Torture Reading

In that last post I was doing my usual bloggity-blog babbling about the “TIAA CREF Important Notice Regarding Availability of Proxy Materials for the Participant Meeting to be held on July 20, 2010” which I found to be fascinating. I read damn near everything TIAA CREF sends me. I don’t do this with other financial shit. They keep suggesting that I should just read all the crap they send me on online. I should, but I enjoy reading it fresh out of the envelope on that weird thin crinkly “financial” paper. I do. It’s a weird thing. I derive some sick pleasure from it. I always find some interesting nugget of information in there. Or sometimes I just marvel at how baffled I am by financialese and wonder what the hell they are trying to convey to me. It also makes me fantasize about retirement. It just entertains me.

But I should not enjoy reading that whack shit. Does anyone else have some odd little reading favorite? I don’t mean trashy stuff. I mean everybody enjoys a trashy novel and/or fluffy magazine every once in awhile. I mean stuff that would generally be considered tortuous to read. Like TIAA CREF corporate updates, ingredients lists, the fine print on credit card offers, directions for assembling furniture (well, those can be pretty funny actually), fast food packaging, paint cans, you know- stuff you should not enjoy reading- stuff that 90% of people would be like “why the motherfuck would you read that on purpose?”

I just copped to my own tortuous, yet pleasurable, reading of TIAA CREF financial statements. I will also admit to reading those horrendous “book club” questions publishers sometimes put at the back of popular novels. I find them absolutely idiotic and I read them knowing they will provide no insight into the novel. What they will do is make me angry with their stupidly obvious questions. Really? That totally obvious thing was totally obviously symbolic of that other obvious thing? My word! I had no idea. Thanks “book club” for clearing that up! Honestly, I often just don’t want the book to be done yet- so I read that crap. Oh, and I like reading those ads for commemorative plates, gold coins, and back braces that show up in Parade and USA Weekend in the Sunday paper. Have you ever read those? They seem to be written for 75+ year old shut-ins with endless knickknack space and a slew of nonfunctioning body parts. I find them creepily pleasing.

Now, what about your own tortuous reading habits? For example, Arlenna (who was able to tear herself away from the latest edition of “Coffee News”) and JC confess a few here . Please share.

Write-In Candidate: Me

Is anyone else just digging the “TIAA CREF Important Notice Regarding Availability of Proxy Materials for the Participant Meeting to be held on July 20, 2010” dated June 9, 2010? You know that packet thingy about the election of trustees that came in the mail? It’s pretty damn interesting. I’m not kidding. If you haven’t seen this thing then you need to go find it. Dig through the mail and find it. Keep looking! Did you look in the book catalogues? What about under that magazine? What about that mail under the coffee cup? Is it in there? Hey, that’s not coffee. Go check the box right now, or just go here.

I’ll just assume you found it. Did you read those nominee bios? See those tables of information? Their contact address? Prior work experiences? Other directorships? Who are these people? You know who I think they are? (That’s not really a question because OF COURSE I’m going to tell you) But do you know who I think they are?!? They are us. They are us, if we had chosen to use our educations and skills to make shit-tons of money instead of, you know, dedicating our lives to researching some weird shit.

Tech News

Do you smell that? No. Not that. The other smell? It’s new computer smell! Mmmmm. New keyboard typing. It’s so weird but so fun. Exotic almost! Damn, and the screen is fucking huge. Huge! I CAN BLOW, SHIT, WAIT, WHY’S THAT LIGHT ON? Oh, caps lock was on. Anyway, I can blow up this page and make the letters appear as ginormous monster-sized letters. That’s cool. Do the letters look super shiny and new to you? Can you tell that this keyboard sounds and feels different? That the screen is so huge I unconsciously keep scooting my chair back as my mother’s voice screeches “move back you’re too close to the tv!”? Wow. I mean this thing is so tidy. I haven’t gunked it up with lectures, messy data files, tweed porn downloads, various writings, and monkey pictures yet. (And FYI new computer: I like to make up words, get used to it, but “gunked” is a word where I come from! Ginormous too!) Anyway, enjoy your contact high of fancy new computer smell while I play all the games new computers come with! (until I make myself delete them)

