vampire housewife

it's 130am, so of course i just got back from getting my groceries for the week, and am just starting my laundry for the weekend. as usual, normal weekend tasks were relegated to the wee hours, both because of all-day paper grading (scheduled to continue for the next two days) and insanity. so, now i'm just hanging out, waiting for the laundry to finish. fortunately, it will take at least 2 hours, so i have an excuse to do nothing for at least...2 hours.

my hair's starting to get really long. it invariably gets uglier when i try to cut it, but my preternatural fear of barber shops is making me hesitant to do anything about it. besides, i'm not even sure if there's a real barber shop around here anywhere or if they're all "stylists" and i'll have to navigate through a veritable sea of people prettier than i am to get to my chair.

i was going to rant, if i remember correctly, about the grateful dead and how i don't get them or the people who fawn over them. however, during my daylong time-waste-a-thon yesterday, a friend of mine was playing one of their concerts on her laptop and they played an absolutely brain-liquidating version of "eyes of the world" (which i have yet to locate on the internets). so they've earned a reprieve. at least for now.

so what shall i mock instead? how about mom's weekend. that seems appropriate.

my hatred of mom's weekend wasn't really brought to my attention until earlier tonight. the fact that elton john is playing here this weekend sort of made me hesitant to completely condemn the mom-spectacle (apparently i'm in a forgiving mood today). however, when i was walking back home a few hours ago, i was crossing B street and douchebag sitting in a car stopped at the intersection leaned out and yelled at me: "hey, man, where's your MILF?" which, for some reason, instead of just being sort of depressingly amusing in the sad way that chris crocker is sadly amusing, inspired an intense mom's-weekend rage in my evil heart. so i yelled back "you should know, you're the one she came here to see", which resulted in that awesome five second interval that happens when sober people insult drunk people, where you can almost see the gears turning in their heads. then they realized they'd been insulted, and i was treated to a chorus of "fuck you!"s. fortunately, ninety-five percent of people in cars don't realize that you can actually get out of the car anywhere if the situation warrants it. like, for example, if you want to deliver an ass-kicking. so they sat impotently in their car and then peeled out when the light changed, leaving me with my mom's-weekend-destroying thoughts.

fuck. have to go change laundry. be right back.

phew. clean sheets. i associate clean sheets with having girlfriends because that's about the only time i actually pay attention to how clean anything is. so having clean sheets, while definitely good in a sniffy way, is also a little depressing. MAYBE I'LL WRITE A SONG ABOUT IT!!

angry ryan approves:


anyway, mom's weekend. i like the idea of mom's weekend. the execution of said idea, not so much. i like the idea of having your parents come to your college, to see how you live, and to do so in the company of lots of other moms (or dads) so it provides the necessary context to keep mom's visit from being "uncool". i like the idea that the university is forcing (in a way) kids to remember that they do in fact have parents (especially since most of those parents are paying for their kids' 4-year vacation). what i DON'T like is the crazy faux-pullman that results every year during mom's weekend. i see the same thing every year during the lentil festival, and i always bitch about it then too. i don't have anything against big, organized community events. in fact, i love them. the fact is, though, in pullman, the community pretty much doesn't exist except during these events, and so all the celebration and cameraderie and let's-all-drum-circle-ness just seems shallow to me.

the moms will leave tomorrow, and then all the students will go back to not giving a shit about downtown, or walking anywhere, or generally just doing cool social stuff, and everybody will continue to hide in their dorms and avoid the world outside of the route they walk to get to class every day and the basement of valhalla. it just seems unfair that when the moms come here, they get this idea that this is the way campus is all the time. this is how great college is! the kids listen to CCR and buy black and white lennon posters! just like you did when you were in college! it's okay! your children are safe and enjoying themselves!

that's the other thing that bugs me: at the one time in the year that parents could really see how their kids are adjusting to college life and maybe come to the realization (in cooperation with their kids, of course) that their kids are growing up and becoming responsible and leading their own lives, instead they're fed this line from the university that college is just lawn parties and live music and healthy food and no worries, and yes, the adult day-care known as undergrad is functioning properly, so you don't have to worry about who's taking care of your kids now. because god forbid they learn to take care of themselves.

obviously i'm generalizing, but i think i've also had enough experience in this regard to safely say i'm basing that generalization on some pretty concrete socialogical observations.

i'm also bitter and listening to angry rock music.

but that's why i dislike mom's weekend. it's dishonest, it's a facade, and it's encouraging parents to continue treating their kids like kids. on the other hand, it explains some of the behavior i see in my classes that makes me want to break my nose off with my bear hands and eat it. also, the moms who dress like hookers and do the rounds with their sons' frat buddies aren't necessarily my favorite thing either (i'm serious).

i'm listening to the raconteurs live at bonnaroo 2006 at the moment, and it's way awesomer than i expected. i just keep liking this band more and more.