The sculptor Rodrigo de la Sierra has a permanent exhibition “Timoteo” at La Aurora. The sculptures are of figures named “Timothy” (I think). The artist says that Timothy has no mouth or ears, and should be judged by actions and behaviors, not by what he hears or says. The figure’s actions are delightfully expressive. Timoteo 2013 Quien es Timoteo? http://m.eluniversalqueretaro.mx/vida-q/04-12-2012/quien-es-timoteo Note: This post was originally posted on 8/14/16 and backdated.

I’m a bad traveler; I don’t like getting out of my comfort zone. Since I’m a plus-sized, curmudgeonly woman who doesn’t fit easily into boxes, I have to do out-of-the-box thinking to ensure my comfort and prevent meltdowns when I travel. I’m not built physically or emotionally such that I can hop into the corner store and purchase what I forget to pack. Fortunately, my traveling experiences started in the UK, where people speak English and everything is the same as here – almost. Then I moved on to less similar locales: Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Mexico (San Miguel, not the spring break destinations). My firstRead More →

This Jack Bilander print, named “Sammy,” has been for sale for a year, overpriced and lingering out of reach, and I have yearned for it. My want has surpassed the call of nostalgia. Perhaps my desire is simply from the mere wanting of it. I saw a performance at the NOLA Fringe Fest in which a character from the narrative dismisses his desire and lust for the woman he loves by admitting that desired objects are interchangeable. A hole, he states, is just a hole. Well, yes, that’s obvious, isn’t it. The point of a hole is that it remains incomplete, never filled. It willRead More →

A recent visit to the ophthalmologist reminded me of the marriage plot and how much it’s woven into the fabric of our everday lives – even down to medical records for health care where marriage is irrelevant. Why does marital status affect eye care? The marriage plot is the standard narrative arc of stories that culminate in middle class, heterosexual romantic bliss. It’s the two-kid, picket-fence story of heteronormativity, i.e., not just heteronormativity or compulsory heterosexuality, but compulsory heterosexuality come to closure with marriage. Why does my eye doctor care if I’m married? Why check a box indicating married, divorced, or single? How is thatRead More →

In Interpersonal Communication we have an assignment in which students describe what it’s like to unplug for a weekend. I decided to blog about the assignment because…well..you’ll see… Class Assignment Select a 48-hour period during which you will “unplug” from your computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology. This includes email, Facebook, interactive computer gaming (MMORPGs, etc.), texting, and chatting. You may use your cell phone for phone calls only. What was the experience like? How did your family, friends, and coworkers react? How long did you last before you became uncomfortable? What forms of communication or what activities did you replace your technology with? Write a fiveRead More →

Generation Splat. Generation*. Millennials. Generation X. Generation Jones. Generation Splat. What’s that, you say? Well, a splat is an asterisk or a wildcard used in a computer search string to represent “whatever.” If I want to search for all the Laura(s) in a database, I would search for Laura*. Now let’s make a link to something seemingly tangential: Gaming. The gaming community expanded the meaning of splat to a metaphor and popularized it with the slang term “splat book.” A splat book refers to the specialized books that publishers release about subcategories used for creating roleplaying characters. To illustrate, the White Wolf company publishes anRead More →

Today I had a hot flash in my office, which is a feat since my office is ice-box cold. My cheeks got red, my hair clung to my neck, and I got prickly both emotionally and physically. It was a full-fledged where’s-my-chainsaw inferno. To celebrate the hotflash in this blog entry, I searched for an amusing yet affirming cartoon-like picture of a uterus – something Alison Bechdel might draw or Betty White might have laughed at, oh, thirty years ago. All the uteri out there are hungry for babies, not old and happy to retire.  Pictures abound of pregnant women, women with headaches,  and relativelyRead More →