Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. Email her at dr.freeride@gmail.com.
Somehow, without actually planning it, I ended up taking a ten-day (give or take) hiatus from the internets, during which I immersed myself in the three-dimensional world. During my time offline, I learned many things, among them:
- Two weeks in a row of overnight flights east, coupled with relatively little sleep, will knock me on my butt for a while -- even when I'm back in my own time zone and on my own schedule.
- Sleeping well in a dorm room is not terribly hard in the aftermath of an overnight flight east and relatively little sleep. However, desire to avoid a line for a shower tends to compel early rising.
- I am inordinately bothered by the use of a drum machine on a recording of a college a capella group. Real a capella groups make due with the human beatbox thing.
- Rate increases have not been met my a corresponding increase in competence at the Post Office. Not even a little one. This makes me sad.
- My better half is not immune to wild hypothesizing, at least on days with multiple celebrity deaths. The wild hypothesis on June 25th: the ghost of Michel Foucault celebrated the 25th anniversary of his death by claiming Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Why? Probably some kind of power thing. (With Foucault, it's always some kind of power thing.)
- Seeing Lee Majors selling "bionic" hearing aids ("They won't cost you six million dollars, but you'll think they're worth it!") on TV makes me feel really old. Also, it's peculiar to me that these ads seem only to have cropped up after Farrah's death.
- Billy Mays may be dead, but he won't be gone until the last box of OxyClean or bottle of Orange Glow has been sold.
- Pole beans and other climbing plants are fairly amazing. How do they find the pole and twine around it? I would not advise falling asleep next to a climbing plant; they're craftier than we animals give plants credit for.
- Lavender lemonade is pretty tasty once you get over the initial shock of its intense floral fragrance.
- Retractable clotheslines (or our retractable clothesline, at least) now strive to appeal to modern sensibilities by sporting labels such as "energy saver". Jeepers, a new way to harness solar power!
- Digging enough potatoes from my garden to make a big potato salad for July 4th was pretty sweet.
- We have now come to a state of affairs where my mother doesn't worry at all if I don't call for weeks, but freaks out if the blog goes silent for more than a few days.
We're all fine, Mom. And I'll be blogging more regularly. I just needed some sunshine and fresh air, but I'm back now.
Comments
You think you feel old? Every time I hear someone mention Billy Mays, I think Billy May.
Posted by: HP | July 7, 2009 3:04 AM
Glad to have you back.
Mom
Posted by: Super Sally | July 7, 2009 8:41 AM
I don't know how you folks do it - the daily blog entries of usually pithy and relevant stuff.
I've particularly enjoyed reading about your gardening exploits lately (speaking of relevant :-). It's good to see examples of people balancing work with the rest of life.
Posted by: LindaCO | July 7, 2009 8:50 AM
I thought you were joining Isis & Zuska on the anti-women exploitation hiatus...
Posted by: Patchi | July 7, 2009 10:13 AM
Foucault is a total douchecornet.
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | July 7, 2009 10:46 AM
I know it's fairly cynical/mean, but what would be expected to yield an increase in competence for postal workers? I don't think increases in pay necessarily drive people to be more diligent, and they probably won't see any of the money generated from the stamp price increase. Since the postal service was suggesting/planning to cut 3300 offices, I don't think the raise is helping the postal workers out - or the firing threat is to make sure they don't ask where all that money is going.
Posted by: Hap | July 7, 2009 10:53 AM
My understanding is that climbing plants do it just by swinging their growing tips around in a circle, which serves both to find something and to curl around it once found. I saw a very good time-lapse video of this once; a quick search turns up this which isn't the same but shows the principle. On the other hand, I also found a video of a "climbing onion" which wasn't really circular at all.
Posted by: Kevin Reid | July 7, 2009 12:26 PM
The climbing plants don't do a thing. It's the poles that do all the work. They carefully site themselves (possibly with help from the Ents) next to an innocent plant, and then either (depending on the species of pole) wrap the plant around themselves, wrap themselves around the plant and straighten up, or torment the plant until it tries to tie up the pole.
The poles are pretty stupid, and it can be quite amusing to see two together, each trying to get the other to climb it. There are reports of some poles being so confused that they to climb themselves; this is invariably fatal to the pole and most bystanders.
The larval stage of a climbing pole is not known. Indeed, not much of anything is know about how they reproduce. It's thought they have very long lifetimes.
Posted by: blf | July 7, 2009 4:06 PM
You do understand that you did not get out of the Sprog Blog that we all expected last Friday. Since you were not on your death bed, merely out in the sunshine, you now owe us 2 (two) Sprog Blogs by the end of this Friday.
Others: am I right, or am I right?
Posted by: Super Sally | July 7, 2009 6:44 PM
My little brother works for the post office and I can tell you that absolutely none of that rate increase money is going to the guys who do all the actual work, particularly prone to getting screwed are the sorters/handlers.
That dosen't of course, excuse the rampant partying, drinking on the job, hours-long rouns of Chuck Norris/Ninja jokes, "extra" lunches and stopping the line to watch the game/boxing/pro-wrestling/cheerleading championships (and yes, the dept is almost entirely men)/etc.
Posted by: Kate | July 8, 2009 2:48 PM