Word

There is that thing, that thing we call collegiality. I cannot provide a decent definition. I mean something along the lines of “mutually supportive interaction among colleagues” would vaguely suffice- but not really. It also includes the simple ability of not being annoying, of not stinking up the department with your food smells, owning books that are worth borrowing and being willing to lend them out, and supplying me with university letterhead when I run out and am too lazy to walk downstairs and get some. We don’t have to like each other (like in the sense of real friendliness, the not in the “not like, like” definition). In fact as long as we can interact calmly, we can despise each other and still be collegial. But what do you call that other facet of work colleague relations? Their collegiality outside of work? You know? If you think about the colleagues that you never want to see socially and the ones you do, it’s because they have very different non-work collegiality scores. It’s more like collegeniality.

Collegeniality is the ability to pleasantly engage in non-work related interactions in non-work related environments. High scoring colleagues are those who you can run into at mutual friends dinner parties (RFDPs) and not cringe. You won’t regret having brought a 24-pack of PBR to RFDPs with these folks. Sometimes you run into them at the movies, and even though you got all fucked up because Get Him to the Greek seemed like it would be a shit-ton funnier with a little “help” you don’t mind because your collegenial colleague is in a similar state. You can also identify your collegenial colleagues in the drug aisle of your local grocer at 1:38AM. If you can comfortably make eye contact while dressed in some combination of sleepwear, outerwear, and long underwear selecting the most powerful narcotic-like substances you can buy without a prescription so you can spend your days with the flu alternating between sleeping and hallucinating, then you’ve met a collegenial colleague. Collegiality and collegeniality are distinct qualities that must not be confused or merged. They do not correlate.

One can be extremely collegenial even though they never show up to meetings on time or answer motherfucking obviously important emails. Likewise, one can be extremely collegial even though they insist on assaulting you with details of their obviously horrible design plans of their obviously horribly designed house every damn time you see them. I’ve created a word, collegenial, so that those of us with colleagues who don’t understand these differences can figure it out, add it to your vocabulary please.

Lawn Service

Uhm, what? I have to do what? I have to do that when? How many times? For how long? Why?

Oh. Because that other person is going on sabbatical next year…and they did shit for me while I was on sabbatical…so I should just shut the fuck up and do shit for them? Yep. It’s the only reasonable response. Yep. End of blog post. Nothing to complain about here, no sirrrreeeee.

DAMNIT! SHIT. IS THAT SOME KIND OF ADVISORY COMMITTEE? FUCK. That sounds like it involves actual work, crap, and that other thing? Ugh. I’ll do it, only because I left a big stinking pile of service in the departmental lawn and somebody else cleaned it up. So it’s my turn to pick up service turds.

What I Like About Coming Home

Sudoku Benders: I usually have my newspaper stopped but I often forget. I really do try and have it stopped and I really do honestly forget to stop it sometimes, but I also secretly like it when I come home to a pile of newspapers on my countertop. I guess that’s not much of a secret now, but it seems so silly. The newspapers filled with old news also contain enough puzzles to go on a Sudoku bender! For some reason Sudoku puzzles not in the newspaper just don’t satisfy me. I want newsprint. To sit down with a cup of coffee and plow through a few is the perfect “I just got home and need to relax” activity.

Home Coffee: Aaaaahhh home coffee… Coffee shop coffee is great. I like my afternoon coffee shop coffees. But morning coffee is a completely different experience. Morning coffee, the kind that is needed immediately after waking up, the kind of coffee made in your kitchen prior to even attempting any other activity, the kind that is sometimes brought in the shower with you, that is consumed naked, dressed, and in all matter of mental disrepair, is very different. It is never good away from home. It doesn’t matter what kind of coffee maker it is or what kind of coffee is used, wherever the hell you scrounge up that first cup of not-from-home-coffee it will not be good.

Plants: Everyone knows the shit you plant in the yard will not grow, make a flower, or produce any tangible signs of life until you leave. It’s Gardening 101 people.

