reinforcing conservative gender roles. I will be only the second female faculty member in a large department. From my interactions with the other female faculty member, I know that I can expect male and female students alike to challenge the appropriateness of me being a professor as a married female with a young child.

As excited as I am about having an office, I expect to have to tread a fine line when it comes to making that space my own. I want to decorate it in a matter that reflects my somewhat eclectic loves and quirky personality, but that does so in a manner that doesn't undermine my desire to project a professional demeanor. This is just one more facet of my reexamination of the way I present myself professionally. I have been shopping for new clothes (actual skirts and stockings and stuff) because there is no more teaching in jeans and oxford shirts. I'm already battling with impostor syndrome on being hired into this position. I want a comfortable space that makes me feel like myself, but I'm not sure how I am going to do that and still be authoritative enough to defend myself against the challenges I know will come. Sisyphus and Historiann have been compiling lists of school supplies for new graduate students. I wish there was a list of school supplies for a new faculty member.

I'm wondering,,,

...if the police officer who arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr. is going to be the next Joe the Plumber.

Things I do not like, Part II

We live within two blocks of our local minor league baseball stadium, which is great because we can listen to all the games if we leave our windows open. What I do not like is the parking nightmare of every home game. When I went to the store tonight, I had to very carefully angle myself out of my driveway because a car was parked with its nose a foot or so into the exit. Of course, it doesn't help that the streets are narrow, so I almost hit the car parked on the opposite side of the street as I was trying to back out and turn.

Something else I do not like: the cashier at the store telling me to "have a nice evening" after she just checked out my basket of infant acetaminophen, infant ibuprofen, Pedialyte and Gatorade. Does it look like I'm having a nice evening?

Things I do not like

1. Locking myself out of my house. Twice. In one week.
2. Interviewing day cares for Cooper. Can anything possibly be good enough for your kid? That doesn't already have a waiting list?
3. Checking citations.

That is all. At least for now.

One of these things is not like the others

I'm a reviewer for Fantasy Literature which is a great gig, because I get books for free, before they are published, and get to tell people what I think about them.

So, I'm posting links to a few of my recent reviews. Most of these were really good, one of them was not. You might be surprised to find out which.

A Darkness Forged in Fire by Chris Evans.

The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff.

The Seven Towers by Patricia Wrede

Wings of Wrath by C.S. Friedman.

You can also come prognosticate about the future of fantasy over on our boards.

Just your standard Monday morning after a national holiday

Wake up. Play snooze tag. For an hour.

Get up. Clean up living room and vaccuum popcorn off of couch so I can sit down to eat breakfast. Find all the missing stringing beads. Again. Including one under the fridge.

Eat breakfast.

Clean out fridge in an attempt to make grocery list. Clean up broken glass off kitchen floor from overly enthusiastic cleaning out of fridge.

Make grocery list.

Get me and Cooper in the car. Drive to the library. Watch man in front of me drive through a red light right in front of a cop. Cooper thinks the lights and sirens are cool.

Get to the library. Clean blood off Cooper's knee from temper tantrum in the parking lot. Pick up three shiny new books. Drop off donations for Friends of Library booksale.

Go grocery shopping. Very quickly figure out how to do Heimlich maneuver on a child while he still sitting in the grocery cart. Say a little prayer of thanksgiving when his face turns back to a normal color.

Buy myself a Suzy Q for getting through the morning with a minimum of bloodshed.

Come home, get all the groceries in the house and put them away.

Sit down with my Suzy Q on the couch and take a bite.

I miss trans-fats.