femminista: thoughts of a feminist rhetorician

Why does it seem as though there's never enough time to do the things I need to do, much less the things that I want to do?  In between grading papers and writing them, I've been doing a spot of internet browsing of the shopping variety.  My mother wants a wishlist from me and I'm trying to oblige (as difficult as it is).  So, I've been surfing the indie shopping sites for interesting trinkets.  It worked out really well last year, so it seems sensible to go that route again, but what I'm finding is that my greatest wish is for more time-- time to make my own jewelry and knit my own lovely kitty creations and time to paint and play with various media, time to make my own nifty creations.  Unfortunately, in spite of all of my good intentions, it

Firday morning and I'll be on my way to Portland again. But this time....dun-da-dun...I'll make it to the ocean. I've only seen the Pacific once and I didn't get a chance to actually touch it:) I'm going to Lincoln City to visit my sweetie. Unfortunately, I have to be at the airport in time for my 6am flight...and okay, this is a seriously lame blog post, but I'm excited.

I'm taking a moment this morning to point out an interesting website sponsored by Seventh Generation, a manufacturer of ecologically sound household products. This website is called Tampontification. I stumbled upon it last night in my search for full-spectrum light bulbs. Of the two brands that I've tried, Seventh Generation is the one that, to me, provides the nicest light, so much so that I am actively seeking it out. I'm in Ann Arbor right now and I found one lone bulb at the Whole Foods here, but back in Lafayette, the local health food stores don't carry them. So, last night I did what everyone who can't find what they want or need does--I went online and googled it. Actually, I just went straight to the Seventh Generation site, but I would have googled it if the url wasn't so easy to remember;) While my search yielded little in the way of satisfying results (I'm afraid that they may be discontinuing their light bulb production), I did stumble across an interesting site, the aforementioned Tampontification, sponsored by the company.

I refuse to be silent. To worry and avoid and fear speaking truth. I am not a shy person, certainly not a person who has trouble speaking her mind. But there are things that I keep hidden from the world. I'm a terrible liar, but a convincing actress. The name of my famous curtain calls--healthy cat. It's true; every day I perform the role of "normal." Not in the plain vanilla way. No one would ever accuse me of being boring or, to be honest, even normal in most of its senses. No, my performance of normal is much more specific, more "rocky road" than vanilla. I play the role of the fully able-bodied, healthy young woman. I have done so for almost twenty eight years. But now, as I prepare to enter the twenty-ninth year, I note that my costume is ragged at the edges; there are tears in the bodice and on the sleeves; my makeup is wearing thin; my hair falling out. This show cannot go on.

I stumbled on this great website the other night. It's called Pandora and it's described as part of the Music Genome Project. Intriguing? Yes, I know. So, on this site you can enter the name of an artist or song that you like and the "music engine" finds artists and songs similar to those that you submit. It also allows you to save your searches and create "radio stations" based on them. Best of all--it's free! And you can listen to the music for as long as you want. The only restriction that I've found so far is that you can only skip a certain number of songs during a given time period.

Those clever folks at Apple, embedding poetry for the pesky hacker! To find out what the hell I'm talking about click here.

And today's random ten:

1. "I Turn my Camera On" Spoon
2. "Painter Song" Norah Jones
3. "Gold Rush Brides" 10,000 Maniacs
4. "I Quit" Hepburn
5. "Sugar Water" Cibbo Matto
6. "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby" Alison Krauss
7. "Me and a Gun" Tori Amos
8. "Keep Myself Awake" Black Lamb
9. "Loom" Ani DiFranco
10."The Great Beyond" REM

A fellow graduate student sent out an email to our listserv today. Included in this email was a link to a drinking game, which I think will be helpful in dulling the pain of Dubya's slaughter of the English language and the sure to come in(s)anity. While the sending of a politically charged email has now sparked contention on the list, I am putting the email, in its entirety, on my blog 'cause it's just too funny not to. Thanks to Sol Neely for sending this and giving me permission to post it here.

If you plan to suffer the "Lies of the Empire"--I mean, "State of the Union"
address tomorrow night, don't forget to drink the pain away:

Rules for the 2006 State of the Union Address Drinking Game can be found at:
http://www.drinkinggame.us/

From my own experience, the drinking game provides a hands-on pedagogical means

Okay, here is my first edition of the Friday Random Ten. (and when I say random, I mean random)

1. "Just my Imagination" The Cranberries
2. "We Used to Be Friends" The Dandy Warhols
3. "Blue" Angie Hart
4. "Strange Fruit" Billie Holiday
5. "Anarchy in the UK" Sex Pistols
6. "Lovecats" The Cure
7. "Life for Rent" Dido
8. "Little Red Corvette" Prince
9. "Where the Story Ends" The Sundays
10."Nothing but you" Kim Ferron

While peace would certainly make the world a better place and after last night's speech by Gen. Wesley Clark, I believe that electing him to political office would make the world a better place, there are some other things that I think would (at least) improve my world and I intend to list them here.

1. Serial number stickers: All items that come with serial numbers should come with extra stickers. You can put one in your planner and the other on the item in question, specifically software cds. Am I the only person incapable of putting software back in it's cd case? Surely, I am not the only person who loses serial numbers. Well, here's a brilliant thought--a serial number sticker could go on the cd and while, granted, you'd need to take the cd out of the drive to read it, at least you'd have it when you needed it.