GPS Peace: Shut the fuck up GPS! We both know I need you but I am not making a motherfucking U-turn and I am not getting on the freeway. Dude. Traffic here is outrageous and its necessary to drive like an asshole (mandatory actually). There will be no u-turns, I will cut-off the motherfucker in front of me (yeah you douchebag in the Porsche) and I will turn left when I’m damn well ready.

Top Killa

What? Is BP seriously considering turning off its camera? That’s not true right? I’ve been duped by media bias right? C’mon BP! Let me guess, you turn the camera off and perform your “top kill”. Then what? The camera comes back on? To show what? A beautiful digitally enhanced scene of underwater fish love? Mermaids and shiz? Fuck you BP.

Beer Googles

Due largely to my own vanity (and slightly to my ingrained reliance on data collecting) I google myself. I google my real name and profession (e.g., Real Me, realjobologist; R. Me, realjobology) and the blog me (e.g., Acadamnit kicks ass; Acadamnit tweedy love). Real Me is winning the numbers race by a landslide. Real Me and blog me are equally vain, Real Me just conceals it while blog me just revels in the damnity goodness. So there I was with my beer googles on thinking I look mighty fine, mighty fine indeed. Sobriety rudely interrupted this moment as a single email ripped those beer googles off my face. Cool Journal of Myjobology just rejected my manuscript. REJECTED. Motherfucking damnit. Yikes. Fuck. You’d think by now I could handle this news in some reasonable sanity preserving fashion. But no. I’ll just fluctuate between rage and utter dejection for the next 48 hours...and maybe engage in a little therapeutic googling (e.g., Editor of Myjobology Journal sucks ass).

Comings & Goings

Have you ever seen a Kum & Go store? The first time I saw one I cracked the fuck up. Really? Kum & Go? Do I have an unusually dirty mind or is that not a rather risqué name for a convenience store? It brings up all kinds of dirty connotations for me. But then again I’m the kind of person that can still get a good laugh out of Uranus jokes. I prefer the pronunciation “your anus” not that “yura nus” crap I remember high school science teachers using (although I still find it funny that they used “yura nus” due more so to their own embarrassment at saying “anus” rather than any commitment to scientific nomenclature). I can’t help it. Uranus is the funniest planet and Kum & Go is just a damn nasty name for a chain of convenience stores. I bring this up because I’ve been coming and going (to and from places people! for those of you with extremely dirty minds) a lot lately.

I just returned from tropical paradise. I am brown and happy. Well, that’s not entirely true. I am mostly brown, white in some important places and a little red― but happy. I have complained endlessly about my job. But you know, it enables me to have a lot of shit I really love. Tropical vacations for one. I mean I just went on vacation from sabbatical! That’s beautiful. I have no idea who came up with the “academic sabbatical” but it’s fucking brilliant and I like to think whoever that person is they’re a Uranus giggler too. Come to think of it I should probably know the history of academic sabbaticals…but I don’t and I don’t really give a fuck. That person will just remain a mysterious entity bringing happiness much happiness to the world.

Shout Outs

Inside Higher Ed is now inside my head. I wanted to write “inside my higher head” but that could be interpreted a couple of different ways. Although feel free to pick one and there’s a good chance you could be correct. (award yourself 10 blog reading points!) So every once in awhile I, and many of you, get a shout out over in Inside Higher Ed land. This results in flood of people reading a particular post. It’s like Inside Higher Ed sent out invitations to your party- but didn’t tell you. That’s OK. It’s actually rather flattering . It’s like seeing your work cited. Does that not cause a minor, but very real, rush? A little thrill? I should specify that I am referring to the positive/neutral citation, not the negative “what is wrong with this motherfucker?” type of citation. But seeing my name and work like that? It never ceases to amaze me. The Inside Higher Ed shout out is similar.

Similar, but not quite the same. It has the additional component of making one feel a little party-crashed upon. It’s as if Inside Higher Ed compiled a perfectly respectable guest list, sent the invitations, the guests show up, and the party is packed and jovial. But the next morning you wake up and think “who the fuck were those people?” What just happened exactly? Whose underwear are these?